Hi all,Well I´m still going, just about ! This email starts where I left off (from the Easter email), having just arrived in Cartegena, Columbia.
Photos to go with this email;
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mark.g.blackburn/SouthAmerica2010Album1#
The missed opportunity....
My plan was always to buy a Motorbike (after crossing from Central America) and then continue heading South by bike (not by Bus !).
All through Central America I`d said (to anyone unfortunate enough to be listening) that there would be people selling Motorbikes in Columbia (having first ridden right up from the South), it was a complete guess. And, I was actually right ! (well, partly). On my second day in Cartegena there was a handwritten advert by a German guy (on the hostel wall) for a bike that actually had my name written on it (a Yamaha XJ900 with panniers, bags, spares, tools and full camping stuff included, for a "giveaway" price), it should have been fate ! He had ridden it all the way up from Argentina over the course of one year. Instead of grabbing the opportunity with both hands (and any other capable appendages) I opted instead to be suspicious and play it cool (it felt far too good to be true, there had to be a catch !). By the time I´d made my mind up, it was sold, unfortunately just 15 minutes before ! This (lesson in object stupidity) was to haunt me for some months to come, as although I checked every hostel I stayed in (and many more I did not), there was never another bike for sale, not one.
Along the Columbian Coast
Having gone up to the North Coast (of Columbia) and Cartegena I wanted to make the most of it. First stop was a "Mud Volcano" a few clicks down the coast. You really think twice about getting into a seemingly bottomless pit of thick, gelutinous mud. But you float !! very high as it turned out (about nipple level), you could`nt drown in it even if you tried, the sensation was very curious.
Next was "Park Tayrona", where you "walk in", several hours in the sweaty heat, carrying a small backpack and have the option to stay in hammocks (out in the open) for a night or two. It was my first night in a hammock and, much to my surprise, I slept like a log. The beach was stunning, jungle coming right down to an azure blue sea, with a cove for swimming. An aim of mine was to find a fresh Green Coconut and open it myself. It took a while to find one and then the fun started, using a Swiss Army Knife I hacked away at that thing for well over an hour ! Those things are tough ! Worth it in the end, it was delicious, both the milk and the insides, but survival on a tropical island requires better tools ! On the last night I could not sleep so I went for a walk along the beach, very late, I saw two lights close to the sea. On closer inspection it turned out to be a 6 foot Caiman staring right back at me (my headtorch was very well reflected in it´s eyes), I backed, gingerly, away. In the morning I found (as did most others) that mosquitoes can getcha right through a hammock !
Central Columbia
I took the bus to Bogota, where the weather took a turn for the worse, rainy and overcast and cold, a shock after months of tropical weather. I visited the Police Museum, which was interesting in that (in the post Pablo Escobar days) the police have made themselves much harder to "nobble". They have their own gated housing estates, hospital, bank and even holiday resort !
I visited the world famous "Cathedral de Sal", the largest underground church in the world, this was a joke in my opinion, as it was an old excavated salt mine with a few religious trinkets scattered about, and $10 to get in ! Pooh !
I took the bus to Medellin, apparently it had very few tourists up until about 2006. It was not at all what I expected, a modern metropolis with modern mass transit trains/trams, it could be a part of Europe, easily. In fact that was an interesting observation of Columbia, while the "drug barons" have been running their businesses the rest of the country must have been quietly developing itself, it´s literally streets ahead of Central America. There is a darker side, the owner of the hostel told me that the going rate for a assasination is just $50 and it´s so regular that the authorites have banned all male "pinions" on motorbikes. The nightlife was exceptional, it goes on ALL night and people just sit around the various city parks drinking and socialising (in the UK that would be seedy, but not there). The "barrios" (very poor suburbs) go right up the steep sides of the valley, a part of the mass transit system is ski lifts !made by POMA, they go right to the top of the surrounding hills, there must be a big queue at rush hour. I searched for, once again, but could not find, a single second hand bike.
I headed to Solento, part of the coffee growing "Zona Cafeteria". Coming from the UK I thought that Columbians would love coffee, as far as could see they mostly don´t ! it´s total UK marketing balls ! This was the same in Guatemala, they grow the stuff, copiously, but there is in fact very little local demand. Several times I´ve sat in a cafe surrounded by bags of coffee beans and beans drying in the road and been served Nescafe !! It´s two days before I can go a on coffee plantation tour as it rains heavily. I get adopted by a friendly street dog that follows me everywhere for two days, so I feed it, of course. I join up with some others and go on a day trek through fields of very scenic Wax Palms (absurdly tall Palm Trees) which ends up at a humming bird sanctuary (mesmerising to watch). At the end of the day the jeep ride back to town is a bit hairy, the only space left is "second row on the bumper", two rows of people perched precariously on the back bumper (it´s the last jeep of the day, there is no choice...).
Hence to CALI, famous, apparently, for it´s inhabitants love of plastic surgery, particularly fake frontages and fake behindages. I was to be disappointed, I saw neither of these fake appendages in my stay there (that I recognised). I stayed at an interesting tiny, friendly hostel where the female owner formally kissed everyone good night, every night ! There was a Ethiopian girl backpacker staying there who had backpacked Cape Town to Cairo, now that is a feat ! I went to a "Salsa Teca" one evening and had some Salsa lessons, but they were a dismal failure, as always, I just can´t get that Salsa rythym.
