Where now brown Chow?

August 9-12, Bangkok, Thailand, pingpong, curries, Buddhist temples, Muay Thai, massive cheap market and back home to Melbourne, Australia

2007-08-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Thailand on Thursday afternoon. I dumped my bags at the hotel and went out and grabbed myself some food. I had been craving some Asian food for a long time and Thai food was just what I had in mind. After a long walk, I happened across a small street full of hawkers. I sat down and quickly ordered myself a Tom Yum Gong and a Pad Thai, it was delicious. After that I wondered down to the Patpong night market (in Bangkok's notorious red light district), the market was great, cheap prices with a bit of bargaining. I decided my visit to Thailand would not be complete without baring witness to the infamous ping pong show, and it didn't take long for me to find one. I won't go into details but it was funny/nasty. No photos, sorry.
The next day I headed out to see the temples and Buddhas of Thailand. At the temple of the golden Buddha they had a row of Buddhist fortune telling slot machines, sort of like a pokie but instead of getting a chance to win more money back you get a fortune, bizzaro. Walking around the temples and checking out the various Buddhas was good, but very hot.

After that I went to Lumpini stadium and got a ringside ticket to watch a Muay Thai kick boxing event. I paid 1700 baht for my ticket (around $65 AUD) and got a seat right up the front. The early fights lacked the speed and power that Muay Thai is famous for, however the main event and the preceding match definitely made up for that. In the match preceding the main event one of the fighters was knocked out and taken away on a stretcher.
The main event was an even match up that saw Autthachai from Fairtex camp win on points. Autthachai (red corner) unleashed a couple of nasty left elbows on Petchmankong's right temple (at around the 50 second mark in the video I uploaded) creating a bloody target for Auttachai's later strikes. I went back to the warm up area and pushed my way through the crowds to get a photo with him after the victory.

The next day I headed to Bangkok's Chatuchak weekend market. It was kinda like the Victoria market but about 10 times bigger. I bought some clothes there and ate some great curries. That afternoon I caught a plane back to Melbourne.

I got back into Melbourne this morning and I couldn't help but smile every time I heard an Aussie accent from the workers at the airport. Dad and May Ann met me at the airport and took me back to my sisters place where I saw my mum, brother-in-law and niece (Beatrice) who has grown up a lot since I last saw her (she is around 8 months old now), she is already developing a great personality and is a lot of fun to play with.

I have to say my bed is very, very, very comfortable. Home is good. I am going back to work tomorrow. The end for now.

August 1-7 in Barca, Absinthe, Gaudi, Las Ramblas, Picasso, Montserrat on scooters and a hostel full of great people

2007-08-05T10:30:00.001-07:00

Im slowly and not surely recovering from a massive 4 nights in Barcelona. Got into Barcelona on Wednesday and checked in into the best hostel I have stayed at so far. Its a small hostel (Albareda Youth Hostel) but has a great common room and a cosy feel. After a quick siesta, I met a bunch of great people staying at the hostel and we quickly got involved in a drinking game (Texas holdém) after that we went out and to a bar then a night club called Fellini´s on Las Ramblas(it was crap, bad music, expensive drinks and shitty atmosphere).
The next day I headed out to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s best known work in progress. It is truly amazing, the nativity facade was my favourite, you could sit there for hours, and I did, admiring the detail and the originality of the work.

The passion facade is on the other side and it is extremely different, I liked it, but I thought it clashed a bit with the rest of the church (it was designed by a different artist).

After queuing for about three quarters of an hour I got inside and took an audio tour. The audio tour was intersting but I would recommend you spend your 3.5 Euros on a well earned kebab after.

Once inside I was greeted by another queue to get into the escalator and ascend on of the spires. This queue was 90 minutes long, luckily I had some reading material.
The wait was definately worth it, there were great views and an amazing spiral staircase.

After that, I headed to Casa Batllo, another of Gaudi´s buildings. Not as impressive for me, but still very original. Unfortunately the 16 Euro entry fee was abit too steep for me, so I just viewed it from the outside.

That night we headed out for dinner to the Travellers bar which promised a 1 Euro meal of chile con carne at 8pm. Unfortunately it failed to deliver on both counts, first of all their ass clown of a cook hadnt even started cooking the rice when we arrived so we had to wait 1.5 hours before the meal was ready, secondly the wasnt any meat in it! It was just mushy rice with a few sultanas and abit of soyasauce in it. We were not happy, even if it was next to free.

A couple of girls from the hostel went around passing out flyers for a local ¨beach party¨. We all thought it was a good idea and headed out in shorts and thongs. After a 30 minute walk, we were knocked back by the Baja Beachclub, because we looked too ¨beachy¨. So we walked next door to a club called Catwalk, it was 18 Euros entry but we managed to find a promoter and get in for free. The drinks were expensive, 7 Euros for a beer, but curiously shots of tequila were only 3 Euros. Making shots of tequila more than half the price of beer is dangerous when you have cheapskate lightweights like me around. Anyway, I opted for the cheap tequila shots, and got pretty mashed. Heres me, throwing Zoolander style devil horns, with Heather and Jackie from NYC.

One of the funny things that came out of that night were the photos. Pierre, a French canadian, snuck into the background of Yuen and Mikes photo and gave a bonehead style peace sign. Just in case your wondering what a bonehead is, check out this video, then look at the picture.

And here´s another bonehead...

The next day I hung out with Pierre and went looking around Las Rumblas for a place to develope my disposible camera. After visiting a couple of shops and being told it would take a few days I gave up. I then headed out to the beach with a couple of Dutch girls who were studying medicine and had come down for a study break.

That night I headed out with Pierre, Michelle and Karl to Las Rumblas for an Absinthe and a few beers. Heres me boneheading behind Michelle and Karl (Thanks for the inspiration Pierre, you have taken boneheading to a whole new level!)

We found a really drunk guy on Las Rumblas who had collapsed in the street, stuck his hand down his pants and pissed himself (so naturally, I posed semi-bonehead style with him)

After that we headed off to a club called Jamboree, which was less than average, then went home.

The next day I headed to Park Guell. This park has some great views of Barcelona from the top, but is more famous for the pieces by Gaudi it contains.

My favourite part of the park was the columns which provided a great place to hide from the sun, chill out, read and listen to the busker who was playing great classical guitar tunes.

After the park, I gathered the troops at the hostel and we headed out to Bar Marcella (a 200 year old Absinthe bar, where Hemmingway used to drink). Unfortunately or fortunately, I left my camera at the hostel so I dont have any photos, but it was great. I´ll try and track down Cyrille or Sammy on facebook for the photos because they had some great ones. The Absinthe is served in a wineglass (2 shots of 70% alcohol) you then take a sugar cube, balance it on a fork and strain water through it until it turns cloudy (don´t set it alight, we did this but were told it is not the way to do it). After 3 drinks (6 shots) we started to get a little rowdy and we were asked (actually more like told) to leave by the bouncer (who we had just witnessed bash another person on the street). We ended up at some nightclub and tried to dance again (this was my fourth night at a a night club in a row and I was getting pretty tired of them).

The day, I got up hungover but determined to see some Picasso as entry is free on Sundays. Unfortunately, every man and their dog had the same idea, and the queue was gigantic.

After about an hour queuing, we saw the exhibition. Sammy, Louise and I were a little disturbed by one of Picassos pieces which depicted a man squatting with his pants around his knees, holding a plate of chicken in one hand, masturbating with the other, all whilst defacating. To be honest, the exhibition was a let down for me. None of his major works were there, however the photographic exhibition by Lee Miller about Picasso was vaguely interesting.

After the exhibition I headed back to the Hostel for a nap. When I got up, I met some of the new comers to the hostel, Melissa from Canada and Tal a guy from Dubai. We all got together and went for a walk to Plaza Espana for the fountain and lights show. This is possibly the best free show in Barcelona, check out the video below. Actually sorry the Thailand government has blocked youtube.com so I cant upload the video, so pictures will have to do for now.

