Bolivian wine

Bolivia is not really the first place that pops into your head when thinking of fine wines but they do have a huge number of vineyards and being Bolivia everything is cheap. After Christmas and new year the three of us (me, claire and vic) popped down (only 12hrs or so) to a city called Tarija in the south of Bolivia with the main purpose of drinking lots of lovely wine.

From Tarija - Bolivia

We went on a vineyard "tour". I use the word tour cautiously as when we turned up and enquired about a tour someone just gestured towards the back and told us we could have a look around on our own. Definitely my kind of tour.

From Tarija - Bolivia

After wandering about the place a bit we found another vineyard where the don (yes that was his title in the village) made us drink a metre (or maybe 2) of wine.

From Tarija - Bolivia

This involved (as you can see) a hosepipe and a bottle of something that when it was first opened was probably a nice wine. However we think as there are not so many tourists at this time of year the bottle had been open for a very long time and tasted more like something you would put on a salad, still, free booze is free booze.
We also managed to find some nice countryside

From Tarija - Bolivia

which led to a lovely set of waterfalls

From Tarija - Bolivia

Oh, whilst I think of it I have noticed that in the majority of photos with Vic or Claire they always have cigarettes. Just to reassure parents they don´t smoke all the time but they do get sick of me taking photos (especially Claire) so when they stop for a cigarette break I use the oportunity of a stationary distracted subject and sneak a few snaps.

Last photo from this section is of a huge crazy cactus flower. They are about a metre long and stand on a stem at least 5 metres high in the middle of an aloevera type cactus. The locals chop them down but we have no idea why, maybe a medicine. If anyone knows what the hell it is then post a comment

From Tarija - Bolivia

So, after Tarija we said goodbye to Vic and ploughed down to Patagonia, a place called Bariloche

The landscape around Bariloche is so staggeringly beautiful that your eyes can actually dry out due to absence of blinking and general cartoonish wide eyeishness. (Sorry to the non English readers of this blog, "eyeishness" is not a real word but it´s my blog and I can make up as many words as I please).

here is a sneak preview...

From Tarija - Bolivia

We will be back in a few weeks so I shall try and cram in a few more postings as and when.

Ho Ho (Evo)

The odd/crap/cryptic title depending on how generous you are feeling shows that this post is about being back in Bolivia at Christmas (the president of Bolivia is called Evo Morales which rhymes with the classic Santa phrase, clever eh). Morales is the first (I think) indigenous president of a Latin American country and boy does he like propaganda "graffiti" style. It is impossible to travel around Bolivia without seeing Evo signs everywhere. Here´s one of my favourites with the even more common sight of a local converted American school bus (usually on it´s last legs)

From Christmas and Sucre

Whilst I´m on the peculiarities of Bolivia here of photo of a fairly typical Taxi taken from inside. Note the subtle conversion of left hand drive where the steering column is just pulled out and stuffed onto the other side meaning the driver has no idea how fast he is going. One similar taxi we took way back in Paraguay was so badly converted you could see the engine block through the hole!

From Christmas and Sucre

So Christmas (and in fact new year) in Bolivia. An odd experience mainly because is was hot and humid which is more confusing at Christmas time than you might think. Despite the oddness it was great. We got to see Vic and Alan again and ended up drinking champagne in a swimming pool all night. Can´t ask for more than that!
We arrived separately from Vic and Alan half a day before them in a tiny town called Buena Vista. In typical fashion none of us had done much research on the place and we had nowhere booked. Alan had a vague thought that the place was "good" for Christmas and that there might be some sort of street party. That it seemed was the extent of our research.
On arrival it initially appeared that almost everything was closed and the nearest thing to party preparations was a stray dog scratching itself and a rather odd pet rabbit hopping down the street (oops, no photo). Initial hostel searches were also a bit down heartening. One was a bit scabby, the other was fine but as the owners were having their own family celebrations we were told we could stay but could not use communal areas and had to stay in our room all the time so as not to disturb their party, charming.
All turned out well in the end. We found a small cheap cabin and Vic and Alan stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool, guess which we spent most time in.
We all had a nice exchange of presents... (warning, the following photo contains a dangerously high level of cheesy smiles, do not view if you feel even slightly sick)

From Christmas and Sucre

...and then got down to some traditional Christmas drinking. Alan suggested a few times the idea of going to the pool. He was initially met with indifferent responses until two things happened. Firstly we all got a bit drunk, secondly Alan expanded his suggestion to include the drinking of champagne whilst in the pool. All eyebrows rose and soon we were as you see us below...

