Photo of the Day
The little mermaid gets what’s coming to her. Sadly no one told these backpackers they had to buy the candy separately :p
First week In India
Got to Bombay at 2am, was kinda late so I checked into the first hotel I saw, $38 a night but I was tired, slept for 14 hours.
Was far too late to get up and change hotels at 4pm so I had some food and wandered around Colbara, plenty of tourists. Saw the gateway to India and looked at some shops, drank some juice and went back to bed. 14 days of working and the hassle of getting my visa the day before had taken their toll.
Next day I got up too late to get a cheaper room again, they called from reception but i unplugged the phone. No do not disturb sign…
I looked at the map and went walking in Bombay, still not sure why they changed the name. Went north from Colbara, was interesting, walked for about 3 hours. Bought a few odds and ends, nothing exciting, was nice to get out and see a whole new city, a whole new country and for the people that lived there, their whole world.
Third lazy day, another walk, same punjabi thali in the same place, same people asking me to buy their stuff. I have to leave tomorrow, still not managed to wake up early enough to check out.
I get up in the morning!! I have a thali for breakfast somewhere new, I walk up to the train station so I know where it is and use my visa card to buy a ticket to Pune (no big queues but it costs me 40p for the privilege of swiping). I store my bags, bum around some more and go to get the train. Wasted time in Mumbai, too tired, too disorganized, but I’m in India…
Late train, sleep, go to big hotel, people call me sir but its cheap. I learn Brad and Angelina left Pune the same day back to Bombay, I was hoping to meet them for a drink. Next time. I explode my backpack and set up the washing line, the water temperature in the shower is too variable to enjoy.
Call Eric, para gliding instructor, he comes in the morning and sits chatting on his phone. Busy guy. We agree to start that afternoon, he gives me a lift to my new backpacker ghetto near the ashram, I find a cheap apartment and pull my jeans back on. Time to fly.
100 rupees for the majority of the way to the school, i get VJ to take me the rest of the way. Nice guy, works the phones all night for the Americans and flies in the day. Eric is on his phone, we drive out to some fields, hike a small hill, they test the wing and then we move 500m to a flat field. Pointless, I’m in my harness and hanging around. They hook me up, give me the spiel, run here, pull this, feel the wind. Up goes the glider and I pump my legs and keep it up, rinse repeat. They ask me if I’m tired but I keep saying ‘One more’. The sun sets and we stop.
The coannell give me a lift most of the way into town, its hot, dusty and dark. The streets are packed with people, no rickshaws but after an age we find one and I head back to coffee and cakes at the German bakery and sleep. I meet Doctor George in my apartment, he’s at the ashram, digs waking my up at 5am, Israeli Australian, nice guy. I sleep.
Up early for my proper lesson, boots, jeans, gloves, helmet, check… I try for a rickshaw, they want to know where, I don’t know, I know how to get there. We agree a price despite the lack of clear goals, he refuses the meter, its too early it seems. He throws me out 4/5 of the way, I pay and walk. Wave to the locals who never see tourists on this backwater farm track. Im late, Eric is on the phone, but we sort the paper work, sign the forms and head off to the bank. Guess they want me to pay.
1/2 drive to the hill, we try a new one, its too windy, its too late. Anandvitty, the assistant, tries a few tricks. I stand around confused. I read my book some more, not been told to read it but it seems like a good idea. They fall over, give up, Eric chats to some locals for ages while we pack the wing and wait. We’ll try again in the afternoon.
I rent a scooter, fuck the rickshaws, 100rp a day, 1.20. I meet Vanessa who rents the other room in my apartment, nice, interesting, married…
No problem getting to school on time, need to get there quick so we can drink tea and Eric can take calls. Im wondering when he will start to teach me. The 4 of us set off, the guys on the toll bridge wave in anger as we refuse to stop again, Eric knows the builder.
1km to the hill base and 200m up, out come to gliders and on go my gear. I’m told the 10 checks for safety, I get a radio, don’t forget to turn it off when told, those rechargeable batteries are valuable! I kind of understand where to try to land, I kind of understand how to land, I have to be ready to run and turn, flare and fold. Its all very interesting, I wonder if I will remember when I hit the ground.
I pull, up goes the wing and you can feel the wind lifting, pulling, trying to draw you up to the heavens, and what goes up must come down. I run on command, the hill drops away, my heart beats and … I’m flying. No engine, just gravity pulling me down and the wind trying to push me back up. My heart beats on, do I feel fear? Panic? Elation? (obviously!). None of these things, i hang in the air with only string and fabric between me and a fall to my death, my heart beats steadily as if its the most natural thing in the world.
I do a couple of turns when Eric tells me through the walkie talkie, but I can’t make out anything else he says other than ‘right’ and ‘left’ with the wind rushing past. I pick my spot, I think about landing, flare (pull both brakes), run, turn, collapse the glider… The landing field is where Eric wanted me, but its me that got there, I flare as I come in like they do on TV, I run but my brain gets confused and I dont turn. Its ok, the wing comes down anyway in a mess, Ive flown and landed safely and my heart rate didn’t change…
Local boys come running, expert packers and porters so I can get back up the hill quick. They want their 20 rupees, but they don’t know the meaning of the word ‘no’. Oh they understand well enough, but their constant attempts at ‘helping’ me only makes the job go slower. Will you be there when I’m flying in Europe I ask them, but they don’t understand, they want pocket money. Eventually I get it packed, Anandnitty comes down nearby and tells me he only pays 10rp for a porter. Its not that far up, ’10 minutes’ Eric says, I wonder when he last climbed it.
Back at the top i rehydrate and get set up again, its getting late, the sun will set soon. Last flight, and the first one took 2 minutes to get to the bottom. 4 days training, with one on the ground, so 3 x 2 flights, 6 flights for 100 pounds, at 2 minutes a time, 8 pound a minute or 500 pounds an hour? Not quite what I expect, is this cheap still? Carrying, packing, sitting in a jeep…
Next flight is also great, I get lifted up nearly right away, and hardly run. My heart beats slowly, I turn and glide down, no soaring for me, landing practice, always the fun parts…. not. I come in for the field a bit too long, my angle into the wind is ok, I flare ok and am on my feet but the wind is frisky, the glider pulls and I fall scraping my arm. T-shirt is not the best idea.
Thats it, ‘lesson’ over and I once again fight 4 boys off my glider to get it packed. The money is nothing, but am I learning or just being stubborn? I join VJ and Anandnitty who fy down after me and we walk around the hill and back to the house we left the jeep, 2 km or so. VJ is cool. Its dark now, Eric sits and talks on his mobile, we refuse the offer of chai and set off back to Eric’s house. An hour later I’m back in my apartment and wondering what I’ve let myself in for.
Up early next day to make it for the 7.30 am lesson, still jet lagged, still sleeping late, I sit waiting For Eric and reading my instruction book, Anandnitty is amazed that I’m half way through it already, he has never read it, although he says he doesn’t really read. We leave about 8.30, so much for getting up early and missing breakfast… The toll guards shout at us again, I laugh.
