The Caribbean, Cricket, Cuba Communism and Crashes

I said goodbye to the lads and took a hideous night bus through to Caracas the capital of Venezuela to meet Sam for a month of cricket and Cuba. By the way Venezuela is an incredibly beautiful country. However, Caracas is a complete hole, possibly worth a day but no more, unfortunately due to the beaurocracy of the country it took Sam and I a few days to get things sorted for out tour so had to spend three days there.

Still of the Caribbean we went. The food was brilliant, the sea was fantastic the weather was great, the sand was golden and the cricket was……………poor. We only saw one match that wasn’t one sided when we beat the Windies on the penultimate ball of the match, it was incredible, probably the only time cricket can beat football for tension. And of course the Aussies won, there are head a shoulders above the other teams and totally deserved to win. Just hope that in four years time the other countries have raised their game to standard of the boys in yellow and green.

And so to Cuba, man what a stranger place. I’ve just spent three weeks there but have no idea how it works or what’s going on. Habana has got to be the coolest city I have ever been to, beautiful people awesome but crumbling architecture, great music, we went to Club Tropicana the oldest club in Habana since 1939 for some cabaret and those of you who know your Wham will be pleased to hear that indeed drinks were free.

We went to the coast for diving where we managed to put out hire car into a ditch and then be towed out by a passing bus. When Sam left for London I travelled down to Santa Clara to see the Che memorial and then on to Cienfuegos and Trinidad, one of the prettiest places I’ve visited. But the countries strange, well strange to this westerners eyes. Two bus companies, one for locals and one for gringos, two types of money again same sort of split. Some incredibly lovely people and some total bastards. I think it will take me a while before I get my head round Cuba.

Pics: Our car in a ditch in Cuba, cricket in Grenada, Sun set in Genada, The Cricket World Cup and a Trombonist on the Malecon in Habana Cuba

Colombia

Off the truck again and this time travelling with Ollie, Peter, Clay and Mark from the tour, I headed for Colombia. A lot is thought about Colombia especially that it’s unsafe. Personally I felt completely safe and found the people some of the friendliest in South America. The Andean countries have a certain colour that you don’t find in the rest of South America and Colombia was to prove no different.

We spent a weekend in Bogotá enjoying the night life then headed up to the Caribbean coast by very scary night bus at one point the bus hit one of what seamed like a million pot holes on the road and all the lights went out including the headlamps. Fortunately the headlamps came back on pronto but the film we were watching never recovered.

We ended up in Tanager on the north coast for a weeks diving instruction. Have to say that I am so glad that I’ve learnt to dive. Since, I’ve dived in Cuba and its one of the freest feelings I’ve ever had.

The second part of my time was spent on a Trek up to a once lost city in the jungle above Santa Marta in northern Colombia, its where some tourist were kidnapped a few years ago. Again this was brilliant except for the footwear, believe me a pair of trainers with very little grip is not the ideal way of trying to climb up muddy slippery hills, but it was all worth it in the end as we got to see something that not many see and what was uncovered by westerners for hundreds of years.

Pics: Me and Mark, Me Mark and Peter totally knackered, the lost city

Truck Tour Part Three

Originally my plan was to make my way up the coast of Brasil then over to Colombia but with all good plans they can change and after meeting such a great bunch of people on the way up from Ushuaia I decided to carry on travelling with Dragoman up to Manaus via Brasilia, national parks, the Pantanal and up the Amazon.

Again an awesome time was had except for an mossy bite on my arse that became infected and that I had to have cut open in a hospital in the middle of Brasil The pain of the bite was unreal and I had to lie down in the truck (more like a bus) for two days of travelling. The doctor in the hospital was brilliant and afterwards I could actually sit down, I never want that to happen again.

Pics: Brasilia, the national park and boating on the Amazon

RIO

Quite simply one of the times of my life. There was a great group of people around both on the Drago trip I was one as well as James and Dan being in town and briefly Julian. There was so much to do, street parties very night, football matches at the incredible Maracana stadium and of course the Samba Drome for the parade of samba schools. Not too many pics but take my word for it, its was totally awesome.

Pics: RIO!!!

Truck Tour Part Two

Having enjoyed the first trip from Quito to Cuzco so much I had booked on another Dragoman tour this time from Ushuaia, the most southerly city in the world up to Rio via Buenos Aries.

