Ah cherubs, il tempo passo as my dad will no doubt be saying very soon (if he isn’t already saying every day along with ah, il vento di odgi and other misspelt (by me) words of Italian wisdom) and indeed the time has passed and I have become overfond of the italic key but you know what? Patience. For I have recently cheated death and you should all be happy that I’ve got the laptop to tell the tale, never mind the fingers to do it with.
So let’s not get bogged down in details about Brazil and its impossibly hot and happy inhabitants. Let’s talk no more about the surliness of porteños in spring and the strange, grey light that fills BsAs as summer edges closer. Let us never mention argentine taxi drivers who, on seeing a fare shed a tear at the departure of a boyfriend, offer strange and potentially stalkerish services that inspire a whole new vocabulary of previously unknown Spanish from the fare in question. Let us, in particular, not dwell upon New York. There is nothing that can be said about New York that hasn’t been said by someone else. I refuse to be drawn further.
Let us instead think about the amazing adventure of Aruba and the fact that although I have no real love for the letter A (apart from how it pertains to A*) I have luckily found myself here instead of, oh, say, I don’t know…the Dominican Republic. Where 45 people died recently as a result of an unexpected hurricane. 45 people (at least) died in the city that I was planning on staying in.
So the situation was like this – I had a few days to get the hell out of the states. I had been planning on a red-leaf filled train ride up to see my kanuk friends but suddenly at the last minute the whole thing was thrown into doubt. And as I lounged against the till for my last ever shift as a waitress my friend wandered in and said “why not go somewhere warm? Fuck Canada!”
Indeed. Why the fuck not go somewhere warm? I have never been as cold, as hairy or as depressed as I was in New York from the end of November on. Nor did it help that every time I tottered out into the snow lined outdoors and gasped and coughed at the cold any local near me would turn around and mutter (through the three layers of wool and the scarf wrapped around their face) “its only going to get worse you know”. You know what I know? You can all get fucked, all you crazy northerners. It’s not normal to live like this. It isn’t. Don’t look at me like that; it is simply not natural to be this cold.
So visa time came and although part of me regretted not being able to book a ticket back to Oz another part of me was astounded at how far I could go for so cheap and how…warm I could be. Waking up on a hungover Sunday I asked my friend C where Aruba was. She didn’t know either but assured me it was somewhere warm. Wtf I thought, it has to be better than Montreal (although...can anywhere be better than Montreal? The jury is still out). After booking my ticket I discovered that Aruba was worse, even, than Fiji. There is nowhere “cheap” to stay in Aruba. It is a resort island from start to finish. It is never really not tourist season. The beach is ringed by enormous, castle-like high rise resort hotels to such an extent that taxi fares are divided up between “low rise hotels” and “high rise hotels” (high rise hotels are further away from the main shopping strip). It has its own currency but you can pay for everything in American dollars because so many Americans come here every week. Because it was technically a part of the Dutch colonies for years all the local speak English as well as Dutch, Spanish and the local patois which is a mix of Dutch, English, Spanish and Portuguese. The development of the island is such that no American tourist need ever be too far from a fast-food franchise, an enormous hotel chain or, failing the first two, a massive restaurant designed to make one feel as if one were right back in the suburbs one had just left. Aruba has everything.
It also has some of the most beautiful beaches (although…not as good as the ones near Cartagena) and the most amazing weather of anywhere I’ve been in a long long time. Today I tried to walk to the lighthouse (deeply unsuccessful. No one walks here. There are no footpaths, to begin with, and even if you can find a flat path to walk on everyone has to beep at you as they pass) and then I had a swim. In the afternoon. After 5pm, in fact, although it was still light (two things that it would be impossible to say in New York). I watched a swim school of little kids try to learn how to dive off some structure a couple of meters from the shore that I had already swum out to, lounged on and then swam back to shore from. I stared at the sky and thought about how warm I was and how beautiful everything was and vowed that I would never, ever, live in the north when I grew up.
Unfortunately airfares wait for no malingerer and so I must bid adieu to my friendly band of lizards and tree dwelling iguanas that greet me every morning when I sit outside my room drinking coffee. I must say goodbye to the roosters and chickens that occupy the same trees in the afternoons and cluck and squawk through the lazy daylight hours. I have to go back to the land of ice and snow but only for a few more weeks and then its back to my travelling ways.
Catch you in Italy, suckers
Monday, December 17, 2007
Monday, July 2, 2007
Jumbo
Since BFG has requested tales of my supermarket adventures and since I, your writer, clearly exist only to serve - check (no pun intended) this shit out for the next exciting non-travel installment of my adventures.
So Saturday found me walking through a beautiful afternoon with not much to fill it. Since I had no frisbee and, even if I had a frisbee, no friends functioning at this hour to throw it too, I decided to walk through the parks near my house and launch my second, full scale assault on Jumbo, the biggest freaking supermarket I have ever been into.
The first time I attempted Jumbo I was at a distinct disadvantage. I had only been awake a few hours. I was feeling delicate. I had grossly underestimated the size of my prey and I was also kind of starving. Jumbo loomed up at me out of the dark, like a sudden Northland which was built only to house a supermarket and a sort of backyard-furniture type store. The first time, I followed the crowds whilst wondering if perhaps I should be dropping stones on the floor, hansel and gretel style, so that I could find my way out. The supermarket, once I found it, was so enormous that initially I wasnt even sure it was a supermarket because the food was hidden behind fifty lanes containing stockings, beds, office chairs and mattresses. Taking a breath and walking in I was unable to even find a basket (I assumed this was because Jumbo patrons shopped on a similar scale to their surroundings) and so spent forty minutes roaming amongst the endless cheese aisles and "food of the world" (where "world" was understood to be primarily America and "food" understood to be either tea, jam or, in America´s overrepresented case, endless packets of taco seasoning and mexican salsas in a can. A can?) aisles, not being offered any food from any of the sundry tasting stands scattered through the aisles, and attempting to balance my meagre stash of instant noodles and fresh bread rolls together. Eventually I conceded defeat and fled through the checkout and back into a more human sized world.
This time though, this time would be different. Armed with knowledge gleaned from Miranda French´s excellent "Bad Times in Buenos Aires" I was on the look out for trolley filled with meat dripping blood on the supermarket floor. I was keeping my eyes peeled for outbreaks of bronca amongst the natives and for trolleys deserted midshop because their owners simply could not take it anymore.
Disappointingly I found that meat seems to be much better clingwrapped now than back in the mid-90s and the lack of dripping blood really did manage to keep the shopping mood on the up and up. I did find a few abandoned shopping trolleys though and snagged on so as to keep my disguise as a regular shopper together. I wandered the aisle luxuriating in the ability to pick packets up and then put them back again. I thought dreamily about Muriel´s mother from Muriel´s Wedding and was glad I was wearing better shoes. I prodded the meat in each of the three epic rows of freezers that it was kept in and wondered what "16%" gaseoses meant.