I got up early on Monday morning and joined forces with Michelle to get a scooter and head up to Montserrat. The ride took about an hour and was extremely dodgy due to the fact that our scooters only went up to 80 kms an hour and the freeway speed limit was 120 kms. We wanted motorcycles but they were very expensive, 300 Euros for 3 days minimum. Montserrat is a great place to go for a walk and see some awesome views, unfortunately the weather was a little cloudy and we couldnt see the Pyranees or Mallorca.

That night I went out on a wild goose chase through town with 18 people from the hostel and ended up at my favourite hole in the wall pub where we had a few beers and a good chat.

The next morning i had to catch a plane to Madrid, but first I headed out to explore the fruit and veggie market in Barcelona with Melissa, who was also heading to Madrid that day. The fruit and veggie market was great, but the pasta they sold was the best, 3 Euros for a big serve of Carbonara.

The next day, I met up with Melissa again for some churros and chocolate and went for a brief walk around Madrid before I had to jump on another plane for Thailand.

July 27-31 From Brazil to Madrid, and its about time for some sunny weather.

2007-07-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

To be honest my few days in Rio are barely worth mentioning. It rained pretty much the entire time I was there, making hang gliding impossible and anything outdoors unpleasant. I ended up spending my time arranging flights and accomodation for Spain and Thailand and hanging out with Pils and Melissa (we went and saw Transformers, pretty sweet movie, especially if you like gigantic fighting robots that change into various kick ass vehicles and Megan Fox.
Anyway, after an uneventful few day in Rio, I got on a plane and headed to Madrid, Spain. It turned out to be a good move, sunny and 36 definately beats raining and 15. Madrid is actually a really nice city, I have heard people constantly bag the place, but I like it. Maybe its because I have been in South America for so long now that streets surrounded by nice old buildings without rubbish and gigantic holes in them seem to be abit of a novelty.
Pretty much no one speaks English here, so I have had to use Spanish again, which is now a little bit screwed up with Portuguese after my brief stint in Brazil. I have found myself saying "oi" and "obrigado" far too often.
I caught up with Digger and Fordy last night for a couple of beers and a few tapas. They have just finished a 3 week holiday in Portugal and caught a plane this morning for Menorca(another Balearic island, near Mallorca).
Today I spent most of my time walking around Madrid and looking for a new digital camera. I ended up buying an Olympus water-proof one (you know the one in the ad where the owner feeds his camera to the slobbery dog)
Unfortunately, I only have 2 shots of Madrid on my disposible camera, (which i will hand in for processing when i get to Barcelona, apparently it takes 2 days to put it on CD).
Tomorrow morning, I fly out to Barcelona.

July 26 Illa Grande, blackouts and crappy weather

2007-07-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Illa Grande could possibly be paradise, if it wasn´t raining, overcast and cold during winter. Illa Grande (Big Island) is the 3rd largest island of Brazil and is located about 150 Km south west of Rio de Janeiro. The transfer to the Island was arranged by Dodgy Brothers Inc. It included a 2 hour Combi ride, during which the driver over took 3 cars at a time (exceeding speeds I thought impossible in a Ferrari let alone a Combi) whilst forcing oncoming traffic to swerve off the road. When we arrived at the beach, we found we were to recieve a 10R discount as the speed boat we had been promised was out of commission, as was the pier (it was due for completion in September. Instead we were hearded 4 a time on to a tiny 2 man rubber dingy (that was already half filled with water) and joined by an additional 2 staff who proceeded to row the dingy, Pochahontas style, from the beach to the awaiting fishing boat.
The water around the Island changed colour as we drew closer, it went a dark sort of turqouise under the overcast sky, you could imagine it would be crystal blue under clear skies. The Island itself looked like something out of Jurassic Park, huge jungle covered peaks rising out of the ocean and into the clouds.
I met a few other aussie blokes on the boat, all from Melbourne. Turns out they knew my cousin Nick Owen through Melbourne Uni.
On arrival at the Island, I threw my pack into my tiny room and started to explore the island. I got as far as the town, then saw the aussie blokes I met on the boat and sat down for a beer. A couple of other aussie blokes rocked up and joined us. Turns out one of them is Mat McCutchin, a guy who I went to primary school with. Small world huh?
Anyway, later that night I attended an all you can eat BBQ and what was promised by the hostel owner (a shady character, who looked kinda like Jeff Goldbloom in aviators) to be the biggest party of the millenium. We all suspected he might have been talking it up, except for the two 18 year old pommy guys, who got were hanging on his every word.
For me, it turns out he was exaggerating a little, I went to bed before 12.
The weather was still miserable in the morning and I headed out to do some hiking, I joined forces with my room mates, a girl from ireland and a girl from scotland, and we headed out to explore the island.
The jungle walk was good, got to see some tiny monkeys, an aqueduct and an old abandoned prison.
That night there was a black out over the whole island, so I decided to catch up on some rest and went to bed early.
I´m back in Copacabana now (the weather still looks crap), after the same dodgy transfer.

23/24 July Chillin on Ipanema beach then touristy stuff

2007-07-24T05:25:00.000-07:00

After a few solid days relaxing on Ipanema beach, I decided to move to the cheaper part of town, Copacabana. It´s pretty good here in Copa, a little bit seedy but cheaper and due to the Pan American games, police are everywhere so its pretty safe.
Didn´t get much sleep last night, the galeforce winds made a huge racket and actually smashed a window in the building nextdoor. Listening to galeforce winds smash windows and the thought of hang gliding in them, or more like, spiraling out of control in them, helped keep me awake nearly the entire night.
I was supposed to go hang gliding yesterday morning, but the pilot got back to me and told me the wind conditions were terrible and it would be too dangerous to fly. So, instead, I decided to do some touristy things around Rio. So I jumped on a bus and headed to Sugar Loaf (Pao de Acucar), which is a massive stone monolith that dominates the south eastern beaches of Rio. The cable car ride was slightly expensive (35R) but well worth it, the views from Pao de Acucar (396 meters high) are amazing.
After that, I headed back to the hostel for lunch and got a tour to Corcovado (the mountain with the big statue of Christ the Redeemer on it). I managed to the resist the urge of posing in front of JC in a crucifixion/embrace pose, but think I might have blinked on the only photo taken of me in front of JC with my disposable camera. The statue is pretty cool, but I found myself spending most of my time checking out the expansive view of Rio. Santa Teresa was my next stop, its the older, more colonial part of Rio, old trams still run through the tiny streets. Then I went to the staircase of Lapa and walked up that, which I really enjoyed taking my time and reading all the tiles.
I would go on, but I have to run right now and get a bus/boat to Illa Grande, where I will be staying for the next 2 nights.

July 21 Nice weather in Rio de Janeiro

2007-07-21T06:27:00.000-07:00

Finally some decent weather, its about 23 degrees celsius and sunny in Rio at the moment, great weather for walking and chilling by the beach (which is all I have done for the past couple of days).
Went out last night with a few blokes from the hostel, we ate some mexican food then went out to Lapa and mixed with the locals. Ended up in a real Samba club (cant remember the name) which was full of Brazillians, I am pretty sure we were the only gringos there.
Got back to the hostel and hit the sack straight away, unfortunately I had 5 new very loud tenants who got in about an hour after me and proceeded to turn the light on and have a loud conversation for the next half hour or so. When they finally settled down one of them started snoring, actually it sounded more like someone scraping gravel off the pavement with a shovel. Pretty soon, the snoring woke up everyone in the dorm, and his mates started yelling at him in the middle of the night. He woke up for 2 seconds then fell asleep again, and unfortunately started snoring again for the remainder of the night. I didnt sleep much last night.
Anyway, on a good note, when I got up this morning, I discovered the hang gliding ban had been lifted and that it was possible for me to change rooms.

July 15-19 Florianopolis, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, snooty french and the latest terrorist weapon of choice, the Hang glider!

