I was just wondering where to start this one. How about :
Nepal continued...
I was in Kathmandu, but heading for 10 days of white water ... I say 10 days, actually it took 3 days on a bus to get there (see 'struck out' below) one day and night to get back, so we had 6 days on the river - plenty of time to get wet...
High fives
- The Karnali River in the far west of Nepal, a big river on its way from Tibet to India. The water was big, white, wetand cold; the paddlers were not so big, white, wet and cold. But when that grade 4 or 5 wave is heading straight for you, then emerging, with both the boat still the right way up and you still in it, is a triumph which no amount of cold water down your throat can dampen. The scenery was stunning too, narrow gorges, vertical cliffs and somehow superb beaches on which to camp everynight (why these are not washed away by the monsoon I'm not sure).
- On the flatter parts of the river we were allowed to use the safety kayakers boats to play in. They were very short boats (some of the rafters were too tall to fit in them) and almost impossible to keep straight but I did manage a Grade 2+ rapid and my first ever eskimo rolls (however a few times I didn't make it back up and just ended up sitting in an upside down boat thinking "I'm freezing cold, underwater, and upside down in an upside down boat - why the hell am I doing this!")
- After the rafting everyone else was heading for a wildlife park nearby, so I went as well (not to see the wildlife, just to chill out) and spent a week living in a mud hut without electric, water by pump, shower by bucket, cooking by fire and squat toilet. As this was far away from the normal touist places and deep in mousey-maoist controlled areas we were just about the only foreigners in the place. Gone were the locals asking for 'schoolpen' and money - here were the villagers who grinned and looked embarassed at being close to a foreigner. However, once they realised that they could see an image of themselves on the back of my camera, I was besieged by whole groups of people just wanting to stand bolt upright with severe faces, for their photo - getting them to relax and smile a bit was the most difficult part. If you are not good (and I work out how to do it, I may send you some examples). Walking around the paddy fields and tracks of this community was so refreshing. However the objective of taking a few pics of farmers ploughing their fields with oxen became an exercise in recording an image of just about every person I met (and several pics of each of their babies), being an instigator of civil unrest as people surrounded me on the dirt road and causing a huge power drain on my batteries. Simple living, simply brilliant. I couldn't ask for more.
Pains in the butt
- Walking into more mouse traps on the rafting trip in the far west on Nepal which is deep in mouse territory. We knew they were there cos we had a guide. We had to pay USD 20 each to be allowed to travel through the area by bus and then back be raft. I didn't see any guns this time but we were warned not to take any photos in Maoist areas as they like to take away your camera and not give it back. The rafting coy had to give other villagers paddles and stuff on the way down the river but had a note from the head mouse saying they didnt have to give them the raft that they asked for ! Its all such a circus. Both sides know the score - The army are heavily ensconced two hours bus ride from the mouses but there is no attempt to try and break the mouse control. Mind you , the army are equipped with very old (WW2 Vintage) Lee Enfield rifles, so maybe that is why.
- I only know one word of Nepali. After that, if they dont speak English then I automatically revert to Spanish (this is the only other language I can speak). This does not always help a great deal as their knowledge of Spanish may be limited too. Worked all right in south/central america though ... If only I could have spoken Spanish that well when I was actually with Spanish speaking people.
- Wildlife - since I ended up staying about 100 metres from the entrance to a wildlife park I though I may as well go and search (again) for tigers. After spending 2 whole days ( and a load of cash hiring guides, park fees etc) we had seen no rhino, one elephant a long way off, and no tigers. Then as we walked out of the park entrance at the end of the 2nd day, there was a real, genuine, actual rhino slumped against the gates - asleep! So we all posed with it, felt its rough armoured looking skin and looked at it horn ... until it started to move ... then we ran away ... real fast!
- Leeches - not the sort of wildlife I wanted to see close up. They are the most revolting creatures I have ever seen and when they are indulging themselves on my blood its simply not nice. Serve them a bit of salt and they get off pretty quick; however the blood keeps flowing for a while after.
- Squat toilets - you get used to the hole in the floor approach after a while, you have to, you cant hang on for ever. Apparently, they are better for your health than the horrible sit down western ones ... so we will probably see them catching on in western places soon - yeah right!
- Struck out - Getting caught in the strikes called by the mousists to demonstrate their power (in truth Nepal is not a democracy so I have to give them some leeway to demonstate, but it would be preferable to do it when I am not there) - once on the way to rafting, where we had to spend 2 nights in a village fairly near nowhere; then again when I was trying to get to the Buddha's birthplace; I left a day early to miss the strike (no-one knows when they are going to happen, they just happen) and still walked straight into 2 days of no buses. Luckily I was very close to the border at that point so ... despite thinking that the longer I had spent in Nepal the more I had liked it ... decided to quit Nepal and went to India instead ... what was I thinking of!!!
I just realised that my list of 'pains' in far longer than the 'highs' - dont be mislead, Nepal definitely gets the thumbs up.
India
I didn't mean to go there, honest, I was just on a bus one day and suddenly ... (actually it wasn't so sudden, it was after a huge amount of time, filling in a small amout of paperwork) I was in India and everything was more packed, more dirty and much more trouble than before.
When you are the only one (foreigner that is, locals cross the border unrestricted) in the queue at the border, you begin to think why am I the only one crossing over here ...
After a 5 hour shared taxi ride, crammed into a very old 'Ambassador Classic' car, and a puncture, I arrived in Lucklow hoping to get a train out that night to Varanasi. I had no idea how the booking system worked and all the signs were in Hindi (a language nothing like Spanish), and finding someone who spoke English was more than a bit tricky - even trickier was getting two different people to agree on where I had to go to get a ticket. Eventually I found a window with a smaller than normal scrum outside and after some barging and shouting found I had to come back at 9pm to try and get on the 11pm night train. I went back before 9pm (when the magic 'spare seats and beds' printout arrives to find a huge scrum at the said window, and got stuck in. The game is simple: Fill in a train request form. Put on your biggest backpack with daysac on your front (these not only give protection and added weight, but also if the swivel move is used, causes significant damage points against the opposition). Stand in an orderly line and as soon as people from the back charge round the side the game is on - you have to get your form through the tiny gap in the ticket window, from any angle, preferably with hand still attached, and get the official to give attention to your form. I am bigger than most Indians (although not all, as the pot bellied gentleman was keen to make clear) so after 30 minutes of unsporting behaviour, and some brief reforming of the line by an official with a big stick (a sort of half-time, no oranges), I finally succeeded. My form got attention! Victory. But there were no spaces on the train! Bugger. A complete waste of time. Resigned to having to spend a night in a hotel, I asked how I could get a ticket for the 7am day train the next day -
'Come back here at 4.30am' he said.
'You're joking!'
He wasn't.
So ventured into streets in the dark amidst traffic, every vehicle of which was trying to kill me (this must be another game I haven't figured out yet), smoke from fires lit in the road, a herd of cows getting in the way of everything and people jammed in everywhere there wasn't anything else.
After spending (part of) the night at an overpriced hotel I crawled to the station along emptier streets (the cows were sitting down by now) at 5am in dense fog. There was only a small queue and 'the game' wasn't on. I got my ticket after about 10 mins. even after a female pushed-in right in front of me (yes, they really are allowed to do that - even though it doesn't really fit in with 'the game', it does keep women interested in the sport which is presumably the reason for the rule). Then I got my train, 45 mins late due to said fog, and got to Varanasi that afternoon (2 hours late arriving - due to being 45 mins late leaving).
And it was when I got to the old city in Varanasi that I found out that, so far, my introduction to India had been a gentle one. A huge area along the west bank of the Ganges (India's holiest river) is a maze of tiny alleyways threaded between 5 storey buildings, crammed with shops, people, pot bellied cows and large mounds of their steaming dung.
Question: If you are facing the backside of a large cow taking up over half the width of an alleyway and the remaining narrow gap is heavily mined with cow dung, then, bearing in mind that you are wearing open toed sandals, what do you do?
A) Wait for it to move
B) Wait for a local to push it out of the way
C) Try and push the cow out of the way yourself
D) Go another way to your destination
E) Go via the mined route but skip delicately over the dung
F) Walk through the minefield and get covered in shit, or worse, lose a sandal in it.
If you answered:
A - You are still waiting there.
B - No chance, almost all locals are Hindu and they wouldn't want the bad karma of pushing a sacred cow.
C - You will have got beaten up by the locals ('cos you are not as sacred as the cow)
D - You will get hopelessly lost in the alleys and are never seen again OR
If you do know where you are going - you end up in another alley facing the backside of a large cow taking up over half the width of an alleyway and the remaining narrow gap is heavily mined with cow dung. Then you have 6 options ...
E - Ha Ha! the cow moves as it feels you try to squeeze past and you end up covered in shit and get slammed into the wall by the cow.
F - You are a local.
Enough about cows for now!
Varanasi is an assault on all your senses including several you didnt know you had - burning bodies, dung, rotting veg - what more do you want. It is an education, even a priviledge to experience it all. Everything is in your face - all the time - and if something is clean, it wont be for long.
It all happens down at the river which is lined with ghats (platforms) where everything happens. If you are cremated here you go straight to moksha (Nirvana) escaping the cycle of life, death and rebirth (the aim of Hindus) even if you have had a bad life ( seems a bit easy to me). So 150-200 people are cremated on the ghats of the ganges every day, in public with crowds of onlookers. It is sobering watching bodies burn, educational, thought provoking and very hot. Thinly covered bodies and laid on 200kg of prime wood and burnt. It takes about 3 hours, during which the skull is smashed to release the soul and the remains are chucked into the ganges. Within spitting distance are the top bathing spots for Hindus - this is both ritual bathing and to get physically clean, although whether you are actually cleaner when you get out is anyones guess (I didn't give it a go). And in amongst all this are the dohbee-wallahs who are responsible for the city's laundry, and this is where they wash all the clothes. If this wasn't enough this slowly moving river is where most of the garbage is chucked. Thank god I am here in the winter and not the even hotter summer when the place must really stink.
Some more plusses
- The food and drink are great. Marvellous thalis (curries), dhosas (pancakes) and masalas (mixed spices). And then there are the sweets - they are very sweet but after trying a few (not all at once) I have managed to pick a few which are tasty without being sickly.
- There is a Hindu festival here just about every day.
Some more Minusses
- There is a Hindu festival here just about every day. And they really are getting a bit the same. Exactly the same in fact, except as the festival reaches its climax there are more participants and more people watching. And then there is a huge crush and - well it very nearly ended up in bad news last night when whilst waiting for ritual to start there was some major pushing (reminds me of the terraces of English footy matches in the early 1980s).
- There is no alcohol served in the old town - it all to do with the holy influence.
- Hygiene? One restaurant even advertises itself with the slogan 'Yes, We are less dirty...' and fearful of the lack of hygiene I am moving rapidly towards vegetarianism.
- The Scams - Everyone is out to scam any foreigner. Well almost everyone, but trying to sort out the 10% of people who are making casual conversation or genuinely trying to help from the 90% who protest their innocence but are really rolling out a scam to e.g. get money for non-existant lepers, is very difficult.
So fearful of another scam or another Hindu festival starting tonight I am on the night train out of here - heading south ...
Bye for now
Pete
Wednesday 1 December 2004
Thursday 4 November 2004
Where 28 - Kathmandu, Nepal --OR-- How to Make a 'Voluntary Donation' at Gunpoint... And Get a Receipt
Part of the idea of coming south over the winter was to avoid all that cold weather and snow. Maybe when I thought that, I had forgotten that the Himalayas in Nepal are actually pretty high (8 of the world's 10 higgest peaks are in Nepal) and the word himalaya means 'abode of snows'.
A bad start. Also the Annapurnas (the mountains I wanted to walk around) reach over 8,000m high ( there are only 14 peaks over 8,000m in the world), so maybe I had picked the wrong spot. Fortunately the trekking route doesn't go up to the top but gets up to 5,416m - and surely no chance of snow at that level during the early autumn peak trekking season!