From Christmas and Sucre

...and rapidly after that we looked like this...

From Christmas and Sucre

then I got a bit creative with the new camera and made everyone jump around a lot

From Christmas and Sucre

From Christmas and Sucre

Finally I would like to include one more "captioned photo", just because it makes me laugh (sorry Alan)

From Christmas and Sucre

It´s Christmas time and Rambo has just remembered he forgot to put the Turkey in the oven

Ok, that´s all for now, next posting will occur whenever it occurs and certainly not a second before that.

EDIT: thanks for the comments, the memorial service was a tad premature Alec. Congratulations to you and Dominika again (in case I don´t go on facebook) I look forward to seeing you all (bump included) when we get back.
Needless to say I look forward to seeing everyone when we get back, please start arranging gigantic parties right now.

ok now calm down, this is technically a new post but it´s more of a pre post posting. A kind of heads up that within my head the wisps of a new posting are forming, probably about Christmas as we have lots of photos involving warmth, swimming pools and champagne!
Come to think of it, I´m not sure if anyone is actually still checking this site, it has been a while. I also have no idea if this still appears on facebook or if it ever did. I could check I suppose but deep down I know I probably won´t.
Anyway, soon We will be in Bariloche (Patagonia) where I will knuckle down and write something with more substance/photos and less waffle (well a bit less).
Love and kisses to all in the world

Guatemala

OK, so hello everyone, thanks for following “our” blog. I haven’t found my special time rather this is a sort of gift to Chief and Claire after all the shit they have been….so here goes….Guatemala………
(i hope this all works)

(just to give our locations, I am now back in Sucre, Bolivia doing some volunteer work -more on this once I reach a special place - and chief and Claire are in Nicaragua, and from what I hear being very well looked after by fellow travellers and locals at their hostel which is very good news!).

So, Guatemala. James and I arrived to Guatemala about three weeks before Chief and Claire. We had a day and night in Ciudad de Guatemala, renowned for being ugly and dangerous. But we had a good time. From stories I’ve heard though, it can be very dangerous, and in fact when James and I wanted to head literally two minutes from our hostel to buy some cervesas two guys insisted that they accompany us should there be gangs hanging around outside. There is a massive problem with gangs in Guatemala, lots of young children, who live in shitty houses, in shitty neighbourhoods, bored and unable to go to school get drawn into the gang culture, unable to leave for fear of death to them or their family (hmmm, my posts are cheery). Once in, they have to pass an initiation test (not like quite like the initiation tests you hear of in the UK that involve drinking a dirty pint or nicking a road cone), which can include, for example, shooting the first women/boy you see! Pretty intense stuff. I would like to point out here that Guatemala is a beautiful beautiful country and by far the majority of people are friendly, smiley and welcoming.

From

graffiti on the walls in guetamala city

From there James and I headed to work on a horse and ostrich farm for about 10 days, it was a pretty interesting experience and an insight into the upper class of Guatemala. A massive finca (farm), owned by a wealthy, upper class italian/guatemalan called eleaza, an eccentric man whose family were italian aristocrats and who has connections with the mexican government, "friends" in the police and "friends" in the guatemalan government (yeh, Guatemala is pretty corrupt, as far as I understand it is common for people to hire hit men to sort out problems, you don’t go to the police, there is a slight feeling of anarchy in Guatemala). His “friends” give him gifts all the time (not sure what for, I think he may be slightly dodgy) for example the aforementioned ostriches and a gun (some big powerful gun, I’m not good with names) that he ended up selling for a fair bit of money. He bragged a lot about bribing his way out of paying taxes (as James pointed out, no wonder there are so many poor people in Guatemala when all the rich landowners/business men don’t pay their taxes. In fact the feeling at the farm was a bit weird, Eleaza lived in a massive, eccentric house at the top of the hill, at the weekend filled with fellow rich Guatemalans -including the presidents brother in law- drinking whisky and listening to classical or cheesy 80s music -bizarre mixture-, the interior was like stepping back in time to an old English house, big chandeliers, paintings of horses/fox hunting styles, and the head of a deer. At the bottom of the hill are where the workers live in “houses” that are being renovated and improved to make stables for the beloved horses! Some photos:

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The boys (Rambo and james) with their tools

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The stables we were constructing

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The children of one of the workers on the farm, absolutely adorable. The smallest boy could literally never stop laughing, at anything.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The view from the farm. Can you see the volcano? On a clear day we could see three volcanoes, one of which occasionally erupted. Pretty cool.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

The workers outside our digs.

