Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tying The Last Loose End...
...For Now
I thought my last entry, knowing that I wasn't planning to stuff every last square inch of time (unlike my baggage) of my last days here, would be a list of impressions and memories of my trip, of the places I've been and the people that I shared my journey with. But today is my last day in South America, for now, and I've been too busy to collate all those thoughts in my head let alone actually write them down. I will always hope I remember the sound of howler monkeys in the morning and the rumble of avalanches in Torres del Paine; the smell of the freshest roasted coffee and 
woodsmoke infused locals on crammed buses; the sense of utter privilege of walking into the Lost City, and of hugging a puma, or baby anteater for that matter; and the humbling and numbing sensation of talking with a man about the "disappearance" of his mother, and of watching mud caked children happily playing marbles in the slum back streets of a Bolivian village; and all the wonderful people I've met, Norwegian Chris foremost of them all. But these are just a few of the instant memories I have as I sit here now - there are so many more, but I have no idea where or how to start cataloguing them.
Despite saying I would be doing "nothing", my last couple of weeks have been pretty busy running back
and forth over the Andes. But it meant I could catch up with three great friends I have made, amongst many, in the last year. Kathrin, one of the Swiss trio from my Salar trip and occasional host in Santiago, and I shared a chilled weekend in Valparaiso and also my very last night here, in a great Peruvian restaurant, (so lots of good Pisco, great Ceviche, and my favourite veg, Yucca!!).
I also managed to meet up with Mike (my T del P and Navimag companion) back in Mendoza. Mike (actually two Mike's: Mike T del P
and Mike from Hostel Lao, the best in Mendoza) persuaded me I should do something more active than gently meandering between wineries on a bike, so we went white water rafting... silly pastime really but a lot of fun. However the sense of danger was not actually as acute as when we first arrived at the starting point for our winery bike tour: there are now two rival businesses hiring bikes within about 500 meters of each other. The original lot, Bikes&Wine, are losing business to Bike Rentals, run by Hugo and his family, who is a nice guy with plenty of bikes, a mission to undercut the opposition, and a tactic of bribing the bus drivers to drop off any potential customers outside his shop. So the Bikes and Wine crew stand on the side of the road screaming at the buses "It's here! Get off now!! Get your bikes here!" in an excitably aggressive way that convinces you to stay on the bus and avoid them at all costs... 
One other danger while making your rounds of the bodegas are the dogs - they don't attack the cyclists, but they'll do anything to get your picnic off you... I was cutting up a sausage when I found one burrowing his head under my arm: I managed to hold his head to the floor, without loosing the sausage, but even with is head fixed and unmovable he still managed to give the cheese we'd brought with us a good lick.
Mike and I travelled to Santiago to meet up with my mud hut Colca Canyon drinking buddy, Laura, in time for her birthday... pisco, wine, beer, rum...hangovers, the usual. Unfortunately the very unusual happened to me in that I managed to be relieved of both a jacket and a
fabulously warm hoody I was looking forward to having in wintry London. Ah well, if that's all I get nicked (touch wood, still a few more hours here), in the whole time I've been in south America, I think I've done OK, and thankfully (or possibly sadly) I don't have to report having woken up naked by the side of the street...well there was that time...no...
In reality, despite travelling through countries of poverty, social unrest and civil war, I have found have found it all very safe. The countries I have visited and the people I have met have, on the whole, been incredibly friendly and welcoming. Even the poorest of these countries are swollen with potential for fantastic futures. Let's hope with Bush thinking about upping his armed forces to make a further mess of the Middle East, the US will keep its meddling hands out of Latin America for a while, and allow it to run and rule itself..JPG)
I would love to be able to spend more time here now, but it will be good to see everyone at home again too. If I have one real regret it would be that I really should have better Spanish by now! But I can work on that next time... I'll be back soon I hope!!!
I thought my last entry, knowing that I wasn't planning to stuff every last square inch of time (unlike my baggage) of my last days here, would be a list of impressions and memories of my trip, of the places I've been and the people that I shared my journey with. But today is my last day in South America, for now, and I've been too busy to collate all those thoughts in my head let alone actually write them down. I will always hope I remember the sound of howler monkeys in the morning and the rumble of avalanches in Torres del Paine; the smell of the freshest roasted coffee and 
woodsmoke infused locals on crammed buses; the sense of utter privilege of walking into the Lost City, and of hugging a puma, or baby anteater for that matter; and the humbling and numbing sensation of talking with a man about the "disappearance" of his mother, and of watching mud caked children happily playing marbles in the slum back streets of a Bolivian village; and all the wonderful people I've met, Norwegian Chris foremost of them all. But these are just a few of the instant memories I have as I sit here now - there are so many more, but I have no idea where or how to start cataloguing them. Despite saying I would be doing "nothing", my last couple of weeks have been pretty busy running back
and forth over the Andes. But it meant I could catch up with three great friends I have made, amongst many, in the last year. Kathrin, one of the Swiss trio from my Salar trip and occasional host in Santiago, and I shared a chilled weekend in Valparaiso and also my very last night here, in a great Peruvian restaurant, (so lots of good Pisco, great Ceviche, and my favourite veg, Yucca!!). I also managed to meet up with Mike (my T del P and Navimag companion) back in Mendoza. Mike (actually two Mike's: Mike T del P
and Mike from Hostel Lao, the best in Mendoza) persuaded me I should do something more active than gently meandering between wineries on a bike, so we went white water rafting... silly pastime really but a lot of fun. However the sense of danger was not actually as acute as when we first arrived at the starting point for our winery bike tour: there are now two rival businesses hiring bikes within about 500 meters of each other. The original lot, Bikes&Wine, are losing business to Bike Rentals, run by Hugo and his family, who is a nice guy with plenty of bikes, a mission to undercut the opposition, and a tactic of bribing the bus drivers to drop off any potential customers outside his shop. So the Bikes and Wine crew stand on the side of the road screaming at the buses "It's here! Get off now!! Get your bikes here!" in an excitably aggressive way that convinces you to stay on the bus and avoid them at all costs... 