Sally joined me for the first month cos she wanted to walk round snowy mountains as well (or something like that). The trek took us 18 days to complete. The first 8 days were almost constant uphill, but not too steep, passing through numerous Tibetan influenced villages (Tibetans came across from Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese strengthened their control there). These were often medieval villages crammed with traditional stone houses and topped off with numerous tall, colourful (prayer) flags fluttering in the breeze like an encampment of knights in armour preparing for a joust.
There are no roads, or motorised transport (everything is transported by mule or human) but plenty of rivers to cross, so the first few days are spent taking photos of mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges. Then I realised that I had taken pictures of nothing else but mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges and never took any pictures of either mule trains or narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges ever again.
Once we reached 3,500m we stopped for a day to acclimatise and then restricted ourselves to 400m vertical increase each day to try and avoid getting AMS (acute mountain sickness). We reached the heights where no one lived but fortunately, enterprising locals had built tea-houses where we could stay the night. The prices of food increases with the altitude as everything has to be either grown locally or brought up the track by mule, and at the furthest point we were 9 days walk from the nearest road, and apparently it is difficult to grow beer and coke at altitude.
The weather had been great - clear blue sky mornings, sometimes becoming cloudy in the afternoon. It got a bit 'misty' at about 4,000m but no chance of snow.
A bit of a shock next morning then to awaken to a white out. It was still gently coming down, but we decided to trek on as long as we could follow the path, and if it did get dangerousl we could always turn back. Trekking higher up a snowy mountain with only trekking poles (I now understand why they look so much like ski poles) seemed a bit insane but there were other people with guides to follow (Sally and I decided we didnt need a guide or porter). Then we met a whole herd of yak coming the other way. A yak is a cross between a cow and a woolly mammoth, with a huge coat and big horns; very similar to a Yeti in fact. We were going up the mountain whilst the animal that has eveolved over millions of years to cope with such conditions was going the other way! Worst still, the yaks were coming down the only path straight at us. Now the path was only about 'this' wide, whilst a Yak is at least 'THIS' wide! And you dont want to stand in the way of a yak in full migratory mode. So us less intelligent beings scrambled up the hillside and let the more intelligent beasts pass.
We made it to 4,500m that day and waited for the snow to stop. Fortunately it had by 4am the next morning when many people left to ascend the (vertical) 900m to the top of the pass and then (vertical) 1,600m down the other side. We left at 5am - still dark - and followed a trail of lights up the mountain. It was very steep and the snow was up to 30cm deep. It had been -4C in the tea house bedroom and was -11C on the mountain, so it didnt take long for my fingers and toes to go numb. I was praying for the sun to warm me up a bit. By 7am we were in sun, stumbling slowly upwards. The air is very thin at this altitude and it was very hard work especially carrying up to 20kg of stuff on my back. The snow was perfect - I have skied in far worse snow than this - but here I was walking in it! Mountains everywhere, blue sky, white snow ... and an enless upward trudge - well for Sally it was endless, I spent most of the time waiting for her every few metres as she seemed to be suffering a bit with the thin air. It took us 6 hours to get to the top and what an effort it was. Ater an hours rest, at midday we zoomed down the other side (now skies would have been good) helped by the ever thickening air and the knowledge that if we didnt get down by 6pm it would be dark, and there was no way I could have stood the cold on that pass for a night. We made it by 4pm to a place with 'hot showers' - unfortunately solar panels covered in snow do not hot showers make. I did get my nose badly sunburnt though - very silly.
The pass was about halfway so we still had a large part of the 230km to trek, but at least now it was getting warmer as we went, prices getting cheaper, beer back towards a pound a pint, we were nearly back to civilisation. And then we walked into a Maoist trap; not a mouse trap, although that is similar, I mean a trap set by an admirer of chairman Mao. The Maoists have been engaged in a civil war for 8 years and control 80% of the country (mainly the uninhabited bits!). He was just sitting casually on a wall, though he did have a big scar on his face, and politely enquired if I would like to contribute to Maoist funds. I said not and then a walking conversation ensued with he saying I should and me not being absolutely keen. Then he produced a handgun, not a very sophisticated gun, but it was a gun. Suddenly the Maoist cause seemed to have an indefinable appeal, a very worthy cause in fact. Luckily he accepted about GBP8 for the two of us and gave me a receipt to show that this was not in fact robbery but a genuine donation, and in case I came across any other Maoists, so I could prove I had already paid. Very thoughtful!
Other (Natural) Highs
- Tiger hunting - a 2 days in the National Park looking for Tigers. Unfortunately we were on foot. Fortunately our 2 guides were heavily armed with small sticks! Fortunately we didn't see any tigers. We did see a sloth bear, which I was expecting to be a small cuddly bear, but it was enormous - bigger than me - big, black and and dangerous although it did have a cute nose.
- Elephant trekking - sitting on them, looking for rhinos. Very bumpy it was as well, but we did get to see some Greater one horned rhino. They look like they are covered in sheets of armour, but it is just thick skin folded over to make it look like they are covered in sheets of armour - Oh it works! Impressive though.
- Kathmandu, capital and largest city, is like the traffic of London in the narrow streets of York. Tiny streets crammed with cars, motorbikes, people, bikes plus occasional cows. How they all get passed each other is a mystery, but it doees seem to happen, although if they miss you by more than a cm then they consider that a wide margin.
- Old Stuff - Kathmandu and around has squares crammed with 14th to 18th century temples and palaces, all still in use. They are in great condition and laced with erotic carvings (positions from the Karma Sutra) sometimees involving elepants and tortoises; Oh, and of course they are of great religious significance. Some of the temples have fierce guardians to protect them - normally small tortoises or monkeys. Many of the backstreets are untouched by time (buildings dont geet knocked down here, they either fall down or just stay there); narrow streets with ancient wobbly 4 storey buildings holding each other up, and tiny courtyards; people crammed into such small spaces, living so close together - like walking through London before the great fire of 1666 perhaps. Such history they have here, but there is so much of it they dont give it a second thought (except to charge foreigners if they want to see it!)
- Oh, and most Nepali trucks are covered in huge Union Jacks. Haven't been able to find out why yet though.
Other Confusing bits
- Religion is a bit confused (well I find it confusing) - most people are Hindu, but many of the temples are Buddhist (Buddha was born in Nepal about 2,500 years ago). But Hindus claim that Buddha is the 9th incarnation of their god Vishnu, so enabling them to worship at any Buddhist temple, where they have also added shrines to numerous hindu gods. So you go into a nice clean Tibetan Buddhist temple (often huge stupas - like an upside down ice-cream cone) which then get invaded by hoards of Hindus queuing up to chuck rice and other offreings (mainly food) over their favorite god, and leaving little piles of embers all over the place for unsuspecting people to burn their feet on. Its all a bit confusing, but this is their religion and as messy as it is and as many flies as the piles of food attract, I have to respect that. I think I may get bored of Hindu temples pretty soon though...... Er Yep, bored now.
Other Crap bits
- The roads, if you can call them that are worse than dirt tracks. So the buses go really slowly, and really bumpily, especially if you happen to be crammed onto the back seat. Enough said (although I could moan on at length).
And now Sally has gone home and I am off to do a bit of rafting in the far west of Nepal for 10 days - back into Maoist country, (I'll keep an eye open for those mouse traps), then south to India.
Bye for now
Pete
A bad start. Also the Annapurnas (the mountains I wanted to walk around) reach over 8,000m high ( there are only 14 peaks over 8,000m in the world), so maybe I had picked the wrong spot. Fortunately the trekking route doesn't go up to the top but gets up to 5,416m - and surely no chance of snow at that level during the early autumn peak trekking season!
Sally joined me for the first month cos she wanted to walk round snowy mountains as well (or something like that). The trek took us 18 days to complete. The first 8 days were almost constant uphill, but not too steep, passing through numerous Tibetan influenced villages (Tibetans came across from Tibet in 1959 after the Chinese strengthened their control there). These were often medieval villages crammed with traditional stone houses and topped off with numerous tall, colourful (prayer) flags fluttering in the breeze like an encampment of knights in armour preparing for a joust.
There are no roads, or motorised transport (everything is transported by mule or human) but plenty of rivers to cross, so the first few days are spent taking photos of mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges. Then I realised that I had taken pictures of nothing else but mule trains and narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges and never took any pictures of either mule trains or narrow, usually insanely wobbly, suspension bridges ever again.
Once we reached 3,500m we stopped for a day to acclimatise and then restricted ourselves to 400m vertical increase each day to try and avoid getting AMS (acute mountain sickness). We reached the heights where no one lived but fortunately, enterprising locals had built tea-houses where we could stay the night. The prices of food increases with the altitude as everything has to be either grown locally or brought up the track by mule, and at the furthest point we were 9 days walk from the nearest road, and apparently it is difficult to grow beer and coke at altitude.
The weather had been great - clear blue sky mornings, sometimes becoming cloudy in the afternoon. It got a bit 'misty' at about 4,000m but no chance of snow.
A bit of a shock next morning then to awaken to a white out. It was still gently coming down, but we decided to trek on as long as we could follow the path, and if it did get dangerousl we could always turn back. Trekking higher up a snowy mountain with only trekking poles (I now understand why they look so much like ski poles) seemed a bit insane but there were other people with guides to follow (Sally and I decided we didnt need a guide or porter). Then we met a whole herd of yak coming the other way. A yak is a cross between a cow and a woolly mammoth, with a huge coat and big horns; very similar to a Yeti in fact. We were going up the mountain whilst the animal that has eveolved over millions of years to cope with such conditions was going the other way! Worst still, the yaks were coming down the only path straight at us. Now the path was only about 'this' wide, whilst a Yak is at least 'THIS' wide! And you dont want to stand in the way of a yak in full migratory mode. So us less intelligent beings scrambled up the hillside and let the more intelligent beasts pass.
We made it to 4,500m that day and waited for the snow to stop. Fortunately it had by 4am the next morning when many people left to ascend the (vertical) 900m to the top of the pass and then (vertical) 1,600m down the other side. We left at 5am - still dark - and followed a trail of lights up the mountain. It was very steep and the snow was up to 30cm deep. It had been -4C in the tea house bedroom and was -11C on the mountain, so it didnt take long for my fingers and toes to go numb. I was praying for the sun to warm me up a bit. By 7am we were in sun, stumbling slowly upwards. The air is very thin at this altitude and it was very hard work especially carrying up to 20kg of stuff on my back. The snow was perfect - I have skied in far worse snow than this - but here I was walking in it! Mountains everywhere, blue sky, white snow ... and an enless upward trudge - well for Sally it was endless, I spent most of the time waiting for her every few metres as she seemed to be suffering a bit with the thin air. It took us 6 hours to get to the top and what an effort it was. Ater an hours rest, at midday we zoomed down the other side (now skies would have been good) helped by the ever thickening air and the knowledge that if we didnt get down by 6pm it would be dark, and there was no way I could have stood the cold on that pass for a night. We made it by 4pm to a place with 'hot showers' - unfortunately solar panels covered in snow do not hot showers make. I did get my nose badly sunburnt though - very silly.
The pass was about halfway so we still had a large part of the 230km to trek, but at least now it was getting warmer as we went, prices getting cheaper, beer back towards a pound a pint, we were nearly back to civilisation. And then we walked into a Maoist trap; not a mouse trap, although that is similar, I mean a trap set by an admirer of chairman Mao. The Maoists have been engaged in a civil war for 8 years and control 80% of the country (mainly the uninhabited bits!). He was just sitting casually on a wall, though he did have a big scar on his face, and politely enquired if I would like to contribute to Maoist funds. I said not and then a walking conversation ensued with he saying I should and me not being absolutely keen. Then he produced a handgun, not a very sophisticated gun, but it was a gun. Suddenly the Maoist cause seemed to have an indefinable appeal, a very worthy cause in fact. Luckily he accepted about GBP8 for the two of us and gave me a receipt to show that this was not in fact robbery but a genuine donation, and in case I came across any other Maoists, so I could prove I had already paid. Very thoughtful!
