Bolivia

O.K well I guess keeping up with this blog thing is harder than I thought it’s been at least three weeks since my last post and in that time I’ve done all sorts of stuff, namely crossing the boarder into Bolivia via a three day 4WD adventure into the middle of nowhere, photos to come but at the moment uploading is as painful as having toenails removed with pliers.

Bolivia is a whole lot different to Chile, Chile is one it’s way to become the only country on the South American continent to achive 1st world status, meanwhile it’s neighbour Bolivia is pretty damn poor, it’s hard to walk down the streets and see eight year old kids begging for money or old ladys doing the same, it’s hard because there is nothing that can be done I can give some money or some food but they’ll be back again tomorrow, not that there is anything wrong with giving it’s just that it’s never ending, and the worst part if I’m to be honest, is I’m getting used to seeing it I still feel sad but not like when I first arrived  and that’s hard for me, to think that I’m getting used to seeing such suffering and not be affected.

The first stop in Bolivia was Uyuni, not a hell of a lot there just dirt and tourists passing through, we then moved onto Potosi at the advice of two girls from Holland that were heading that way and good advice it turned out to be, Potosi is a mining town and in it’s day was very wealthy now it’s just as poor as everywhere else, the miners work hard and when I say hard I mean like I never thought possible, kids as young as 10 are working down there on shifts as long as 20 hours, most die young from lung disease because of the dust, we had a chance to enter the mine and have a look at the conditions they work under, from memory we were 1km in and 1200km down and chewing cocoa leaves all the way, at the farthest point we reached without warning from below came a noise that would scare the shit out of the bravest man, they were blasting dynamite on the level below and it felt like hell had opened up, the sound was one thing but the shock waves that came through the tunnel stopped us dead in our tracks with eyes like dinner plates we hugged the wall and hoped to once again see the light of day.

One last thing about the mines is that they worship the Devil down there, up top they are all Catholics but down the mine they worship the devil, they believe that only the Devil can claim ownership of such a place, and I can see why, it is nothing less than hell on earth I have never seen anything like it, I can only imagine what it would be like for a ten year old boy heading into hell for the first time.

I met a girl in Potosi, a Norwegian girl who does volunteer work for a orphanage in a place called Cochabamba, we hit it off on the first night and ended up in the next town together in a place called Sucre, it was a great week she’s a lovely girl it’s a shame that I couldn’t have met her back home but such is the life of a man on the road, a week is a long time out here, well it feels that way when you spend all day and all night together you get to know someone pretty quick, good and bad habits, I’ve now arrived in her home town Cochabamba but may not be seeing her as it’s a bit complicated where she is, I kinda do want to and kinda don’t want to see her again we’ve already said our goodbyes and moved on so it’s easier to leave it, but!

We’re hitting the town tonight so hopefully be a good one, I’m not sure how long we’ll be in this town for maybe another couple of days, then we hit La Paz..

 TBC…

Turns out she wanted to see me as well, and I’m glad for it we had fun alot of fun, I haven’t felt like that for a couple of years now, didn’t know I ever would but once again I’ve been proved wrong, it was almost like being a teenager again, lying in the park all day going to the movies and not even watching it a stupid amount of PDA but loved every moment. The reason my Norweigan is in Cochabamba is that she volunteers at an orphanage and also lives in a house with twenty three 16yr old boys who don’t have family or are street kids for some reason or another, I had the chance to visit both places and while I’m glad I did at the same time it was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my life, there were if I remember correctly 170 children ranging from 3 days to about 6yrs, the first room we went to had about 60 babies some being fed some in bed some on the floor some in those walker things, all of them with one thing in common they are all alone from now till the day they die, I know they can find love like everyone else but to grow up like that, to never know where you come from, sometimes they don’t even have a birth date,  the worst part is that physical contact is at a minimum because there is not enough people ta give them the attention they need, so these poor babies grow up with the smallest amount of affection possible. After the babies we went through the rest of the place out in the playground were the older kids at about 6yrs, as we walked into the playground they came running up yelling mi papa mi papa I almost cried right then but managed to hold it somehow. After we left I found it hard to talk my mind was a mess, I had so many questions but I couldn’t handle the answers at that time, I needed a moment to absorb what I’d just seen it’s now at least a week and a half later and I still don’t know what to do with the thoughts..