I get "dos" (2) and "doce" (12) mixed up frequently. Twice I´ve tried to bargain my way down from "doce", when the asked price was "dos", to the amusement of whoever. Which reminds me of a story my first Spanish teacher told me of a Mexican in LA who bought some sleeping pills, the label said "Take once before bed", now "once" is Spanish for eleven !! (pronounced "on say"). Did he wake up ?
I head for the Columbian border town of "Ipiales". Famous for it´s unique and very scenic church/bridge (it´s in my photos). I met two very nice Brits (a couple) at the bus station, we swapped all our respective money and our books, and go then out for a cheap meal and swap travel hints, very handy ! They work 24 hrs a day at Glastonbury Festival each year selling enough sausages to travel for 6 months !
Ecuador
I arrive in Quito in the dark and don´t have an easy time of it. They have moved the bus station to 10km outside town (?), to get into town you take a "Trole" (a bendy bus with an electric motor and overhead power lines, a Trolleybus I suppose), in the guide book it says plainly "Don´t Take It, Too Risky". There is a proper power cut on the way, Quito is now black dark & very threatening. I miss my stop (bendy bus has a diesel motor too...) as I can´t get out d/t crush of people inside, I return the other way and it does not stop at all ! I end up, 2 hours later, back where I started !!! An hour later I finally book myself into a very comfortable hostel, the "Secret Garden", & they have one bed left (so not so secret..).
I spend a day in Quito doing touristy stuff. The best bit by far is climbing right to the top of the cathedral. Incredibly, for a nominal fee, they let you completely loose in the innards of their cathedral. Precarious ladders lead right to the very top (about 8` under the lightening conductor) they obviously don´t have an HSE in Ecuador. I go to the very touristy "Centro del Mundo" where you can have your cheesy picture taken, standing over the equator (or brass line) ! and I did !. The place was built at the turn of the last century and would have been placed by astronomical observation, so now (with GPS) it´s 180 metres wrong ! I sign up for a few days more españole lessons, with another school, to no great effect, and out of school I try and track down a second hand motorbike, to no great effect either.
I left Quito 2 weeks later and headed for the "Quiloto crater" on the way I more or less have my first Spanish conversation ! with the girl sitting next me on the bus. She invited me home to her house and I went with her, but she just wanted to sell me some crummy indigenous art !! I had to wait an hour and a half on the roadside for the next bus and it (of course) snowed ! The crater was scenic and I stayed the night at a basic hospedaje run completely by a 12 year old girl and her 5 year old brother (children working is a very common occurence in South America), she did everything, and it was sad to see (her Granny, the owner, was in hospital). Next day I took a long horse ride (for me) up to the "Cloud Forest" which turned out to be about a foot high ! My horse liked to walk right on the edge of the precipice, keeping me "on edge" for the whole trip. The next few days I was quite Ill again, and once again was in a very remote place, with no facilities. There was only one bus a day and it left at 3am !, so taking a handful of immodium, I took that bus back to civilisation. I went to a nearby town called Baños (it´s spanish for "toilet", ironically enough), found a hotel with cable TV and checked in. But, alas, it was not enough, I got much worse over 2 days and had to return to a hospital (very dehydrated, I was given 2 litres of IV gloop) where they detected a load of parasites (3 out 4 types) and treated me accordingly, I had 3 more days recuperation in my hotel. After that episode I did a downhill bike trip from Baños to Puyo. You start off in the high Andes and freewheel 60km (2 vertical km) down to the Amazonian town of Puyo, a fantastic trip as the flora and fauna changes the whole way, from Andean scrub to Amazonian jungle.
Into.... Peru.....
After Baños, I headed for the Peruvian border, via two, day-long, twisty bus rides. It´s immediately very different, it´s becomes flat, the trees disappear, then the plants, and then we are suddenly in the desert. The people, and their dwellings, appear to be much poorer. In Piura, at the bus station, a woman (with a small child) pushes right in front of me at the counter, the ticket clerk then gets mixed up and charges me for her two seats. On the bus, the child, whose seat I have paid for, is sat right behind me and kicks the back of my seat for 8 solid hours, ain´t life grand !!
I journey to Huanchaco (close to Trujillo) a grey and dismal looking seaside resort with big waves (for surfers). Check into a hostal at the same time as 5 others, and for the first time everyone really "gels" straight away and we go out together for every meal for 2 days (we are a right collection of oddballs...), it´s a shame this does not happen more often. I´m encouraged to visit "Huaraz" as a stop on my way to Lima and I´m glad that I do. The mountain scenery is every bit as spectacular as Nepal (and it comes as a bit of a surprise as it´s not really hyped in Peru), sharp spikey peaks all around with a sprinkling of glaciers. I decide to do a four day trek there to see even more of the Cordilliera Blanca (just south of this range is the "Cordillliera Huayhuash" where Joe Simpson fell off his mountain (back in the 80´s) in "Touching the Void"). It´s a good group of people, quite socialable, a large German guy "Guido" is a little unfit and lags behind most of the time (he turns out to be Angela Merkel´s personal pilot). We topped out at a 4750m pass, enough for a British couple (they had arrived straight from Lima, and hence from the UK) to both be quite unwell. It was luxury camping and trekking, donks carried all our stuff, mess tent, toilet tent, cook and porters, it really does make trekking a lot easier ! We had a greate end-of-trek slap-up meal in a restaurant on the last night, back in Huaraz, rarely does food taste better !