Other (Natural) Highs
- Tiger hunting - a 2 days in the National Park looking for Tigers. Unfortunately we were on foot. Fortunately our 2 guides were heavily armed with small sticks! Fortunately we didn't see any tigers. We did see a sloth bear, which I was expecting to be a small cuddly bear, but it was enormous - bigger than me - big, black and and dangerous although it did have a cute nose.
- Elephant trekking - sitting on them, looking for rhinos. Very bumpy it was as well, but we did get to see some Greater one horned rhino. They look like they are covered in sheets of armour, but it is just thick skin folded over to make it look like they are covered in sheets of armour - Oh it works! Impressive though.
- Kathmandu, capital and largest city, is like the traffic of London in the narrow streets of York. Tiny streets crammed with cars, motorbikes, people, bikes plus occasional cows. How they all get passed each other is a mystery, but it doees seem to happen, although if they miss you by more than a cm then they consider that a wide margin.
- Old Stuff - Kathmandu and around has squares crammed with 14th to 18th century temples and palaces, all still in use. They are in great condition and laced with erotic carvings (positions from the Karma Sutra) sometimees involving elepants and tortoises; Oh, and of course they are of great religious significance. Some of the temples have fierce guardians to protect them - normally small tortoises or monkeys. Many of the backstreets are untouched by time (buildings dont geet knocked down here, they either fall down or just stay there); narrow streets with ancient wobbly 4 storey buildings holding each other up, and tiny courtyards; people crammed into such small spaces, living so close together - like walking through London before the great fire of 1666 perhaps. Such history they have here, but there is so much of it they dont give it a second thought (except to charge foreigners if they want to see it!)
- Oh, and most Nepali trucks are covered in huge Union Jacks. Haven't been able to find out why yet though.
Other Confusing bits
- Religion is a bit confused (well I find it confusing) - most people are Hindu, but many of the temples are Buddhist (Buddha was born in Nepal about 2,500 years ago). But Hindus claim that Buddha is the 9th incarnation of their god Vishnu, so enabling them to worship at any Buddhist temple, where they have also added shrines to numerous hindu gods. So you go into a nice clean Tibetan Buddhist temple (often huge stupas - like an upside down ice-cream cone) which then get invaded by hoards of Hindus queuing up to chuck rice and other offreings (mainly food) over their favorite god, and leaving little piles of embers all over the place for unsuspecting people to burn their feet on. Its all a bit confusing, but this is their religion and as messy as it is and as many flies as the piles of food attract, I have to respect that. I think I may get bored of Hindu temples pretty soon though...... Er Yep, bored now.
Other Crap bits
- The roads, if you can call them that are worse than dirt tracks. So the buses go really slowly, and really bumpily, especially if you happen to be crammed onto the back seat. Enough said (although I could moan on at length).
And now Sally has gone home and I am off to do a bit of rafting in the far west of Nepal for 10 days - back into Maoist country, (I'll keep an eye open for those mouse traps), then south to India.
Bye for now
Pete
Wednesday 12 May 2004
Where 27 - Mexico City --OR-- Eyeball to Eyeball with Nurse Sharks, Sea Horses and Sea Cows
HI there,
Last time I had just arrived in Belize. After 1 week on a tiny island there, I headed North into Mexico and spent 3 weeks getting across from the scorching Yucutan Penninsular to choking Mexico City via various interesting mountain towns and colonial cities.
Belize (previously British Honduras)
Spent a week on Caye Caulker, a few km long but only 200m across, a sort of really laid back place with loads of snorkelling opportunities. And they speak English! Paradise in so many ways...
Plus points
- Nurse sharks, up to 2m long, cruise the reef and shallows. They have unusual tails for sharks, long and wavy, plus really small eyes. A few of us went out with an old guy on a boat who claimed he was best friend of the family that lived in that area having rescued one years ago and these were the descendents. I took that with a large pinch of seawater as we snorkelled around the boat watching these timid creatures. Then he got in and they went straight up to him and swum next to him, following him around for the next hour, even though he wasn’t feeding them. I don’t normally touch anything alive underwater as they are wild animals, but these sharks seemed to be loving the attention, being stroked and not caring if they bumped into us or we into them. Sharks are great fish, I wouldn’t describe them as friendly, but then there are always exceptions!
- Manatees (dugongs, sea cows) – odd animals a bit like sea lions only much slower. They are quite rare and didn’t get to see a great deal of them but I can tell you that they are bulky with noses like cows and tails like semi-circular fans. Unexciting? Definitely. But interesting just ‘cos they’re different!
- Sting rays – huge flying saucers over 1m diameter plus another metre for the tail. Beautiful to watch in motion as they flap their wings so gracefully as they swarmed around us in the shallows. They are not dangerous unless you stand on the sting, which is at the base of the tail. However, when they form a carpet around your feet it is difficult not to stand on them, though luckily I didnt stand on the wrong bit!
- Coral, large green moray eels, spotted eagle rays, queen trigger fish (possibly the most beautiful fish I have encountered), dolphins and disco fish (small dark fish inlaid with bright blue luminous jewels). And stacks more – great snorkelling.
- Last, smallest, slowest but definitely the most surprising: sea horses. Just 5-7cm high they cling underwater to small branches with their tail and hang on as they are weak swimmers. They come in brown, yellow and orange and are as an intricately designed as I could imagine (like one of those airfix kits with tiny parts where most of the glue ends up between your fingers), with (relatively) enormous snouts. The males look after the fertilised eggs in a pouch so it is they that are pregnant (don’t go getting any ideas now…)
Minus Stuff
- its expensive – but then it’s worth it. After all it is Paradise! - did I mention that already?
Mexico
Large parts of Mexico are the same as Central America but with (a lot) more VW Beetles. However, some parts are a little different.
Expected bits
Mexico has been populated for about 20,000 years by Asians who crossed the land bridge across the Bearing Strait during the last ice age. About 1,200BC they started forming organised, structured civilisations, the first of these being the Olmecs (at their height 1,200BC to 900BC) followed by numerous others, the most famous being Mayas (peaked 250AD – 900AD) and Aztecs (peaked 1400AD – 1519AD). Despite having a capital city of 200,000 people (built where Mexico City is today) the Aztecs could not resist a small force of Spaniards who arrived in 1519 and within 2 years had dismantled the whole civilisation. Each civilisation left its own cities and buildings celebrating their beliefs, gods and religious practices. The most impressive being:
- Chichen Itza (Maya with Toltec influence) with magnificent pyramid and a huge ballcourt where a rubber ball would have to be put through a hoop by use of elbows and hips only in the lowest scoring game ever. One goal would determine the winner and the losing captain (or sometimes the winning captain) would be sacrificed.
- Palenque (Maya) – Surrounded by jungle, the pyramids here contain tombs (very unusual in this continent).
- Uxmal (Maya) – More Pyramids and complex geometric patterns, plus rain gods with noses like elephants trunks.
- Teotihuacan – Including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world built around 300AD.
Unfortunately the Spanish built over or destroyed most of the Aztec sites although there are a lot of buildings underneath colonial Mexico City.
- There are of course plenty of colonial towns with fantastic buildings, plazas and cathedrals and streets on a grid system – the Spanish were advanced at town planning.
- With total Spanish control the indigenous people were reduced to the bottom of the society, a place they still firmly occupy. Odd (and sad) that the peoples who built such great civilisations thousands of years ago, now live at an economic and artistic level below that which they had then.
Unexpected bits
- Cenote snorkelling – most of the Yucutan Penninsular (the bit that sticks out to the east) is flat limestone with hardly any surface water. The water has formed numerous caves and caverns underground, the tops of which have collapsed and become accessible through vents. Snorkelling through tiny caves, cramped between floor, roof, stalagmites and stalactites and often squeezing through minute gaps (at water surface level) is a weird experience.
- Off the Pacific coast in deep water on a boat we saw manta rays launching themselves out of the water several metres into the air before crashing back into the water in an uncontrolled dive. We jumped in the water and I came across a huge ‘shoal’ of about 200 manta rays each about 1m across just a couple of metres below me – incredible sight.
- The biggest single biomass in the world (or so they claim). Its just a tree, 42m high, 58m truck circumference and a total volume (presumable including root system) of 817,000m3. And it is over 2,000 years old.
- Sleeping in hammocks for a while (it was cheap, and Yucutan peninsular isn’t, but it is warm at night). Got fed up of it after a while and went back to sleeping in dorms.
- The indigenous Zatopec people commenerate the uprising in 1990’s by selling dolls with guns dressed all in black plus balaclavas – very striking and surely an angle the Barbie doll people have missed!
- We visited a church in an indigenous village. The locals were forced to convert to Catholicism when the Spanish arrived, but this church suggest otherwise. Firstly, from the outside it is a normal church. Inside it is completely empty of furniture other than a small altar and 22 saints in glass cases around the walls (no seating at all). At the focus of the building stands St John the Baptist who is the local patron saint and the centre of any formal worship (Jesus ranks about 5th). The building is choked with incense smoke. Pine needles cover the floor giving a feel of nature whilst people sit on the floor in small groups staring at large groups of candles of differing colours, each colour referring to a part of the body that they are praying for. If you are very ill then a live chicken is used and waved over the candles, then often sacrificed. Each saint has a 3 day festival with much smoke, incense, fireworks and a procession where they take him ‘out for a walk’ around the church square. And most surprising of all the whole ‘congregation’ are in church drinking coca-cola, pepsi and fanta as they have been told by the marketing men that these drinks help you burp which releases the evil spirits from within. Clearly indigenous religion practiced under a thin veil of Catholicism with more than a hint of ‘Well what did the Spanish ever do for us?’ Monty Python couldn’t have done it better.
- Mexico City – A sprawling megopolis of over 22 million people. However it is not as bad as I thought. Most of it is like any other very busy modern city but with a liberal dusting of smog and an even liberaler scattering of VW Beetles.
Other things I learned during this trip:
- It is possible to fit 32 people and all their luggage in and on a 15 seat minibus.
- ‘Carga Larga’ is a long load and not a type of beer.
- ‘No Banarse’ is not an organisation in favour of liberalisation of nudity (it just means No Bathing).
- A ‘Joyeria’ is a jewellers, not a brothel.
And a bit about the food
- If that damp rag aroma of another tortilla catches my nostrils, I will puke. Before this trip I used to like them!
And so fearing the tortillas may rise up and rebel, I caught a flight back to London and home where I will be for a while at least. If you want to meet up for a pint of lager, rice, beans and tortillas, then sod off. If you can stretch to real English beer and cashew nuts then mail me!!
See ya
Luv
Pete
Last time I had just arrived in Belize. After 1 week on a tiny island there, I headed North into Mexico and spent 3 weeks getting across from the scorching Yucutan Penninsular to choking Mexico City via various interesting mountain towns and colonial cities.
Belize (previously British Honduras)
Spent a week on Caye Caulker, a few km long but only 200m across, a sort of really laid back place with loads of snorkelling opportunities. And they speak English! Paradise in so many ways...
Plus points
- Nurse sharks, up to 2m long, cruise the reef and shallows. They have unusual tails for sharks, long and wavy, plus really small eyes. A few of us went out with an old guy on a boat who claimed he was best friend of the family that lived in that area having rescued one years ago and these were the descendents. I took that with a large pinch of seawater as we snorkelled around the boat watching these timid creatures. Then he got in and they went straight up to him and swum next to him, following him around for the next hour, even though he wasn’t feeding them. I don’t normally touch anything alive underwater as they are wild animals, but these sharks seemed to be loving the attention, being stroked and not caring if they bumped into us or we into them. Sharks are great fish, I wouldn’t describe them as friendly, but then there are always exceptions!
- Manatees (dugongs, sea cows) – odd animals a bit like sea lions only much slower. They are quite rare and didn’t get to see a great deal of them but I can tell you that they are bulky with noses like cows and tails like semi-circular fans. Unexciting? Definitely. But interesting just ‘cos they’re different!
- Sting rays – huge flying saucers over 1m diameter plus another metre for the tail. Beautiful to watch in motion as they flap their wings so gracefully as they swarmed around us in the shallows. They are not dangerous unless you stand on the sting, which is at the base of the tail. However, when they form a carpet around your feet it is difficult not to stand on them, though luckily I didnt stand on the wrong bit!