This tour involved far more days of travelling, sometimes pitching tent as late as midnight and then up again very early but it was worth it for the visits to penguin colonies (at last), another welsh tea, travelling in a boat alongside dolphins, seeing caiman in the Argentine Pant anal, visiting the awesome city of Buenos Aires, standing next to widest waterfall at Iguazu and of course RIO.

Pics

Penguins, dolphins, The Welsh and the falls

Pics:

Valley Frances Torres Del Paine

The Julian, Antonia, James, Dan and me at the Torres

Torres Del Paine Trek

Quite simply up there with Galapagos (and to come Rio) as the one of the best things I’ve done since being in South America. Basically it’s a national park in the southern end of the Chilean Andes near the town of Puerto Natales and involved four days of walking with all the gear you’re going to need…food, camping kit, clothes, beers etc

Another experience that wouldn’t have been anyway near the same without the companionship of some great mates so Liz, Dan Julian, Antonia and James thanks for making this a great four days. I don’t think we stopped taking the Mickey out of each other the whole time and I havent laughed so much in years. I’ll let the pics do the rest of the talking.

Navimag

Navimag is the boat company that sails down the Pacific coast of Chile, supplying outlying outposts of the country that have no road link, except through Argentina and relations with them aren’t always what they might be so this link is pretty important for those who live in the communities. So a few years back the company realised there was money to make from taking gringos along for the ride as well as wagons full of supplies.

The journey takes four days and nights and fortunately all but one afternoon and a night is within the protection of the archipelago that protects the Pacific coast. The scenery as one might expect was superb although the weather was a little cool for too much time spent on deck land and seal watching, did see a fantastic glacier tumble towards the sea though. Fortunately there was a ready supply of beer on board and always a school of cards some where.

As for the bad sea and my stomach, well I’m glad to report that I only succumb to feeding the fish once.

Pics

Entering the boat

Glacier

Boats shots

For One Night Only at the end of Blackpool Pier it’s……………… Barry Loche

Well really it’s Barriloche and it’s a pretty little town on the shores of a lake at the top end of Argentine Patagonia but it sort of sounds like a dodgy comedian from a northern working men’s club in England. To be honest it was a bit too touristy for me but yet again met some great folks, some of whom I would travel with later on and enjoyed a fine new year’s eve in that rarity of establishments around the world… an Irish bar.

After Barriloche it was time for a bit of down time and week chilling out in Esquel, a few hours south of Barri which included lots of doing nothing, Welsh teas and ride on a steam train.

Pics

Being entertained on the train

The train

Welsh tea, before and after

Christmas in the Chilean Andes

After a pretty uncomfortable bus ride from Santiago (Chile can learn a thing or two about busses from Argentina) I arrived in this little town called Curacautin. Anyway it was a bit ¨League of Gentlemen¨ local shop for local people and all that jazz but the scenery was awesome. Spent a week at a Swiss run guest house eating great food and walking. Even tried to walk up a snow capped volcano with new Swiss friends, Tommy and Betina who were pretty much expert walkers coming from Switzerland and all that, but got beaten back by high winds and the fact that it was bloody cold. A beautiful place and somewhere to explore more another time.

Pics are:

Chilean Andes

Throwing a snowball on Chrsitmas Day

With Betina near the point we turned back trying to climb the volcano

Felling vey cold up a volcano

Santiago Val Paraiso and Viña Del Mar

With a heavy heart I said good bye to Mendoza and took a superb bus ride over the Andes to meet a friend in Santiago who I was to travel with for a few weeks.

Now a lot of people don’t think much to Santiago de Chile but I thought it was pretty cool. It was good to be back in big city again, I do miss the hustle and bustle London and Santiago had it bucket loads. As a tourist spot I guess it’s not really an A1 location but it does have a teleferico (as all South American capitals seem to have) some decent shops, a cinema (yes it doesn’t take much to please me) and an underground system, we’re talking big cities now!!! Also Pinochet had just died a few days before so the place was a little testy which all added to the fun. Anyway didn’t do much there except watch movies and buy stuff…and go up the teleferico to see the city.

Then we went off to Valparaiso. This is yet another great place, a UNESCO city port full of brightly coloured buildings and some great bars and one of the best hostals in South America where I had one of the best BBQs of my life. Near by is Vina Del Mar with lovely long stretching beaches but incredibly cold sea. My time at Valparaiso was a bit of party due to Jame´s (a lad staying at the hostal) birthday, any excuse. Anyway Valparaiso is cool, go there.