I fondled the cheese in the four different places it was kept, spending special time with the real, actual, rounds of camembert and brie that I found. And little roles of goats cheese! Chevre! The fetta was the same shitty cubes that they have everywhere else though, unfortunately.
Eventually I got tired of pushing my trolley, filled with a single bottle of canola oil that I had no intention of buying, around and ditched it near the checkout without a backwards glance. Pretending to be like some 21st century version of Barthes is awesome.
So Saturday found me walking through a beautiful afternoon with not much to fill it. Since I had no frisbee and, even if I had a frisbee, no friends functioning at this hour to throw it too, I decided to walk through the parks near my house and launch my second, full scale assault on Jumbo, the biggest freaking supermarket I have ever been into.
The first time I attempted Jumbo I was at a distinct disadvantage. I had only been awake a few hours. I was feeling delicate. I had grossly underestimated the size of my prey and I was also kind of starving. Jumbo loomed up at me out of the dark, like a sudden Northland which was built only to house a supermarket and a sort of backyard-furniture type store. The first time, I followed the crowds whilst wondering if perhaps I should be dropping stones on the floor, hansel and gretel style, so that I could find my way out. The supermarket, once I found it, was so enormous that initially I wasnt even sure it was a supermarket because the food was hidden behind fifty lanes containing stockings, beds, office chairs and mattresses. Taking a breath and walking in I was unable to even find a basket (I assumed this was because Jumbo patrons shopped on a similar scale to their surroundings) and so spent forty minutes roaming amongst the endless cheese aisles and "food of the world" (where "world" was understood to be primarily America and "food" understood to be either tea, jam or, in America´s overrepresented case, endless packets of taco seasoning and mexican salsas in a can. A can?) aisles, not being offered any food from any of the sundry tasting stands scattered through the aisles, and attempting to balance my meagre stash of instant noodles and fresh bread rolls together. Eventually I conceded defeat and fled through the checkout and back into a more human sized world.
This time though, this time would be different. Armed with knowledge gleaned from Miranda French´s excellent "Bad Times in Buenos Aires" I was on the look out for trolley filled with meat dripping blood on the supermarket floor. I was keeping my eyes peeled for outbreaks of bronca amongst the natives and for trolleys deserted midshop because their owners simply could not take it anymore.
Disappointingly I found that meat seems to be much better clingwrapped now than back in the mid-90s and the lack of dripping blood really did manage to keep the shopping mood on the up and up. I did find a few abandoned shopping trolleys though and snagged on so as to keep my disguise as a regular shopper together. I wandered the aisle luxuriating in the ability to pick packets up and then put them back again. I thought dreamily about Muriel´s mother from Muriel´s Wedding and was glad I was wearing better shoes. I prodded the meat in each of the three epic rows of freezers that it was kept in and wondered what "16%" gaseoses meant.
I fondled the cheese in the four different places it was kept, spending special time with the real, actual, rounds of camembert and brie that I found. And little roles of goats cheese! Chevre! The fetta was the same shitty cubes that they have everywhere else though, unfortunately.
Eventually I got tired of pushing my trolley, filled with a single bottle of canola oil that I had no intention of buying, around and ditched it near the checkout without a backwards glance. Pretending to be like some 21st century version of Barthes is awesome.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Argentine Dilemma
I have been in Argentina, and specifically Bs.As. (I still can't reliably spell the name of this town. ¡Puta!) for quite awhile but only recently have I noticed the change this stay has wrought in me.
Before I left Australia I would find myself on the outside of many a laydeeez circle where everyone else would talk about how much they loooved sweet things and how none of them could ever say no to chocolate and I would find myself examining my shoes and wondering if I had accidentally smuggled an Y choromsome in on them because I felt nothing for sweet things and could say "no" to chocolate on a pretty regular basis.
But that was then.
Now, after just over a month in this bitcharse cold town, I find myself not just embracing the dolce but inviting it home on a regular basis. It started with slices of cake being served with coffee. Initially I thought 'wtf do I want with this day old cake, pah?!' and then I found myself here where, for 40 centavos one can buy a chococalte coated wagon wheeled sized sweet except that it is twice as thick as any wagonwheel and it is just...so...damn...sweet. But one ceases to notice anymore. After free pouring sugar into coffee, after eating the "special breakfast" (which equaled sweet pastries) at various hostels it is impossible to pretend that The Change has not occured. So the dilemma I dedicate this particular post to is not one I thought I would ever encounter but there you go.
The other day, weakned by flu and poverty I found myself in the local supermarket, thiking vaguely that I hadn't eaten anything of substance for awhile, I found myself 'out the back' with the small goods section. And yet... "nah, I can't be bothered with the blue cheese... its almost a whole AUD$1, I think I'll just take that packet of chocolate coated donut shaped biscuits instead."
And I was happy to have to break a note to get change for the bus the other day - it meant I got to bite into a stupidly sweet-upon-layer-of-sweet chocolate, coated around a crumbly chocolate cakey centre (that was also lined with caramel dulce de leche) alfajore because it was the cheapest thing in the kiosko and, surprise, the sweetest.
Most recently I found myself with a severe attack of Argentine specific bronca (this is a type of furious anger that can sweep over you only in Argentina after hours of confronting services that wilfully withold the service they are meant to provide, and smug cashiers that reject your cash) which, I discovered, could only be soothed by buying and consuming in less than one minute, the most ridiculously outsized alfajore I have ever seen.
So it looks as though the Argentine dilemma of sweet vs sweet is now no dilemma at all. Forget superpanchos, I´m off to find an alfajore
Before I left Australia I would find myself on the outside of many a laydeeez circle where everyone else would talk about how much they loooved sweet things and how none of them could ever say no to chocolate and I would find myself examining my shoes and wondering if I had accidentally smuggled an Y choromsome in on them because I felt nothing for sweet things and could say "no" to chocolate on a pretty regular basis.
But that was then.
Now, after just over a month in this bitcharse cold town, I find myself not just embracing the dolce but inviting it home on a regular basis. It started with slices of cake being served with coffee. Initially I thought 'wtf do I want with this day old cake, pah?!' and then I found myself here where, for 40 centavos one can buy a chococalte coated wagon wheeled sized sweet except that it is twice as thick as any wagonwheel and it is just...so...damn...sweet. But one ceases to notice anymore. After free pouring sugar into coffee, after eating the "special breakfast" (which equaled sweet pastries) at various hostels it is impossible to pretend that The Change has not occured. So the dilemma I dedicate this particular post to is not one I thought I would ever encounter but there you go.