- Coral, large green moray eels, spotted eagle rays, queen trigger fish (possibly the most beautiful fish I have encountered), dolphins and disco fish (small dark fish inlaid with bright blue luminous jewels). And stacks more – great snorkelling.
- Last, smallest, slowest but definitely the most surprising: sea horses. Just 5-7cm high they cling underwater to small branches with their tail and hang on as they are weak swimmers. They come in brown, yellow and orange and are as an intricately designed as I could imagine (like one of those airfix kits with tiny parts where most of the glue ends up between your fingers), with (relatively) enormous snouts. The males look after the fertilised eggs in a pouch so it is they that are pregnant (don’t go getting any ideas now…)
Minus Stuff
- its expensive – but then it’s worth it. After all it is Paradise! - did I mention that already?
Mexico
Large parts of Mexico are the same as Central America but with (a lot) more VW Beetles. However, some parts are a little different.
Expected bits
Mexico has been populated for about 20,000 years by Asians who crossed the land bridge across the Bearing Strait during the last ice age. About 1,200BC they started forming organised, structured civilisations, the first of these being the Olmecs (at their height 1,200BC to 900BC) followed by numerous others, the most famous being Mayas (peaked 250AD – 900AD) and Aztecs (peaked 1400AD – 1519AD). Despite having a capital city of 200,000 people (built where Mexico City is today) the Aztecs could not resist a small force of Spaniards who arrived in 1519 and within 2 years had dismantled the whole civilisation. Each civilisation left its own cities and buildings celebrating their beliefs, gods and religious practices. The most impressive being:
- Chichen Itza (Maya with Toltec influence) with magnificent pyramid and a huge ballcourt where a rubber ball would have to be put through a hoop by use of elbows and hips only in the lowest scoring game ever. One goal would determine the winner and the losing captain (or sometimes the winning captain) would be sacrificed.
- Palenque (Maya) – Surrounded by jungle, the pyramids here contain tombs (very unusual in this continent).
- Uxmal (Maya) – More Pyramids and complex geometric patterns, plus rain gods with noses like elephants trunks.
- Teotihuacan – Including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world built around 300AD.
Unfortunately the Spanish built over or destroyed most of the Aztec sites although there are a lot of buildings underneath colonial Mexico City.
- There are of course plenty of colonial towns with fantastic buildings, plazas and cathedrals and streets on a grid system – the Spanish were advanced at town planning.
- With total Spanish control the indigenous people were reduced to the bottom of the society, a place they still firmly occupy. Odd (and sad) that the peoples who built such great civilisations thousands of years ago, now live at an economic and artistic level below that which they had then.
Unexpected bits
- Cenote snorkelling – most of the Yucutan Penninsular (the bit that sticks out to the east) is flat limestone with hardly any surface water. The water has formed numerous caves and caverns underground, the tops of which have collapsed and become accessible through vents. Snorkelling through tiny caves, cramped between floor, roof, stalagmites and stalactites and often squeezing through minute gaps (at water surface level) is a weird experience.
- Off the Pacific coast in deep water on a boat we saw manta rays launching themselves out of the water several metres into the air before crashing back into the water in an uncontrolled dive. We jumped in the water and I came across a huge ‘shoal’ of about 200 manta rays each about 1m across just a couple of metres below me – incredible sight.
- The biggest single biomass in the world (or so they claim). Its just a tree, 42m high, 58m truck circumference and a total volume (presumable including root system) of 817,000m3. And it is over 2,000 years old.
- Sleeping in hammocks for a while (it was cheap, and Yucutan peninsular isn’t, but it is warm at night). Got fed up of it after a while and went back to sleeping in dorms.
- The indigenous Zatopec people commenerate the uprising in 1990’s by selling dolls with guns dressed all in black plus balaclavas – very striking and surely an angle the Barbie doll people have missed!
- We visited a church in an indigenous village. The locals were forced to convert to Catholicism when the Spanish arrived, but this church suggest otherwise. Firstly, from the outside it is a normal church. Inside it is completely empty of furniture other than a small altar and 22 saints in glass cases around the walls (no seating at all). At the focus of the building stands St John the Baptist who is the local patron saint and the centre of any formal worship (Jesus ranks about 5th). The building is choked with incense smoke. Pine needles cover the floor giving a feel of nature whilst people sit on the floor in small groups staring at large groups of candles of differing colours, each colour referring to a part of the body that they are praying for. If you are very ill then a live chicken is used and waved over the candles, then often sacrificed. Each saint has a 3 day festival with much smoke, incense, fireworks and a procession where they take him ‘out for a walk’ around the church square. And most surprising of all the whole ‘congregation’ are in church drinking coca-cola, pepsi and fanta as they have been told by the marketing men that these drinks help you burp which releases the evil spirits from within. Clearly indigenous religion practiced under a thin veil of Catholicism with more than a hint of ‘Well what did the Spanish ever do for us?’ Monty Python couldn’t have done it better.
- Mexico City – A sprawling megopolis of over 22 million people. However it is not as bad as I thought. Most of it is like any other very busy modern city but with a liberal dusting of smog and an even liberaler scattering of VW Beetles.
Other things I learned during this trip:
- It is possible to fit 32 people and all their luggage in and on a 15 seat minibus.
- ‘Carga Larga’ is a long load and not a type of beer.
- ‘No Banarse’ is not an organisation in favour of liberalisation of nudity (it just means No Bathing).
- A ‘Joyeria’ is a jewellers, not a brothel.
And a bit about the food
- If that damp rag aroma of another tortilla catches my nostrils, I will puke. Before this trip I used to like them!
And so fearing the tortillas may rise up and rebel, I caught a flight back to London and home where I will be for a while at least. If you want to meet up for a pint of lager, rice, beans and tortillas, then sod off. If you can stretch to real English beer and cashew nuts then mail me!!
See ya
Luv
Pete
Tuesday 20 April 2004
Where 26 - Caye Caulker, Belize --OR-- How to get Out of El Salvador Without getting In
Have progressed from El Salvador via Guatemala I am now on a tiny island just off the coast of Belize.
Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.
Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!
Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.
Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....
- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.
If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!
Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.
Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...
Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.
Luv Pete
Some border crossings are easy others are not - El Salvador was a shining example of both.
To get in from Honduras I crossed at a remote border point in the north east of the country. Usual thing, 5am bus and within a couple of hours got to the Honduran border point, got passport stamped and into El Salvador for a look at the guerrilla headquarters (the civil war is over now though, honest) and asked where we could get stamped into El Salvador. ´Not here!´ was the reply. Apparently the area around the border where I crossed is disputed so El Sal will not recognise anyone who crosses there. I was told I would have to go to the border with Hondras in the East of El Sal to get a stamp. Luckily it is a small country. It took several buses and several hours to get there, and, after queuing, I got stamped in without problem. But as soon as the border official stamped it she decided that the exit stamp from Honduras wasn´t an exit stamp at all but just a control stamp. After arguing the case unsuccessfully, I had to walk across the bridge back into Honduras, join another long scrum and try and get an exit stamp. The border officials there were confused as I didnt have the Tourist card I should have had as it had been taken from me at the original Honduran exit point. So after explaining it all and filling in more forms he was then happy. Except that he then noticed I had already been stamped into El Sal and so didnt require a Honduran exit stamp. Try explaining to a border official that you have been stamped into a country by mistake and you will get the feel of what followed - but he eventually stamped me out and, after walking back across the bridge (all the time carrying all my stuff), and joining yet another mob of people trying to form a line, the El Sal people let me in (again!). Only most of the day wasted. What a farce.
Exiting El Sal to Guatemala was slightly different. On both sides of the (inevitable) bridge are border officials from Both countries. There was no queue. I had to fill in a form, was stamped out in seconds and walked 5 metres to a Guatemalan official, who took even less time over stamping me in (even though I wasn´t ´in´ Guatemala yet). And that was it. The moral of this must run something like -If you ever go to El Salvador, only exit, never enter it!
Apart from that El Sal should be noted for:
- The island of Cashew nuts. Just in case you didnt know (and I didnt) they grow on trees with the fruit the same size and colour as a red sweet pepper except that it is upside down. Where the stem should be (underneath) is a cresent shaped pod which contains one single cashew nut. The fruit can be eaten straight away and is very juicy, although with the volume of even cottage industry production (which it is) there are far too many fruits for the few islanders to eat. The pod is very tough and has to be dried in the sun for 3 days before it is cracked open between a rock and a hard place, dug out (hopefully still whole), cleaned a bit and then baked. All that for one single cashew nut - now you know why they are so expensive.
- A new volcano which was flat land until 1770, but is now over 1000m high. Next to it there is a slightly taller volcano where a hotel was built in the 1950s so people could watch the volcano erupting from above! Unfortunately, the day before the hotel was finished, the volcano which had continuously erupted for nearly 200 years, stopped and has stayed stopped! A marvellous black cone is the result, and of course, a great view of it from the (closed) hotel.
- In El Sal (and only here) they have bottles of ´Salsa Ingles´ (English Sauce) which has in tiny writing on the bottle ´Worcestershire Sauce´. Marvellous!
- Coffee - large portions of South and Central America are famous for their coffee and I have tried it in various places, but ... the locals always serve it black, weak and with loads of sugar. Thats how they like it (and normally the sugar is already added).
- Worst though is the litter - it is everywhere including beauty spots - every few cms is a piece of litter, some foil sweet wrapper, a piece of blue plastic. It is really difficult to express just how bad it is. I could walk from one end of the country to the other without ever touching the ground! At first it is dissapointing in what is otherwise a beautiful country; after a few days it became depressing. And no-one here could care one bit - I guess it is too far gone for that - and they really do have other priorities.
- Best is the people - really friendly.
Enough of little El Sal - Guatemala is much more interesting ....
- Transport is so cheap here - US$1 for several hours of travel usually. It is really uncomfortable (old US school buses - just like on the Simpsons), they are crammed worse than any I have been on ever, you have to get up in the dark to catch them and the roads aren´t always the best, but some of the scenery is pretty impressive (if you can see out of the window).
- I think I mentioned last time that the smaller and more insignificant the town you are in, the earlier the only bus of the day leaves. One evening I arrived in a remote mountain village, with one very basic hotel, and realising that I would have to stay the night, checked out the bus times the next day. There was only one bus east I was told and that left at 3am - but was advised to be there at least half an hour beforehand as it got really full !!! This must be the earliest a bus can leave - as if it were any earlier it would be a really late bus! Luckily, by good planning and ... er ... luck, I was heading west and had a choice of two buses. I chose the 5.30am bus. The other one was at 4am.
If you do ever get to catch the bus there are some great places to see though -
- Tikal - a Mayan site now resting in the jungle. It contains several pyramids (tallest 44m high) and many other buildings built between 200 BC and 700 AD. The civilisation collapsed around 900 AD although it is not known why.
- Semuc Champey - In the middle of nowhere a series of fantastic limestone pools containing turquoise water with a raging torrent swirling through a tunnel directly beneath. Great for swimming in (the pools that is). Nearby we went cave exploring with a guide and candles (which tend to go out when you get them wet - there is a design flaw there) and ended up climbing underground waterfalls (with the help of a rope), squeezing through gaps and jumping into (hopefully) deep pools -not quite what I had expected but great fun...
- Mountain towns where everyone wears traditional dress, almost like a uniform. The women always manage intricately woven and embroidered jackets with long wrap around skirts. In Todos Santos, the men also wear an unusual outfit - all the men were in vertically striped red and white trousers which made them look like either prisoners, or as if they had just got out of bed. In places like this you have little option but to eat where the locals do, so had weak hot chocolate and sweet sponge cake for breakfast - odd!
-Watching/feeling thousands of bats scream out of a cave just after sunset. I just stood there and trusted them to fly around me. They did.