This time I have my camera and we have guest from up country. We park a bit closer to the hill and climb up together. There are 4 of us, Eric, myself and 2 guys from Northern India who are here to fly, or buy something, or test something, I never really understood exactly what. I think their gliders were delayed on the train or something so they were just checking out the terrain for later. Happily they have a new DVD video camera they are keen to test so they point it at me for 20 minutes as I prepare and perform my third flight. “Um, can I have a copy?” :p
I get kitted up and stick my camera on the front of my helmet, for a true eagle eye view of the trip down to the rice fields. Ready, set, go! This time I seem to lift, stall, drop, speed up, repeat. Doesn’t feel like a very smooth flight, perhaps its my complete lack of training on this aspect of flying. Eric shouts some instructions into the walkie talkie, but I can’t really hear him the wind is rushing past my ears too much. I guess he wants a few turns and I oblige, I turn left and follow the ridge, but I’m not climbing, just dropping steadily, I figure I’m a little too close to the hill and turn right, only I don’t turn, I just seem to stop and at this point I’m only 15 meters or so above the hillside, I start to drop, pick up some speed as I half figure I’m about to land on a steep hillside, with no training or idea of how to do it. Like an expendable action man on a home made tea towel parachute I swoop towards the ground… and keep going! I could have reached out and touched the flowers as I went past if I wasn’t so convinced I was about to crash.
My heart decides its time to rumble into life, if this lack of control is anything to go by the landing might require some adrenaline and natural pain-killers. Two turns and its nearly time to reacquaint myself with Terra Firma, I’ve only been up 40 seconds and I have to think about where I’m going to land. Not a very thrilling hobby, and I have the hike back up to look forward to. hmmmm. I spy out the target field and guesstimate how I’m gonna get there, ie can I turn a few more times, or do I need to head straight there. The problem is you have to land into the wind, and when trying to hit a tennis court sided field (because you don’t want to piss off the other farmers) with no really experience or idea of if this is possible, it means you’re busily doing complex physics calculations in your head with no calculator, while wondering if you’re going to survive the experience, trying to listen to the distorted instructions from the walkie talkie, scoping out trees you have to fly past (or through) to the target, thinking about the procedure for landing (out the seat, pull the brakes at 5m, run, turn, collapse…), aiming the camera on my helmet for youtube, checking the canopy…. basically its a bit of a head fuck. Not really the relaxing experience I was led to expect.
I glide in, time for a small turn which is a mistake because it lowers my speed, but I’m doing ok for the field… uh oh, whats that hut thing coming up?? Didn’t seem that from the top… going too slow… line of broken trees… never gonna clear them….have to go through… stalling… IM GOIN IN!! No time to think, have to land into the wind, I drift right, no time to turn, I do the best I can, I tag a small tree on my way past, nothing to be done, flare, run, back on the ground somehow. This time my heart is awake!
For my second run the wind isn’t blowing quite as hard or steadily as the previous day and when Eric says to go I run and run, right off the edge of the hill dropping as I go…. no lift, no wind!! I’m going down, the hills is sparsely dotted with spiny thorn bushes, really nasty things to get caught on as you struggle up the hills and I’m dropping right towards one, out of control at 15 mph! My chances of having children flash before my eyes, I put my feet together and kick my way through it! Despite this I gain some speed, i seem to go up a bit, at least I’m not dropping quite so fast. Its seems ok, but no gliding, no wind, its just a quick trip to the fields for this trip.
Tags: Travel, job, sleep, mistake, maps, backpack, possiblity, seatHeading to the beach
Caye Caulker, Belize
| I filled my backpack and headed down to the pier in time for the noon ferry over to Caye Caulker, a little strip of land that I should probably have gone over to the week before if Vanessa hadn‘t distracted me :p At least the weather seemed more reasonable, the water was even blue instead of the brown I was used to seeing. Maybe I would be diving the Blue Hole in a few days?!? |
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The ferry was 50% tourists so I guessed it was a pretty popular spot, I paid $20 us return and sat listening to American Archaolgogy students chat to a Norwegian couple about their plans to visit Europe. An hour or so later we we at the island and I set off with a vague idea of where I wanted to stay. Daisy’s place smelt of mildew so I settled for Marins. Shared shower, double room for $15 us. I was hoping to meet up with Katarija again who had told me she would be heading over about the same time but a walk around town didn’t make her appear.
I was pulled up short by a local guy, Charles, who made me feel bad by trying to brush him off. “Relax man, meet the locals!” he told me, so I stopped to chat. Two minutes later he was trying to sell me drugs and telling me where the island brothels were. So much for being friendly.
We’re only on a strip of land 700 meters by 100 so its pretty small. Up at the ‘split’ there’s a cool bar with a diving board and a broken up concrete pier where the tourists lie basking like seals all day. Its hot, sunny but with a fresh breeze, the hurricane near Florida was blowing all the way over. Not a bad place to chill for a few days.
Back in the USA
Day 220
New York, NY
Thankfully felt a lot better after my trouble on the plane and managed to get my bags, onto the train into Penn Station and into a hostel. I didn’t feel like wandering all around Manhattan so looked up a hostel in Starbucks and wandered the few blocks to get to it. $48 for a 4 bed dorm! Might have been better value if I could have gotten up for the breakfast but it didn’t happen. I wandered around for a couple of hours and had an early night.
Next day I packed up my bags and jumped onto the Subway to where I would be spending my second night in NY, the floor of a Daniella‘s hotel room. She was over for a course for a couple of days and generously let me share her room. I dumped my bags and set off on a mission to buy a new camera lens. My 17-55mm was good, great in fact, but I was constantly finding myself wishing for more reach. A 70-300mm would suit the bill perfectly and despite the fact that B&H, the best camera shop in NY, if not the world, was closed for passover the prices were pretty much the same all over the city. I walked up past Union Square, which I didn’t even recognise in the sunshine and walked west along 17th Street to the Camera store of the same name. $400 poorer I could now stalk celebrities! After a lunch of falafels and snapple I decided to wear out some shoe leather and try to find something interesting to snap. Sadly the track of my route will never be published as I had managed to lose my GPS tracker! It was my own stupid fault for attaching it to my belt and then putting on my backpack. Bleh.
I headed east and then south, ending up under the brooklyn bridge and finding I could photograph birds with some success at last!
I also checked out the World Trade Center site again, and although construction has started on the new towers it still looked much the same as it did the last time I was there in 2002. A bloody mess!
It was a nice afternoon walk back up to the hotel, I was absolutly knackered but I had arranged to meet Dani when she got off her bus…. I took my laptop out to the local Starbucks but for some reason didn’t bother checking my mail…. duh!
I sat waiting from 11pm until 1am and she didn’t show up. I tried in vain to call her but just ended up shouting at the stupid phones in frustration. Her bus broke down and she finally turned up at 2am. If I had checked my mail I would have had a nice sleep :p
wander past union/can’t find shop/17th str photo/wander west/photo bridge/WTC/walked north/use net/meet Dani/2am/sleep on floor.
Tags: shoes, laptops, trousers, bloody mess, falafel, passover, camera lens, tent, gps tracker, new camera, bleh, eve, last time, blog, laptop, union squareIm on vacation!