From ciudad de guatemala y la finca

Where the local workers lived, soon to be converted into stables. They got paid virtually nothing, and only had one day off every two weeks.

OK from there I headed to Antigua where I spent 10 days living with an absolutely, ridiculously lovely old Guatemalan lady in order to practice Spanish before the Jefe and Claire got there. Antigua is very beautiful, lots of colonial buildings (all painted either red/yellow or green) interspersed with old ruined buildings, all low rise and narrow cobbled streets, sunny and views over volcanoes. Each Sunday there would be processions throughout the city (yeh, Guatemala is by far the most religious country we’ve been to so far - catholic and evangelical). Strange robed religious folk would lead the procession (remember the smurfs??? That is their style) followed by mary standing proud on a float, winding their way through the city….photos are better:

From volcan pacay y la antigua

The main church in Antigua

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Weird smurf people carrying Mary to the church (above)

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Preparing grass/flower rugs for the procession - a process that takes all day only to be immediately messed up by approaching weird smurf people.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nBn_MpZXYpEz6iiVVMDgqQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCLK168j_rqDEWg&feat=directlink

From volcan pacay y la antigua

My absolutely adorable homestay lady Juanita and her daughter. Chief and Claire came to stay with her aswell for a few days.

From Antigua you can climb volcan pacaya, a volcano that is still active, pretty stunning views from the top, like another world. We climbed above the clouds looking out over two other volcanoes that emerged from the sea of clouds like unexplored islands, with distinct rays of sunlight beaming through. As night drew in a thunderstorm started over the other volcanoes, it was strange to be at the same altitude as the lightening. Proper fork lightening aswell.. Also fairly disconcerting walking over rocks and being able to see lava flowing beneath, it was so hot that air was filled with the smell of burning leg hair.

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Clouds making their way down the valley towards Guatemala city, and volcan agua and volcan fuego

From volcan pacay y la antigua

Below the rocks, below me you can see and feel lava flowing.

OK, so from Antigua the group reformed, Claire, chief and I headed to lago Atitlan and met up with james there (whilst I had been studiously practicing Spanish james had been spending the last couple of weeks doing yoga and reading his book etc with gorgeous views over the lake). We spent a week at Lago Atitlan, a pretty sweet, incredibly relaxed week. I think we spent on average 6 or 7 hours a day in a hammock, this time interspersed with swimming, rock jumping (Claire has no fear!) or kayaking in the beautiful clear lake. The views are even better from the lake, surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It was here that Claire had her 30th birthday, drinking beers by the lake during the day followed by a messy night out in San Pedro. A memorable place to have your birthday.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Claire on her birthday, surrounded by balloons and sitting in a hammock! Oohh, james is about to leave his hammock, that was probably my call to swoop in and nick it. Chief looks like he’s in a painting.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

The afternoon of Claire’s birthday

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

The evening of Claire's birthday

To give you an idea of how beautiful lago atitlan is, i have nicked the following photos from james (cheers lad).

From nicked from james

From nicked from james

From nicked from james

Right, doing well so far…..so, from lago Atitlan up to the western highlands, after a week of sitting in a hammock we craved some cultural indulgence……so we took numerous chicken buses up to a small town called Nebaj (old American school buses -often still with stickers saying God loves America inside -, deemed unsafe for America and reborn with their own, (more interesting) colourful Guatemalan character). Driving through small rural villages (at least 3 churches to each village), beautiful pine covered hills and everywhere you looked there were corn fields (hence the invention of a very thrilling and tactile game we made up, ingeniously called “corn”, I wont go into the rules here as they’re very complex). So Nebaj is one of three mayan villages in the area. So the majority of people who live here are…..mayan, many people don’t speak Spanish. All the women still dress in traditional, colourful skirts and flamboyant blouses. The older men all in cowboy hats carrying machetes (in fact, age doesn’t come into it, I think you can get your first machete at about 5 years old). The younger girls all wear traditional dress as well but the younger boys style seemed to be ripped jeans and t-shirts with metallica slogans or pictures of bruce willis. We had a day trip out to Chajul, smaller than nebaj and much more rural with an absolutely wonderfully colourful vibrant market with Mayan women selling all sorts, soap, toys, handicrafts, textiles, deep fried tacos, Bruce Willis t-shirts. Chief and I had a go on the old arcade machines (remember puzzle bubble?) much to the entertainment of all the young boys who beat us ridiculously easily.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Market on the way to Nebaj

From nicked from james

Jefe on the arcade games, just before he was embarrassingly beaten by a 12 year boy at puzzle bubble.