- Lake Atilan -beautiful. Lake, volcanoes etc. Very nice but be careful on sunny afternoons ... and be prepared to run. Fast! (see Easter Extra post)
- Antigua - Fantastic colonial town full of ruined churches (ruined in 1773 earthquake and never restored), cobbled streets and colonial houses. And they go mad over Easter (Holy week to be precise) when there are almost endless religious parades walking round the streets, day and night. Even the tablecloths in the restaurant are purple for the duration. The locals prepare carpets made of coloured sawdust, flowers, fruits, vegetation etc depicting scenes from bible and animals. The procession contains thousands of participants all dressed similarly, copious amounts of smoke and usually a very large plinth with a religious image on it (Jesus or his mum are the favorites) carried by up to 80 people staggering under the weight. They all walk straight through the carpets, so destroying them. And then the locals start making another one for the next procession. The amount of effort put in is incredible!
However, they do NOT have chocolate easter eggs. So save me some!
Guatemala is the most interesting place in Cental America by some distance - not without problems though.
Unfortunately I have managed to get ill again! (3rd time this trip) which is a real pain, but have managed to scrape myself over the border to Belize and onto a small island about 200m wide, surrounded by part of the worlds second largest barrier reef. More about that next time ...
Only 3 weeks left of this trip now, so will be trying to cram in a bit of Mexico before flying out of Mexico City and getting home on 10 May.
Luv Pete
Saturday 10 April 2004
Where 25 and a Half ! --OR-- Running for MY Life!!
HI Peeps,
I guess that it had to happen sometime. But when I think back to a total of 2 years worth of dark alleys that I have trod, streets wandered during the early hours, dodgy cities stayed in and dubious situations faced, I still cannot believe that it happened like this.
It had just passed 3 o´clock in the afternoon, a bright sunny afternoon at one of Guatemalas top beauty spots, Lake Atilan. I taken a boat across the lake at 9am and had been walking back round the lake ever since. It is a volcanic crater filled with beautiful blue water up to a depth of 350 metres, surrounded by steep cliffs and dominated by several volcanoes. There were plenty of people about, mainly villagers from the clusters of houses around the lake. I had finished the most interesting part of the walk along the steep sides and through the small vegetable patches the locals farm when I made it to the main road, the only one that leads way from the lake, and which skirts one end of it. The road, which led all the way back to San Pedro,the town where I was staying, was a proper road i.e. tarmaced and with pickups and lorries along it every few minutes. I had decided to get a ride on a pickup back to San Pedro but after walking along it for 15 mins all the traffic seemed to be going the other way.
I reached a straight part of the road. It was quiet. I passed two guys up a tree, cutting branches for cooking on (and occasionally heating if the weather demanded it). Piles of logs outside the wooded houses are a feature here, reminiscent of European alpine homes, although the level of neatness is significantly different. I walked on about 50 metres before I heard something behind me, I glanced round and saw the two guys from the tree running after me.
Here comes trouble! I thought, no doubt they want to try and sell me something or ask me for money. When I turned properly one of them was only a few metres away and approaching rapidly. He was screaming something. I couldn´t make it out entirly, but caught the work dinero (money) and saw that he held his machette (everyone here carries them) in a very aggressive position high above his head. The other guy was a further 5 metres behind but held his machette with similar intensity. I looked at the nearest guys face and was shocked at the wrath and anger dispayed on it. From this I gathered fairly quickly what they wanted.
But I thought ´You´ve got to be kidding, there is no way that you can be trying to rob me here, in broad daylight, on a nice sunny afternoon, on a main road, with so many people nearby. What do you really want?´
I stopped and they both ran around in front of me blocking my way forward. One stood about 4 metres away - I guessed he was only about 14-15 years old. The other was just two metres away and was a couple of years older, both with machettes poised in attack mode. He screamed out again, and I froze momentarily. I knew I only had about Q70 (Pounds 5) with me which I was (reluctantly) willing to hand over although I wasn´t really keen to give them the things in my daysack.
But that momentary pause for thought was too long for them. Too late I registered he had a metal chain in his left hand. I didn´t see much of a swing as my attention was focused on his machette, but I saw something coming and twisted sufficiently for it to crack diagonally across my back. It hurt like hell, but now I had turned and was facing the open road back the way I had come. I wasn´t gonna stand there and be hit, and I didn´t need many microseconds to be in full flight. For some reason I thought I would be faster than them - I had no doubt about that even in sandals and with a daysac - although what I based that on I´m not entirely sure. I'm no slouch over a few metres, but they were a lot younger and could have been real fast. But there was no way they were gonna catch me. I was gone.
Fifty metres down the road I glanced back, pleased to see that they were not swishing at my back, but were rapidly leaving the scene in another direction. I kept running for another minute in case they tried to cut through the trees and head me off. Then I met a pickup coming the other way and scrambled on board. If only it had come a couple of minutes earlier. If only! That pickup was the best Q1.5 (10p)I have ever spent.
I´ve always said that it is more important to be luckily than to be careful. I´m normally pretty careful. Now I know that it also helps to be fairly fast!
More soon.
Pete
I guess that it had to happen sometime. But when I think back to a total of 2 years worth of dark alleys that I have trod, streets wandered during the early hours, dodgy cities stayed in and dubious situations faced, I still cannot believe that it happened like this.
It had just passed 3 o´clock in the afternoon, a bright sunny afternoon at one of Guatemalas top beauty spots, Lake Atilan. I taken a boat across the lake at 9am and had been walking back round the lake ever since. It is a volcanic crater filled with beautiful blue water up to a depth of 350 metres, surrounded by steep cliffs and dominated by several volcanoes. There were plenty of people about, mainly villagers from the clusters of houses around the lake. I had finished the most interesting part of the walk along the steep sides and through the small vegetable patches the locals farm when I made it to the main road, the only one that leads way from the lake, and which skirts one end of it. The road, which led all the way back to San Pedro,the town where I was staying, was a proper road i.e. tarmaced and with pickups and lorries along it every few minutes. I had decided to get a ride on a pickup back to San Pedro but after walking along it for 15 mins all the traffic seemed to be going the other way.
I reached a straight part of the road. It was quiet. I passed two guys up a tree, cutting branches for cooking on (and occasionally heating if the weather demanded it). Piles of logs outside the wooded houses are a feature here, reminiscent of European alpine homes, although the level of neatness is significantly different. I walked on about 50 metres before I heard something behind me, I glanced round and saw the two guys from the tree running after me.
Here comes trouble! I thought, no doubt they want to try and sell me something or ask me for money. When I turned properly one of them was only a few metres away and approaching rapidly. He was screaming something. I couldn´t make it out entirly, but caught the work dinero (money) and saw that he held his machette (everyone here carries them) in a very aggressive position high above his head. The other guy was a further 5 metres behind but held his machette with similar intensity. I looked at the nearest guys face and was shocked at the wrath and anger dispayed on it. From this I gathered fairly quickly what they wanted.
But I thought ´You´ve got to be kidding, there is no way that you can be trying to rob me here, in broad daylight, on a nice sunny afternoon, on a main road, with so many people nearby. What do you really want?´
I stopped and they both ran around in front of me blocking my way forward. One stood about 4 metres away - I guessed he was only about 14-15 years old. The other was just two metres away and was a couple of years older, both with machettes poised in attack mode. He screamed out again, and I froze momentarily. I knew I only had about Q70 (Pounds 5) with me which I was (reluctantly) willing to hand over although I wasn´t really keen to give them the things in my daysack.
But that momentary pause for thought was too long for them. Too late I registered he had a metal chain in his left hand. I didn´t see much of a swing as my attention was focused on his machette, but I saw something coming and twisted sufficiently for it to crack diagonally across my back. It hurt like hell, but now I had turned and was facing the open road back the way I had come. I wasn´t gonna stand there and be hit, and I didn´t need many microseconds to be in full flight. For some reason I thought I would be faster than them - I had no doubt about that even in sandals and with a daysac - although what I based that on I´m not entirely sure. I'm no slouch over a few metres, but they were a lot younger and could have been real fast. But there was no way they were gonna catch me. I was gone.
Fifty metres down the road I glanced back, pleased to see that they were not swishing at my back, but were rapidly leaving the scene in another direction. I kept running for another minute in case they tried to cut through the trees and head me off. Then I met a pickup coming the other way and scrambled on board. If only it had come a couple of minutes earlier. If only! That pickup was the best Q1.5 (10p)I have ever spent.
I´ve always said that it is more important to be luckily than to be careful. I´m normally pretty careful. Now I know that it also helps to be fairly fast!
More soon.
Pete
Monday 22 March 2004
Where 25 Suchitoto, El Salvador --OR-- The Truth about Central America
Several countries have flown past since last time and I am now in a small colonial town in El Salvador in thge midst of the countries elections. The voting was today and the result is expected in about an hours time. It is expected to be really close between the far right and the far left - this town is far left so I´m expecting a party if they win - if not I´ll keep my head down. Fireworks are already going off everywhere in anticipation ....
Since surfing(?) in San Juan, Nicaragua (it was hard work as the wind was really strong and the waves irreguar, but I managed to catch a few - and took a few tumbles) I went north via a couple of other Nicaraguan towns into Honduras where I went out to a carribbean island Utila for a week and then to the Mayan site of Copan, before winding my way along terrible roads and crossing into El Salvador.
It occurred to me that there are loads of things that I have become so used to in Central America that I dont write about - so just for entertainment(?) here are a few of them:
- appalling roads and uncomfortable buses together forming a journey which can be meaured on the richter scale.
- rice and beans for nearly every meal- power and water cuts (always just when you need them!)
- poverty
- wooden and tin shacks (houses) that your old garden shed would put to shame
- rubbish - its everywhere and the whole population of central america is on a personal quest to make more!
- hanging washing on barbed wire (there is no other type of wire here, but at least the barbs stop it blowing away)
- school children in shirts that are brilliant white (no on else wears white) despite the grime and poverty just how do they get their whites that white without washing machines? Maybe elbow grease is best after all.
- Gangs of large vultures (dont known what the correct collective noun is perhaps someone can let me know) gathering in trees waiting to pounce on roadkill.
- strings of volcanos
- packed local buses (there is no other sort) with chickens carried in individual plastic bags (live ones that is ).
- cold showers - I went without hot water for over a month - and haven´t had a bath since before Xmas....
- going to a different country just to see if the wet cold stuff they call beer is any better in the next country - it never is!
- Hawkers everywhere on the streets on the buses in the restaurants
- not being able to find the comma key on these strange keyboards!
- Carts pulled by Oxen and occasionally horses.
- Seeing men wearing real cowboy hats and trying not to laugh.
- Being woken at 4am by cockerels, parrots, howler monkeys, buses etc who think it is time to get up (it doesnt get light til gone 5.30am).
- Getting to remote villages and finding that the only bus of the day in the direction I want to go in goes before it gets light - typically the more remote the village the earlier the bus leaves.
- Communal bathrooms in hostels with a familiar combination of damp smells: shit and mint toothpaste!
More specifically ..........
Nicaragua
Bad bits- I hate the supermarkets give me small change which no where else (other than supermarkets) accepts (the coins are not worth that much) so I end up carrying a pocketfull of change which is worthless.
- Cloud Forests - Despite my earlier bad experiences I managed to convince myself to visit another one. When will I learn that the only thing I will see in a cloud forest are clouds and forest. And of course it is always raining, just to make sure the enticing list of animals listed in my book, dont make an appearance!
- Local people standing by big holes in the road leaning on spades and the like trying to collect money from passing cars for repairing the road. It all seems a bit community spirted until I realised that all the locals do is try and collect money from passing cars and they never actually do any repairs. Lets face it, if they did they would have no hole to stand next to and try and collect money - the cars would just whizz past!
Honduras Good stuff- Diving on Utila, supposedly the cheapest place in the world to dive - 10 dives for $125 (approx GBP 70) still maintaining decent safety standards. There is some good coral as well both soft and hard and a lot of fish. Apart from two beautiful Hawksbill turtles the best thing I saw was a Frogfish which is technically a fish but which sits on a rock (deep underwater) and has evolved its fins to grip the rock. It just looked like a bright yellow blob!
- Copan - a city with about 15,000 people which was occupied between 1,000BC to 1,000 AD. The best architecture and sculpture come from the period of the ruler King 18 Rabbit (yes that really was his name) who ruled from 9 July 695 to 3 May 738 AD. The people were very advanced and organised and wrote down their history in hieroglyphics which is how we know so much about them (like dates and kings etc). The area was abandoned when the population became too large for the agriculture to support (a lesson for us there somewhere). This is the first Mayan site I have seen but there will be loads more, but whilst this was small by Mayan city standards it does have the highest standard of architectural evolution and carving found at any Mayan site.