Day 147Â Santiparc Beach, Baja California, Mexico
Pat and Drake had made friends with an Israeli couple that were cycling south; we passed them 2 days before and they came over to have a go on the kayaks. I was mooching around the van, gluing flapping parts and spraying WD40 on rusty bits and messing up Sheena bed in the back in the process. I had to have a bit of a tidy though, it was messed up. Its simpler for her though since all her stuff is concentrated in one backpack and my gear is stowed all over the place. The wind was blowing around, on and off, strong then soft, making it cold out of the sun and then too hot in it. It didn’t know what it was doing. We said we would give them a lift into town when they came back and figured they would be about an hour but they were gone ages! The wind was blowing right out from the beach though so they had a nasty headwind to overcome to make it back and we were just getting more worried when they rounded the headland and came into view. They were cycling around the world, I’m guessing a little breeze wouldn’t tax them too much…
We formed up the convoy and went into town, it was high time for me to do my laundry so I dropped it off and met the 3 others at a local taco place for some great cheap food, which was generously covered by Pat. Its a good job I eat fish now as the fish taco places are all over and cheap and delicious. I had some shrimp ones and they give you a case full of salad and condiments to drape over them. Really good stuff. I dropped Sheena at the Internet cafe and then went looking for a tire place to fix my flat. The only place I found couldn’t repair it and didn’t have any spares, I would have to find another solution as the spare was useless and also meant my insurance was currently worthless. The tire guy suggested a place 20km south of town and didn’t mention anywhere else nearby so I thought his was the only show in town… Across the road I filled up our containers and the solar shower as the campsite was ‘dry’, they only had long drop toilets and the hot showers were $3 each in the morning. Still, at $7 a night it was nice, there were only a few people on our section of the beach, the only slightly annoying thing was the irregular stream of Mexicans driving up and attempting to sell us all manner of tourist tat. I wanted a hammock but after asking for some of their prices on stuff decided I would be better off in a shop where I could walk away if I didn’t like the haggling. Besides I was on holiday and didn’t want people constantly offering me things which I almost certainly didn’t need.
| I took a quick swim before the sun went down and earned a beer from Drake in the process, he didn’t think I had it in me, and neither did I. I just remembered the warm solar shower waiting for me up on the beach. We walked over to see how the Israelis plan of cooking up the hundreds of clams was working out. Pat was determined to get completely shit faced and was drinking a $2 bottle of tequlia which smelt lethal. |  |
We loaded up on beer and walked across the bay to the other side, pausing to take a drink at Ana’s Restaurant on the way. Pat is sweet on the girl who works there and after drinking the gasoline/tequila above was knocking back the normal stuff like water.
Brett, Jack, Drake and Sheena.
The Israelis neighbours had found a huge stack of driftwood somewhere and were planning on burning it until 3am. They also had 72(!) beers to get through before heading back to the US and we had to give them a hand!
It didn’t look like the Scallops were going to be cooked but something started to happen in the ‘kitchen’ but it was decided we were too many people for only a big bucket of scallops and we should go and eat at the Restaurant.
Seafood is weird!
We gave Pat a chance to flirt with his girl and he proceeded to order a *load* of food. I felt kind of uncomfortable and admitted I had forgotten my wallet…. So had Sheena…. So had Drake…. Pat just said ‘Its ok, Im on vacation!!’ before ordering everyone beers and shot after shot of tequila for himself…
The Campers                                         Pats fav barmaid.
We were making real racket and it didn’t look like we were going to make it back to the party, but everyone else seemed to be having a good time regardless. We paid and got up to leave but then started talking to a group of American, Canadian and Australian Couples and then we were trapped for another hour. Drake was trying to charm the ladies and we thought at one point he was going to get into a fight when he split off one guys wife for a more private chat. We retreated to the bar for another final drink and we realised the big group had gone and Drake was no where to be found. We were about to head back to our camp site to see if he was there and finally he responded to our cries of his name. He was in a 80 year old widows RV and couldn’t escape. His gratitude was written all over his face and we headed back to the party to find everyone still there and the wood pile only halfway down.
I can’t believe I let Pat drive us all home. :p
Tags: neighbours, tire place, beers, fish taco, campers, nearby, kayak, headland, thumbNever is a long time, maybe not long enough….
I went back to the cafe, I walked through the door and no thanks to US customs and immigration my bag was exactly where I left it. I was a fool, but a damn lucky one. The owner obviously knew about it but didn’t move it to somewhere safer, I thanked him all the same. On the way up I could just imagine him telling me that he had seen it only 5 minutes before and someone must have taken it…. happily this wasn’t the case. I went back to the car with a smile on my face that belied the mental stress and torture I had just gone through. What was I going to do now? I hadn’t been arrested for some bullshit reason, they had let me go back into Mexico. They obviously didn’t find anything illegal in my car, there wasn’t anything unless they started looking at my mp3 collection… After telling them multiple times I would rather go through the checks when I came back as soon as I got my bag was I going to prove them wrong and stay away? What’s the worst that could happen? They search my car again, find nothing, again and I don’t get a new visa. Technically I was supposed to leave the country and return to the UK before I could get back in to the US on an I-94 visa but I knew Renae had done it. She said it was at the discretion of the border guard. I felt my self leave my body and I started laughing at my own stupidity, I drove back down to the main road and got in the queue again….
Tags: border guard, mental stress, mexico, borders, crash, stress, backpack, facesI am NEVER going back to America again!
I sat in the queue for the US border and I wanted some chewing gum which was in my backpack. I looked behind me and then was gripped with sudden panic. It wasn’t in my car, half a second later I realised I had left it in the Internet Cafe! A camera worth $2k and a $500 video camera plus other stuff in my backpack. I was a clucking idiot! But I was trapped, surrounded by cars I could only inch further to the border and hope it was still there, when…. IF I got to it. The sun was setting, and the border was busy. Thronging with beggars and street sellers. I ignored them as usual and cursed my stupidity. But the cafe was small, my bag was in sight of the owner, it didn’t look expensive, I might have a chance. After half an hour of torment I finally got to the check point. The guard started typing on his PC and I explained I had to go back to Mexico to get my bag urgently.
‘You left it in a cafe? Its gone buddy.’
Lots of sympathy there then, he put a sticker on my window and again I just asked if I could turn around, it might not be too late.
‘You have to get inspected and then you can turn around.’
I knew better than to argue or try to avoid it, I pulled around to the inspection bay and then the nightmare really began…
Tags: buddies, set, borders, disgust, faces, backpack, sun, few minutes, high hopes, video camera, traveller, drugs, cards, job, sudden panic, u turn, chewing gumTime to do something….
Day 121
If you’re wondering why there is a gap of 2 days in my blog then I can fill in the details pretty quickly. I spent 2 days doing pretty much nothing at all! Absolutely nothing! I lay in bed for 2 days, reading, playing Halflife, watching TV and trying not to freeze. Occasionally I went down to the car to get some food but I just slobbed out and enjoyed the fact that I could.
However I can’t do that forever and decided it was time for action. I checked out and drove into Nogales to get my tooth fixed. I had chipped the inside on one of my upper pre-molars and needed a filing. There are plenty of places in Nogales to choose from but which should I use with no recommendation? I wandered aimlessly until I saw a middle aged gringo couple go into one… that was good enough for me 
I went in and asked how much it would be, $40 to $50, which seemed fair enough. I filled out the forms and waited for the dentist to finish another patient. I was interested to see how the treatment in Mexico would compare to Thailand where I spent 3 weeks and several thousand dollars getting my teeth repaired a few years ago. That’s something worthy of a post too…
What is the Spanish for ‘Happy New Year’ again?!?