La Serena/San Pedro De Atacama

Last Sunday I caught a bus with three others to La Serena about seven hours north of Santiago of a lot to see along the way but it was a reasonably good trip all things considered, mainly the fact the night before as usual we were at the hostel drinking a stupid amount of beer when we heard live music coming from up the street so we went to have a look, completely stunned to find out there were two bands playing one an Incubus cover band the other Pink Floyd, I think I got to bed somewhere around 5am, one of the guys I was with got mugged on the way back home had a knife to his throat and all, they took his money and all his cards but left his passport, so kinda lucky.

The first two days in Serena were beautiful clear blue sky not a breath of wind, so we headed down the beach where I managed to burn the shit outta myself two days on and I´m still sore as hell but I need a tan before I get to Brazil so need to get baked other wise I´m going to blind the rest of the beach goers.

La Serena is a bit of a uni town so the night life is all about drinking which suits me just fine, once again we seem to do alright with the ladies, four of us sitting at a table by the time we were on our second jug we were asked to join a table of girls by the next jug they were all over us, love the woman here absolutely gorgeous..

Had to leave La Serena yesterday one of the guy´s was falling in love with a local and another had a bit of a stalker she liked him a bit more than he liked her, me I just keep it simple I´m not here to fall in love and in fact find it hard to even remember their names. So we´ve stopped overnight in a place called Coiopo and there aint a hell of a lot here just dirt more dogs and more crap food, but were off tonight to a place called San Pedro De Atacama it´s supposed to have a lot of activities so looking forward to doing something other than drinking.

The sunburn´s pretty much all gone I´m back to being white again, I like it better than fluro pink anyway. I´t pretty hot here I have no idea what the temperature is nor have I a clue as to how to find out, not that it really matters it´s about as important as the time or the date that stuff means nothing anymore, it´s all about want now regardless of what time it is..

TBC…

A gruelling 11 hour bus ride in Semi Cama and I have arrived in San Pedro De Atacama, first impression fuck me it´s hot! once again I have no idea just how hot but it’s hot, according to what I’ve read it’s the driest desert in the word fifty times drier than California’s Death Valley with lake beds estimated to have been dry for 120,000 years and an average rainfall of just 1mm, get the picture? HOT! I’m not cut out for this kind of heat personally I don’t mind but my skin just burns I’ll have to get used to it cause I aint got much choice I’m here for a while, just sitting here in the internet cafe I feel like my life is draining away, I guess it cools down at night as most deserts do, also 2000 feet above sea level. It’s a cool little village though tomorrow I hope to go and see some sights..

Santiago/Valparaiso/Vina Del Mar

View from the top of Santa Lucia

After catching three planes, crossing three timezones and enduring roughly twenty hours flying I arrived in Santiago Chile, and glad for it I was lucky enough to be sat next to a big fat old man who spent the whole flight with his hand in his pocket playing with something, god knows what, I just wanted to stab him but I could´t damn airport security took away my tweezers and my pair of scissors, I thought about making a shank out of the plastic knives they give you with the food, but figured it would be best not to it´s kinda hard to get away when you´re stuck on a plane a few thousand feet in the air.

So anyway I arrived in Santiago and got a shuttle to to the hostel La Casa Roja checked in and slept for about 23 hours when I finally woke up I was on need of food and in my haste to leave didn´t bother to check the map and got lost, but the worst part was nothing was open turns out things start happening at about 10 o´clock and it was only eight, which is kinda how I got lost wandering around looking for food.

The next couple of days were spent walking the streets looking at what Santiago has to offer it´s a hell of a big city so I did a lot of wandering, more fun was to be had at the hostel not being a fan of cities it wasn´t really my cup of tea, I made a couple of friends but no one I really clicked with in fact I ended up drinking with the staff more than the other guests, I probably could of got a job there but wanted to keep moving as I said cities are not really for me.

So move I did I´ve just arrived in a place called Valparaiso it looks pretty cool so far but I´ve heard it can be dangerous so it´s a bit shit that I´ve just turned up in my hostel and there is no one else here, except the family who live upstairs, I just hope they´re not cannibals I´ve seen horror movies that start this way I´m half way to think I should kill them now that way I´m safe although it would be hard trying to convince the police that it was self defence, if this is the last post I write you´ll know it was them that killed me check the freezer I might still be in there, if I survive the night I´m going to find somewhere else to stay..

About half an hour after writing that two blokes turned up one Kiwi by the name of Steve and a Pomme Phil, Having feared for my life once already that day I thought it best to make friends quickly which turned out to be a good idea, I’ve benn haging out with them for the last week or so now and it looks like we’ll be heading up the line together aswell.