2007-07-19T07:06:00.001-07:00

Bad news, my trusty old ixus 500 digital camera has bitten the dust, or the sand to be more precise. Whilst taking photos of the dunes in Florianopolis, there was a big gust of wind which clogged my camera with sand, now the camera refuses to work. Ahh well it´s time for a new camera anyway. Unfortunately, Brazil sucks if you want to buy a digital camera, they are overpriced and the range is very poor, so in the meantime i have bought a disposible camera, which i intend to put on CD and upload later this week. In the meantime, check out old mate Italy´s Youtube video of the view of Sao Paulo from the the Edificio Italiano.
Yasmin, Ryan and I arrived in a wet Sao Paulo early in the morning on the 16th after a 10 hour bus ride from Florianopolis. I had heard many stories about the crime in Sao Pàulo and had prepared myself for the worst, but it never came. I walked the streets day or night and felt quite comfortable. It probably had something to do with the area I was staying in. On the 17th I visited the Edificio Italia, which is the second tallest building in Sao Paulo, it was only 41 stories high but the views were spectacular. Sao Paulo is truly massive, it made Manhattan look like a bit of a lightweight.
Later that night, the tragic Sao Paulo plane crash happened.
The next morning, Ryan and Yas got up early and caught a bus to the beach town of Paraty and I headed to Rio de Janeiro by myself.
A 6 hour bus ride later and I found myself surrounded by the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Arriving in Rio de Janeiro was somewhat disappointing due to the weather. It was overcast and muggy, not really the setting I had expected. I quickly got a cab and headed to Ipanema passing iconic structures like Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf mountain. and settled into my hostel (which was even more disappointing than the weather). After dropping my stuff off I walked up Ipanema beach and got a Maracuya juice (the juices here are really cheap and good).
I went back to the Hostel to have a read, when I got into my dorm, there was a white looking guy sitting on the bunk under mine. I assumed he spoke english and greeted him with a ¨hi, hows it going, my names Ed. Whats yours?¨ he looked at me blankly like he didn´t understand and then said to me in a snotty, thick French accent ¨Pierre, do you speak Spanish?¨ I shook my head and answered ¨porquito, not enough to hold a proper conversation.¨ he sighed and asked almost rhetorically ¨do you speak Portuguese?¨ I shook my head and said ¨no but I can speak a little Cantonese if that helps? Ni hao ma? Bei ngoh sam goh cha siew baos¨ (translated means ¨how are you, could you please give me 3 roast pork buns¨ which is about the extent of my Cantonese) He looked at me blankly again, and went back to reading his book.
After my stupid conversation with Pierre, I headed downstairs and got stuck into a few beers. The bartender was English which was a bit of a relief and we had a brief chat about the crapness of the weather, he assured me it would come good in a day or two. I met a couple of other English folk and an Aussie bloke and had a yarn and a bit of a laugh before calling it a night.
Today I am gonna try and arrange some rock climbing because I have just been told that Hang Gliding has been banned for the rest of my time in Rio de Janeiro due to a ¨clear sky¨ security policy implemented for the Pan American games. Good idea, I can really see Osama getting on a hang glider and launching a 9/11 style kamakazi attack on the beach volley-ball final...
Needless to say, I am pretty pissed off about the hang gliding right now.

July 11-14 Argentina to Brazil

2007-07-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

There was a cold snap sometime during our stay in Iguazu and I have come down with a chest infection which is becoming alarmingly normal for me at this time of the year, its no problem though, im self-medicating with the broad spectrum anti-biotics (Doxy) my Dr gave me for Malaria. If anyone with medical qualifications thinks im an idiot please let me know (by the way i mean idiot for taking those specific antibiotics, not in general. Also if you think I show talent for the medical industry, let me know too).
Anyway, I am in Florianopolis now which is actually a really great place for 2 months during the summer. Pity about that considering it is in the middle of winter at the moment. But the locals here are very friendly and helpful here, even though I am pretty rude and speak at them in Spanish (which is still more effective than English) because I do not have a Portuguese phrase book and cannot be arsed trying to learn it in 2 weeks. Had a great time walking around Centro yesterday and even bought myself some new soccer boots.
Also just a side note, someone told me you use a new part of your brain when learning another language (as opposed to the bit of your brain your mother tongue uses). This is really starting to confuse me as I am constantly trying to learn Cantonese to try and speak with my grandmother, and now I am trying to learn Spanish to get around South America. The problem is I called my Chinese grandmother last night and started to speak Spanish to her. She was very confused, and so was I. Everytime i tried to say something in Cantonese it came out in Spanish. I got really annoyed and reverted back to basic English which worked ok. This is another reason why I am hesitant to even try speaking Portuguese.

July 10 Visas and the Brazillian side of the falls

2007-07-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

We all got up early to try and get our visas for Brazil, well nearly all of us, Melissa was organized and had hers already so she got to sleep in. We found the funny hole in the wall embassy and paid up our 136 Argentinian pesos for a 30 day visa to Brazil, processing time is only supposed to take 2 hours, but it ended up taking nearly 5. When we got our visas back we jumped into a cab and headed over the border to check out the falls. Luckily there is not as much to see over the Brazillian side (keep in mind, it is well worth checking out for the overall views) so it only took 2 hours to see it all + racoons (we were warned about the racoons in an announcement over the bus radio "dont feed the racoons as they may become aggressive, attack and take all your food from you. They are known to carry diseases such as rabies, have a nice day." obviously the Germans didnt get that message and began feeding/teasing the racoons from their pockets with chips, I was getting extremely excited at the possibilty of one of racoons attacking and rolling the tourist for his chips, it didnt happen though :() After that, we headed out to a local family restaurant and ate meat cooked on swords!

July something, Argentinian side of Iguazu falls and videos from the trip

2007-07-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

After a 17 hour bus ride we arrived in the warm Argentinian jungle town of Puerto Iguazu. We stayed at the Hostel Inn, where I met a cool bunch of Argentinian chicas from Cordoba, they showed me around the town, taught me some Spanish and even invited me to drink mate with them over a game of chess.
After that Ryan and I played pool against Melbournian brothers Dion and Adrian, we were losing badly until we challenged them to a best of 13 where we finally beat them 7-6 (to be fair they won best out of 3,5,7,9 and 11)
The next day, we went to the falls early in the morning, we took a boat ride into the falls and got soaked (well i didnt get totally soaked thanks to the poncho loan from Holly, an English backpacker friend of mine who I met in NY at a Hostel in the east village, then freakishly met again halfway across the planet)
We spent the rest of the day walking around admiring the spectacular Argentinian side of the falls, but the highlight was easily the Devils Throat (Garganta del Diablo) the huge amounts of water falling into a white void was mesmerising. I´ll let the photos and videos tell the rest of the story.

Video of the Devils Throat, Iguazu Falls

Video of another part of the Iguazu Falls

Video of the small jungle monkey from the amazon which i forgot to upload before

Video of riots from soccer match which i also forgot to upload

Video of the ferry ride in Patagonia which i forgot as well

Early July still, return to BA, get Yasmin´s Ipod and get on a bus for Iguazu

2007-07-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

After a brief stint in Montevideo, we headed back to BA to pickup Yasmin´s Ipod and catch a bus to Iguazu falls. This would also be our 4th visit to the evil Argentinian Post office. After waiting for about an hour my number was finally called and I presented myself and the pickup slip to the counter, the woman at the counter started talking to me in Spanish at a million miles an hour and got very upset when I said "mas dispacio porfavor" which means "slower please". Luckily enough there were some other patrons who happened to be translators and they were able to tell me what was going on. In the end Yasmin received her Ipod and the Argentinian post officers didn't seem so bad considering they dropped the mysterious 600 peso pickup fee (we think the courier may have been trying to scam us).
After that, we all jumped on a bus which had hot meals served and seats that turned into beds! except for Pils, who took one for the team and travelled semi-cama (seat not fully reclinable) as the super-camas were booked out.