From lago atitlan and the western highlands

Men in cowboy hats outside the church in the main plaza, Nebaj

To Lanquin next and the best hostel so far - El Retiro - set in lush, green surroundings, wooden huts with hammocks, a hostel cow that thought it was a dog and a river at the bottom of the garden acting as a water taxi to the restaurant that had 2 happy hours every evening. From here we did a day tour to Samuc Champey, absolutely incredible. The tour began with caving, entering a cave from behind a waterfall, candles lit (no torches) into water up to our chests. As we got further into the cave the water got deeper and we had to swim, holding the candles above our heads. At one point we had to clamber behind a waterfall inside the cave and then climb up the wall beside it. A completely different experience. (Claire has a great video from this so I wont say to much). The main attraction here are these beautiful turquoise blue, natural swimming holes, created by a massive waterfall which runs bellow the swimming holes and over the top. They’re round in shape and each connected to the other by small waterfalls. It was so much fun diving from one to the other, the whole place was like a fairytale.

From lanquin and tikal

From lanquin and tikal

The swimming pools


So our final stop in Guatemala was Flores, the main town you stay in to get to Tikal. Tikal, an incredibly impressive ancient mayan city, perfect to explore. The first evening we were there we had the ancient main plaza practically to ourselves. Throughout the city temples appeared from the jungle's canopy, like pyramids but with flat tops. Apparently each new King had to have a bigger, better, taller temple than the previous ruler. They really were quite captivating. The following morning we sat at the top of one of the temple (imaginatively called Temple 4) to have breakfast, looking out over the jungle canopy which stretches on for miles and dotted with peaks from other temples, all this to the sound of howler monkeys waking up and trooping through the jungle.

From nicked from james

Thanks james for that photo, the ferry that our micro van took on the way to flores. Microvans are the second form of transport (a favourite of chief and james), they can kind of comfortably sit about 15 people, the most we counted on one was 32 (including two on the roof and a vomiting child beside James).

From lanquin and tikal

The guys in flores beside a Bimbo van, “bimbo” the main brand of food in central america, replaced “fanny” the main brand for south america (fanny tuna, fanny marmalade, fanny salsa, all sorts).

From lanquin and tikal

Chief with a pretty amusing expression on his face from the top of mmmm.... temple 6 i think

From lanquin and tikal

The view from our breakfast spot

From lanquin and tikal

The main temple (temple 1!) in the main plaza.

And to finish off, a photo of us on our dive boat in Utilla, Honduras, we has such a great week there before going our different ways and the diving was absolutely incredible. About half an hour after this photos was taken we were swimming with eagle rays.

From lanquin and tikal

So there we go, thanks for reading. A few shout outs aswell......Tom and Jac hope it's all going well for you over there in Moscow, from facebook i gather you're embrassing the vodka culture. I hope I get back in time to visit you there. Liz, if you want, there is room for you on my uncomfortable, rock hard, single bed if you fancy a visit to Bolivia. I'm expecting a yellow mummy comment! To all those that i;ve been shit at emailing, apologies, i do still think about you a lot and hope you are all well. Right, Chief and Claire, once you've finished on your epic diving trips around central america get your asses back down to bolivia!!!

Vic

xxxx

10 out of 10 for effort, 1 out of 10 for photo linking ability ;)

things

well it´s been a while since I last wrote anything and I won´t go into details why but basically it´s all about stuff.
I had lots of stuff, then over a period of months people kept stealing my stuff. Now I have less stuff* and this has made me sad.
So, no more postings for a while as I really just cannot be bothered anymore.





*stuff currently relates to...
My money
My wallet
Mine and Claires Cash cards
My towel
My bullet
MY (many many bad expletives deleted) CAMERA
My camera card with some lovely lightning photos on it
My bolivian bag (a gift from Rob)
My passport (although that was many months ago and has now been replaced)
My sanity
My spirit

I will post again when I have resolved the last two items

General update

Well it's been a bit over a week but in my defence we have been in Honduras and for those who don`t keep up to date with the news things are a "bit iffy" att the moment. The deposed president has returned and is currently hiding in the Brazilian embassy. This caused a quite irritating curfew and a few protests. Thankfully we were in the Bay Islands where the nearest thing to a crisis situation is the bakery running out of orange cake. Even so we came back from a dive (Oh yeah I can dive now) and were told we had 1 hour to get back home and stay there for 26 hours. This involved a complex combination of rapid beer drinking, food purchasing and irritation at the bakery running out of orange cake. Bad day. Anyway we have now managed to leave Honduras before the army/general population kills their ex-president (most people really don`t seem to like him and actually want him to be dragged out and shot!).