Valparaiso is quite a beautiful place very old buildings and a lot of history about the place, that mixed with some fairly decent grafiti made for an interesting walk around, we were there for two nights and the Friday was Holloween so we hit a Raggaton DiscoTech what a fuking laugh never heared such crap music in all my life, we were the only gringo’s there and drew a fair bit of attention from the laddies who might I add are absoultely stunning, I met a nice youg girl by the name of Daniela who kept me ocupied and away from any trouble that I probably would have gotten into..

Next stop was Vina Del Mar supposedly a great beach I say average at best not much to report on that place went to a cool bar had a few drinks wandered around a bit then headed back to Santiago back to the La Casa Roja a fine place by all acounts we’ve sort of got our own wee group that keeps changing as people come and go, a couple of Irish a canadian a pomme two Kiwi’s and whoever else decides to sit down, most the days are spent poolside drinking beer which has now taken it’s toll a crap diet too much booze and cigarettes and fuck all sleep make for a really unhealthy boy..

Santiago in a nutshell is a huge city with a lot of money and not too much in the way of poverty from what I saw anyway, the kids are all in love and spend the whole day sitting in the park kissing, the older ones go to a bar and kiss or to a resturant and kiss all they do is kiss no matter where they are or who is watching. Santiago is well over in the number of stray dogs a city should have there thousands of these muts walking around, the people of Santiago on a whole seem pretty nice with the exception of the three that robbed my mate george at knife point yesterday…

So Far So Perth

After a nearly four hour flight from Melbourne I arrived in Perth on the 10th of October at around midday, the flight was good I was sat next to a girl the same age as me who grew up in Perth and now lives in Melbourne, very interesting conversations she used to be a mermaid in Tokyo and now she’s a contortionist for the circus hmmmm my mind started to wander, she was cool and the flight went quick..

My brother met me at the airport and drove me out to his place in Scarboroughwe sat around drinking whisky catching up on all the latest. The next day we were booked on a vineyard tour called Spring in the Valley, the idea sounded good we all get on a bus head out of town for about 40 minutes do some wine tasting and head home, simple? well no not quite, it would appear that the vineyards could cater for about 2/3 of the people that had shown up, it was insane! only one place would let us in as the rest were all full. So anyway we were in this place called Ferrel it was a big grass paddock with a DJ one end and porterloos at the other and in between were a few thousand drunk people with the parimeter guarded by security and police, and thank Christ for that! these people are plain fucking nuts all the guy’s think they are hero’s and spend the day trying to prove it, fights breaking out everywhere. The worst part was we were stuck, the bus leaves at 5 no sooner, so suffer we must. The only saving grace was the girls, I think Perth has a pretty high concentration of beautiful woman and 90% blond, and all dressed to kill, it reminded me a bit of the races back home how they all get dresed up and look a million on the way there and on the way back look like make-up monsters that have been dragged by the hair through a bush.. 

Yesterday my brother and I went and hired a couple of scooters from Freemantle and spent the next three hours riding around checking out the beaches along the coast, it’s a beautiful place once you hit the beach white sand clean clear water, beautiful people everywhere, which leads me to think that I don’t fit in too well, pale skin and a beer gut is not in fashion I can assure you, the weather was nice and warm, I managed to get sunburnt feet of all things.

not sure what to make of Perth yet, I can understand the weather being an attraction but the place is pretty bland there are nice beaches but that’s about it, I guess coming from New Zealand I’m a bit spoilt when it comes to the scenery but still there is nothing here, kinda like they’ve just set up shop in the desert which aint far from the truth it’s all sand and scrub nothing much to look at..

Wandering in Melbourne

I arrived in Melbourne at about 7am Tuesday morning, my only goal for the day was to get to my friends place where I’d be staying for the next 10 days, she lives out in a suburb called Fitzroy a pretty cool place by all accounts it’s about a 40 minute walk from the city. So once I got off the plane I jumped on the Skybus which heads directly into the centre of Melbourne, all I have to do now is figure out the tram system so I can get out to Fitzroy and I’ll be sorted, no such luck I couldn’t find the one I was looking for and in my aimless wandering I ended up on Victoria St which leads to Fitzroy so I decided to walk fully laden with two backpacks, needless to say I was shattered by the time I arrived,

Day 2, I’m on my own so I figure I’ll go for a walk and take my camera see if I can’t get a few snaps, not much joy it all looks too much the same as any other city, but I spent the whole day looking any way, with of course plenty of stops for a beer at regular intervals, one thing that really gave me pause for thought was the used needle disposal boxes hanging on power poles, now I reckon I’ve seen the people that use these boxes but I thought about the poor bastard who has to empty the fuckin things.. Screw that! One wrong move and you’re in all sorts of trouble.