Early July, caught a boat to Montevideo, Uruguay

2007-07-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Just for fun, we all thought it would be a good idea to see what Montevideo was like. Well if you ask me, keep in mind I was only here for a couple of days, its alot like BA, except there are more public displays of mate drinking. It seems everyone here walks around with a thermos and a cup of mate with a metal straw sticking out, but the weird and mysterious thing is, no one sells it, its like a private club for locals only.
My first impression of the people at the hostel was strange, the woman behind the counter spoke English with a thick almost eastern European accent, and had a similar eastern block attitude (or what I imagine an eastern block attitude would be like). For example, I asked her about Mate (as the sign said Mate is included in breakfast) and she said with disdain in her thick eastern European accent "OK, but, what if you don't like it?" I looked at her blankly and said "well, maybe if i don't like it my friends will", she then replied again with disdain "you´re just like a chicky, you see and you want" then she smiled at me which, combined with a few other things, led me to believe she was flirting with me in a strange, rough eastern European kind of way. Anyway, I don't recommend the Red hostel for asthmatics as they light a fire inside which doesn´t have a chimney (well it has a chimney but i think its blocked because smoke visible pours straight out of the fireplace and into the hostel).

Late June or early July, bikeride to Boca followed by a night at the symphony with someguy who was really good on the old squeezebox

2007-07-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

So much booze and gigantic steaks can leave you feeling pretty unhealthy, so Yas, Ryan and I decided to get some exercise on the old pushies. BA is not really a bicycle friendly city (Portenos drive like maniacs), and the bikes we rented were not exactly human friendly either (Ryan´s bike´s gears kept slipping in the traffic and Yasmin´s bike´s brakes hardly worked at all). Despite the obvious threat to our lives, we continued through the heart of BA on our pushies. We eventually made it to a long boardwalk with no traffic but humans and pigeons. Unfortunately, one of the pigeons did not move quick enough and Ryan ran over it on his bike (Ryan screamed like a girl as his bike produced a cloud of feathers).
Eventually, we made it to Boca, (home of Maradonna and his club Boca Juniors) there was a heavy police presence in the tourist zone which comprised of a small market, colourful buildings and some tango dancers. According to the LP, Boca is a pretty dangerous neighbourhood, but while I was there I didn´t feel threatened at all.
After returning our bikes we went to the symphony for some culture. A guy came out with an accordian and really ripped it up, he was great. After the intermission they brought out another conductor who, I thought, sucked balls. He didn´t seem to command the respect of the orchestra and at the end when he asked the MVP´s to stand up, he pointed to people then told them to sit down when the wrong people got up. There was no encore.

June 30 May Ann heads over to the UK and its time to smash cans on a Friday night

2007-07-05T14:51:00.000-07:00

May Ann and I headed out to see abit more of BA today so we went for a stroll through the major sights including Congress, pictured above. After grabbing a Choripan (spanish hot dog) for lunch we went to watch Los Cuatros Fantasticos which turned out to be really good. It was then time for May Ann to jump on a plane and join her friends in the UK for a wedding.
After a long farewell, I headed to Milhouse and attempted to catch up with the others. The others had a plan to smash cans until early in the morning at a nightclub somewhere on the fringes of Buenos Aires. I really had no choice but to accept and smash cans to the best of my ability.
The bus to the nightclub, called Sunset, didnt leave until 1:30 AM (by this time our bodyclocks had already adjusted to the Argentinian nocturnal way of life, so we had no problems) so we smashed cans at the hostel until the bus arrived.
The bus ride took about half an hour, and took us far from anywhere recognisable. We disembarked the bus and entered a club which was full of hot latin women shaking their bon bons. After much drinking and attempted dancing, I called it a night.

June 27-29 5 Star comfort, a graveyard, a post office and a tango show

2007-07-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

May Ann has been working pretty damn hard this year and with all the work she has been doing abroad she was able to save up a heap of starpoints and book us some luxury accommodation at the Park Tower Hotel.
I have to admit, I felt pretty silly walking into the plush lobby a 5 star hotel in backpacker style clothes that hadn't been washed in a week, unshaven carrying my backpack and a torn plastic garbage bag full of smelly washing. So I quickly put my bags onto the bellboys trolley and walked a slight distance behind May Ann trying to avoid bringing down her image too much. It worked, May Ann was instantly upgraded to one of the best rooms in the hotel.
This room rocked, big bed, 2 TVs, cable, great views of Buenos Aires from the 19th Floor and a huge bathroom complete with Spa bath, great shower and not 1 but 2 sinks! Yeah I know, prime!
The next day we visited the cemetery in Recoleta kind of like a small city for the dead, I thought it seemed very pleasant (some of the Mausoleums even had little lounge rooms with seats next to the coffins) May Ann thought it was all very creepy. After checking out Evita's modest grave, we caught up with the others for a buffet lunch in Recoleta which was a pretty cheap all you can eat ($5).
We then headed with poor old Yasmin to the post office to help her collect her Ipod (which had been stolen in Cusco, so her family had gone to all the trouble of buying another, loading her music onto it and sending it to us in Argentina, unfortunately the courier had dropped around to our hotel while we were out and the concierge could not pay the mysterious pickup fee of 600 pesos (200 USD) so we decided to try our luck picking it up from the post office only 200 meters away from our hotel) which turned out to be difficult. To cut a long story short, massive queues, Argentinian bureaucracy and a language barrier can make any simple task take forever, and in the end they told us they did not know where it was and we needed to come back later.
That evening May Ann and I attended dinner and a Tango show. The food was abit ordinary (my steak was supposed to be medium-rare but it was blue) but the company and the performances were spectacular.

June 25 Tigre vs Chicago futbol riots + the best steak ever

2007-06-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

This was a full on day. We arrived at Chicago´s homeground, located in one of Buenos Aires roughest suburbs. After negotiating the long queues and police searches (good on those police, they did a great job confiscating my volatile bottle of water and May Ann´s deadly mini-umbrella) we got into the ground, found ourselves a good vantage point and geared up for what promised to be a passionate game of futbol.
The stakes were high for both sides, if Chicago lost they were to be relegated to the second division, if Tigre won they got promoted to the first division.
Chicago fans (black and green) outnumbered Tigre fans (blue and red) 3 to 1, but that didnt stop Tigre from being heard, the one stand that Tigre occupied was often making more noise than the other 3 Chicago stands put together.
After a brief performance by the cheerleaders, which involved them shaking their bums in short skirts at the crowd (and I mean short, zoom in on the photos if you dont believe me... Thats right Guney and Marshy, the top photo, you big perverts) the game started.
During the game, Ryan and Yas pointed out some Chicago thugs cutting through the cyclone fencing with a pair of pliers (and i thought the police were doing such a good job...)
The players had their moments, but I was somewhat disappointed with the overall quality of the game, Chicago´s gameplan was lacking and Tigre made them pay for it with a 2-1 loss and a relegation.
Needless to say, Chicago´s fans were not very happy about this. Not very happy could possibly be the biggest understatement I have ever made in this blog. Chicago fans burst through multiple holes in the cyclone fencing and started rolling the players for their uniforms (this is apparently traditional in Argentina) and then they started producing arm length iron bars and headed towards the Tigre supporters (who had also invaded the pitch and rolled their team for their uniforms). Total anarchy broke out around the Tigre section of the stadium. I couldn´t help but feel sorry for the Tigre fans who were being hearded around the bleachers by the violent Chicago fans. There was an strange calm in our section, which minus the thugs, was full of elderly Chicago fans who looked on with a sort of nervous boredom.
A volley of rubber bullets from the police sent the angry mob running across the field towards us and, thankfully, out the gate into the street. Minutes later a plume of tear gas rose from the street and leaked into the stadium. The eldery fans covered the mouth and nose with their jumpers in a scarily routine fashion and began to head for the exit. For all those people who dont regularly attend G8 summits or Macedonian soccer matches back home and want to know what a mild dose of tear gas is like try holding your eyes open about 1 cm away from a 100 onions and start chopping them with a chainsaw.
We escaped the stadium shortly after and made our way through the tear gas ridden streets. Along the way we noticed that every single window, whether it be that of a car or a house, was smashed.
Sadly, we heard later on the news, there had been a fatality. Australian news report of soccer riots.
After the riots, we headed into one of the best steak houses I have ever been to. My sirloin steak was great but May Ann´s Patagonian lamb was better.
My fingers are tired now, so ill let the photos do the describing.