Day 111 Monday
Chuidad Juarez
New years Eve was a quiet day for me, once again I phoned the insurance places which were closed and the family took us all out to lunch, to a Steak house…. Maybe I should repeat I don’t eat meat a little louder, although I thought we were going for Tacos… I slobbed around until the evening watching Mexican Soaps with Grandma (and switching to Seinfeld when she went to the bathroom) and not getting much done. People started arriving so I went for a shower and changed my clothes to something less ‘backpackery’ and when I came down there were 2 Mexican guys in white shirts serving drinks to everyone. Posh!! They didn’t give the maid a night off though which was something of a shame… New Years Eve was just like Christmas really, drinking, snacks, some songs on the piano, someone brought a guitar and no one could find the right channel at midnight to do the countdown. I was handed 12 grapes which I was apparently supposed to eat as the clock counted down the seconds but I was probably the only person who finished them completely, but then Im a tourist. I then set off attempting to wish everyone else a happy new year but should probably have sat in one spot and let them come to me because everyone set off around the house trying to hug everyone as quickly as possible. More smoking and drinking commenced but I grabbed Raphi’s ipod and watched Superbad with Dani which would have been a much better option the day before. Quite hilarious! Mc Lovin!!!!! :p
Tags: shame, grandma, seinfeld, grapes, soaps, raphi, steak houseMexican Christmas
Day 104 : Juarez Mexico
It was Christmas Eve, my favourite time of the year…. Not. Its not that I hate Christmas but I think that its been perverted by capitalism. I’m not a Christian but I’m expected to celebrate it non the less. Sure there should be a time in the year for families to come together and give out gifts but why should it be the day that Jesus was supposedly born for non-Christians. Atheists should swap out Halloween and Christmas, give out gifts at he end of October to each other and dress up as zombies in December. Seems like much more fun. After completing so many miles the previous day we only had a short hop ahead of us into El Paso. The sun was shining as it always does and we followed the signs for the highway. Just on the intersection there was a guy with a cowboy hat, a guitar case and a big smile holding out his thumb. Getting Daniella‘s opinion first we pulled over to pick up the hiker…..
Tags: watching tv news, christians, excitement, girls, thumb, circles, sofa, christmas75:Ocean Park:Getting eaten…
No big surprise that I slept through my alarm at 8am and woke up bleary eyed and confused around 10.30am. So much for my resolution to do another long day on Sunday… At least I was alive, on the way in the night before I passed a huge correctional facility, but it seems there were no break out and murders happening this week. I resolved to have a day sorting out my car and looking for one of my lost memory sticks. I made breakfast and then found I wouldn’t have been going anywhere fast in any case, once again my battery was nearly dead. I discovered I had left my side lights on, which shouldn’t have made any difference since I couldn’t see them in the night but it seemed that was the cause of the problem. After a shower I set about removing pretty much everything from the minivan and taking a few photos for the blog. I wanted to show how you could make a bed in the back with a $20 piece of wood. No sign of the missing memory card though 
I took out the rear seat (which weighed a ton) and then put the right hand seat behind the left one. It fit ok, but I wouldn’t have much room to sleep in the back…
If I could turn it around it would have no gap on the side and more room for me, but the stupid designers didn’t forsee this option. A handle on the side was in the way, so out came the screwdriver and now the metal bar was digging in the plastic wall of the van. Better but still no fit. I switched to the knife and chopped a square of plastic out. Even better, but still not quite. I removed the plastic runners from the floor of the Minivan, sat on the seat pulling the handle and with the use of a piece of firewood as leverage got it to lock into place. Success! I can always move it back around if I need to give someone a lift. I moved the front seat forward so it would lock back and gained a nice spot between to hold my now unused backpack and other superfluous stuff. I could now fit my twin mattress in the back and sleep on the floor which meant I could also hang out there if it was raining and even change. I had gained 50% more room in the back.
I spend the rest of the day putting some black tint in the rear window and clearing out other junk and stuff I wasn’t using. I resolved to sleep in the back that night and since it looked like rain that wasn’t a bad idea. I worked on my blog, watched some episodes of South Park I had downloaded, played my guitar and swatted mosquitos, and when the moon poked through the trees I got my camera out and took a few pictures, the best one of which is this one:
New York : Tensing for the sprint south….
After the excitement of the previous night we weren’t up until late, Marie went out to buy a new phone while I lazed around. We went out for bagels in a cool little store nearby and decided what to do with the rest of the day. I wanted to go to a legendary camera store which was closed the previous day so we set off to walk most of the way there. It was hot and sunny again and, despite my protesting feet, another perfect day to spend in one of my favourite cities in the world. I was really going to be putting the miles in on those shoes, new or not. We took a subway a few stops since the store was going to close reasonably early and its a good job we did. The place was a mad house! Its jewish owned and run, which means its closed on Saturday so it was full of local shoppers who packed the place out. It was a huge store anyway and they stock everything. I got given a catalogue on the way in which was 3 cm thick and despite the masses of staff still had to queue to ask questions. I had wanted to buy a big telephoto zoom but I was still waiting on my last pay cheque so decided to hold off. I did pick up a nice point and shoot though which will now live in my pocket when I need something convienient to take with me. The store has a set of tracks that deliver the items to the assistant within a couple of minutes that is a wonder to see. They didn’t have the elusive backpack I was after though, that will be a job for ebay I think…
Tags: traffic, sandals, facebook, map, pool, locals, maps, wanderings, job, Travel, drinks, cars, stupidity, shoes, taxiBack in the U.S.S.A!
Well I made it to the States, Boston to be specific, although I wasn’t completely sure it was going to happen. Customs and immigration were a nightmare and we got here extremely late on the Monday night. I had hitched a ride with the Boston crowd who had come down for the weekend and they were a good group to know. The previous night we had spent dancing until the early hours and I threw myself upon their generosity and begged for a lift. I had to get out quick before Daniella‘s crazy room mate came back and knifed me in the early hours. I really need to check up on what I said still.
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Snoring Bears in the wood
The 2 polish girls Andres and I had stayed awake until 4.30am didn’t turn up until the next morning, seems like they had a long night and they crashed right away. I spent an hour rearranging my backpack for the camping trip I had arranged through couchsurfing. We (well it wasn’t just me) were a bit dissorganised though and we didn’t leave montreal until gone noon and we still needed to go food shopping for the trip. The attendees were myself, Renae from Perth Australia, Mouina from Morrocco and Daniella from Mexico. The last two are studying in Montreal and saw it as a good chance to see some of the local flora and fauna near their new home cities. We stopped off on the Interstate and stocked up on Tortillas, fruit and Beer.
Tags: chipmunks, girls, tent, mexico, camping, backpack, highways, fauna, cars, Travel, locals, beersIm all stiff!!
Not in the erotic sense of course, I went rockclimbing last night for the first time. Ok I did it in Thailand up a mountain, but that felt more like the guy pulling me up. Was where the Tsunami hit, I wonder if he is ok…Im in Montreal, everything is in French, sexy girls keep walking past, it really could be in France except Im on the wrong continent. I came over on Sunday afternoon with a couple of guys from Venezuala who live here. I met them on Thursday night in the Cadillac lounge and then went dancing.
Tags: sleep, maps, monkey, drinks, rocks, wanderings, backpack, map, taxi, knackered, dishes, mexico, hostels, shoes, desire, Travel, localsDinner with the Guys
I took a walk over to the camera store Mikhael had told me about which was a good few kms, was pretty good. I even had a play with the new Canon 40D which is very nice, but Im still happy with my 30D, I have to take a few more shots. Still can’t find the daypack I want though, but they had some nice ones in there. Prices are the same as the UK though so it would be best to wait until I get to the states.