The other day, weakned by flu and poverty I found myself in the local supermarket, thiking vaguely that I hadn't eaten anything of substance for awhile, I found myself 'out the back' with the small goods section. And yet... "nah, I can't be bothered with the blue cheese... its almost a whole AUD$1, I think I'll just take that packet of chocolate coated donut shaped biscuits instead."
And I was happy to have to break a note to get change for the bus the other day - it meant I got to bite into a stupidly sweet-upon-layer-of-sweet chocolate, coated around a crumbly chocolate cakey centre (that was also lined with caramel dulce de leche) alfajore because it was the cheapest thing in the kiosko and, surprise, the sweetest.
Most recently I found myself with a severe attack of Argentine specific bronca (this is a type of furious anger that can sweep over you only in Argentina after hours of confronting services that wilfully withold the service they are meant to provide, and smug cashiers that reject your cash) which, I discovered, could only be soothed by buying and consuming in less than one minute, the most ridiculously outsized alfajore I have ever seen.
So it looks as though the Argentine dilemma of sweet vs sweet is now no dilemma at all. Forget superpanchos, I´m off to find an alfajore
Sunday, June 10, 2007
You want the realness? Well I gotcha
Bet you thought this was a travelling blog didnt you?
Since I am on hiatus from travelling I have no overwrought descriptive pieces for you, no railings against bus trips for you (except peak hour bus trips. Ay ay ay. Still better than peak hour subte trips. Japan has nothing on BA for ridiculous squashing on train carriages) no fear of woollen jumpers to share with you. Nada.
Instead I find myself sleeping competitively (every day, a new hour past 12 hours of solid sleep, soon I should crack the 18 hour barrier - exciting, no?) and wandering aimlessly around Palermo, a trendy suburb that is hard to get to and hard to get out of but has an inordinate number of bars and shops and, thankfully, when you look close enough, also a large number of kioskos selling super panchos.
My current habitation also has an incredible (to me) number of jocktastic americans (ok, one jocktastic american) and an alleged san fransican with a deeply corny accent who listens to rap and is quite the whitest person I've met here in some time. Also lurking out there somewhere is a lawyer from Washington, who prosecutes people who download movies and music illegally. Naturally he has not been invited to any parties nor has he been offered the use of the host's computer which is, of course, full of downloaded music and movies. There is also a tall black man from south africa who informed me sternly that I would get cancer from reheating things in the microwave without covering them properly and a wussy male pre-med student from minnesoater who keeps on getting drunk and being surprised that at 4 in the morning, your friend is not your friend if you are both trying to pick up the same girl in the bar.
Last night I found myself in an inpromptu United Nations Women Stylee gathering in some friend of a friend's apartment where only the two male hosts were from Argentina and the nine girls there were from all over the world. Claire (UK) and I (AUST) were most fascinated by the belgian Paris Hilton who, unlike the real paris hilton, could speak three languages and wear kickarse stockings. Amazing.
The night ended with a porteño and I writing swears in the dirt on the back of some car window while we waited for our friends. Some of you will remember that I have done similar things in frost back home so isn't it good to know that no matter how far you travel some things never change? It is annoying though that people only try to teach me bad words at the end of nights where I invariably forget them. Was it cajero? or hodjero? Damnit!
Since I am on hiatus from travelling I have no overwrought descriptive pieces for you, no railings against bus trips for you (except peak hour bus trips. Ay ay ay. Still better than peak hour subte trips. Japan has nothing on BA for ridiculous squashing on train carriages) no fear of woollen jumpers to share with you. Nada.
Instead I find myself sleeping competitively (every day, a new hour past 12 hours of solid sleep, soon I should crack the 18 hour barrier - exciting, no?) and wandering aimlessly around Palermo, a trendy suburb that is hard to get to and hard to get out of but has an inordinate number of bars and shops and, thankfully, when you look close enough, also a large number of kioskos selling super panchos.
My current habitation also has an incredible (to me) number of jocktastic americans (ok, one jocktastic american) and an alleged san fransican with a deeply corny accent who listens to rap and is quite the whitest person I've met here in some time. Also lurking out there somewhere is a lawyer from Washington, who prosecutes people who download movies and music illegally. Naturally he has not been invited to any parties nor has he been offered the use of the host's computer which is, of course, full of downloaded music and movies. There is also a tall black man from south africa who informed me sternly that I would get cancer from reheating things in the microwave without covering them properly and a wussy male pre-med student from minnesoater who keeps on getting drunk and being surprised that at 4 in the morning, your friend is not your friend if you are both trying to pick up the same girl in the bar.
Last night I found myself in an inpromptu United Nations Women Stylee gathering in some friend of a friend's apartment where only the two male hosts were from Argentina and the nine girls there were from all over the world. Claire (UK) and I (AUST) were most fascinated by the belgian Paris Hilton who, unlike the real paris hilton, could speak three languages and wear kickarse stockings. Amazing.
The night ended with a porteño and I writing swears in the dirt on the back of some car window while we waited for our friends. Some of you will remember that I have done similar things in frost back home so isn't it good to know that no matter how far you travel some things never change? It is annoying though that people only try to teach me bad words at the end of nights where I invariably forget them. Was it cajero? or hodjero? Damnit!
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The Attraction of Bolivia...
...someone's mum told me, is that it is close to Argentina.
Having finally made it to Argentina I can now safely say "Word, Mother of jz, word"
Yes, I found a country which made me feel uncomfortably like the spolied, obsessed with flat paved roads and foods-that-are-not-fried-chicken, whiny, bourgeois white girl that I am.
Bolivia was... bolivia was... Bolivia was mainly just "there". It had some mountains, sort of like Peru, it had a capital that was kind of like Bogotá but uglier and, when we first arrived, in total lockdown for the 1st of May. It had a shitload of icecreameries which Carly found joyous and which I appreciated since they helped to pass the time.
The two of us strayed from the typical gringo route of seeing Bolivia. Instead of heading for the salt fields and taking photos of each other in glittering whiteness, we headed towards Paraguay to try to find some warmth, perhaps some enormous cocktails, perhaps some rivers... mainly just some damn warmth though since I had been denied any in Peru and was totally fed up with my meagre number of warm clothes and my dependence on woollen jumpers. (Yes! I know! Woolly jumpers! And I'm not even in New Zealand!)