Tonight I’m going to see Black Francis aka Frank Black ex front man of one of the greatest bands of all time The Pixies, I can’t wait. I’ve got some time to kill so I feel it is necessary to head down the local and sink a few pints, I’m all for boosting the local economy and what better way to do it..

Day 3, Last night was the Frank Black concert one of the best concerts I have ever seen, stand and deliver is the only way to describe the way he preforms, he’s fuckin amazing to watch his voice can in one song go from heaven to hell he just stands there and screams no jumping around no fireworks just pure Rock ‘n’ Roll, all the songs he played were from his latest album Blue Fingers and an EP Seven Fingers, I haven’t got those albums so didn’t know any of the songs he played, but that didn’t matter..

Tomorrow I’m going to a pro choice rally we are marching to parliament, the main point of the demonstration is abortion, I’m not sure what to expect, my only thought is that it’s going to be a few hundred feminists a couple of hippies and me… Interesting.

It’s a Jungle Sometimes

 

I have just got back from the Travel Doctors with not so much a sore arm but more a bruised credit card, I had to get a Hep booster, Yellow Fever and Typhoid, this is my second trip to the travel doctor and both were very similar.

For a start they tend to scare the shit out of me with all their talk of catching every disease known to mankind, I can’t help but think that I’m going to turn up in South America and there will be no one there, the streets will be empty except for those lying dead on the side of the road from last nights mosquito attack.

The last time I had to go to see the Travel Doc I was heading to Peru and had never really heard of things like Yellow Fever, and diarrhoea was something you get from eating a bad curry, how wrong can one man be? after she had finished telling me all the perils of travelling, I was having second thoughts it seems everything wants me dead, I had visions of wild monkeys with packs of dogs at their command flanked by a swarm of mosquitoes all hunting me, chasing me down the street trying to bite me and forcing me to eat washed lettuce and if that wasn’t going to do it, out comes the secret weapon! (the head monkey approaches parting the gathered crowd he’s holding something, I can’t quite make it out it’s it’s NOOOOO!! it’s a tray of ice cubes made from tap water) what could I possibly have done to endure an evil such as this? after forcing me to eat the cubes they move on to thier next victim and I’m left there on the road with at the very least the worst case of shits known to mankind..

But alas nothing, didn’t even see a damn monkey and all the dogs were on the rooftops, so no rabies no poisoned ice cubes nothing, but don’t get me wrong I am more than happy about the fact I wasn’t mauled by the wildlife, and that I could enjoy a cube or two in my drink of choice, although a little disappointed about not seeing any monkeys but that was due largely to the fact that there are no monkeys in Peru, or so I think.

I guess, just like everything else it’s better to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best or something along those lines, end of the day I’ll take the jabs I need to ensure I get through the borders and the rest I’ll have to judge when I’m there, because lets face it if I try and prepare myself for every danger I’m going to face travelling through South America, Central America, Mexico and the psychotic state of California there is no injection the world has ever seen that could save me from all the possible scenarios, what I need is something better, bigger and stronger, something that’ll save me no matter what the situation, what I need is Batman! Now there’s something I can depend on, If I took the $300 that the Doc got from me today and spent it making that sign that lights up the sky with the Bat Signal, then my friends I would be sorted.

Obviously I would want nothing more than to finish my trip in one years time without so much as a grazed knee but I somehow doubt it, could be the cynic in me I’m not sure but I get the feeling that in 12 months something bad will happen, I might have my bag stolen I might get mugged I might get sick, these are things that could happen, these are all possibilities, the only certain thing that will happen is that I will have have the time of my life, everyday I will experience something new, meet someone new, make a decision that could possibly change my life forever, for 12 months I am free to choose my own path, in one’s life what could be more important than that.. I am willing to take the risk.

“Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”   HST

A simple plan

 

The plan is to travel somewhere for a decent amount of time where I’ll be completely lost, outside of my comfort zone away from everything I know and all that is familiar, which is not all that hard seeing as how I live in New Zealand, beautiful, under populated and safe. Great place to live and I’m sure a great place to visit, however I’ve spent 28 years here with the exception of holidays in fact I now live about 40 minutes from where I was born and that’s as far as I have got, the word homesick has no meaning to me what I am is sick of home. So I have decided to take the plunge and head off, all I have to do is decide when and where, over the two years my plans have changed back and forth from various locations and routes, but it has to be said the one place that my mind keeps coming back to is South America. Now before you start I don’t have some kind of romantic view of the continent produced by watching Motorcycle Dairies over and over again and I don’t own a Che T-Shirt. I know it’s a fuckin dangerous place even the mosquitoes can kill, BUT as with everything without the bad there can be no good, and good there is they have it by the bucket full, from the people to the music the food the culture the Senoritas (of course).

I have been to Peru but only for a short time, I was there for three weeks but in that time I did fall in love, with what I can’t say exactly, I guess the whole experience got me hooked, from walking through the country side on the way to Machu Picchu, descending upon small villages high in the hills and valleys, the ninos running to meet us as we approached, to the stunning towns along the way Arequipa, Nazca, Cusco..

So back I go, this time to do it the way it should be done “slowly” I have 12 months to get from Santiago, Chile to San Francisco, California. The way is not yet clear in fact it’s anything but, I’m not sure how this approach would wash with some but for me it’s the only way, for two reasons I am extremely disorganised and also very lazy so I’ll just float on, see where the wind takes me, if I feel like moving on I will..

So my plan is a simple one, and so far it is to get off the plane and find somewhere to sleep.. Then find a drink..

Por Que?

This has nothing to do with travel and more to do with mindset which is important in travel..

Every second Thursday I head down to the pub bit of a catch up with a couple of mates, some pool, couple of cigarettes and a laugh before I head down to a place called Catacombs (Cats) which I guess is a drop in centre for the indigent popululation of Wellington, some are homeless some mentally ill, some just like it there they feel at home.
So the story starts at the pub, this time I was joined by my flatmate for a couple of drinks, while we were talking of various things the subject of Cats came up, she asked “why do you do it” the answer didn’t come easy because I don’t really know, she pestered me for a bit longer and I ended up giving her a flippant comment that I can’t recall.
After I had a few beers it was time to head down and make tea, coffee and some toast for what largely are a pretty decent bunch even if they smell bad and talk with a permanent mumble that is not always easy to understand.
It was a pretty good night not too busy not too quiet had a couple of those kind of conversations where you only understand half the words and have to fill in the gaps with whatever you think makes sense, sometimes the drunken ramblings of a madman never make sense and if they did it may not be music to the ears of the sane.
Three hours later 10:30pm it was time to turf them all back out on the street, it was a clear night but pretty cold somewhere around 4-5 degrees, I always feel bad at this time knowing they have nowhere to go and I’m heading home to jump into my nice warm bed.
After locking up I started to make my way down the street to grab a taxi.
Up ahead I saw a couple of the guys sitting on the side of Courtney Pl drinking red wine out of plastic water bottles, as I passed one of them barked HEY!! as I turned he grumbled “I know you” Yeah yeah from up at Cats I said, I walked over and sat on a ledge next to them, your pretty intense aye? Intense! really! I never thought of myself as intense before so I dissagreed with a smile, with one eye missing and the lid shut tight he looked at me through his good eye with a stare reserved only for those who have seen more than most, the kind of look an old man has at the end of his days, with his eye locked on me he spoke in a voice scarred with alcohol and a lifetime of tobacco smoke, all I want is respect he said I don’t want to be treated like a child, sometimes when people speak to me they think I’m dumb I’m not dumb just homeless, I agreed it seemed to be a fair enough request to me, however I’m not sure how I come across to him, was his comment directed at me or just a general comment, intense was the word he used I think that could be more a mixture of uncertainty and the fact I’ve only being going to Catacombs for a short time, still finding my feet so to speak.
He told me more about what it’s like for him being out on the street how people look at him and that he can tell just from a persons look what they think of him, after about ten minutes or so I shook his hand wished him a good night and headed on my way.
Now I’m not saying that what this guy told me was all that profound but he still taught me something, we’re not all that different he wants the same as I, not in a materialistic way but in a human way he wants respect to be treated as a human and not some indigent throw away, as some kind of circus freak, simply to be treated as a human being.

As I was walking the question asked earlier that night came back to me, why do you do it?
The answer, I do it to learn…

Travel starts

Travel starts on the 26th of September and the blog along with it…
Sorry Cristina…