In the evening I was invited to dinner at Yorvis and Loius’ new apartment and drove over with Mikhael and Andres. Andres’ girl was also there along with Ben, a canadian guy who speaks excellent Mexican spanish. Its really nice that I get to meet people other than other backpackers and see some kind of normal life. They put on a DVD they got with a board game and Im ashamed to say I kicked all their asses. How half of them can go through life and not see half of the best movies of all time I will never know, but then I do have several years on most of them
Dead day
I got up late, which was half because I was so tired, and half because I spent all night with the terrrible snoring. I had a short wander around town, joined the Mountain Equipment Coop, which is an awsome store and tried to find a day safe backpack. No luck there.
The afternoon was spent trying to do my laundry, mostly unsuccessfully,the kiktchen area was closed and then the dryers broke so I hung around waiting for them to become free, which they didn’t as people kept refilling them. Waste of a day really. I eventually got my clothes clean and then just messed around on my laptop until the social evening event of meeting at Sneaky Dees, but that was quite late. Met up with some more CS guys and talked about skiing. I really wanted to go after that conversation!
Tags: wanderings, mountains, laptop, laptops, clothes, backpack, TravelNoodles, Drums and bad vibes
We managed to get out the Bates Motel for just after 11am, which was good, I just hope I get my $300 deposit back on my card sooner rather than later, ie not getting it when Im in Montreal. We cruised up to the backpackers but I couldn’t get in until 1pm so we headed up to Kensington Market to get some coffee and chinese food. Might have to go back and buy some clothes, they have lots of pimping gear up there. The backpacker look is so last year, vintage 70s gear might be the way forward.
Tried a couple of ATMs with my card but they all wanted to charge me a couple of bucks per transation. That was ok for me at the airport but not in the city, I found the RBC didn’t charge me later on so I will be sticking to them. I was broke though so I couldn’t treat Britni to the lovely mangosten they had in the chinese fresh food stalls. Im sure I can find some in Chicago, although at nearly three pounds a pound they were very expensive. Thailand has spoiled me
I got dropped off and we said our sad goodbyes. Really great girl, I hope she gets back to doing what she loves, photography, as soon as she can, I could do with some lessons Was gonna be a long ass drive back to Chicago and she drives like a maniac so I hope she made it ok! She taught me a trick or two, and Im not talking about her singy-songy southern accent! More importantly I hope she doesn;t get sacked, first time she has had a sicky but it was Niagara Falls dammit with some great company, she had to come.
I moved into the Canadania backpackers which is downtown and then went for a walk around. I’m getting my bearings now after driving around the city for a couple of days looking for random things, I spotted the Toronto branch of the Mountain Equipment Company and made a mental note for the next day. Not that I can carry much more, I only really bought a sleeping mat and now it seems like I have no room and the damn thing fit on the outside! The beastie boys are playing this weekend too, but looks like I will miss it as hopefully I will be in Montreal by then.
Kaydi had invited me to the last drum circle event of the year so I got cleaned up and we rode the street car west to the park. Its nice she can take some time out of her last years study to show me a few things. The park has a big bowl in it and it was packed with hundreds of people playing the drums and maybe a thousand in total. Fire jugglers, people with glow sticks, people dancing… We met a couple of Kaydis friends from saturday and sat dinking wine and laughing at the girls in front of us grinding away at each other. Too dark for photos despite my camera, I really needed my flash but I wont make that mistake again.
They finished up at about 10.30 which Im sure the local residents appreciated as a hundred drummers tended to make a lot of noise. It was kind of strange to listen to it too as it was completely organic, Im not sure anyone was in charge and it slowly changed into different rythms as you sat there. You could hear melodies in the pattern too somehow. Very strange. Very cool. I walked west with the Kaydis friends back to their place which was over the Pizza Pizza as I was meeting some couchsurfer friends in a local bar although I was very late and I got my first sense of bad vibes on the way.
Some well built white guy with a mohican was walking towards us, minding his own buisness and it seemed like when he was 5 meters away he saw my camera on my shoulder so he looked at me, touched my arm as he passed and started saying ‘Hey buddy, can I get…’. I felt like I was about to be mugged, but I ignored him and just kept walking as he ran out of ideas of things to ask me for. I had no cigarettes and I wasn’t going to give him any money so why should I stop? So he could find an excuse to smack me?
We got to the bar a while later and I met up with Mark and Megan again, sadly I had missed most of the other people as it was a bit late but there was quite a good group still there and we even had a couchsurfing barmaid working the bar. A bit later she was very glad we were there. I also met Dave Smaller who said he was going to Montreal on friday so looks like I can get a cheap ride share there. The guy in my dorm room said it cost him $90 which seems a bit expensive.
Eventually there were just three of us left and we went out for a cigarette with Dani the CS barmaid and during the constant stream of panhandlers one of the other guys in the bar came out and started telling us his story which was kind of bizzarre. He said he had been back in Toronto 4 hours as he had been deported from the the UK for asking his clients in the defense industry where the WMDs were. His cousin had recently been killed by friendly fire and he had had enough. Seemed like a bizarre story, but the guy was very drunk and kind of emotional. I mostly believed him, but then he said he didn’t have any money for his bar tab, insulted Dani and lied to her about lending Mark $50 and lost any respect he might have just gained.
I guess if we see him on the news in a few days killed by the CIA there might be something in it. He was writing it in a blue binder about the general and the dutch protistutues it was his job to buy for them with his platinum mastercard. Very strange story.
These couchsurfers area lot mroe hardcore than the Birmingham lot as there are meetings planned for Wednesday and Thursday too. I can hardly keep up! Im not getting much sleep as it is, and despite being in a dorm in a comfy bed I had the usual dubious pleasure of beeing woken up by some noisy German who wouldn’t stop snoring. He would stop when I would kick the underneath of his bed but soon started again. At least I wasn’t up since 5am like the english guy in my room. I need to organise my pack and dig out my ear plugs….
Tags: girls, cards, sleep, drums, beds, mountains, fridays, clothes, photosRat Pizza?
I found somewhere to park up all night and came to the Canadiana Backpackers to sort myself out for when my car had to go back. I stole their wifi, took a shower (the girl on the desk took pity on me, she looked disgusted when she learnt I was kipping in my car) and got some overnight parking. I arranged to meet up with Kaydi, the girl I met in Ireland last year, and her boyfriend in a local bar before heading over to celebrate her friends birthday. They took me to a cool bar called the Underground, lots of guys, i thought it was a gay bar! :p
We got caught up and introduced to Jeff, whos a nice guy, I hope I didn’t insult him too much when I made a face about him being in advertising :p Actually a really hope I didn’t, the guy was huge! We jumped in a taxi and went over to meet Kaydi’s friends, who were a bunch of crazy punks and nice people. We caught the tail end of the band at the pub and sat out freezing in the unseasonally cold Torontonian weather. I wasn’t feeling it too much but it felt wuite warm to me Tiffany was also there but I didn’t get to chat to her too much which was a shame, shes very quiet, I need to get her drunk again and then she goes wild
After a few more drinks we headed to pizza pizza for a slice and everyone dissapeared, we went around the corner and up some half missing stairs, climbed over old bicycles and carpets, into a flat worse than where the young ones lived Through the kitchen filled with dirty pots, past other dark rooms into the living room where everyone was watching that short gay curl hairy aerobics trainer do his thing on a 14″ TV for some reason. This was a hardcore student flat, empty beer cans, old pizza, stack of old hifi gear, PS2 and a few big cages.