One other danger while making your rounds of the bodegas are the dogs - they don't attack the cyclists, but they'll do anything to get your picnic off you... I was cutting up a sausage when I found one burrowing his head under my arm: I managed to hold his head to the floor, without loosing the sausage, but even with is head fixed and unmovable he still managed to give the cheese we'd brought with us a good lick.
Mike and I travelled to Santiago to meet up with my mud hut Colca Canyon drinking buddy, Laura, in time for her birthday... pisco, wine, beer, rum...hangovers, the usual. Unfortunately the very unusual happened to me in that I managed to be relieved of both a jacket and a
fabulously warm hoody I was looking forward to having in wintry London. Ah well, if that's all I get nicked (touch wood, still a few more hours here), in the whole time I've been in south America, I think I've done OK, and thankfully (or possibly sadly) I don't have to report having woken up naked by the side of the street...well there was that time...no... In reality, despite travelling through countries of poverty, social unrest and civil war, I have found have found it all very safe. The countries I have visited and the people I have met have, on the whole, been incredibly friendly and welcoming. Even the poorest of these countries are swollen with potential for fantastic futures. Let's hope with Bush thinking about upping his armed forces to make a further mess of the Middle East, the US will keep its meddling hands out of Latin America for a while, and allow it to run and rule itself.
.JPG)
I would love to be able to spend more time here now, but it will be good to see everyone at home again too. If I have one real regret it would be that I really should have better Spanish by now! But I can work on that next time... I'll be back soon I hope!!!
Monday, December 11, 2006
Valporaiso and Mendoza...yet again
Haircuts, hangovers and a dictator checking out.
Before I left the lake district I took the opportunity to get probably the worst haircut I have ever had, (somehow the sides were left long and the top short giving a strangely tonsured effect), by someone I'm not entirely convinced had ever cut hair before, and was probably just minding the place... any way all was rectified when I reached Valparaiso. The guy had certainly cut hair before, just always for the navy, but that's what you get if you go to a barber just next to the port I guess. It's a pity Carrie and I didn't manage to meet up in this part of the trip as hoped, as doubtless she would have a suitably pitiless comment.
Any way, after 11 months of getting up and either "doing" something or moving on every day I have reached saturation point, so I abandoned all plans to do anything more than move up the coast and shuttle between a couple of my favourite cities: Valparaiso and Santiago in Chile and beautiful Mendoza over the Andes.
Mendoza is just a place I find it all to easy to do absolutely nothing and consequently have nothing much to report other than I have been feeding myself on fat steaks, guzzling the local plonk, and throwing sticks for Astor, the dog in the hostel.
Valparaiso on the other hand always has something to keep me busy. Mainly it's just wandering around and seeing something new every day. There is so much public art to see (both official and unauthorised), and fantastic views over the port - it's very easy to spend time watching the port life while sipping a pisco sour. And there's always a dilapidated asensor (funicular cable car thing, that are all over the city) to trundle up a hill on, or an ancient trolley bus to ride - the trolley buses are all different having been acquired from various places in Germany and Switzerland, and one or two still have the original destinations on the front.
However, I think Valparaiso must be utterly different from any other town in the world. It may be dirty and smelly but it has so much character, not in the least by the packs of dogs that run around the place, or the gangs of sea-lions I watched sink a small boat in the harbour. And it has a particularly high number of bars you would never go into, which appear to have been named and decorated in the 70's, including the International Pink Flamingo Bar and, my favourite, Club Kenny's Disco Bar. The latter I think would make a fabulous title for some novel or concept album, but I've decide that it would be best as some sort of art-house documentary film, in which show business celebs from the 70's are filmed drying and dying in front of pitifully small, non-plussed audiences, followed by interviews of their reactions and reminiscences, spilling the beans on the heady life of being an "all round entertainer".
Interviewer: "So Brucie, not a great night. Have a drink mate"
Brucie: "Thanks, I need it after that."
Interviewer: "Well, it must happen once in a while. After all it's not the first time you been up staged, is it? Top up?"
Brucie: "W-wadaya mean?"
Interviewer: "Have another gin, and tell me in your own words, what was it like to see a camp twat like Larry Graceson beat you in the ratings on the Generation Game."