Pics are:

Infront of Jesus in Santiago

A couple of views of Valparaiso

Mendoza

Mendoza is a lovely city near the Andes mountain range that forms the border between Argentina and Chile and I spent a week here at the end of December. To be honest its probably my favourite city that I´ve visited, the sort of place I could easily live. Great climate, long sunny days, clean city with loads of public spaces, great wine, great food and the mountains just a few minutes away.

After the heat humidity and sparseness of Paraguay is was a welcome relief to come somewhere rather more lively. I met many great people who will be friends for life and took part in loads of fun activities, absailing (or as they call it here rappelling), white water rafting and most importantly for the area, wine tasting.

The rafting was quite possibly my most scary experience so far as we all plunged out of the raft on a grade 4 rapid. I hit rapid after rapid gasping for breath and only after whacking my knee (which swelled up like the proverbial balloon) on a submerged rock finally got back into the raft. Fortunately the Spanish for anti inflammatory is anti inflammatory and what with a few pills and a good bottle of Argy wine back at the hostel all was well.

The night life in Mendoza was pretty cool as well, although as I found to my cost when chatting to the local girls, admitting that I was from England wasn’t the best way to make new friends ¨los Malvinas son Argentines¨ was heard more than once with a turn of the back.

Pics are:

Me absailing

Wine barrels

Me wine tasting, well it would have been rude not to.

Why No one Visits Paraguay

As I have been travelling I've been getting advice from other travellers, where to go where to stay that sort of thing for most of South America. Its thanks to the advice of othersthat I'll be going to Columbia next March, everyones been so positive about the place.

However no one and I mean no one as been to Paraguay that I have met and now I know why. Basically there is no tourist infastructure, there's not alot to do there and its too bloody hot and humid to see what there is. Whilst I was there it was 40C plus in the shade and 100% humidity.

I am glad I've been there and the some of the countyside is fantastic but unfortunately its just too hot for this average northern European to enjoy for long.

I think I have already told you about my journey across the Brazilian/Paraguay border on the back of a motor scooter in an email. From the border I travelled to Conception where i found a steam crane made in Leicester (the L is missing in the photo). I hoped to travel to Ascuncion by boat along the Rio Paraguay but not for the first time the Lonely planet had wrong information so I had to get there by bus. Ascunsion is nothing special but the addition of a thunder storm, power cut and then public holiday the next day made my visit there a little flat.

Still its another stamp in the passport!

Picures are:
The Irish influence a street name in Ascuncion
A stean crane from Leicester in Conception
Beautiful but very hot and sticky countryside

Finally, after a run of poor results and a wash out UP THE LATICS!

Sucre Santa Cruz and the Death Train

The Lonely plant Guide has a habit of using the adjective "death" when describing certain activities and places in South America...Death Road...Death Train and i wanted to check out the later, being a bit of an anorak an all.

To get there from Potosi (sothern Bolivia), where I parted from Richard and Anika (thanks guys for some great travelling, see you in London next year) I travelled to Sucre for a couple of days, the capital of Bolivia, although the Presidencial Palace is in La Paz. Sucre is a pretty little colonial town with some attractive archtecture but not a great deal to keep anyone there. I did bump into a French guy I had met in Uyuni and we crashed a student end of term party so fun was had.

From Sucre i needed to travel to Santa Cruz to join "The Death" train, so called as it takes over 20 hours to cross the Chao region of Bolivia to the border with Brazil, a distance of around 400KM.

So another uncomfortable night bus via mud roads and I was is the steamy town of Santa Cruz. It was a bit of a shock actually as its very western by Bolivian standards, there's even a branch of Benetton there.

Santa Cruz is the centre of the oil producing region of Bolivia and very rich in comparison, so much so that the area wants some form of independance from the rest of the country and as part of the protest the inhabitants of the city staged a one day strike which co-incided with my second day there. The streets where empty so I spent my day sun bathing and watching the locals play football, bit like a sumers days on Finsbury Park.

And so it came time to leave Santa Cruz and join the "Death Train". You can't buy tickets in advance only on the day of departure when qeues (sp) reach Cuban proportions, I was down at the station by 7 a.m. by which time there were already around 100 people in front of me, by the time the office opened there wre around 200 behind me!