I guess the last thing you want when eating your tasty Mexicana Vegetariana is a rat in your face but I soon found out what the cages were for. My sister would have run screaming, but it was kind of fun putting the rat in Jeffs pocket, tossing them to each other, watching them run around. Maybe not very hygenic, but fun to play with.It did kind of put you off your pizza though. I would love to go back and take some pictures, but I think the moment has passed They were fun people to spend the night with, but I couldn’t live there, it was really gross
Salty Dogs
I got up at 11am and packed, checked out at noon but was pretty hungry. I woke up with a pain in my stomach though, it felt like there was a brick in my stomach, obviously something I had hadn’t agreed with me. I had a bit of a headache too, but no fever. Still, it didn’t seem like such a great idea going on a ferry for a day and a half if I was going to be ill. I generally don’t get ill when Im away, I had a few loose ‘movements’ the week before, but nothing to stop me from travelling, I was just getting used to the water and the food.
I needed a cash machine and breakfast so I started walking up the road into Adabraka, it was pretty warm but ok, even with my backpack on. I found an ATM but it didn’t take my card, by now I was 3/4 of the way to the Orangery so I popped in for some breakfast. Something was bugging me on the way, and I looked in my little backpack and couldn’t find my money belt. While I waited for my food I checked my big
backpack but it wasn’t in there either. Im not suprised as I never put in there anyway. I had locked all my stuff in a locker in the room, including my money belt but couldn’t remember taking it out. I ate and took a taxi back to the guest house, and it was propped up in the locker. Phew. It was getting on for 1.20pm or so now and I had to get to the ferry for 5pm or so, but plenty of time as I figured it would only take an hour or so to get to the pier. I got another taxi saying I wanted to go to the barclays ATM and then to the tro-tro station to Akosombo, I asked which station it was and he said he didn’t know but he gave me a price of 25,000 so I said ‘ok, you can ask someone on the way’. There aren’t that many stations in Accra and how would I know since i was the tourist.
We got to the ATM, the traffic was pretty bad but of course he didn’t ask anyone. We went around the block and I asked where he was going, to the STC station he said. I may be a tourist but I knew there was no bus going there so I insisted we go to the tro station. Past the ATM we went again and off to the Tamale tro tro station. The stupid driver got forced into the station by a bus right up his arse only to find it was the wrong station so then we had to turn around in the chaos and wait to get back out. Seems like it was third time lucky and we went to the station in the market and there was a tro to Akosombo. I gave him 30,000 and got out while he protested. He got out and started shouting at me, ‘uh oh’ I thought, but the people around asked what I’d been charged and where we went and agreed with me. Typical man, too macho to sak for directions but I’d be damned if I was paying the 40,000 he wanted, 25k was probably too much as it was.
The Tro was half full and now it was 2.30pm after taking an hour to drive about 3 miles (well, 6 miles with the route he took). I got a seat and sat there sweating with everyone else. The bus started filling up slowly, but not as fast as I’d like. Some guy got on and started giving a speech in English about how he was HIV positive and lost his wife to the disease and how his daughter was also infected. Ghana has lots of posters all over the place saying that people with HIV shouldn’t be stigmatised as it could be you next. Some people listened, most just talked and ignored him, i guess its a pretty regular thing in ghana to get a lecture on AIDS prevention while waiting in a bus. He said some weird things though, like telling people to take their own scissors to the salon when they got a haircut…. a razor, fair enough, but I dont think you can get HIV from dirty scissors.
After about an hour the bus was full and we pushed our way out of the market tro station, the place was like organised chaos but we got out somehow. Another guy got on the bus, I had to move seats to make room for his briefcase and as we worked our way through town and now the guys starts yelling some nonsense I couldn’t understand. ‘Amen’ everyone shouted back at him a few times, he told them a few jokes and got everyone laughing. Then, bizarrely, he pulls out some condoms from his pockets and gives a lecture and demonstration on their use. Wasn’t a complete demonstration of course :p Everyone was laughing, and even more so when he pulls out some femidoms and demonstrates their use too! Lord only know what he’s telling them, but eventually the lesson ends and he pulls out a big sealed box and starts going on and on about them. Heres me thinking they are the AIDS meds he as to take everday or something, but then after 15 mins building them up people start buying them all through the bus. He sells nearly the entire box, probably 30 small boxes at 15,000 each (£1). I get a look at one and its caffiene and ginseng energy tablets. They lap em up, can’t get enough of them. Then he pulls out some boxes of deworming tablets, gives another 10 minute spiel and sells one box. Something wrong with the balance of sales i think. Then he jumps off the bus and goes back into the city. I guess he makes a pretty good living.
The bus wasn’t running to the schedule I’d like though, it took an hour to get out of Accra so at 3.30pm I only have an hour to make the ferry, and I need to buy some food if I assume Im not getting anything on the boat. But the guy is not exactly breaking any speed limits, he keeps stopping to drop people off and then we have a 5 minute break as they pull all their shopping off the top of the bus, sacks of yams, new bicycles (the lad who got it was so pleased with his dad) but what can you do but wait and hope you make it. I saw a few mileage markers to Akosombo and amuse myself by mentally working out how fast we’re going, I figured it might be pretty tight as the pier isn’t actually in town but a taxi ride away. After multiple drop offs we finally get to the tro station by the market, I get a taxi to the pier at 4.30pm. Barring any major mishap I was going to make it and 15 minutes later, 15 minutes before the scheduled departure I walk up into the second class floor and meet Anna and Tua again. I guess they were getting worried I was going to abandon them, but it was not the case.
I dumped my stuff and went back out to buy a straw mat to sleep on, some bread, red onions, tomatoes and tinned sardines. At least I wasn’t going to starve now, and I wasn’t the only person with a brick sitting in my belly, we all had the same food the day before so it wasn’t malaria after all! The girls were sitting in the galley area, but it was pretty busy and pretty stuffy. I had a look upstairs on the bridge deck where all the cabins were and there were a load of ghanian soldiers and about a dozen tourists. Seems that was a better place to sleep so we moved up there and set up ‘camp’. I needn’t have worried about leaving on time though as we sat there for more than an hour loading more stuff up. I had charged my mp3 player with my new £25 charger (my third since I got one off ebay that broke and one from maplins that would have blow up all my gear if I had plugged it in, pile of crap) but it wasn’t up to the job and despite saying 100% charge only lasted for 10 minutes, same with the second set of batteries. The girls were gutted, but at least they have me for entertainment! Tua sat and wrote her diary while I played cards with Anna, and despite her assertion she was a poker champion I won every game. Shame for her she wasn’t playing poker :p
We set off and it was pretty flat, no wind, still no mosquitoes (Ghana was great for that, it was so dry there weren’t any, much better for my malaria paranoia) and down went the sun and away went the cards. Took them about an hour to turn the light on up on the deck so there wasn’t much to do. I sat and read on my phone, having a backlight is great for that. They started serving food downstairs and we went and got some, rice+tomato sauce+boiled egg; the staple of the galley. It was ok, and cheap plus they had cold drinks but it got a bit tedious after 6 meals of the same. We were promised omelette for breakfast the next day but that wasn’t to materialise.