Brucie: "Sickening. What more can I say? Somehow it would have been different if it was one of my old muckers, like Tarby or Kenny [Lynch]. Or even Bobby [Monkhouse], despite the fake tan and a reputation for a back hander. But Larry... he was always...different."
...I really have got too much time on my hands.
Valparaiso is also where the Chilean Congress sits, in a building Pinochet erected on the site of one of his childhood homes...only fitting then that when the bugger died someone burnt his effigy on its steps. I'll admit, as I wandered through town on my last day in the city, I thought the noise was all about a home win for the local team, but when I saw the hammer and sickle flags out I realised what must be going on. Within a very short time the main street had been closed to traffic and a march progressed up and down it, with flags and banners, and many pictures of people with the caption "Donde Estan" (where are they?). Pinochet was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of 3000, and the torture of a further 30,000, of his own countrymen, and of course was never punished, (so nice then, that our own ex-Prime Minister Thatcher is "greatly saddened" by his death). In Santiago crowds were dispersed with tear gas, but in Valparaiso it appeared the officers and sailors were confined to their ships, and a with light police presence, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.
But now I've really only got just a few more days to wander back and forth for between the plains and the coast, and frankly doing very little...except having the odd drink here or there.
Before I left the lake district I took the opportunity to get probably the worst haircut I have ever had, (somehow the sides were left long and the top short giving a strangely tonsured effect), by someone I'm not entirely convinced had ever cut hair before, and was probably just minding the place... any way all was rectified when I reached Valparaiso. The guy had certainly cut hair before, just always for the navy, but that's what you get if you go to a barber just next to the port I guess. It's a pity Carrie and I didn't manage to meet up in this part of the trip as hoped, as doubtless she would have a suitably pitiless comment.Any way, after 11 months of getting up and either "doing" something or moving on every day I have reached saturation point, so I abandoned all plans to do anything more than move up the coast and shuttle between a couple of my favourite cities: Valparaiso and Santiago in Chile and beautiful Mendoza over the Andes.
Mendoza is just a place I find it all to easy to do absolutely nothing and consequently have nothing much to report other than I have been feeding myself on fat steaks, guzzling the local plonk, and throwing sticks for Astor, the dog in the hostel.
Valparaiso on the other hand always has something to keep me busy. Mainly it's just wandering around and seeing something new every day. There is so much public art to see (both official and unauthorised), and fantastic views over the port - it's very easy to spend time watching the port life while sipping a pisco sour. And there's always a dilapidated asensor (funicular cable car thing, that are all over the city) to trundle up a hill on, or an ancient trolley bus to ride - the trolley buses are all different having been acquired from various places in Germany and Switzerland, and one or two still have the original destinations on the front.However, I think Valparaiso must be utterly different from any other town in the world. It may be dirty and smelly but it has so much character, not in the least by the packs of dogs that run around the place, or the gangs of sea-lions I watched sink a small boat in the harbour. And it has a particularly high number of bars you would never go into, which appear to have been named and decorated in the 70's, including the International Pink Flamingo Bar and, my favourite, Club Kenny's Disco Bar. The latter I think would make a fabulous title for some novel or concept album, but I've decide that it would be best as some sort of art-house documentary film, in which show business celebs from the 70's are filmed drying and dying in front of pitifully small, non-plussed audiences, followed by interviews of their reactions and reminiscences, spilling the beans on the heady life of being an "all round entertainer".
Interviewer: "So Brucie, not a great night. Have a drink mate"
Brucie: "Thanks, I need it after that."
Interviewer: "Well, it must happen once in a while. After all it's not the first time you been up staged, is it? Top up?"
Brucie: "W-wadaya mean?"
Interviewer: "Have another gin, and tell me in your own words, what was it like to see a camp twat like Larry Graceson beat you in the ratings on the Generation Game."
Brucie: "Sickening. What more can I say? Somehow it would have been different if it was one of my old muckers, like Tarby or Kenny [Lynch]. Or even Bobby [Monkhouse], despite the fake tan and a reputation for a back hander. But Larry... he was always...different."
...I really have got too much time on my hands.
Valparaiso is also where the Chilean Congress sits, in a building Pinochet erected on the site of one of his childhood homes...only fitting then that when the bugger died someone burnt his effigy on its steps. I'll admit, as I wandered through town on my last day in the city, I thought the noise was all about a home win for the local team, but when I saw the hammer and sickle flags out I realised what must be going on. Within a very short time the main street had been closed to traffic and a march progressed up and down it, with flags and banners, and many pictures of people with the caption "Donde Estan" (where are they?). Pinochet was responsible for the disappearance and deaths of 3000, and the torture of a further 30,000, of his own countrymen, and of course was never punished, (so nice then, that our own ex-Prime Minister Thatcher is "greatly saddened" by his death). In Santiago crowds were dispersed with tear gas, but in Valparaiso it appeared the officers and sailors were confined to their ships, and a with light police presence, the demonstrations passed off peacefully.But now I've really only got just a few more days to wander back and forth for between the plains and the coast, and frankly doing very little...except having the odd drink here or there.