All through out Ecuador / Peru & Bolivia people drink Coca leaf tea. In fact when you trek at altitude they more less force-feed you the stuff, it´s supposed to help with the symptoms of altitude sickness (and I think it does). It´s prime stuff, it tastes fine and it really makes you feel "better" for an hour or so, I´ve been drinking a lot of it (as does everyone else). I´ve tried the indiginous method, chewing the leaf, but it´s horrible. The Coca leaf is available in large bags in every shop, it´s surprisingly commonly available (very much a part of the indiginous culture). Apparently, if I try and bring a bag back, it will be taken off me at Heathrow !
In LIMA I gave myself a task, "find a motorbike and don´t give up until you have !" It took 8 days of prowling about Lima and asking everywhere I could, going to some very dodgy suburbs, before I twigged, Peru does not have a second hand motorbike market !! That made things a lot simpler, I would get a new one. I finally found one that looked as if it would suit my purpose, a RTM 150 G for the, seemingly, very reasonable price of $672 US. I really did want a "big 4" bike but they were very very pricey, so a Chinese made cheapie import it would have to be (I was reassured that "RTM" was the leading cheapie brand in Peru). So after hitting several ATM machines (which made Barclays block my card) I paid cash and ordered the thing. However, the cogs of Peruvian bureaucracy are not speedy, I was faced with a minimum 3 week wait for the registration documents, so decided that the best use of my time would be to do some volunteering (which I´d wanted to do some from the start at a convenient moment).
Pisco Sin Fronteras
I apply for and join a volunteer group called "Pisco Sin Fronteras". The town of Pisco was destroyed (totally flattened) by a large earthquake just 2 years ago (there is no mention in my guidebook) it´s now very dusty & grotty and not a very nice place to be. The group offer free labour (and tools) to Peruvians trying to rebuild their houses. Most of the ordinary people of Pisco are still living in tents in poor conditions, without running water or sanitation (and it´s cold at night). I arrive and it all seems fairly chaotic, there are an equal mix of young Americans and Brits (and one or two other nationalities), hardly surprisingly, I´m one of the eldest there. On my first day I work on Jesus´s house (that has to be good karma !!), mixing concrete, by hand, to make foundations.
The days pass quickly, the work is really phyically hard but the evenings are noisy and the local beer is dead cheap (0.70c a large bottle). I also liked "Pisco Sours", a deadly local cocktail that is absolutely delicious (and only $1.30 each). The original creators of "PSF" were a bunch of hippies from the US "Burning Man" festival, this means every morning there is a (Quaker style) energetic meeting in which anyone can speak, I think (as a social experiment) it really works ! Half way through my stay I get an email from the "garage", they have to know whether I am single or married, without such information the sale cannot be completed !!! (I suppose it is a Catholic country....). While I´m there I try my hand at joinery, electrics & brick laying (I wanted to have a shot at welding but the welding machine broke) - it´s all done to a "Peruvian standard", which is not saying too much, I won´t get a building job in the UK !. While I was there I won an Iron in a raffle ! it did not make it to my backpack.
Start of the bike trip...
The paperwork is finally ready so I go back to Lima (by bus) and pick it up ! There is a problem ! no numberplate. It takes 7 days to get a numberplate in Peru, so rather than wait in Lima I return to Pisco and do another week of construction. It means riding between Pisco and Lima 3 times, a distance of 900 km in total, which is a good test (for me and the bike). Because of the missing numberplate I get stopped by every Peruvian policeman on the way, but each lets me go (without payment) when I say I am a volunteer (lucky !).
On my last few days in Pisco there is a local festival, PSF is asked to help out with float preparations for the Fishermans Centre, and several people, including me, lend a hand. The parade is mainly composed of marching school children, teachers and marching office workers, policemen, fire fighters and others. In marching terms I´d say the "Goose Step" is a demanding step. When done well (Chinese & Russian guards) it looks very impressive. But when done by some ordinarily dressed unpractised office workers of all ages, shapes and sizes (mainly short...) it looks hilarious !! I had to cover my face, what were they thinking ??
On the 6th July I say my goodbyes at PSF, pack up the bike up with all my clobber (for the first time) and wobble South....
I´m now (9th August) in La Paz, Bolivia, 3000km into my motorcycle trip. I´m actually a bit stuck at the moment as the Bolivians have blocked all the roads South ! it´s a protest (this happened in Peru as well, but only for 2 days), this "strike" is now 8 days in, with no sign of ending !
For a photo preview of my motorcycling trip: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mark.g.blackburn/MotorcycleDiary2010Album1
I´m planning to write that up as a blog, when I get round to it.....
cheers all,
Mark