I had told the girls to get the west side, i.e. the left so we wouldn’t have the sun in the morning but they had a blonde moment and had claimed the right side. No biggie I thought, I had a sleep mask anyway, but then the wind started picking up. It got quite blustery, and you could feel occasional prick of water on your skin. Rain or a bit of wind swept surf from the bow? 10 minutes later we got the answer as it started raining! Doh! We grabbed all our stuff and ran for the back of the boat where they had a big canopy, typically the German group on the left side (our side dammit! :p) just moved their stuff to the wall and stayed put. Our side got soaked! We sat at the back cursing our luck and after a while the rain stopped and the wind died down, but the side of the boat was soaked. So much for an early night! Still, nothing you can do, just hate the people that got there early and got a cabin (with AC!)
We had to stop some Ghanian woman from stealing our mats twice, cheeky cow. We later learnt Sandra from Holland wasn’t so vigilant and had hers pinched. She even accused me! Of course I wouldn’t, but we made it a joke later when I kept apologising for pinching it. I wouldn’t have minded sharing mine with her though, she was lovely! The deck dried out a bit so we reclaimed our places and sorted out our gear, it was only 9pm but everyone started getting ready for bed. Looks like we timed it right as soon after they killed the light. Wasn’t easy to sleep, it was so early still. I read for a while while the girls played 20 questions. Seems they only knew pop stars and actors, all too easy, so I kept them going for 15 minutes with Neil Armstrong and Einstein. They were so puzzled by a person know for his travels and couldn’t pin him down to a continent :p After about 2 hours of annoying everyone else on the deck we went to sleep.
Tags: boats, beds, ghana, sleep, rain, atm, camping, guts, crap, sun, money, arse, drinksRoad trip!
I managed to crawl out of my sweaty room in time for a quick breakfast of
chocolate spread on bread and milo. The woman looked at me like i was mad for
wanting food at 11.30! I had decided to head down the coast, apparently
busua was a backpacker mecca in Ghana, surely there would be parties and
beach volleyball, chicks in bikinis and guitars around the fire. Perfect! I
grabbed a taxi and headed for the STC bus station, after allowing several
people to push in front of me, I shrugged off my stupid british way of
queuing and got a ticket for the 2pm bus to Takoradi. It was 12.30pm, I asked
the helpdesk where the bus left from and the woman said the 12pm bus was just
there and I could get on that one. Result! I climbed on and off we went right
away.
No A/C and I sat right at the front so the view was pretty crap, but at least
I was getting out of boring accra. I could already smell the banana pancakes!
The road was excellent for 2 hours but after that it was being repaired and in
variable condition. People would be selling things at the toll booths and
police check points, hawking pineapples and dead bush animals at the side of
the road. Not much in the way of jungle really, lots of foliage but not the
thick jungle you’d expect in a rainy country like ghana. It was nearly dark
by the time I got to the city of Takoradi, so I got a room, went for a meal
of red-red and read another novel on my phone. Restaurant service was
typically poor, order a drink and a meal and sit there for 15 mins before
going up to get your own drink. The reason, the sprite was finished, so
obviously i didn’t want anything else….
The hotel was a dump, but it was cheap, the batteries on my phone died after
being used all day on the bus and although there was a plug in the room, the
cable to it was inextricably cut. The guy on duty knew all about it and
showed me, quite why they couldn’t be bothered to fix it I’ll never know…
I wanted to leave today…!
Doing bugger all isn’t too bad, I went to look at the local market but couldn’t see anything worth buy despite my best efforts. I needed thread to repair my backpack and didn’t see any. I had fun and games at the local internet cafe with their appaling connectionn meaning I wasted 30 minutes faffing around while getting electric shocks from the PC. The guy was saying something about earth the building, or not, I had no idea, stupid bastard. I found somewhere else that worked and uploaded by blog and caught up on international news. Interesting Thai Coup I was missing, shame I passed on Burma… I had another apalling meal at the Ruwenzori GH in town, a egg sandwich is NOT a fried egg on fried bread, salad is NOT fruit salad (i sent it back and eventually got some fruit) and since when is Nescafe ‘African Coffee’ ?? They charged me 50p for milk too, bastards! Just the kind of place that really hate tourists and dont want you there.
The dutch couple at dinner had been to see the chimps that day and said it was great, they were all on the forest floor, they got really close to them and there were loads of them. Sounded good!
Tags: stupidity, electricity, shame, blog, backpack, earth, Travel, tourists, localsAnother night in a one horse town (with gas station disco…)
I left at 5am the next day, quite why they have to have so many buses all leaving at the same tmie, all on the same route, all not considering about leaving until full and all driving around for 1+ hours after the ‘departure time’ is beyond me. If they left at fixed times people would be there or miss it. Pretty frustrating, but when you’re ready for the idea you just wait and dont get too pissed off, what can you do? At least the buses are big ones, so they rule the road and hopefully give you a figthing chnce if you crash. Most even have seatbelts if you can dig them uot from under the seats, you might have to bodge together a couple of belts to get them to work too :p I bought a ticket to Mbrara, which is about 2/3 of the way back to kampala and my ultimate destination was fort portal where i was planning on seeing the chimps in the nearby NP. I slept most of the way up there, put on your music and sleeping mask and try to ignoring the person hiting the back of your seat or hitting your window to sell you some deat animal on a stick. I jumped off the bus and had to find an ATM as priority no one. I wandered about town sweating in the midday sun with my backpack weighing heavily on me, but i was stinky anyway and couldn’t get any worse. I restocked my funds and then thought about going on to fort portal that afternoon, as it was only about 12.30pm and enough time. Back at the bus station I was told if I waited in a certain place a bus would come about 5pm… bit too vague for me. I could take a shared taxi, which was the worst option as they really pack them in and any accident is a deathtrap for all concerned. The only other choice was a bus next day at 6.30am, looked like it was a night in Mbrara then! I got a desperatley bad hotel room for a couple of quid, no shower, just a bath, but it was too late to move and the shower option was much worse. All the linen was numbered for the room, I was in room 21 and stole a towel from 23. I dont know where mine was. I soaked some of my clothes and went to find some food. I passed by the post office and went in to ask when the post bus went to Fort Portal, if at all. It was sitting outside about to leave. I had had a guy nearly shouting at me in the bus station telling me to go and get on a Matatu to get to Fort Portal, I guess he didn’t understand its nice to have some idea of options, ie spend the night and go the next day, instead he thought Im disrespecting him because I didn’t instantly go jump into a 4 wheeled coffin. Some other guy listening to him ranting helpfully told me I was in ‘Black Africa’. Didn’t I just know it :p So I missed the post bus and since it was saturday there would be no service the next day. Bah. I had half the lunch I wanted and then the power came back on and I could order the rest :} Power cuts and load shedding were a constant source of frustration and annoyance in Uganda, you never knew if you were going to be able to charge something up or just have the lights go out at the most inconvinient time. The town wasn’t much, I went looking for a brush to help clean my clothes, which was hampered by the general maliase on the part of the shop workers. ‘Do you have a smaller brush than this?’ ‘No, that is all we have’ /ponts to other shelf ‘Um, what about this one then?’ ‘Ah yes’ I guess most of them are just there to spot shoplifters, they dont do anything else. I did my laundry and it started raining, great. The petrol station over the road was having some kind of disco with a massive PA pumping out annoying music all day. It rained and rained, I went out for a quick meal and a PA on a truck parked up outside and played competing distorted musak with some ‘DJ’ yelling nonsense. I uploaded my blog in an internet cafe and hid in my room, still it rained. What a great saturday night…
Tags: blog, seat, animals, sun, atm, buses, backpack, rain, wheels, lunch, wheelThe Gorillaz – kids with guns
My taxi driver warned me several times to be ready at 5am, he would be knocking on my door! I was up at 4.50, brushed my teeth, grabbed my gear and waited! typical, had he ran off with the deposit I had paid him or was he just useless? I called his number, nice waste of £2.40 to hear him say he would be there in 1 minute. Bleh! My mobile provider had also finally mailed me to say they wouldn’t unlock my phone as agreed theh day before I left as it was second hand. C**nts! He showed up and off went down some very poor roads. Very slow and no chance for any extra sleep on this leg, there were potholes and rocks galore. 5 am was a pretty stupid time to leave since we were there a good hour before time, I got him to play me some African music on the way up and he didn’t seem to mind the same 6 songs repeating about 10 times. At least it wasn’t Michael Bolton!