So from La Paz we headed to Cochabamba, a town I was informed was integral to the movie Scarface, once I had reached it and which I could only assume was so because the writers of said film had been high on the subject matter and had just thrown a dart at a map of Bolivia and gotten the giggles when they landed on that one. So yes, Cochabamba was warmer than, say, La Paz. And it was the town from which the dude from Scarface was from. And it had a really really really massive statute of Jesus on one of its hills that you could reach by taking a teleferica which takes my teleferica riding tally up to three (3). Cochabamba also had... a market which sold... all the shit you would usually find at a market. It also had cheap internet. And we saw Spiderman 3 there so I can also tell you that Cochabamba had a cinema. (Actually, it had several but we picked the darkets and most rundown one because it was nearest to our hostal. It had a massive screen but really old seats and they seemed to save energy by refusing to turn on the foyer lights on if a)a film was screening b)if it was between film screenings c)you needed to go to the toilet).
After becoming thoroughly depressed and ringing people back home we got out of Cochabamba and headed to the apparently largest city in Bolivia, Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz was even warmer than Cochabamba (yay!) and we saw a toucan chilling in a hostal's communal garden on our first day there. I also saw: a family of three that employed two nannies and back to back episodes of Pimp My Ride. We also found a cool bar which was attached to some LA Mama-esque theater or some shit. It was interesting to note that "artistic" bars are the same all over the world, complete with over-priced drinks, uppity waiters (faux-crying waitor from Cuba, I will never miss you), slightly drunk people talking loudly about the Truth of their Vision and fucking awesome toilets (so massive! So clean! So enowed with sweet smelling soap, just like the Malthouse. Kind of.).
However, lured by the promise of a train to the boarder, Carly and I decided it was time to go back to the crazy bimodial station and try to get closer to Argentina. Plus we'd tried on all the jeans we liked in town and they were either too small or made in Argentina.
Unfortunately the train wasnt running so we decided to splurge on a cama bus all the way to the Argentinian town of Salta, 20 hours away.
Some important questions I have learnt to ask since that decision:
1)Is it one bus direct to [town]?
2)Is it cama all the way?
3)How long is it expected to take?
If I had asked any of those questions I might've been surprised to learn that the answer was
1)No - it is a series of whichever buses will be running whenever you get to bus terminals (disperate) throughout Argentina
2)No - see above. Also, some shitty buses, missing windows and sections of seats, will be used to ferry you and your fellow passengers through burning road blocks and massive prickly branches that will be strewn on Argentinian roads for no reason that will ever be explained to you
3)That depends on whether you count the amount of time it takes to get off a bus on the hour, every hour, once in Argentina to have your bags and every other bag on the bus searched by police and have them go through your passport and peer suspiciously at a stamp that was placed within it mere hours before.
When we actually arrived in Salta (a mere 20 hours, as predicted, later) both of us refused to believe we had actually made it. We asked not only the bus driver but the guy unloading our bags and anyone else we could grab if we really, truly, were, RIGHT NOW, in Salta (yes, this is Salta. Yes. Right here. This place. Now).
And then we went out to dinner and enjoyed a complimentary entree of small dishes the kitchen had made for the sheer hell of it and the satisfaction of knowing that a quater of a bottle of wine was cheaper than a bottle of water.
Ah Bolivia. Close to Argentina indeed
Having finally made it to Argentina I can now safely say "Word, Mother of jz, word"
Yes, I found a country which made me feel uncomfortably like the spolied, obsessed with flat paved roads and foods-that-are-not-fried-chicken, whiny, bourgeois white girl that I am.
Bolivia was... bolivia was... Bolivia was mainly just "there". It had some mountains, sort of like Peru, it had a capital that was kind of like Bogotá but uglier and, when we first arrived, in total lockdown for the 1st of May. It had a shitload of icecreameries which Carly found joyous and which I appreciated since they helped to pass the time.
The two of us strayed from the typical gringo route of seeing Bolivia. Instead of heading for the salt fields and taking photos of each other in glittering whiteness, we headed towards Paraguay to try to find some warmth, perhaps some enormous cocktails, perhaps some rivers... mainly just some damn warmth though since I had been denied any in Peru and was totally fed up with my meagre number of warm clothes and my dependence on woollen jumpers. (Yes! I know! Woolly jumpers! And I'm not even in New Zealand!)
So from La Paz we headed to Cochabamba, a town I was informed was integral to the movie Scarface, once I had reached it and which I could only assume was so because the writers of said film had been high on the subject matter and had just thrown a dart at a map of Bolivia and gotten the giggles when they landed on that one. So yes, Cochabamba was warmer than, say, La Paz. And it was the town from which the dude from Scarface was from. And it had a really really really massive statute of Jesus on one of its hills that you could reach by taking a teleferica which takes my teleferica riding tally up to three (3). Cochabamba also had... a market which sold... all the shit you would usually find at a market. It also had cheap internet. And we saw Spiderman 3 there so I can also tell you that Cochabamba had a cinema. (Actually, it had several but we picked the darkets and most rundown one because it was nearest to our hostal. It had a massive screen but really old seats and they seemed to save energy by refusing to turn on the foyer lights on if a)a film was screening b)if it was between film screenings c)you needed to go to the toilet).
After becoming thoroughly depressed and ringing people back home we got out of Cochabamba and headed to the apparently largest city in Bolivia, Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz was even warmer than Cochabamba (yay!) and we saw a toucan chilling in a hostal's communal garden on our first day there. I also saw: a family of three that employed two nannies and back to back episodes of Pimp My Ride. We also found a cool bar which was attached to some LA Mama-esque theater or some shit. It was interesting to note that "artistic" bars are the same all over the world, complete with over-priced drinks, uppity waiters (faux-crying waitor from Cuba, I will never miss you), slightly drunk people talking loudly about the Truth of their Vision and fucking awesome toilets (so massive! So clean! So enowed with sweet smelling soap, just like the Malthouse. Kind of.).
However, lured by the promise of a train to the boarder, Carly and I decided it was time to go back to the crazy bimodial station and try to get closer to Argentina. Plus we'd tried on all the jeans we liked in town and they were either too small or made in Argentina.
Unfortunately the train wasnt running so we decided to splurge on a cama bus all the way to the Argentinian town of Salta, 20 hours away.
Some important questions I have learnt to ask since that decision:
1)Is it one bus direct to [town]?
2)Is it cama all the way?
3)How long is it expected to take?
If I had asked any of those questions I might've been surprised to learn that the answer was
1)No - it is a series of whichever buses will be running whenever you get to bus terminals (disperate) throughout Argentina
2)No - see above. Also, some shitty buses, missing windows and sections of seats, will be used to ferry you and your fellow passengers through burning road blocks and massive prickly branches that will be strewn on Argentinian roads for no reason that will ever be explained to you
3)That depends on whether you count the amount of time it takes to get off a bus on the hour, every hour, once in Argentina to have your bags and every other bag on the bus searched by police and have them go through your passport and peer suspiciously at a stamp that was placed within it mere hours before.