I am going to start a draft of a costa Rica post (there`s lots of photos so it may take a while) and may even finish it today so keep an eye out.

congrats to Jeff and Jack on reaching the combined age of 31! Obviously Jeff has taken the lions share of the years but that in no way detracts from Jacks mighty age of 1.
congratulations too to Tim on getting married (pass on my regards Jeff, I don`t think Tim reads this).
Well done to Alec on being chartered,although Iam not too sure what that actually means but it sounds damn good.
Finally well done to Jeff and Emma on now having walls on their house (for those of you who are currently scratching their heads at that look here --> www.jeffandemmashouse.blogspot.com
Big love to all

A proper post about the lost city in Colombia

Right, action! Time to actually get off my metaphorical arse and write something. Continuing chronologically the next big trip was the lost city in the north of Colombia deep into the jungle.

this was a 5 day trek there and back including one very special night staying within the city itself.

Accomodation was basic. Along the trail there were places to sling hammocks with mosquito nets and facilities for the guides to cook us food.

From Lost City (Columbia)

The trail started off simply enough with heavy muddy uphill climbs and steep muddy downhill slides. Later on we discovered there was a river in our way. Well the same river 9 times to be precise but more on that later. First for those who don`t yet know I have a beard (old news I know) but did anyone know I now have a bandana! (Thanks by the way Rob) Currently for jungle use only but as I plan on not cutting my hair for a whole year the bandana may become more permanent.

From Lost City (Columbia)

Not the best photo I know but I rarely let my camera out of my hands.

So anyway, that river. It was big. Not Amazon or Nile big but considering we had to wade through it back and forth nine times with our packs above our heads it felt pretty damn big. Some parts were well above my waist with a current easily strong enough to sweep you off your feet if it wasn`t for a very stable and helpful guide. It also contained a few friendly creatures like this coral snake (it is poisonous but not aggressive)

From Lost City (Columbia)

The big advantage of all these river crossings is that you can cool off and after the first one I was just jumping into pools fully clothed as being wet and cool is far better than being wet (from sweat), smelly and hot. Claire as you can imagine had a lot more finesse when getting into the water.

From Diving in the lost city

On day 3 of 5 we crossed the river for the 9th time and arrived at the bottom of the city steps. The river was obviously annoyed at the fact that it had not been able to sweep any of us or our belongings away had decided to remove the bottom few steps causing us all the rather awkwardly clamber up the muddy slopes.
I`m not sure how many steps there were, I lost count at 1300 ( yes I really did count that many) but it was enough to make my legs wish I had left them behind in a warm hammock

From Lost City (Columbia)

At the top we stayed in a little shack hidden in the jungle.

From Lost City (Columbia)

(Look at the left hand side of the photo at the small white blob)

From Lost City (Columbia)

Here it is close up.
Apart from our group of 11ish there were no other tourists in the whole city and we only shared the place with a platoon of soldiers and well over a million large and very hungry mosquitos. Staying in the city meant we got to see both a sunset...

From Lost City (Columbia)

and a sunrise...

From Lost City (Columbia)

I just realised I have been using the word "city" alot. although the site was a city, and a large none at that, most of it is still hidden under the jungle and the excavated part is actually quite small consisting of mainly terraces and steps. As it was almost utterly empty it really did feel "lost" especially in the evening when I went for a wander with James (everyone else was too knackered).

From Lost City (Columbia)

From Lost City (Columbia)

Oh, one last important point was thanks to the friendly and very very bored soldiers I got to pose with a galil rifle which was most fun (see the moronic grin on my face) and even buy a genuine bullet as a keepsake.

From Lost City (Columbia)

Well, that`s it for now. Thanks for all the comments it lets me know that despite my chronic laziness people are still keeping an eye on things. I will try and make the next post sooner rather than later, feel free to moan en mass if you don`t hear anything in a weeks time.

coming up next (from me) will be a picture heavy Costa rica summary. There is a small (sub-atomic small) chance that someone else will write a post first, possibly about Guatamala which is where we are now. So there`s something to look forward to.