It will come as know surprise to most of you that far from finding the journey a chore i actually enjoyed spending over 20 hours on a train. It operated rather like a local bus, stopping in every little comunity it passed to pick up and set down passengers freight and live stock. On each occasion seamingly the whole town came out to feed and water us passengers and the food was very good.

So we chugged on through Menonite communities, Canadians who had come down in the early 1900s to farm the area, the gene pool dosen't appear to have developed since, they al looked very similar and the fringes of rain forest to arive at the Brazilian boredr at 11 a.m. around 4 hours late, no passengers charter here though.

Tired but strangely happy i made my way into Brazil for a short two day hop through Corumba (the deadest town ever where the only other English speeking guy was a Greek vangrant) and Campo Grande where I bought some great flip flops on my way to Paraguay.

Pictures are:

Menonite farmers (spot the differences!)

The Death Train

Deserted Santa Cruz

Colonial Sucre

The Siulver Mines of Potosi

This was my last trip with Richard and Anika as they wre leaving Bolivia directly to northern Argentina and I was off on an anoraks journey through Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay to get to Argy.

Thanks to the mines, Potosi was once the richest town in South America and amongst the richest in the world. The Spanish colonists had discovered silver there in the 1500s, although the idigenous population probably knew of its existance long before, and set about extracting the stuff to make coins for the whole of the Spanish world. In the late 1800s the silver bagan to run out and with it the prosperity of the town. Although Zinc is still mined today silver extraction is minimal but it is still possible to hit a rich seam and become very wealthy.

Potosi is now on the Gringo trail thanks to tours of mines. Richard and I visted one with our guide Luis, the space in the mine was rather reminiscent of that on Bolivian buses....great! We spent a couple of hours in the mine after touring the miners market and buying dynamite. This bit was rather scarey, I certainly havent held this stuff before and of course we did the whole "stick in the mouth to to look like a cigar" bit.

Is was a very humbling experience as children as young as 14 are working down the mines (illegally as the minimum working age is 16), their famliles cannot afford to keep them. The working conditions are primtive and there are no air filters, the miners all chewing coca leaves all day.

Still is was a great experience and one that will stay with me, pushing a wheel barrow of spoil was incredibly hard, the miners have my admiration.

The first picture is me pushing a wheel barrow of spoil, but I don't think its come out too well.

The Salt Flats of Uyuni

So still travelling with Richard and Anika and a day after our suceesful descent of the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" we set of on a night bus for Uyuni, a small town in southern Bolivia, formerly a railway centre and now a tourist town and the starting point for tours of the Salf Flats nearby.

As with most Bolivian transport the world uncomfortable sprang to mind as we left La Paz and speed down dirt roads at unrealistic speeds, my knees becoming intermate friends wth the seats in front quite qickly (the height of your average Bolvian must be a good foot shorter than me and the buses are built accordingly).

We arrived battered, bruised and sleepless in Uyuni at 7 a.m. ready to do battle with the hordes of touts just waiting to sell us all inclusive and exclusive packages for a wonderful 3 day tour of the flats. We also met around 7 other Gringos on the bus that we had met at previous locations around Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, we really were on "The Gringo Trail" now.

So to the Tour. The Salt Flats are, I think, caused by colliding land masses sending what were once salt lakes or sea areas thousands of metres up. So its totally flat and very white which makes photography fun due to the lack of perspective. After driving across the flats and a visit to the Fish Island (it looks like a fish and was once an island when the salf flats were water) our tour guide, cook and general auto mechanic took us to a supposedly "exclusive" salt block built hostel, remember the touts. This was of course rubbish as there were loads of other groups there but it made the dynamic fun even though our guide had buggered off without leaving us any bread or water, we did eat of course, the usual Bolivian faire of chicken and chips.

The second day was another journey through fantastic wind and sand carved scenery across deserts and fascinating rock formations. We also manged to get to a shop ( made our guide go to a shop) so as well as water we had a good supply of Bolivian wine for the evening and it wasn`t too bad. The guide Raul even let me drive the Jeep for a while, I think he was feeling guilty about leaving us the night before.

The third and last day saw us continue across Dali esque scenery and take a dip in a hot springs, my first full bath for over two months and then back to Uyuni for a fantastic tea at Minute Man Pizza. If you are ever in Uyuni go there, but do not use the tour agency we used BLUE LINE.