When we actually arrived in Salta (a mere 20 hours, as predicted, later) both of us refused to believe we had actually made it. We asked not only the bus driver but the guy unloading our bags and anyone else we could grab if we really, truly, were, RIGHT NOW, in Salta (yes, this is Salta. Yes. Right here. This place. Now).
And then we went out to dinner and enjoyed a complimentary entree of small dishes the kitchen had made for the sheer hell of it and the satisfaction of knowing that a quater of a bottle of wine was cheaper than a bottle of water.
Ah Bolivia. Close to Argentina indeed
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Y Tu Mamá También, Peru
As noted earlier, Peru annonced its antipathy towards sleep early. Through the type of intelligent timetabling that left me speechless (running out of words has become something of a recurring theme during my stay here), it is only possible to fly to Cusco first thing in the morning. Ok, fine, no problem I understand theres some issue with airflows over mountains or some shit, I get that mountains are hard to deal with, that's why I wanted to fly over as many of them as possible. Only, the cheapest flight from Ecuador to Cusco got into Lima at 8pm on Tuesday afternoon and didnt leave until 6am the next morning.
What to do? After no serious consideration and some reference to people getting kidnapped from taxis in Lima, Carly and I decided the only sensible thing to do would be to stay up all night at the airport. And so it began.
It started off alright. We chatted to a thai-boxing instructor who was on his way to meet his financee in London. He left us a bottle of pisco and paid for our hot chocolates. So far, so good. But it was only midnight. There were hours of aimless wandering left to go. Reading a pamphlet on the links between architecture and fashion became impossible. The fact that I had worn my glasses for two hours without noticing that I was missing the lense in the right eye became hilarious all over again. Macdonalds started to exert an impossible-to-deny allure over Carly. The knitwear displayed in the stores started to look strange. Even the 24 hours massuese ladies gave up and went to sleep. We went to the internet thing and wrote sometimes unsendable emails to friends around the world.
And then we started playing "You must..." This game started after we'd already photographed me pushing the luggage trolley over a prone Carly and involved either of us pointing at various items of Forbidden Knitwear and saying "you must put that on" and then taking a photo. I ended up looking like Michael Moore craddling a stuffed green iguana.
Eventually we made it to Cusco. We were greeted by a traditional band playing right by the baggage carosel, a cheery sound at 7.30am after no sleep - just like the band at the Vic Markets only, you know, right there. Playing pipes. Next to your backpack.
By the time we had stumbled out to the taxis we had aquired a new friend in Dave the Californian bartender/history teacher. He was tall. He wore Certified Travelling Gear. He refused to speak Spanish or spill the beans on the story of how he came to be in Cusco waiting for a girl he didnt seem to know that well so that they could go hiking together. The only thing either of us ever learnt about him was that he and I shared a taste for 60s and 70s funk and soul and that he owned a turntable. But what about the girl??? (We met her before we left. She was hot. We tried to see if they'd moved into a room with a double bed in it but were thwarted by the gloom of the hostal.)
Cusco was full of cobblestones, toutes, tourists and bars showing free dvds. We spent three days "acclimatising" which meant checking out the free dvds, dying my hair and reading endless shitty books. It also meant being woken up 6.20am by some guy with our laundry. I have never been so angry to see my clothes in my life. In no time zone or country that I know of is it necessary to receive freshly washed clothes at that hour.
Eventually we realised we'd seen all the good films and it might be time to move on to that place that all those annoying backpackers kept on talking about. Mashu pish something or other. We heard there were rocks or stones or something.
Getting there seemed, considering the popularity of the destination, surprisingly hard. One travel agent told us it was impossible to go there on a Sunday. Another said it was possible but it was cheaper to go for three days than it was for one. Also, that we would have to meet him at 6.45am on Sunday morning with our passports for some sort of check for PeruRail. Why?? I demanded. Because. But that's totally stupid. Yes. Yes it is - see you tomorrow at 6.45. And thus I was introduced to one of the things that made my time in Peru so special. There is no answer to the question "why". There is only "because". And how could that possibly get annoying, right?
6.45am on a Sunday in Cusco is not a good time. The only people on the streets were people coming home. And four guys who knew enough english to offer painful anal sex with us if we'd only stop and talk to them. 6.45am was also not a good time for finding travel agents. So we cursed him soundly and went back to the hostal. Where he appeared ten minutes after we had crawled back into bed. And insisted that we follow him into a taxi. Carly was convinced that we were about to get kidnapped and killed and although I agreed with her I figured we may as well resign ourselves to fate anyway and get into the freaking car. And wait at PeruRail. And show our passports for five seconds. And then be sent off back into a taxi again. Why was that necessary?? [Because!]
After a soothing breakfast we started off for Macchu Picchu by way of some other ruins. The guide on our bus suggested if we were going to Macchu Picchu we might want to skip the first lot altogether and stay at the markets. Faced with the choice betweenshopping gaining an insight into the local culture at one of the largest markets in Peru or looking at rocks, we chose the more culturally sensitive option, feeling smug for about an hour until we realised that the market was enormous and there were only so many ugly hats you could try on and laugh about before the joke stopped being funny.
That afternoon we were dropped off at another fascinating stone-based thingo which we totally checked out from the comfort of a cafe which made one of the best hot chocolates I have ever drunk in my life. As was the way in Ecuador, however, just when I was hoping I could sensitively participate in a Peruvian Sunday afternoon by reading trashy UK magazines and drinking hot chocolate and try not to fall asleep on the table, my spanish was tested by the friendly proprietor who wanted to know where we were from, where we were going and what we thought of the ruins (oh great! the view was fantastic!).
After a dinner of vegemite and bread we headed off into the dark for the train to Aqua Caliente, the town at the bottom of Macchu Picchu. It was dark by then. We had been up for many hours and were dreading the prospect of being woken up at 5am the next day (Why did we have to get up so early? Because!). I was also dreading the prospect of sitting next to the crazy girl from dinner who had loudly proclaimed that Monsanto was the reason why chinese children were obese. Ok. Luckily for us, we sat across from Lolita and Ana, two girls from Spain by way of several other continents who, like us, regretted not bringing a hipflask on the train and who had their eyes peeled for unnecessarily ugly backpackers (as Ana said, where do they even get the clothes? And how much do you bet they go home, cut off the manky hair and turn back into stock brokers?)
Everything was going well until suddenly the train stopped. For once, this wasnt one of those "why/because" moments. No, it turned out that the train stopped because there had been a slight avalanche over the tracks and we'd have to wait awhile for the rocks to get cleared. Fine. Great. Only four hours of potential sleep remained for us by the time we got to the town since we'd both foolishly agreed to walk up to Macchu Picchu in the dark to suprise it in the sunrise, as it were.