June 24 Buenos Aires, Argentina and my baby flys into town

2007-06-30T13:38:00.001-07:00

Flew into BA yesterday (not much happened except for the flight which was uneventful, so ill just skip yesterday).
After a day meandering through the never ending streets of Buenos Aires, I got on a bus and headed for the airport.
I arrived at the airport early to greet my very own Singaporean (now officially Aussie) Princess. May Ann wasted no time in setting things straight, the bum fluff had to go and I needed to have a shower with soap quick smart. Unfortunately, my razor kept clogging up with bum fluff, so I decided to leave it to the pros.

June 22 Worst day at the snow ever

2007-06-23T14:18:00.000-07:00

We headed for Valle Nevado today, which promised to provide us with some of the more challenging runs in Chile. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas.
You can´t always get what you want, that certainly rang true today. I wanted to be able to see a few meters in front of myself for at least a minute. Not today. I wanted a heated bus ride home that didn´t take forever and day. Not today. Instead I got 2 miserable runs and 3 hours in a cheap high school style cafeteria playing cards (the worst part was that there was a classy bar just upstairs serving free coffee and cake, with black jack and pool tables) but we didnt find out about that bar until we were about to leave the mountain (An aussie girl in our bus had found it and had been quietly getting pissed there and munching on free cake while we were out in the blizzard searching for her).
The runs closed early due to the poor conditions, unfortunately the only road off the mountain closed too due to an accident at around the same time. We then had to wait in a bus without heating in the middle of a snowstorm from about 4pm until about 9pm until the road cleared. We got back to Santiago at around 11pm and ate crappy pizza to mourne the worst day ever.

June 21 The perfect day for snowboarding-skiing

2007-06-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Today was easily the best day snowboaring I have ever had. The conditions were perfect, the powder was fresh, there wasn´t a cloud in the sky, and hardly any body else was out skiing, it was almost as though we had the whole mountain (La Parva) to ourselves. It was so clear you could see Santiago from the slopes (see the top picture). I rode all day, carving fresh tracks to my hearts content. Check out the picture of Scratcher (in the middle) launching off that rock. I hate cliches, but if there is a heaven on earth, it was definately here for a day.
After a perfect day on the snow, we all headed back to our hostel and had some beers with some aussie blokes which was a spin out, cause one of them (Luke) was good mates with one of my mates from Sunbury (Benny Poon). It´s a small world.

June 20 To the snow!

2007-06-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

Not much to say here but we got a bus up to the snowfields with a company called skitotal which was alright. The snowfields are only about 50kms from Santiago but the drive took nearly 3 hours (some random police stop and fitting the chains took unreasonably long). The visibility at Colorado was patchy, it went from whiteout to crystal clear within minutes. The powder was great though and there was hardly anyone around to enjoy it. All the better for us :)
At about 5 we packed up and got in our bus to head to our hostel, which was on the mountain, for some ice cold beers and some even colder showers.

June 17 The sea was angry last night my friends.

2007-06-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last night the boat rocked like crazy ( so i am told, I actually slept all the way though it until i needed to take a piss, then i noticed it) I actually got up to silence at about 6am this morning (normally the engines are on all the time) I went to take a piss, and when i hit the flush button there was a really loud sound, sort of like when you hit the flush on a airplane toilet, which was strange cause ferry toilets dont make that noise. The noise got heaps louder and i thought shit, ive sunk the ship. Turns out they just lowered the anchor at exactly the same time i hit the flush. What a coincidence. Anyway the reason they dropped the anchor in the middle of nowhere turned out to be that the seas were too rough.
I got up just in time for lunch again after which I headed up on the deck to check out the views. The sea was still pretty rough, rough enough to send a spray of ocean water equivelent to about 3 buckets of sea water all over me and my only pair of dry pants (as you can see, my burnt cords finally gave way earlier that day). I retired to my cabin, put my pants on the heater, lay on my bunk and watched a Chaser on my ipod. (classic stuff, it was the episode where the crazy ware house guy goes to church)
I then borrowed Pils' Lappy and started selecting some photos and knocking up my blog. And thats about it for now.
Well that was it for yesterday, got back to Santiago this morning and since then Pils and Scratcher have been arranging a bit of a snowboarding trip for the next few days which promises to be a heap of fun.

June 16 Back on the ferry and primed for some great views of the Beagle Channel.

2007-06-18T11:26:00.001-07:00

I got up at 6:30 am that morning ready for a quick breakkie then off to board the ferry again. We were shocked to find the ferry was no longer at the docks. We all paniced for about 5 minutes until we saw the ferry heading for us. Phew.
The views through the Beagle Channel were awesome, massive mountains rising staight out of the sea and later we got to see the Glacier Italia which was a massive awesome blue chunk of ice as big as a mountain.

June 15 The end of the world, Puerto Williams, and not a gringo in sight.

2007-06-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Puerto Williams at about 7am and it was cold, but i guess thats to be expected when your closer to Antartica than about 99.999 % of the worlds population. It was still dark when we arrived but luckily the reservation I made earlier with the Hostal paid off and we were greeted in the ferry by Pedro our Hostal owner. He guided us up the treachorously icy streets to the cosy Hostal for breakfast. After breakkie we wandered around the streets of Puerto Williams until an ice storm hit. We walked through the ice storm, much to the amusement of the locals who drove slowly next to us waving and laughing at the no doubt uncommon sight of a gringo in these parts. When we got back to the hostal, we fired up the fire put on some tunes played some chess and drank some whiskey until the ice storm passed. Given I only had 2 pairs of pants I had a stroke of genius and decided to lash my sopping wet cords to the hot metal chimney. Someone commented they could smell something burning, but I was too busy concentrating on chess to smell stuff. You guessed it, that burning smell turned out to be my cords. After the ice storm passed we headed back out and explored what turned out to be the Naval Base side of town, check out the cool commando shot of me and Scratcher with the APC.

June 14 Journey to the bottom of the world.

2007-06-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

I woke up at about 11 am that morning, a little annoyed when i sat down and found out I had missed breakfast but pleasantly surprised to find out that I was just in time for an early lunch. Lunch was full on, bread and soup followed by a hearty main course, followed with dessert and a viewing of Spiderman 3! Awesome. Unfortunately the Spiderman 3 DVD broke down half way through and I was forced to take in some of the wicked views outside the car ferry. There were lots of cool sights including: water, land, land with snow, seals and albatross. check out the photos.

June 12, 13 Great views of almost the entire length of Chile and another night on the piss with good food in Punta Arenas, then it's ferry time.