Bad News- Having to get up when the little hand was nearest the 4 to get the only bus of the day (which turned out NOT to be an old US school bus (yes like in the Simpsons), but a cramped mini van I can only describe as being between scrapyards), to suffer 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road through beautifal mountain scenery. I´m not saying there wasn´t much legroom cos I dont want to complain too much but I should mention that the previous occupant of that very seat, a small woodlouse (called woody) who had suffered an unfortunate accident and had had all his legs amputated above the knee, was moved to write a letter of complaint to the bus company on this very subject. You get the picture.
- Even will all this ínteresting´bus travel I seemed to get stuck in a series of villages which were a bit colonial, a bit dirty and a bit boring.
El Salvador
Happy Stuff- Food - just to go somewhere where the staple is not rice is a joy. Here it is thick dry tortillas instead (a bit like pitta bread). Often you can get these filled with cheese, bean paste and occasionally fried pòrk fat (very tasty). Fried yucca makes a great snack ( a cross between fried potatoes and fried parsnips and looks very much like the latter).For breakfast they normally serve an odd combination of Refried beans, sour cream, bread, white cheese, scrambles egg and half an avocado.
- The people. Just really friendly and ever so helpful. Just ask any passer by for directions and even if it is out of their way they will virtually escort you there themselves. Of course this is probably linked to their not being many travellers here. Perhaps because of ...
Sad Stuff- The rubbish. Its incessant. Everywhere. And none of the nice people care a bit that they are destroying what is an otherwise beautiful country. They are mad or uneducated. Either way they all chuck rubbish on the ground or out of the bus window at the first opportunity - cos then it ceases to exist (or some rational like that). It makes my attempts at taking my rubbish with me and finding a bin seem completely futile. This is not a rich country but it is by no means the poorest - they have no excuse!
- As a result the sides of the road are approaching at least the international standard required for ´water resistance´. If it carries on for the same way the ropadsides can be expected to reach full ´waterproofing´ by 2010!
The fireworks (big bang, no sparks) anticipating the result are now in full swing and Im about to be thrown out of here. Heading to Guatemala next for a few weeks then Belize and Mexico...
Bye for now
Pete
Since surfing(?) in San Juan, Nicaragua (it was hard work as the wind was really strong and the waves irreguar, but I managed to catch a few - and took a few tumbles) I went north via a couple of other Nicaraguan towns into Honduras where I went out to a carribbean island Utila for a week and then to the Mayan site of Copan, before winding my way along terrible roads and crossing into El Salvador.
It occurred to me that there are loads of things that I have become so used to in Central America that I dont write about - so just for entertainment(?) here are a few of them:
- appalling roads and uncomfortable buses together forming a journey which can be meaured on the richter scale.
- rice and beans for nearly every meal- power and water cuts (always just when you need them!)
- poverty
- wooden and tin shacks (houses) that your old garden shed would put to shame
- rubbish - its everywhere and the whole population of central america is on a personal quest to make more!
- hanging washing on barbed wire (there is no other type of wire here, but at least the barbs stop it blowing away)
- school children in shirts that are brilliant white (no on else wears white) despite the grime and poverty just how do they get their whites that white without washing machines? Maybe elbow grease is best after all.
- Gangs of large vultures (dont known what the correct collective noun is perhaps someone can let me know) gathering in trees waiting to pounce on roadkill.
- strings of volcanos
- packed local buses (there is no other sort) with chickens carried in individual plastic bags (live ones that is ).
- cold showers - I went without hot water for over a month - and haven´t had a bath since before Xmas....
- going to a different country just to see if the wet cold stuff they call beer is any better in the next country - it never is!
- Hawkers everywhere on the streets on the buses in the restaurants
- not being able to find the comma key on these strange keyboards!
- Carts pulled by Oxen and occasionally horses.
- Seeing men wearing real cowboy hats and trying not to laugh.
- Being woken at 4am by cockerels, parrots, howler monkeys, buses etc who think it is time to get up (it doesnt get light til gone 5.30am).
- Getting to remote villages and finding that the only bus of the day in the direction I want to go in goes before it gets light - typically the more remote the village the earlier the bus leaves.
- Communal bathrooms in hostels with a familiar combination of damp smells: shit and mint toothpaste!
More specifically ..........
Nicaragua
Bad bits- I hate the supermarkets give me small change which no where else (other than supermarkets) accepts (the coins are not worth that much) so I end up carrying a pocketfull of change which is worthless.
- Cloud Forests - Despite my earlier bad experiences I managed to convince myself to visit another one. When will I learn that the only thing I will see in a cloud forest are clouds and forest. And of course it is always raining, just to make sure the enticing list of animals listed in my book, dont make an appearance!
- Local people standing by big holes in the road leaning on spades and the like trying to collect money from passing cars for repairing the road. It all seems a bit community spirted until I realised that all the locals do is try and collect money from passing cars and they never actually do any repairs. Lets face it, if they did they would have no hole to stand next to and try and collect money - the cars would just whizz past!
Honduras Good stuff- Diving on Utila, supposedly the cheapest place in the world to dive - 10 dives for $125 (approx GBP 70) still maintaining decent safety standards. There is some good coral as well both soft and hard and a lot of fish. Apart from two beautiful Hawksbill turtles the best thing I saw was a Frogfish which is technically a fish but which sits on a rock (deep underwater) and has evolved its fins to grip the rock. It just looked like a bright yellow blob!
- Copan - a city with about 15,000 people which was occupied between 1,000BC to 1,000 AD. The best architecture and sculpture come from the period of the ruler King 18 Rabbit (yes that really was his name) who ruled from 9 July 695 to 3 May 738 AD. The people were very advanced and organised and wrote down their history in hieroglyphics which is how we know so much about them (like dates and kings etc). The area was abandoned when the population became too large for the agriculture to support (a lesson for us there somewhere). This is the first Mayan site I have seen but there will be loads more, but whilst this was small by Mayan city standards it does have the highest standard of architectural evolution and carving found at any Mayan site.
Bad News- Having to get up when the little hand was nearest the 4 to get the only bus of the day (which turned out NOT to be an old US school bus (yes like in the Simpsons), but a cramped mini van I can only describe as being between scrapyards), to suffer 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road through beautifal mountain scenery. I´m not saying there wasn´t much legroom cos I dont want to complain too much but I should mention that the previous occupant of that very seat, a small woodlouse (called woody) who had suffered an unfortunate accident and had had all his legs amputated above the knee, was moved to write a letter of complaint to the bus company on this very subject. You get the picture.
- Even will all this ínteresting´bus travel I seemed to get stuck in a series of villages which were a bit colonial, a bit dirty and a bit boring.
El Salvador
Happy Stuff- Food - just to go somewhere where the staple is not rice is a joy. Here it is thick dry tortillas instead (a bit like pitta bread). Often you can get these filled with cheese, bean paste and occasionally fried pòrk fat (very tasty). Fried yucca makes a great snack ( a cross between fried potatoes and fried parsnips and looks very much like the latter).For breakfast they normally serve an odd combination of Refried beans, sour cream, bread, white cheese, scrambles egg and half an avocado.
- The people. Just really friendly and ever so helpful. Just ask any passer by for directions and even if it is out of their way they will virtually escort you there themselves. Of course this is probably linked to their not being many travellers here. Perhaps because of ...
Sad Stuff- The rubbish. Its incessant. Everywhere. And none of the nice people care a bit that they are destroying what is an otherwise beautiful country. They are mad or uneducated. Either way they all chuck rubbish on the ground or out of the bus window at the first opportunity - cos then it ceases to exist (or some rational like that). It makes my attempts at taking my rubbish with me and finding a bin seem completely futile. This is not a rich country but it is by no means the poorest - they have no excuse!
- As a result the sides of the road are approaching at least the international standard required for ´water resistance´. If it carries on for the same way the ropadsides can be expected to reach full ´waterproofing´ by 2010!
The fireworks (big bang, no sparks) anticipating the result are now in full swing and Im about to be thrown out of here. Heading to Guatemala next for a few weeks then Belize and Mexico...
Bye for now
Pete
Thursday 26 February 2004
Where 24 San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua --OR-- Flies by the Billion!
Hi Guys
After the last mail I was told that using phrases like ´too hot´ is not allowed given the present climate in the northern hemisphere, so from now on I will simply refer to the soaring ambient temperature as warm.
Since last time I have managed to escape a nearby outbreak of yellow fever and a hoard of mossies that left me with over 100 bites on one foot alone, and caught a plane to Panama. Then northeast to Coata Rica and now into Nicaragua. Nearly all of the time I have been travelling on old US school buses, some of them still painted yellow with the appropriate notices inside e.g. ´Behave as you would in the classroom.´
Panama
Best bites
- The Panama Canal - an engineering wonder when it was completed in 1914 with 3 huge locks at each end and a big lake it the middle. The whole thing is 80km long with each lock 33m wide and 305m long. Each ship going through it releases 52 million gallons of water in to the sea. I managed to get close to it on a viewing platform and it is impressive with 8 railway engines, with ropes attached to the ship, being used to guide each ship throuh the lock (to stop it hitting the sides).
- Bocas del Toro - Paradise - I knew it was because everyone said it was. These are a group of islands on the Carribean Coast. Incredible beautiful beaches deviod of people and rubbish. Some are too rough to swim off but others are protected by a reef, making them very calm. Needless to say the water is warm and crystal clear. Lazing in a hammock over the water at my accommodationis blissful, and looking through the floorboards of the room and seeing the sea is something else.
Worst bites
- My Camera breaking. It just stopped in Panama City and as it was at the end of a role of film I couldn´t get it out without ruining the film and so lost a whole roll of pictures. So as I was leaving that day I had to rush around and find another one for not too much money ... at least i got one, lets hope it is working.
- Wandering just a couple of blocks from the tourist areas in Panama City to be warned by the local not to carry on as it was dangerous - and this in broad daylight! We turned to walk back the way we came and they warmed us not to go that way either!
- In the little hostel over the water we never did figure out how the sewage worked ... but well we were right on top of the water. But the beaches were on the other side of the island, a 15 min walk away.
Costa Rica
Highlights
- Beautiful Cloud Forest in Monteverde. Many people go to Costa Rica just for the (feathered) birds and especially the Quetzal (bird of Paradise). Unfortunately, as this was a cloud forest it contains trees and clouds and so is wet and virtually impossible to see anything let along a small bird high up on a tree! And the winds in some places are so strong (wind 50mph, gusts up to 90 mph) that the forest is stunted and is called a dwarf forest.
- Humming Birds - Incredible to watch and feel them whizz around you like they are in a speeded up film. Speed, elegance and constant terratorial battles. Talking of film, I wasted tons of shots trying to get a decent picture of them in mid air, and most of them are probably just of thin air!
- Bathing in hot rivers warmed by Volcano Arenal. The river is diverted to form waterfall you can sit under and pools to laze in. Sitting under the waterfalls is like having a massage ...
Low lights
- Loads of tourists. Often on 2 week breaks, all with loads of money and so driving up the prices. The word ´tour´ in the title means US$25 added to the price for starters.
- The roads, some are OK and some are... bad. I took a bus for 26 miles (42km) and it took 2.5 hours to get there, without any abnormal stops. This is the only place I have been where the quality of the roads is measured on the Beaufort scale.
- The only really cheap thing here is bananas (since they grow them across most of the country), you can get about 75 of them for one British Pound. Now just imaginewhat that does to your diet! No best not.
Nicaragua
Choice Cuts
- Laguna de Apoyo. A wonderful old volcanic crater about half ful with a lake 7km across. Beautiful place to chill, I even got up to watch the sun rise over the crater rim - superb.