Getting to our hotel as the rain started we... did not find our guide. Where was our guide, I asked. He was coming, in half an hour. Ok he was coming later. Ok, it was midnight and he... was coming at 5am. WTF? A heated argument ensued between me and the hotel clerk where I demanded he call the guide and find out what the hell was going on and he, waking us up four hours later, told us we had no guide and would have to beg for one at the bus stop in another few hours time. Then he woke us up again half an hour later with the mythical guide in tow who told us he'd be back in an hour. By this time we had given up all thoughts of walking to Macchu Picchu since it was bucketing down outside and what the hell was the point of walking through torrents of rain when there wasnt going to be any sunrise to see at the end of it?
As the guide told us, several times, as we eventually trailed after him through the ruins of Macchu Picchu, we were being treated to the "magic and mystical" view of Macchu Picchu. Not everyone got to see it, we were lucky.
Indeed.
After two days of arse-crack early starts and a week of cold weather and rain I had decided that enough was enough and after all the Quechera admiring and stone-staring and terrace-appreciating it was time to head to the jungle, find a hammock and do nothing but get warm for awhile.
So the day after Macchu Picchu we found ourselves back on the (avalanche-free) train at 5.45am looking forward to a short bus ride down to the edge of the amazon jungle. Maybe there would be monkeys! Or butterflies!
Or maybe there would be....getting off the train to an hysterical swarm of bus and taxi and collectivo drivers trying to get people back to Cusco. And one driver who assured me that actually, to get to the jungle we had to backtrack to another little town where he dropped us off and assured us that we just had to cross the street and, look! the sign said the bus would be there in a few minutes. The lady sitting next to the sign told me it would be more like an hour but nontheless, the bus to the jungle would totes be coming past here. Oh, and did we want tickets? Because she had tickets. She never moved to show us these tickets but she did say there were tickets there. For the bus. Somewhere. I figured she'd help us when the time came but until then we would wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And stare in horror at a local's toenails which were so... I cant... there were no words. And no buses. Until, after three hours, there was a bus. Only they said we needed tickets. And maybe it wasnt even the bus we wanted anyway. But did we have tickets? (The ticket lady had totally disappeared at this point.) And then it drove away.
And then I cracked it.
So we crossed the street and asked some incredibly nice lady on the other side if buses to cusco stopped there and she told us yes, and then some nattily dressed old gentleman came out and told us about the buses to Cusco as well and, in our weakend state, we asked him if he could flag one down for us which he agreed to and then he and I chatted about how beautiful the town in the jungle that I was no longer going to was and how I couldnt stand waiting anymore and how apparently Bolivia was also quite nice too.
Four hours after everyone else, we get back to Cusco and are dropped off half way across town in the only private bus terminal there. After being ignored by several taxis, we finally get to the proper bus terminal and are again confronted by people yelling at us for differnt towns. By this stage we are both exhausted, annoyed, kind of hungry and I am desperate to get out of Cusco since I relate it to all the ills and evils I have suffered in the past three days, plus, it is bloody cold. And Bolivia must be better than this, right?
So we decide to catch a bus to Puno that the lady promises is direct and has a toilet and will leave at 1.15.
The bus to Puno, it turns out, does indeed have a toilet which is locked, the entire trip, and leaves at 1.45 and takes the long, unpaved road to Puno so instead of a 5 or 6 hour bus ride, it takes us nearly 8 with lots of stops in strange and deserted towns along the way.
By the time we reached Puno, at 9pm after starting the day travelling at 5.45am, Carly and I had run out of words. We stopped really being able to speak half an hour out of Puno as we pulled into yet another desolate town, this one even more post-apocolyptic looking than any we had been through before. The whole day had been so hellish that there was simply nothing left to say. And Puno itself turned out to be cold and ugly and everyone appeared vaguely grumpy (in appearance anyway)and the place we are stayed at, although warm, was noisy and the guy who checked us in appeared to be a relative of the 6.20am laundry deliverer - waking us up at twenty to eight on our first morning trying to take us on a tour of the islands in Lake Titicaca which he had, apparently, tried to sell to us the night before (I thought I had told him that we were hungry, not that we were hungry for a tour...).
After another night though, our amigas from Macchu Picchu blew into town and together we found the fiesta that Puno had failed to show us before. Naturally, our timing being as impeccable as ever, we found this party the night before we were meant to get up early to go on a boat tour of the floating islands. We also found that the party consisted possibly solely of me, Carly and AC/DC at a bar somewhere on the main pedestrian street in Puno. But who can fight the power of american thighs shaking someone all night long? Not true Australians, thank you. Ana provided another fiesta after the bar which for some reason involved hanging out the hotel window and two out of three people falling asleep with their clothes on (No Mum, I have no idea what might've happened).
So the dancing and then the boat tour, whilst not possibly being the best of all possible combinations, almost endeared Peru to me. Almost. The floating islands really were fascinating, the tour guide lady was genial, the touristy things, whilst being touristy were also kind of fun and the sun was shining. And in the afternoon we were off to Bolivia - what could possibly be better (certainly not the salchipapas at Riko's Pan, the best freaking bakery in Peru) than that? Or, to put it another way, what could possibly go wrong?
Oh, I dont know, how about being stopped at the boarder by bored Peruvian police who went through my handbag, demanded to know why I hadnt changed all my money (because!) and asked me repeatedly if I had ever done drugs (actually that part was cool because I got to use a new spanish word - nunca! [that means never, mum]). Or how about finding out I had lost a slip of paper from my passport in The Great Perpetual Flood of Macchu Picchu and running around in the rain trying to find change for the fee of losing the paper since the man demanding the fee apparently had none. And having the bus attempt to leave without me. And then having the wizened, evil, crabbed and hunchbacked old man who sent me chasing through the rain try to stop me from leaving on the bus because the fiver I gave him had a rip in it. Well ¡no my problema señor!
And finally we were out of Peru.
Sans any forbidden knitwear (take that LeAnn Rhimes), con some bracelets that had brought me no luck whatsoever despite the number of Peruvians who assured me that they would and also still with Ana and Lolita who joined me in my tourette like swearing at key moments on our journey and who also promised to make us do more than just watch shitty dvds and drink red wine.
What to do? After no serious consideration and some reference to people getting kidnapped from taxis in Lima, Carly and I decided the only sensible thing to do would be to stay up all night at the airport. And so it began.