2007-06-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

We got onboard our flight bound for Punta Arenas with no problems. I was lucky enough to get a window seat for what turned out to be the most scenic flight I have ever been on. I got some great aerial views of the Andes, seas, lakes and islands.
Upon landing, the star wars nerd in me couldn't help but saying, this is like landing in Hoth (the snow planet where Luke Skywalker sleeps in animal guts to survive). So if I was visiting planets in Star Wars I would have visited 3 by now: Endor (The Amazon), Tatooine (Trujillo) and Hoth (Punta Arenas).
Anyway I digress. We got our bags and I decided to try and activate my HCBC ATM card over the phone. After waiting on the phone for 5 minutes i got through to someone who told me I needed to go to a HSBC ATM to activate my card, I told her I was pretty close to the edge of the world and that I didnt think there was one very close to Punta Arenas, not convinced she decided to spend the next 5 minutes looking up Punta Arenas in the HSBC ATM directory, she then proceeded to tell me that there was one in Santiago (about 4.5 hours flight away) needless to say this phone call turned out to be a total waste of time and money ($20 USD). Sweating, partly due to the heating in the airport and partly due to the anger of having just wasted $20 USD for nothing, I headed out into the sub zero temperatures of Hoth (Punta Arenas) in nothing but my Tshirt (and pants). After about 5 minutes i put on about 3 more layers of clothing and a beanie, and waited for a cab, we waited for about 45 minutes, for some reason a few cabs were driving past but not picking anyone up, with only 2 hours to get to the Ferry Office and pay for our tickets we got a little nervous. We nearly hired a car before spotting a bus which we quickly jumped on and headed into town. After succefully finding the ferry ticket office, paying for our tickets, dropping our bags off all by 6pm we felt like we had won the amazing race so we headed into the main drag of Punta Arenas to celebrate.
We got stuck into some delicious steaks, beers, red wine, whisky and Pisco Sour. We all got pretty smashed and ended up running down the icy streets slipping and sliding all the way back to our Hotel, we had all nearly made it back unscathed then Scratcher ran across the last icy street and neary did a backflip, except instead of landiing on his feet he landed square on his back. It was pretty funny, so funny it would no doubt have made won us a home entertainment system on funniest home videos if only Yasmin had taped for 5 seconds longer.
Anyway we woke up explored Punta Arenas, the most memorable moment of which was seeing a stray dog licking his own turd (im kidding, its a very nice town but thats the only thing that stood out about it that day). We then bought some alcohol (1 Litre of Whisky, 1 Litre of Vodka, 4 bottles of PIsco, 2 bottles of Baileys, 2 Cartons of Goon, and a dozen beers and boarded the Ferry bound for the end of the world, Puerto Williams, 308 or so nautical miles away.
The night was going really well with hotly contested games of celebrity head and Uno until the Captain appeared and warned us in broken English that we were not allowed to drink alochol on the boat. He then clarified this with a "well, you can drink, but i dont want to see any drunk people." given the amount of alcohol we had just brought onto the ship and the fact that this ship was the only way back from Puerto Williams I thought that this might present a problem. But it didn't really, we handled our alcohol like pros (sort of like underager drinkers at a blue light disco, but with less vomiting).

June 11 Hot coffee served by even hotter women and Lan cancels our flight. BUMMER.... naaaaaot

2007-06-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

That first picture of us is at one of Santiago´s stand up cafes, basically you go to the register buy a ticket for your coffee, then stand at the bar for a coffee and a geez at the scantily clad waitresses, its almost like the Cliffo back home but with more clothes, more coffee, more snotty attitudes, slightly more class but no pool tables, no props, no beer and slightly less fun. Actually, its nothing like the cliffo. Its more like a cross between starbucks and hooters.

That night our flights to Punta Arenas were due to leave at 9pm, we were running really late, we arrived at the airport at about 8:17pm and rushed around like headless chooks until I heard one of the LAN Chile staff say that our flight had been cancelled due to bad weather. This was kinda OK as there was another flight in the morning we could catch and still make the ferry. It turned out to be bloody awesome as the attendant then went on to tell us that LAN Chile would pay for all of us to stay in a 5 Star Hotel overnight, meals and airports tranfers included. Pretty decent huh?

After a nice meal and an excellent bottle of Chilean Red (May Ann, it was a J.Bouchon Extra Special Cab Sav 2004) we retired to our own rooms for the evening, soooo good to get your own room after breathing each others farts and constantly waiting for the shower for the past month. As soon as i got into my room i stunk it up with my own fart, had a shower and watched whatever I wanted on Cable TV (which happened to be Naked Wild-on). It was great.

11 June 2007 Chan Chan to Lima to Santiago and tonight off to Patagonia

2007-06-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Visited some pre-columbian desert ruins near Trujillo called Chan Chan the other day, pretty interesting to see ruins other than the Incas. The top picture is of me posing like ¨the Rhino (aka scratcher)¨ on top of the ruins of Chan Chan over looking the city of Trujillo and abit of the mountains/desert.
I´ve also been busy organising a trip to Southern Patagonia aboard a cargo ferry that goes through the Beagle Channel from Punta Arenas to Puerto Williams (about as close to Cape Horn as you can get) check it out: http://www.tabsa.cl/Eng/Html/PuertoWilliams.php
Had a few dramas booking it all due to the communication barrier but its all worked out now so hopefully it will be smooth sailing until we get back to Santiago for snowboarding on the 18th of June.
Had a great Chilean counter meal (pork and potato mash washed down with wine and whisky) with scratcher, pils and Yasmin last night (yes, thats me doing my best Guy Sebastian impèrsonation at the dinner table)
Stay tuned for some no-doubt, cracking shots of ice and stuff from deep southern Patagonia.

5 June 2007 Trujilllo and Huanchaco

2007-06-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

Got into the small fishing village of Huanchaco (a town famous for its cigar shaped fishing boats made of reeds) a few days ago. Went out and to surf with Scratcher on the first day, surfing isnt my thing, the strong currents swept me half way down the beach and the rocky bottom and the poor conditions made me think twice before getting in again, Scratcher caught a couple of nice waves but I think I'll stick to snowboarding.
Went into and explored Trujillo on the second day, its Perus seconds biggest city.
Pils arrived from Lake Titikaka yesterday morning. Went fishing in the afternoon and caught a couple of nice fish off the pier.
Tonight Yasmin, (Scratcher and Pils workmate) is going to join us in Huanchaco.

1 June 2007 Cosco to Lima to Trujillo

2007-06-01T10:07:00.001-07:00

Still in Cosco today, about to catch a plane to Lima and then an overnight bus to Trujillo to do some surfing for the rest of the week.
Today Pils decided he wanted to go and see Lake Titikaka instead of coming surfing with Scratcher and I in Trujillo (north Peru). He is going to change his tickets and meet up with us later in Lima before we head back to Santiago.

May 30 2007 The Inca Trail - Machu Picchu and Guinea Pig to Celebrate

2007-05-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

We got up early at 4am to begin the short 2 hour hike to the Sun Gate which over looks Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, the mist was so thick we could not see Machu Picchu from the sun gate. We headed down to another vantage point and sure enough there it was in all its glory the mystical Machu Picchu. As the mist rose and more of the metropolis was revealed you couldnt help but feel electricity up your spine, it was truly an unforgettable moment. After a tour of the ruins, we decided to climb Waynu Picchu, the mountain behind Machu Picchu which has claimed the lives of a few tourists who have stumbled off on its sheer cliffs.
The exhausting, near vertical climb to the top of Wayna Picchu was rewarded with panoramic views of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains. The picture of my foot is taken from near the summit of Wayna Picchu.
After a long train-bus ride back to Cusco, we went out for dinner. We ordered Guinea Pig. My stomach turned upside down when the guinea pig was presented. After much procrastination I tucked into a leg (if you zoom in on the picture you can see the claws). Guinea pig tastes unique, kinda like a hybrid of chicken, duck and rabbit. It was nice. After that we went to a night club to complete the 24 hour Machu piccu challenge set by Ernesto our tour guide, it basically involved much alcohol and dancing until 4am.

May 29 Inca Trail - Downhill from here

2007-05-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty easy considering yesterday. Our guide Ernesto is pictured here, he was a really funny bastard and knew his stuff inside out. The Quechuan porters do an amazing job carrying large loads through slippery and steep terrain. Some more great views followed by a hot shower and cold beers at the campsite. The ruins at Winay wanah (5 minutes from the campsite) were really impressive.