- In the huge Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America) rise two volcanos close enough that their lavas joined to form an island, Ometepe. The highest of these at 1,620m (the lake is about 50m above sea level) and is a perfect volcanic cone with a very small crater, about 150m wide, at the top. Despite having had enough of trekking, it is a month since my last trek so it seemed like a reasonable idea to climb it. It was some climb - only 1 day but starting at 5.30am, 3 of us plus a guide climbed an increasingly steep slope made of rocks, mud and covered with vegetation - the path was the most tricky I have climbed. Near the top the only vegatation is huge ruhbarb-like plants covered in spikes, many of them slimy cos they were rotting, which looked like they were from an old Dr Who set. As there was no grip on the loose shale we had to grab hold of them to pull ourselves up. At the top after over 5 hours there was complete cloud cover, but we waited and eventually it clearedto reveal we were a very long way up. Inside the crater there were deposits of yellow sulpher accompanied by a nasty smell, and all the rocks surrounding the rim were really hot. Coming down was tougher than going up as it was almost impossible to stop yourself slipping. Round trip 10.5 hours - well worth the effort, but would I do it again? Not a chance!
Dog Ends
- Crossing the border from Costa Rica by a remote crossing I entered Nicaragua at San Carlos at the south east of Lake Nicaragua. It is bloody awful, dont ever go there. Firstly the place is smelly, the wooded shacks that pass as houses and hotels are falling apart, a complete dump. When both the bank and the petrol station are not at least clean then you know you are in the wrong place. Some people just hang around on the streets, but they are the really motivated ones. But worse was to come - once it got dark my room started filling up with bugs, coming in through the gaps in the cardboard walls, so I went outside to get away from them. Mistake! Wall to wall flies, crawling all over me, constantly flying into me, trying to get up my nose (mouth was firmly shut as they dont taste great). There was no one else on the streets despite the fact that it was only 7pm. Managed to make it the 100m to a restaurant which was relatively fly free. Asked the managewr there whether or was always like this and he said ´No. Only during the dry season and occasionally during the wet season!´
A couple of hours later I left the restaurant and was slightly relieved to see that there were a few less flies and other people were wandering about. When I got back to my room I found out why. Thousands of flies had died in my room and everything was covered in them - disgusting! I was so glad I had been carrying my mossie net around (for 3 months without using it). The next morning most of the rest of the flies had died and was stuff was covered once again. Out on the balcony, in the corner by my room, it was 2cm deep in dead flies from one night - sweeping up the dead flies is a daily task. I didn´t stay a second night!
- Also in San Carlos, young children and dogs were scrabbling on the floor for my leftover scraps. The larger beast usually won, but sadly that wasn´t always the children. After I finished the children asked if they could have the chickens neck which I had left - they devoured it in seconds.
And that is about what I have been up to. Next I am trying to do some surfing (on the sea) before heading up to Hondras for some diving.
Luv
Pete
After the last mail I was told that using phrases like ´too hot´ is not allowed given the present climate in the northern hemisphere, so from now on I will simply refer to the soaring ambient temperature as warm.
Since last time I have managed to escape a nearby outbreak of yellow fever and a hoard of mossies that left me with over 100 bites on one foot alone, and caught a plane to Panama. Then northeast to Coata Rica and now into Nicaragua. Nearly all of the time I have been travelling on old US school buses, some of them still painted yellow with the appropriate notices inside e.g. ´Behave as you would in the classroom.´
Panama
Best bites
- The Panama Canal - an engineering wonder when it was completed in 1914 with 3 huge locks at each end and a big lake it the middle. The whole thing is 80km long with each lock 33m wide and 305m long. Each ship going through it releases 52 million gallons of water in to the sea. I managed to get close to it on a viewing platform and it is impressive with 8 railway engines, with ropes attached to the ship, being used to guide each ship throuh the lock (to stop it hitting the sides).
- Bocas del Toro - Paradise - I knew it was because everyone said it was. These are a group of islands on the Carribean Coast. Incredible beautiful beaches deviod of people and rubbish. Some are too rough to swim off but others are protected by a reef, making them very calm. Needless to say the water is warm and crystal clear. Lazing in a hammock over the water at my accommodationis blissful, and looking through the floorboards of the room and seeing the sea is something else.
Worst bites
- My Camera breaking. It just stopped in Panama City and as it was at the end of a role of film I couldn´t get it out without ruining the film and so lost a whole roll of pictures. So as I was leaving that day I had to rush around and find another one for not too much money ... at least i got one, lets hope it is working.
- Wandering just a couple of blocks from the tourist areas in Panama City to be warned by the local not to carry on as it was dangerous - and this in broad daylight! We turned to walk back the way we came and they warmed us not to go that way either!
- In the little hostel over the water we never did figure out how the sewage worked ... but well we were right on top of the water. But the beaches were on the other side of the island, a 15 min walk away.
Costa Rica
Highlights
- Beautiful Cloud Forest in Monteverde. Many people go to Costa Rica just for the (feathered) birds and especially the Quetzal (bird of Paradise). Unfortunately, as this was a cloud forest it contains trees and clouds and so is wet and virtually impossible to see anything let along a small bird high up on a tree! And the winds in some places are so strong (wind 50mph, gusts up to 90 mph) that the forest is stunted and is called a dwarf forest.
- Humming Birds - Incredible to watch and feel them whizz around you like they are in a speeded up film. Speed, elegance and constant terratorial battles. Talking of film, I wasted tons of shots trying to get a decent picture of them in mid air, and most of them are probably just of thin air!
- Bathing in hot rivers warmed by Volcano Arenal. The river is diverted to form waterfall you can sit under and pools to laze in. Sitting under the waterfalls is like having a massage ...
Low lights
- Loads of tourists. Often on 2 week breaks, all with loads of money and so driving up the prices. The word ´tour´ in the title means US$25 added to the price for starters.
- The roads, some are OK and some are... bad. I took a bus for 26 miles (42km) and it took 2.5 hours to get there, without any abnormal stops. This is the only place I have been where the quality of the roads is measured on the Beaufort scale.
- The only really cheap thing here is bananas (since they grow them across most of the country), you can get about 75 of them for one British Pound. Now just imaginewhat that does to your diet! No best not.
Nicaragua
Choice Cuts
- Laguna de Apoyo. A wonderful old volcanic crater about half ful with a lake 7km across. Beautiful place to chill, I even got up to watch the sun rise over the crater rim - superb.
- In the huge Lake Nicaragua (largest lake in Central America) rise two volcanos close enough that their lavas joined to form an island, Ometepe. The highest of these at 1,620m (the lake is about 50m above sea level) and is a perfect volcanic cone with a very small crater, about 150m wide, at the top. Despite having had enough of trekking, it is a month since my last trek so it seemed like a reasonable idea to climb it. It was some climb - only 1 day but starting at 5.30am, 3 of us plus a guide climbed an increasingly steep slope made of rocks, mud and covered with vegetation - the path was the most tricky I have climbed. Near the top the only vegatation is huge ruhbarb-like plants covered in spikes, many of them slimy cos they were rotting, which looked like they were from an old Dr Who set. As there was no grip on the loose shale we had to grab hold of them to pull ourselves up. At the top after over 5 hours there was complete cloud cover, but we waited and eventually it clearedto reveal we were a very long way up. Inside the crater there were deposits of yellow sulpher accompanied by a nasty smell, and all the rocks surrounding the rim were really hot. Coming down was tougher than going up as it was almost impossible to stop yourself slipping. Round trip 10.5 hours - well worth the effort, but would I do it again? Not a chance!
Dog Ends
- Crossing the border from Costa Rica by a remote crossing I entered Nicaragua at San Carlos at the south east of Lake Nicaragua. It is bloody awful, dont ever go there. Firstly the place is smelly, the wooded shacks that pass as houses and hotels are falling apart, a complete dump. When both the bank and the petrol station are not at least clean then you know you are in the wrong place. Some people just hang around on the streets, but they are the really motivated ones. But worse was to come - once it got dark my room started filling up with bugs, coming in through the gaps in the cardboard walls, so I went outside to get away from them. Mistake! Wall to wall flies, crawling all over me, constantly flying into me, trying to get up my nose (mouth was firmly shut as they dont taste great). There was no one else on the streets despite the fact that it was only 7pm. Managed to make it the 100m to a restaurant which was relatively fly free. Asked the managewr there whether or was always like this and he said ´No. Only during the dry season and occasionally during the wet season!´
A couple of hours later I left the restaurant and was slightly relieved to see that there were a few less flies and other people were wandering about. When I got back to my room I found out why. Thousands of flies had died in my room and everything was covered in them - disgusting! I was so glad I had been carrying my mossie net around (for 3 months without using it). The next morning most of the rest of the flies had died and was stuff was covered once again. Out on the balcony, in the corner by my room, it was 2cm deep in dead flies from one night - sweeping up the dead flies is a daily task. I didn´t stay a second night!
- Also in San Carlos, young children and dogs were scrabbling on the floor for my leftover scraps. The larger beast usually won, but sadly that wasn´t always the children. After I finished the children asked if they could have the chickens neck which I had left - they devoured it in seconds.
And that is about what I have been up to. Next I am trying to do some surfing (on the sea) before heading up to Hondras for some diving.
Luv
Pete
Tuesday 27 January 2004
Where 23 - Cartagena, Colombia --OR-- How to Find the Lost City
HI there,
I´m sure that when I planned this 6-month trip i was supposed to have about 5 and a half months in Central America - now 2 and a half of the six have already gone and I am still in South America - so much for the maths. But at last, via a strange route, I have made it to the top of South America and the last port of call before heading across to Central America.
When I last wrote I had just arrived in Bogota where Sally came out to see me and we travelled together for 3 weeks through Colombia and Venezuela. We headed North East though a string of colonial towns where we spent Xmas and then into Venezuela to Merida, in the mountains for new year and then right across the country to the south east to see Angel Falls, then to Caracus (where Sally flew out) and along the coast, safely back into Colombia, to Santa Marta (to find the Lost City) and to Cartagena.
HIGH POINTS
- Bogota is full of interesting fruits, teas and powders. Some of them are very good if you have a cold, others make your nose run - and some of the tea was intesting too...
- Spent Xmas in a well preserved colononial village called Barichara in Colombia where on the wall of every single house was a crib - they do love their cribs - and every street was lined with lights, Xmas trees and (even though these people have never seen snow in their lives) snowmen - made of plastic cups! There were no other foreigners in the place, which was great, and entertainment was laid on for the locals who danced all night in the plaza, to salsa and the band who didn´t come on stage until 4am Xmas morning - and hardly anyone was drunk ! Not like England at all.
- In this village stayed in a nice small hotel but when I asked for the key to the room I was told - ´no key - its very tranquil here´... and this is Colombia. I have never been anywhere where I have had my own room but no key! Is this now the safest place on the planet? I was a bit dubious but she was right, and no, nothing was lost or disappeared.
- And the xmas beers were only 25 pence each. Not real English beer, fizzy stuff, but ice cold.
- Angel Falls (Venezuela) - The highest waterfall in the world, almost 1,000 metres of sheer drop awaits the water that comes off a flat topped mountain - only ´discovered´ in 1935 as it is so far away from ... anywhere. The water seems to turn to mist a third of the way down as it loses motivation to get to the bottom, and it almost stops. We managed to time it all the way down though and it takes about a minute (about 60kmh or 37mph) which isn´t bad going. It is huge but difficult to get into perspective when viewed from the bottom. Although it looks like hardly any water is falling, when it reconstitutes itself into a river at the bottom, it is a raging torrent!
- And now I´m on the north (Carribean) coast in the blazing heat (even though it is their winter). I´m trying to keep out of the sun as much as possible whilst all the locals are happy walking around in full length jeans - maybe they think it is cold!
The Treks
I´m not entirely sure why I/we decided to do these treks but I guess they seem like a good idea at the time.
Pico Humboldt
- In Merida we decided to do a 4 day trek/climb up the countrys 2nd highest peak, Pico Humboldt at almost 5,000m. The first day was a real slog uphill through a rainforest carrying over 20kg of equipment including crampons and ice axe. We passed a few day hikers in the rainforest - maybe we made them feel small with all the stuff we were carrying (as they jogged past us!) or maybe they just thought we were stupid, but then carrying an ice axe in a jungle is about equivalent of wearing scuba gear including tanks and fins/flippers whilst walking down Oxford Street doing xmas shopping.