It started off alright. We chatted to a thai-boxing instructor who was on his way to meet his financee in London. He left us a bottle of pisco and paid for our hot chocolates. So far, so good. But it was only midnight. There were hours of aimless wandering left to go. Reading a pamphlet on the links between architecture and fashion became impossible. The fact that I had worn my glasses for two hours without noticing that I was missing the lense in the right eye became hilarious all over again. Macdonalds started to exert an impossible-to-deny allure over Carly. The knitwear displayed in the stores started to look strange. Even the 24 hours massuese ladies gave up and went to sleep. We went to the internet thing and wrote sometimes unsendable emails to friends around the world.
And then we started playing "You must..." This game started after we'd already photographed me pushing the luggage trolley over a prone Carly and involved either of us pointing at various items of Forbidden Knitwear and saying "you must put that on" and then taking a photo. I ended up looking like Michael Moore craddling a stuffed green iguana.
Eventually we made it to Cusco. We were greeted by a traditional band playing right by the baggage carosel, a cheery sound at 7.30am after no sleep - just like the band at the Vic Markets only, you know, right there. Playing pipes. Next to your backpack.
By the time we had stumbled out to the taxis we had aquired a new friend in Dave the Californian bartender/history teacher. He was tall. He wore Certified Travelling Gear. He refused to speak Spanish or spill the beans on the story of how he came to be in Cusco waiting for a girl he didnt seem to know that well so that they could go hiking together. The only thing either of us ever learnt about him was that he and I shared a taste for 60s and 70s funk and soul and that he owned a turntable. But what about the girl??? (We met her before we left. She was hot. We tried to see if they'd moved into a room with a double bed in it but were thwarted by the gloom of the hostal.)
Cusco was full of cobblestones, toutes, tourists and bars showing free dvds. We spent three days "acclimatising" which meant checking out the free dvds, dying my hair and reading endless shitty books. It also meant being woken up 6.20am by some guy with our laundry. I have never been so angry to see my clothes in my life. In no time zone or country that I know of is it necessary to receive freshly washed clothes at that hour.
Eventually we realised we'd seen all the good films and it might be time to move on to that place that all those annoying backpackers kept on talking about. Mashu pish something or other. We heard there were rocks or stones or something.
Getting there seemed, considering the popularity of the destination, surprisingly hard. One travel agent told us it was impossible to go there on a Sunday. Another said it was possible but it was cheaper to go for three days than it was for one. Also, that we would have to meet him at 6.45am on Sunday morning with our passports for some sort of check for PeruRail. Why?? I demanded. Because. But that's totally stupid. Yes. Yes it is - see you tomorrow at 6.45. And thus I was introduced to one of the things that made my time in Peru so special. There is no answer to the question "why". There is only "because". And how could that possibly get annoying, right?
6.45am on a Sunday in Cusco is not a good time. The only people on the streets were people coming home. And four guys who knew enough english to offer painful anal sex with us if we'd only stop and talk to them. 6.45am was also not a good time for finding travel agents. So we cursed him soundly and went back to the hostal. Where he appeared ten minutes after we had crawled back into bed. And insisted that we follow him into a taxi. Carly was convinced that we were about to get kidnapped and killed and although I agreed with her I figured we may as well resign ourselves to fate anyway and get into the freaking car. And wait at PeruRail. And show our passports for five seconds. And then be sent off back into a taxi again. Why was that necessary?? [Because!]
After a soothing breakfast we started off for Macchu Picchu by way of some other ruins. The guide on our bus suggested if we were going to Macchu Picchu we might want to skip the first lot altogether and stay at the markets. Faced with the choice between
That afternoon we were dropped off at another fascinating stone-based thingo which we totally checked out from the comfort of a cafe which made one of the best hot chocolates I have ever drunk in my life. As was the way in Ecuador, however, just when I was hoping I could sensitively participate in a Peruvian Sunday afternoon by reading trashy UK magazines and drinking hot chocolate and try not to fall asleep on the table, my spanish was tested by the friendly proprietor who wanted to know where we were from, where we were going and what we thought of the ruins (oh great! the view was fantastic!).
After a dinner of vegemite and bread we headed off into the dark for the train to Aqua Caliente, the town at the bottom of Macchu Picchu. It was dark by then. We had been up for many hours and were dreading the prospect of being woken up at 5am the next day (Why did we have to get up so early? Because!). I was also dreading the prospect of sitting next to the crazy girl from dinner who had loudly proclaimed that Monsanto was the reason why chinese children were obese. Ok. Luckily for us, we sat across from Lolita and Ana, two girls from Spain by way of several other continents who, like us, regretted not bringing a hipflask on the train and who had their eyes peeled for unnecessarily ugly backpackers (as Ana said, where do they even get the clothes? And how much do you bet they go home, cut off the manky hair and turn back into stock brokers?)
Everything was going well until suddenly the train stopped. For once, this wasnt one of those "why/because" moments. No, it turned out that the train stopped because there had been a slight avalanche over the tracks and we'd have to wait awhile for the rocks to get cleared. Fine. Great. Only four hours of potential sleep remained for us by the time we got to the town since we'd both foolishly agreed to walk up to Macchu Picchu in the dark to suprise it in the sunrise, as it were.
Getting to our hotel as the rain started we... did not find our guide. Where was our guide, I asked. He was coming, in half an hour. Ok he was coming later. Ok, it was midnight and he... was coming at 5am. WTF? A heated argument ensued between me and the hotel clerk where I demanded he call the guide and find out what the hell was going on and he, waking us up four hours later, told us we had no guide and would have to beg for one at the bus stop in another few hours time. Then he woke us up again half an hour later with the mythical guide in tow who told us he'd be back in an hour. By this time we had given up all thoughts of walking to Macchu Picchu since it was bucketing down outside and what the hell was the point of walking through torrents of rain when there wasnt going to be any sunrise to see at the end of it?
As the guide told us, several times, as we eventually trailed after him through the ruins of Macchu Picchu, we were being treated to the "magic and mystical" view of Macchu Picchu. Not everyone got to see it, we were lucky.
Indeed.
After two days of arse-crack early starts and a week of cold weather and rain I had decided that enough was enough and after all the Quechera admiring and stone-staring and terrace-appreciating it was time to head to the jungle, find a hammock and do nothing but get warm for awhile.
So the day after Macchu Picchu we found ourselves back on the (avalanche-free) train at 5.45am looking forward to a short bus ride down to the edge of the amazon jungle. Maybe there would be monkeys! Or butterflies!
Or maybe there would be....getting off the train to an hysterical swarm of bus and taxi and collectivo drivers trying to get people back to Cusco. And one driver who assured me that actually, to get to the jungle we had to backtrack to another little town where he dropped us off and assured us that we just had to cross the street and, look! the sign said the bus would be there in a few minutes. The lady sitting next to the sign told me it would be more like an hour but nontheless, the bus to the jungle would totes be coming past here. Oh, and did we want tickets? Because she had tickets. She never moved to show us these tickets but she did say there were tickets there. For the bus. Somewhere. I figured she'd help us when the time came but until then we would wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And stare in horror at a local's toenails which were so... I cant... there were no words. And no buses. Until, after three hours, there was a bus. Only they said we needed tickets. And maybe it wasnt even the bus we wanted anyway. But did we have tickets? (The ticket lady had totally disappeared at this point.) And then it drove away.