May 28 2007 The Inca Trail - Dead Womans Pass

2007-05-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is known as being the toughest day on the trail, we climb over 2 peaks the first 4200m (aka dead womans pass) and 3800m (almost more difficult as it is nearly vertical). Needless to say this day was exhausting, however the views and the ruins were well worth the effort.

May 27 2007 The Inca Trail begins

2007-05-31T15:47:00.000-07:00

We got up at 5am and got on a bus headed for the start of the Inca trail.
The trail is 49 km long in total and gets to altitudes of 4200m above sea level, make sure you carry some coca leaves to help with the altitude.
We met our guide Ernesto and set out in a group of 14. The porters carried the tents and cooking gear and raced off ahead of us to setup camp.
The trail is specatular, each view more amazing than the next, there are even a few Inca ruins along the way (Llactapata is pictured here)

25 May 2007 In the Amazon

2007-05-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

We arrived in the jungle yesterday and after a 3 hour boat ride up the river we arrived at our accomodation which strongly resembled an ewok village from star wars. I got up at 4am to the low guttural sounds of the howler monkeys. We walked through the jungle in darkness for awhile then got on a boat and headed up river to a lake where we would do some bird watching and pirana fishing. Unfortunately I didnt catch any piranas but the tour guide did.
At about 9 am we walked further through the jungle and saw some monkeys and waited to see some macaw´s. After lunch we headed to a shamans (pictured) medicine garden and saw heaps of jungle remedies which was pretty interesting. After a long day in the jungle we had a few beers in the ewok village.

23 May 2007 Dodgy flight to the Peruvian Jungle

2007-05-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today we were supposed to fly to the Amazon, unfortunately the weather had other ideas. We boarded a flight from Lima bound for Puerto Maldonado deep in the Peruvian Amazon. We flew through the Andes and began our decent into dark clouds. The captain announced we would be landing in 30 minutes. As the thick clouds obscured our view the turbulence began. This was possibly the worst turbulence I have ever been in, it lasted for about 15 minutes before the sound of the plane engines roared to life and we began to climb. The captain later said a few words in spanish of which i only captured ¨tormentas¨and ¨cuzco¨I assumed this meant that the stormy weather above the jungle had made it too dangerous to land. I was right.

We arrived in Cuzco which is approximately 3400 meters above sea level. Big change considering we came straight from sea level. Cuzco is an interesting city, it is toursity but still retains its unique character. The people of Cuzco are mainly Quechuan (decendants of the Incas).

The plan was to stay in Cuzco for a night and then try again for the jungle the next day. We had Alpaca for lunch and looked around town. Scratcher and I ended up wondering into a local market where they had all sorts of animal parts for sale (check out the pics).

22 May 2007 Lima, Peru

2007-05-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Got into Lima this morning after about a 3 hour flight from Santiago. Lima is a big coastal city, with dirty gravel surf beaches lying at the bottom of large cliffs on which the city sits. Its quite smoggy and polluted here but the people seem happy and you can even see some people surfing.

After checking into the hotel, I went for a walk around town and along the cliffs. Check out the photo.

Tonight we meet the rest of our Inca trail group, in all there will be 7 of us. The Inca trail to Macu Picu is a 9 day tour which includes a tour of the Amazon river by foot and boat and a 40km high altitude trek to Machu Picchu. We leave for the Amazon tomorrow, cant wait!

Ill blog again when i get back from Machu Picchu.

Hasta Luego Amigo/a´s

MAY 21 2 day stopover in Santiago Chile

2007-05-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

Flew into Satiago yesterday morning after a brief stopover last night in Havana Cuba. Santiago is a big change from the tropical heat and tourist feel of Cancun. Santiago has a very eastern European feel to it. Upon arrival we went for a walk downtown, lucky for us we had arrived on a sunday so a visit to the Museum of National History was free, even though all the information was in spanish, the old photos, paintings and relics were very interesting. After that we headed back to our apartment to cook some pasta and drink some Chiliean wine we picked up for $5 called Casillero del Diablo (it wasnt too bad, we also got some chilean beers called escudo which were very disappointing. Unfortunately when I got back to the apartment I also realised I had lost my ATM card (im gonna try and sort it out today).

19 May 2007 Scratcher and Pils robbed, plane tickets and camera stolen! and coco bongos.

2007-05-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

While I was relaxing in Playa Del Carmen, mi amigos, Scratcher and Pils were going through the worst couple of days of their holidays so far.
Turns out that shortly after we separated, they got on a second class bus for Tulum. During the bus ride Pils put his bag onto the luggage rack and stood nearby as the bus was very crowded. The bus stopped to pick up 2 passengers who had large duffle bags. The 2 new passengers pushed their way in between Pils and his bag and held their duffle bags over Pils' bag. Pils thought he heard the sounds of zips being opened but wasnt sure if he was being paranoid or not so let it slide. At the next stop, the 2 suspicious passengers disembarked and the bus continued on. When Pils and Scratcher got of the bus in Tulum Pils realised what had happened. Both their plane tickets and Pils camera had been stolen. After much running around and chasing up of airlines they were finally able to get their tickets replaced yesterday, for $1320 USD (lucky they have travel insurance).
We all met up again in Cancun on Thursday, and headed into Coco Bongos (another open bar) for a big night of entertainment (its kind of like a cross between a nightclub and a theatre restaurant). It was heaps of fun but I really paid for it the next morning.

The next night we went out to an aussie themed steakhouse called Outback. Thats where Pils met the hot Kangaroo.

16 May Today! Back in Playa del Carmen

2007-05-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today!

Hey all, finally we are in the present. I have finally had some time and a good net connection to get this stuff organised. Yesterday we caught a ferry back from Cozumel, I opted to stay in Playa del Carmen for a couple of days and rest my foot in preparation for the Inca trail, whilst Pils and Scratcher head further south to explore Tulum. Not much to report, at the moment, just eating lots of Tacos and drinking Coronas by the beach. I´ll blog again when there is something interesting to report.

Hasta Luego

Ed

13 May 2007 Cozumel snorkelling, scooters and lobster

2007-05-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

13 May 2007 Cozumel

Yesterday we caught a ferry from Playa del Carmen to the carribean island of Cozumel. Supposedly the snorkelling and scuba diving is world class here. Unfortunately when we went snorkelling off a boat yesterday we were very dissappointed, we saw very little coral but quite a few fish. Apparently much of the coral was destroyed during Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Today we decided to check out the rest of the island via scooter which was a lot of fun. We found many great beaches and found a remote restaurant where all the locals were having their sunday lunch. I got lobster while Pils and scratcher opted for the Snapper (turns out I may have made a wise decision, that night the two were vomiting non-stop) after lunch we played football on the rocky/sandy beach. Unfortunately during the game I managed to sprain my left foot. On our way back into town a tropical storm started to build, then just as we hit the outskirt of town the storm hit. It was kind of like having buckets of water thrown at you while riding through a wind tunnel. We rode through the storm for about 10 minutes until we
got back to the scooter shop.

The mighty Chichen Itza and cool cenotes

2007-05-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

11 MAY 2007

Today we got up early for a 4 hour mini van ride to Chichen Itza, arguably the best Mayan Ruins in the world. I slept most of the way there and was surprised at how hot it was inland. I think it was about around 35 degrees with a relative humidity of 80%. Anyway we got a guided tour of the ruins and learnt alot, I´m not going to give you a history lesson about Chichen Itza but if your interested here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza . But I do want to tell you about the sacrifices, according to our guide the Toltecs used to play a ball game on a massive stone court (possibly an early version of basketball) and the losers were sacrificed. Sacrifice involved decapitation then splitting the body down the chest and removing the heart, kinda like Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom. I gotta tell you, it´s hard to believe this sort of stuff actually happened in such a peaceful place. Around the ruins were hundreds of the Mayans decendants selling jewellery and wooden carvings. The carvings were extremely intricate and were being sold for the ridiculous price of $1 USD.