I bought him some breakfast, it was about a quid each and we waited for the other 7 people to arrive. Eventually a Australian Couple, Darren and Amanda from Brisbane showed up with their driver. Dressed in nice new jungle gear too! :p They took a lot of holidays too since they both owned their own businesses, and were usually independant travellers but this time they had opted for a tour. Fair enough, not many backpackers would be splurging £200 on an hour with some gorillas anyway! However I got the impression this wouldn’t be the kind of trip my mother would find easy, and the group we would be visiting were the newest and potentially most challenging to get to. The other 5 people never showed up and after a quick pep talk hired a couple of porters to carry our stuff and drove about 4km to the path. I guess I could have asked for my $25 park entrance fee back as I never actually went into the park because the gorillas had recently moved just out of it. They weren’t sure why, possibly because of competition with another nearby group but they were still pretty close.
We began the hike down the rather steep trail to the bottom of the valley passing through fields and past a few houses along the way. The gorillas are all guarded to protect them from bush meat poachers, and also keep them away from the locals who, as you can imagine, woud rather not have to deal with huge 200 pound apes eating their bananas and terrorising them all the time. We were also protected by a couple of guards carrying AK-47s, which was reassuring since we were only a few kilometers from the Congo, and a few years ago several tourists were killed in the same park by Congolese guerillas. Lots of dangerous types then! With straining knees we reached the steam on the valley floor in about half an hour or so, crossed over and walked for another 10 minutes to where the rest of the guards and guides were waiting. We could see their camp nearby and passed through a few old gorilla nests where they slept before. They were waing in a recently slashed and burned area on the hill side and we dropped our coats, staffs and non essential items, got hydrated and went gorilla hunting!
Well, it didn’t take long, about 30 seconds and there was a gorilla sitting next to the clearing munching away on leaves! He didn’t seem at all bothered by us, quite happy to sit and eat, posing for photos. Darren had a nice digital SLR with a good zoom, and I reckon he got some great shots. I blasted away on my little canon. 2 minutes of playing model was enough and he rolled into the bush in search of better food and less attention. We crossed over a rather tiny plank over a small gully into the uncleared jungle and found another gorilla under a bush also eating. I guess thats what they do best :p We got pretty close, about 3 meters and the guide hacked us a better path so we could see him better. There were other babies in the tree that we could also see, not too clearly but making a lot of movement. We moved back down the valley in search of the boss. We saw him briefly along with a baby, but he disappeared quite quickly and we carried on to the stream below. It was great fun, the jungle is no barrier if you’ve got a big machette and dont mind getting dirty. We were slipping down near vertical slopes and pulling ourselves through thick bush, sploshing in bogs and trying to avoid big holes as we clambered over big fallen trees. There was another gorilla up the other side over the river and we could see the bushes move as he pulled leaves from the branches but we couldn’t see him. It was ‘too steep’ to get up and have a look, but it wasn’t that bad. We set off back the way we came looking for the dominant silverback we lost just earlier. The babies were still swinging away, but you couldn’t get a good photograph.
We hacked a new path and found a way to the boss, Nkuringo, you could just see him through the trees. Our guide from the office, the little guy with the machette and Darren up in front about 5 meters away from us while I was gallantly helping Amanda through the brush when there was a mighty roar and Nkuringo stood up and confronted the 3 guys in front! I was glad I wasn’t in front as a fully grown male gorilla showing his teeth and lungs to you is probably not the most pleasant experience! Darren aparently got quite a shock (but no photos :{). The video was going and although I didn’t capture it I certainly got the sound! The guides were not too bothered though and just roared back at him, I guess they knew not to take any shit :p After we changed our underwear we sneaked up a bit more and found him happily eating away again in the clearing and you could see more movement in a nearby bush. We snapped away as the hour was nearly up and boy had it gone fast! We edged closer and Nkuringos son came out and started to play in front of us! Tiny little fella was rolling around and beating his cheat just a few feet away with his father watching patiently in the bush nearby. Cool!
We snapped away like mad until Amanda and my memory card ran out. Thank goodness for the video, which was better in the low light anyway. I had stupidly forgotten my tripod. At least I had spare batteries though! Eventually we had to go and left them in peace. Those gorillas are raking it in at £200 an hour, but what a great job! :p We hiked back up the hill, and I regretted hiring a porter but they made out it was miles and really difficult, which it wasn’t. Still Amanda had a hard time of it and they both had quite a trek to go as they had optioned a 2 hour walk through the NP rather than drive 5 hours around it. I was kicking myself for not being prepared for a lift north as they were heading my way. I had thought it possible but with my stuff everywhere and laundry being done it was not possible. Oh well. We got to the top and I went with them to the start of the trail in their 4WD, sending my taxi driver back to the office to wait for me. We had swapped emails and I promised to send them a DVD of the gorillas in exchange for their photos. Which is good because I suspect my photos were rubbish! They set off with their armed guards and since i haven’t heard about any tourists being kidnapped assume they arrived safe and well.
The cheeky s.o.b. of a taxi driver had accepted my suggestion I buy him lunch to the tune of 7,500 schilling, and told me there was nothing left to eat. I can believe it, the lying git would have cleared them out *if* he had eaten anything. It was impossible to spend 7,500 on lunch so my intention of tipping him went right out the window. Pity, I intended to give him more than he swindled out of me, pity for him anyway. And he cost me about 9,000 since i rang him when he was late! And he sealed his fate when we arrived back at the hotel and I struggled my bags, coat, sandals and various stuff off the back seat while he just sat there. When I managed to get it all in my hands he offered to help, nice one, goodbye….muppet! Back at the hotel, after i got over my heart attack over how much they had charged me for doing a few items of laundry I was soon tracked down by Joseph and we hammered out a deal for the following day. Local pygmy village, climb up a old volcano and off to see the fish otters in the nearby lake. We’d have a motorbike, I could drive if I wanted to.
Tags: photographs, photos, briefly, photo, Travel, sleep, camping, hunting, rocks, seat, madness, jungle, sandals, mail, locals, backpack