And then I cracked it.
So we crossed the street and asked some incredibly nice lady on the other side if buses to cusco stopped there and she told us yes, and then some nattily dressed old gentleman came out and told us about the buses to Cusco as well and, in our weakend state, we asked him if he could flag one down for us which he agreed to and then he and I chatted about how beautiful the town in the jungle that I was no longer going to was and how I couldnt stand waiting anymore and how apparently Bolivia was also quite nice too.
Four hours after everyone else, we get back to Cusco and are dropped off half way across town in the only private bus terminal there. After being ignored by several taxis, we finally get to the proper bus terminal and are again confronted by people yelling at us for differnt towns. By this stage we are both exhausted, annoyed, kind of hungry and I am desperate to get out of Cusco since I relate it to all the ills and evils I have suffered in the past three days, plus, it is bloody cold. And Bolivia must be better than this, right?
So we decide to catch a bus to Puno that the lady promises is direct and has a toilet and will leave at 1.15.
The bus to Puno, it turns out, does indeed have a toilet which is locked, the entire trip, and leaves at 1.45 and takes the long, unpaved road to Puno so instead of a 5 or 6 hour bus ride, it takes us nearly 8 with lots of stops in strange and deserted towns along the way.
By the time we reached Puno, at 9pm after starting the day travelling at 5.45am, Carly and I had run out of words. We stopped really being able to speak half an hour out of Puno as we pulled into yet another desolate town, this one even more post-apocolyptic looking than any we had been through before. The whole day had been so hellish that there was simply nothing left to say. And Puno itself turned out to be cold and ugly and everyone appeared vaguely grumpy (in appearance anyway)and the place we are stayed at, although warm, was noisy and the guy who checked us in appeared to be a relative of the 6.20am laundry deliverer - waking us up at twenty to eight on our first morning trying to take us on a tour of the islands in Lake Titicaca which he had, apparently, tried to sell to us the night before (I thought I had told him that we were hungry, not that we were hungry for a tour...).
After another night though, our amigas from Macchu Picchu blew into town and together we found the fiesta that Puno had failed to show us before. Naturally, our timing being as impeccable as ever, we found this party the night before we were meant to get up early to go on a boat tour of the floating islands. We also found that the party consisted possibly solely of me, Carly and AC/DC at a bar somewhere on the main pedestrian street in Puno. But who can fight the power of american thighs shaking someone all night long? Not true Australians, thank you. Ana provided another fiesta after the bar which for some reason involved hanging out the hotel window and two out of three people falling asleep with their clothes on (No Mum, I have no idea what might've happened).
So the dancing and then the boat tour, whilst not possibly being the best of all possible combinations, almost endeared Peru to me. Almost. The floating islands really were fascinating, the tour guide lady was genial, the touristy things, whilst being touristy were also kind of fun and the sun was shining. And in the afternoon we were off to Bolivia - what could possibly be better (certainly not the salchipapas at Riko's Pan, the best freaking bakery in Peru) than that? Or, to put it another way, what could possibly go wrong?
Oh, I dont know, how about being stopped at the boarder by bored Peruvian police who went through my handbag, demanded to know why I hadnt changed all my money (because!) and asked me repeatedly if I had ever done drugs (actually that part was cool because I got to use a new spanish word - nunca! [that means never, mum]). Or how about finding out I had lost a slip of paper from my passport in The Great Perpetual Flood of Macchu Picchu and running around in the rain trying to find change for the fee of losing the paper since the man demanding the fee apparently had none. And having the bus attempt to leave without me. And then having the wizened, evil, crabbed and hunchbacked old man who sent me chasing through the rain try to stop me from leaving on the bus because the fiver I gave him had a rip in it. Well ¡no my problema señor!
And finally we were out of Peru.
Sans any forbidden knitwear (take that LeAnn Rhimes), con some bracelets that had brought me no luck whatsoever despite the number of Peruvians who assured me that they would and also still with Ana and Lolita who joined me in my tourette like swearing at key moments on our journey and who also promised to make us do more than just watch shitty dvds and drink red wine.
Monday, April 23, 2007
I've Been To Bali! Er, Ecuador
So when last I wrote, I was grumpy and waterlogged in Quito. Quito will never be invited to any parties of mine, I've decided, since it lacks direction and a clear centre and its buildings are always in the completely opposite direction to that indicated in the tiny little Lonely Planet Map. The only thing in Quito's favour is its plethora of second hand book shops and its well educated checkout boys at its supermarkets who can attempt to flirt in two (2) languages whilst simultaneously scanning items. Not good enough though, Quito, I'm afraid. You and your high altitudes and dreary weather can get stuffed.
Deciding to condemn any and all of Ecuador's remaining Mountain Charms to the bin, I set off for the coast for a week of doing nothing at all except working on my tan and eating fish. I accomplished these lofty ambitions admirably and although I suspect that great weather and cheap food may make one a lessintelligent introspective and morose person, being able to ponder which cheesy mills and boones-esque adjective for "tanned" I would choose to describe myself each day (would it be caramel? toffee? honey? and if honey, which type? blue gum? So many questions) certainly made the time pass pleasantly. As did unexpectedly meeting a fellow Melbourne girl named Carly who understood the need to dress well even while backpacking and has been a total convert to the Vigilant Society Against Forbidden Knitwear. So Pacific coast of Ecuador with your sleepy seaside towns and persistantly chatty locals (how many times can a girl say "no se!" before one gives up? Approximately 30minutes), I salute you!
Currently I am in Peru, home of all the most forbidden of Forbidden Knitwear and a country that seems determined to make sure I do not sleep whilst I am here. Since homicide seems frowned upon I will attempt to leave after not contracting malaria on the edge of The Jungle and not buying anything with an alpaca on it.
Wish me luck
Deciding to condemn any and all of Ecuador's remaining Mountain Charms to the bin, I set off for the coast for a week of doing nothing at all except working on my tan and eating fish. I accomplished these lofty ambitions admirably and although I suspect that great weather and cheap food may make one a less
Currently I am in Peru, home of all the most forbidden of Forbidden Knitwear and a country that seems determined to make sure I do not sleep whilst I am here. Since homicide seems frowned upon I will attempt to leave after not contracting malaria on the edge of The Jungle and not buying anything with an alpaca on it.
Wish me luck
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