- After starting at midday we only made it to the campsite, totally exhausted, 10 mins before it got dark. All of my muscles were screaming so loud that I couldn´t hear a thing.
- Overnight I left my waterbottle outside the tent and it froze (at about 3,000m).
- The 2nd day was over tricky rocks and took 8 hours, but them we had to get to bed early for day 3.
- New Years eve - Up at 3am and left at 4am trekking in the dark. By 9am we had reached the bottom of the 45 degree glacier that we had to climb - 5 mins later my calves were being pulled apart by the crampons - unfortunately there was an hour of ice climbing before a further half hour over rocks before we made it to the summit. And what a view. What an experience. There is no way I´m ever doing that again!
- I made it back to the tent totally exhausted and crawled into it at 4pm on New Years Eve and didnt come out again that night. Not much of a party then!
- Unfortunately we still had to come all the way down which took all of day 4. Sheer madness - those day trekkers were right!
Lost City (Cuidad Perdida), Colombia - Built during 700 - 1400AD by Tyrone indians as part of a trading network of towns over hundreds of kms - Population around 3,000. Discovered in 1975 by graverobbers (searching for the Indians gold).
- This trek has diminished in popularity since the kidnappings there last September (but they have all been released now so it must be OK!) - and less people doing it means it is even more worth doing. So ...
- Six days trekking through dense jungle to the middle of nowhere. Its hot, by god it is hot - and about 100% humidity - your clothes are saturated with sweat within half an hour of starting walking each day. Fortunately there is only an average of 4 hours trekking a day - in the afternoon you get to cool off in the freezing rivers and try and dry your clothes for the next day (tricky cos unless it is sunny in the afternoon, nothing dries).
- After 3 days of walking uphill and wading through rivers (fortunately only carrying about 12kg this time), a flight of narrow moss covered stone steps emerges through the vegetation by the riverbank in the middle of dense jungle. 1,200 steps (all slippery as they are covered in moss) leading up to the Lost City which is of course built on top of a mountain...
- Since there were no buildings ( they were all wooden and have decayed) I wasn´t expecting much, but it was more spectacular than I had expected - the numerous path and stairways that connect the 170 terraces (each housing between 1 and 5 houses) were amazingly intricate, almost delicate, and many of them disappeared into dense undergrowth, impossible to follow without a machette.
- And on the fourth day I had the whole place (almost) to myself - apart from my guide and a couple of local indians. Fantastic - well worth the walk. And I didn´t get kidnapped - again!
Low Points
- One night in the jungle at the Lost City I got over 100 mossie bites on one foot - and that is depite mossie net, repelent and wearing socks. The other foot only got about 70 bites.
- Xmas and new year are the time for fireworks here - so if you want to get a good nights sleep during the couple of weeks around then , forget it. Some one will be up at 4am just to set one off. And they aren´t even pretty, just VERY LOUD!
- It is a bit odd enjoying Xmas festivities surrrounded by fully armed military. OK so they still look young enough to be wondering what they will be getting for Xmas, but in a small 'peaceful' town they do look kindda out of place.
- Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela - It ever you wanted to see an example of colonial decay then this is it. Build a string of huge colonial mansions, do no maintainance for 50 years, close most of it down, and let the rooms out to backpackers. It must have been a great place once - although not quite sure when that was...
- The Orrinocco (Flow) - So evocative of a magnificent river it makes you think of more than just the Womble and Enya. But naming such a dirty and disgusting river after a womble is just a sad joke! Oh and it flows through Ciudad Bolivar. And Enya can never have been to the Orrinocco, it just (sort of) rhymed with 'flow'
- Venezuela is a strange sort of country. Its main problem seems to be that it just doesn´t work very well - a good summary was provided by a bus I went on - the door latch had failed so the door wouldn´t stay shut, but instead of mending it they employed a third man (they are always 2 - one to drive and one to collect the fares) to close the door and tie it shut each time after someone got on or off.
- Lemon flavour crisps - yes really - And you just have to try them - once - sort of odd though. If you close your eyes and imagine that you are eating pastry and not potato, they sort of taste like Lemon Merangue Pie...
Oh and met a Brazilian who went into the Tesco Metro in Bristol, England, looking for the Underground - and she asked a few people before someone told her there wasn´t one - well you just gotta laugh!
(For non UK people Tesco Metro is the name of a supermarket and Bristol doesn´t have an underground.)
Now onto Panama - and its canal - I dont think it has a lot else...
I hope those of you in the Northern Hemisphere survive the cold spell - it should be over by ... May?
Best wishes
Pete
I´m sure that when I planned this 6-month trip i was supposed to have about 5 and a half months in Central America - now 2 and a half of the six have already gone and I am still in South America - so much for the maths. But at last, via a strange route, I have made it to the top of South America and the last port of call before heading across to Central America.
When I last wrote I had just arrived in Bogota where Sally came out to see me and we travelled together for 3 weeks through Colombia and Venezuela. We headed North East though a string of colonial towns where we spent Xmas and then into Venezuela to Merida, in the mountains for new year and then right across the country to the south east to see Angel Falls, then to Caracus (where Sally flew out) and along the coast, safely back into Colombia, to Santa Marta (to find the Lost City) and to Cartagena.
HIGH POINTS
- Bogota is full of interesting fruits, teas and powders. Some of them are very good if you have a cold, others make your nose run - and some of the tea was intesting too...
- Spent Xmas in a well preserved colononial village called Barichara in Colombia where on the wall of every single house was a crib - they do love their cribs - and every street was lined with lights, Xmas trees and (even though these people have never seen snow in their lives) snowmen - made of plastic cups! There were no other foreigners in the place, which was great, and entertainment was laid on for the locals who danced all night in the plaza, to salsa and the band who didn´t come on stage until 4am Xmas morning - and hardly anyone was drunk ! Not like England at all.
- In this village stayed in a nice small hotel but when I asked for the key to the room I was told - ´no key - its very tranquil here´... and this is Colombia. I have never been anywhere where I have had my own room but no key! Is this now the safest place on the planet? I was a bit dubious but she was right, and no, nothing was lost or disappeared.
- And the xmas beers were only 25 pence each. Not real English beer, fizzy stuff, but ice cold.
- Angel Falls (Venezuela) - The highest waterfall in the world, almost 1,000 metres of sheer drop awaits the water that comes off a flat topped mountain - only ´discovered´ in 1935 as it is so far away from ... anywhere. The water seems to turn to mist a third of the way down as it loses motivation to get to the bottom, and it almost stops. We managed to time it all the way down though and it takes about a minute (about 60kmh or 37mph) which isn´t bad going. It is huge but difficult to get into perspective when viewed from the bottom. Although it looks like hardly any water is falling, when it reconstitutes itself into a river at the bottom, it is a raging torrent!
- And now I´m on the north (Carribean) coast in the blazing heat (even though it is their winter). I´m trying to keep out of the sun as much as possible whilst all the locals are happy walking around in full length jeans - maybe they think it is cold!
The Treks
I´m not entirely sure why I/we decided to do these treks but I guess they seem like a good idea at the time.
Pico Humboldt
- In Merida we decided to do a 4 day trek/climb up the countrys 2nd highest peak, Pico Humboldt at almost 5,000m. The first day was a real slog uphill through a rainforest carrying over 20kg of equipment including crampons and ice axe. We passed a few day hikers in the rainforest - maybe we made them feel small with all the stuff we were carrying (as they jogged past us!) or maybe they just thought we were stupid, but then carrying an ice axe in a jungle is about equivalent of wearing scuba gear including tanks and fins/flippers whilst walking down Oxford Street doing xmas shopping.
- After starting at midday we only made it to the campsite, totally exhausted, 10 mins before it got dark. All of my muscles were screaming so loud that I couldn´t hear a thing.
- Overnight I left my waterbottle outside the tent and it froze (at about 3,000m).
- The 2nd day was over tricky rocks and took 8 hours, but them we had to get to bed early for day 3.
- New Years eve - Up at 3am and left at 4am trekking in the dark. By 9am we had reached the bottom of the 45 degree glacier that we had to climb - 5 mins later my calves were being pulled apart by the crampons - unfortunately there was an hour of ice climbing before a further half hour over rocks before we made it to the summit. And what a view. What an experience. There is no way I´m ever doing that again!
- I made it back to the tent totally exhausted and crawled into it at 4pm on New Years Eve and didnt come out again that night. Not much of a party then!
- Unfortunately we still had to come all the way down which took all of day 4. Sheer madness - those day trekkers were right!
Lost City (Cuidad Perdida), Colombia - Built during 700 - 1400AD by Tyrone indians as part of a trading network of towns over hundreds of kms - Population around 3,000. Discovered in 1975 by graverobbers (searching for the Indians gold).
- This trek has diminished in popularity since the kidnappings there last September (but they have all been released now so it must be OK!) - and less people doing it means it is even more worth doing. So ...
- Six days trekking through dense jungle to the middle of nowhere. Its hot, by god it is hot - and about 100% humidity - your clothes are saturated with sweat within half an hour of starting walking each day. Fortunately there is only an average of 4 hours trekking a day - in the afternoon you get to cool off in the freezing rivers and try and dry your clothes for the next day (tricky cos unless it is sunny in the afternoon, nothing dries).
- After 3 days of walking uphill and wading through rivers (fortunately only carrying about 12kg this time), a flight of narrow moss covered stone steps emerges through the vegetation by the riverbank in the middle of dense jungle. 1,200 steps (all slippery as they are covered in moss) leading up to the Lost City which is of course built on top of a mountain...
- Since there were no buildings ( they were all wooden and have decayed) I wasn´t expecting much, but it was more spectacular than I had expected - the numerous path and stairways that connect the 170 terraces (each housing between 1 and 5 houses) were amazingly intricate, almost delicate, and many of them disappeared into dense undergrowth, impossible to follow without a machette.
- And on the fourth day I had the whole place (almost) to myself - apart from my guide and a couple of local indians. Fantastic - well worth the walk. And I didn´t get kidnapped - again!
Low Points
- One night in the jungle at the Lost City I got over 100 mossie bites on one foot - and that is depite mossie net, repelent and wearing socks. The other foot only got about 70 bites.
- Xmas and new year are the time for fireworks here - so if you want to get a good nights sleep during the couple of weeks around then , forget it. Some one will be up at 4am just to set one off. And they aren´t even pretty, just VERY LOUD!
- It is a bit odd enjoying Xmas festivities surrrounded by fully armed military. OK so they still look young enough to be wondering what they will be getting for Xmas, but in a small 'peaceful' town they do look kindda out of place.
- Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela - It ever you wanted to see an example of colonial decay then this is it. Build a string of huge colonial mansions, do no maintainance for 50 years, close most of it down, and let the rooms out to backpackers. It must have been a great place once - although not quite sure when that was...
- The Orrinocco (Flow) - So evocative of a magnificent river it makes you think of more than just the Womble and Enya. But naming such a dirty and disgusting river after a womble is just a sad joke! Oh and it flows through Ciudad Bolivar. And Enya can never have been to the Orrinocco, it just (sort of) rhymed with 'flow'
- Venezuela is a strange sort of country. Its main problem seems to be that it just doesn´t work very well - a good summary was provided by a bus I went on - the door latch had failed so the door wouldn´t stay shut, but instead of mending it they employed a third man (they are always 2 - one to drive and one to collect the fares) to close the door and tie it shut each time after someone got on or off.
- Lemon flavour crisps - yes really - And you just have to try them - once - sort of odd though. If you close your eyes and imagine that you are eating pastry and not potato, they sort of taste like Lemon Merangue Pie...
Oh and met a Brazilian who went into the Tesco Metro in Bristol, England, looking for the Underground - and she asked a few people before someone told her there wasn´t one - well you just gotta laugh!
(For non UK people Tesco Metro is the name of a supermarket and Bristol doesn´t have an underground.)
Now onto Panama - and its canal - I dont think it has a lot else...
I hope those of you in the Northern Hemisphere survive the cold spell - it should be over by ... May?
Best wishes
Pete
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