After that, we had all worked up a massive sweat so on the way home we were taken to a Cenote or underground river system for a swim to cool off. The Cenote we visited was stunning, we entered via a small cave which opened into a massive cavern with a hole in the top where a trees roots had dropped from the roof all the way to the water. The cool fresh water of the underground Cenote was just what the doctor ordered, I highly recommend a visit to the Cenotes if you get a chance when you are in the Yucatan.

On the way back we also visited a Mexican Catholic Church. Kinda reminded me of something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie for some reason.

2007-05-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

9 MAY 2007

We went out to a crazy nightclub in Cancun called Senor frogs last night. Possibly one of the most debaucherous night clubs I have ever been to. Upon arrival we were presented with a 1litre large plastic fluro cup with which was quickly filled with various forms of alcohol.
As we proceeded further into the venue we noticed a scantily clad woman was being hoisted (willingly) by their ankles to the ceiling, then being spun around upside down while compressed air was blown at her. Bizzaro. At first i though they had tricked her into doing that and that now that all the girls knew what was going to happen they would prolly steer clear of the crazy looking mexicans with the ropes and pulleys, that was until i noticed the line of women waiting to be hauled up to the ceiling for a spin.
After walking around the club alittle bit more I noticed above my head was what looked to be a water slide. And it was. The water slide went from the middle of the club and out over the balcony outside into the carribean ocean. Nice. Then it was time for the frozen tshirt competition where 3 guys get the chance to represent their country (USA, Canada or Mexico) by trying to unfreeze a rocksolid tshirt by smashing it against the floor. The prize: a soggy half frozen senor frogs tshirt. The punishment if you couldnt unfreeze the tshirt: A clothed trip on the water slide. After 5 or so minutes of frantic frozen tshirt smashing no one won and they all got a trip down the water slide. Then it was time for the crowdsurfing competition, which was just that, a crowdsuring competition. I knew something was missing, Cancun, nightclub, drunk americans. You guessed it. WET TSHIRT COMPETITION. 7 or so big breasted women jumped up on stage and 1 by 1 proceeded to jump in and out of a pool in their jeans and a white senor frogs tshirt. The tshirts must have been really itchy cause the girls were tearing them off withing minutes. Excellente. After all that I was getting quite annebriated myself so I decided to pull the pin and catch the bus home, on the way I grabbed some tacos from a street vendor. Muy Bien.
Woke up with bad case of montezumas revenge this morning, it had me doing the mexican two step all the way to the toilet. Not great to cop travellers diarhorrea when you are just about to check out. Anyway I sucked it in / blew it out, and headed for the bus stop with my hungover amigos Scratcher (ryan) and Pils (mark). We got the local bus from our 5 star hotel to Cancun Ciudad (downtown) and managed to get a 1st Class coach all the way to Playa Del Carmen (about 70 minutes) for the grand fare of 42 Pasos. The coach was awesome, nice seats, movies, but more imporatantly it had a toilet.
Playa Del Carmen is great, it finally feels like the real Mexico. It is still abit of a tourist trap but it is much more down to earth than Cancun. We found a nice cheap 3 star hotel for 660 paesos a night (for all 3 of us). After unpacking, we looked around Playa for a bit had some tacos, then settled in at the internet cafe for a mammoth blog session.

Goodbye NYC G´day Mexico

2007-05-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

6 MAY 2007

This morning was a mad rush for the airport, we didnt take into account the sunday timetable and the trains from manhattan to JFK took us around 2.5 hours. We were late but made the flight OK.

Im hanging out in a luxury hotel in cancun now, all food and alcohol is provided. Its about $240 US a night for the 3 of us so we only booked for 2 nights. We are thinking about getting a car soon and getting out of the touristy part of cancun and seeing some Mayan ruins down south.

Day 5 or something in NYC - bus tours and steak dinners

2007-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

5 May 2007

On Saturday we all went our separate ways. I elected to do the bus tour of Manhattan, which was well worth it. I saw uptown, Morningside Heights, Harlem, the soup nazi shop, the Guggenheim (was covered in scaffolds so i went inside instead which was very cool) After that i jumped on the downtown line and saw Greenich village, SOHO, Madison square gardens, china town little italy etc. That was cool too, then i headed to the JR electrical store and bought some cool speakers and a solar charger for my ipod (Will, I even got some of those earjams for my headphones, they work really well). After that i walked cross town to the south port ferry and jumped on the bus tour of brooklyn. Brooklyn was really interesting and the view going over the Manhattan bridge was awesome. After that we went to Anthea (Harry´s sisters) place for a delicious home cooked steak dinner, and then out to Times square to check on the synco de mayo celebrations which werent really noticable when we got there.

4 May in NYC drunk bastards at Yankees stadium

2007-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

4 MAY 2007:

Today we headed into the Bronx (I got some New York pizza on the way) to watch the Yankees play the Mariners in baseball. The game started off really well for the Yankees but ended badly with the Mariners scoring a massive 8 runs in one innings which spelt disaster for the yankees. We ate lots of hotdogs and pretzels and drank massive cans of beer (which they poured into plastic cups :( ). At the end of the night we were the only ones left in the stadium and one of the stadium attendants yelled at us in a really thick american accent¨ifyou´redrunkbastards admitit!¨ said like ¨whatyoutalkinboutwillis¨ we didnt understand what he was saying so we just laughed. It was a great night.

Day 3 in NYC - Skyscrapers, statues and a big friggen park

2007-05-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

3 MAY 2007:

Had a pretty good day today, headed down to the staten island ferry and saw the statue of liberty. It wasn't as big as i imagined it would be, but it was still good. After that we walked around battery park and took some photos with the bull statue at the bottom of Broadway. We then caught the subway to rockafella plaza and got a great view of NYC from the roof. Then we wondered through to Times square for a couple of cold ones and back home.

DAY 2 in NYC - Pils, scratcher and Ed go to whitecastle (and just about everywhere else in downtown NYC)

2007-05-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

2 MAY 2007 :

I am having heaps of fun in NY its a great city. Started off yesterday with a traditional NY breakfast of waffles, bacon, sausages and syrup. Then we started walking. We walked all over downtown New York and visited Broadway, Chinatown, Little Italy, Wall St and Ground Zero (pretty eeirie place). After that we headed to Brooklyn bridge and walked over that, the weather was great and the sights were spectacular. We then explored Brooklyn a little before stopping for a late lunch at whitecastle (an american burger chain) The burgers were craptacular, alittle bit like dogfood compressed into a pattie then steamed with a bun and some sauce, never go to whitecastle i dont care how stoned you are. We then walked back over the brooklyn bridge to manhattan to look for another apartment to rent (this went on for hours, and we couldnt find a place because of cinco de mayo on saturday (its mexican independance day, and apparently there is a big party all over new york on this night) When we finally got back to the hostel my feet were killing so we quickly sat down and cracked a few beers on the roof. After those beers I got up and limped with a few other aussies and brazilians we met on the roof to go play some pool at a local bar. Ryan and I teamed up and whooped the brazilians in pool multiple times, and emerged undefeated at the end of the night. On the way back to the hostel I grabbed a new york hot dog with chilli beans and cheese etc and learnt how to swear in spanish from the vendors. Oh by the way, the three hombres from the left are Mark (pils), Ryan (scratcher) and the ugliest one on the right is me.

DAY 1 in NYC - 1 MAY 2007 - Curries, Beers and Sitars.

2007-05-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

1 MAY 2007 :

Got into NY last night at about 5:30pm, had heaps of problems with the air train (it was broken) the thing took 2 hours instead of the regular 15 minutes, there were alot of irrate New Yorkers. When i finally got to the hostel at about 8:30pm, I met Ryan and his mate Mark. We decided to go for a walk and look for some food and beers. We ended up in little India and found some cheap curry/beers in a cool place that had a live sitar and bongo playing. After that we played some pool and talked to some locals trying to find out some good places to go in New York. Today we are probably going to head down to Ground Zero and just wander around downtown Manhattan.