Wrong Turn Travels

Lima and beyond

2007-06-12T17:42:00.000Z

Neither one of us had high hopes for Lima, no one we talked to about Lima was particularly inthused about it and i can see why as its basically just a large city with large city problems such as poverty, polution, and being on the coast a dull winter fog fills the air. We spent around 5 days and didn't get up to much culturlly, we went to the national museum but by the time we got to Lima we were both travel weary and very much broke so we decided to call it a day on our adventure. We spent the first few days rescheduling flights to the earliest possible date, in the end booking an outbound flight to sao paulo on the 12th and getting to Rio De jeneiro on the morning on the 13th, giving us just 5 hours to see of Rio before we have a flight back to heathrow. I don't know if we'll get to see much of Rio in that time but it was the only flight that would fit in with our plans and either way theres always next time as i know i'll be back in South and Central America another day, theres still so much left to do and see.

I may be burnt out and poorer than i'd like now but these last 5 months have been the best of my life, we've done so much more than we ever planned for, after all we arrived in New York with nothing more for a travel itinirary for the next 3 months than a outgoing flight from San Fancisco. During our time in the US we met a lot of great people, some we'll keep in contact with no doubt and some we may never see again. It wasn't all fun, god knows Greyhound is not a comfortable ride and Miami could be left unexplored as could a few other city but for the most part Americans welcomed us with open arms and some of them even into their homes without even knowing them for as much as 48 hours. We arrived into Buenos Aires on the 1st without any real knowledge of what we were gonna be doing there or even a competent grasp of the language but as two months went by we started understanding little questions or answers we got in bus stations or far out hotels and hostels and i really enjoyed my time in latin America. I didn't have a clue what to expect of South America or if i'd even like it but now as im writing this i know i've got a lot more left to do here and i've had an amazing time over here.

Thanks to those who donated, thanks to those who lent a hand or floor to sleep on, thanks to everyone who helped us out along the way, and last but not least thanks to anyone whos taken the time to read this blog however many times for the last five months

Dejan

Machu Picchu by Dejan

2007-06-12T17:03:00.000Z

Well i did it! Aaadrian! I did it!
ahem, Macu Picchu was immense, we had quite a good mix of a group of around 16 people, including a group of young danes who led the pack, a canadian, a 'merkan, and two norwegians.
Victor, our guide, assured us the first day was "easy" where as the 2nd day was the hardest of the 4 day trek. Perhaps we just weren't prepared for how hard this trek was because the first day was far from easy, the beatiful views soothed my aching bones though and the camp site at the end of the day was perched at the end of a cliff that overlooked a beatiful snow capped mountain. The second day was an early start, as all the days seemed to be on this trek, and a hell of a day it was too. It began with an hours walk at around a 50/70 degree incline following corner after corner where a steeper incline awaits. I learned 3 things about Victor on this trip...
1-'inca flat' doesnt mean anything like the word flat suggests, inca flat actually means going up and down small mounds for several hours as a rest bite from near vertical climbs
2-"easy" means easy if your definition of easy is 5 hours of walking
3- he likes Axl Rose, but i digress

As i was saying the first part of the trek on the morning of day 2 was a painful incline up the mountains and finally reaching Dead Womans pass but not before an even steeper incline for several hours, when you see Dead Womans pass or rather you when you think you see it, you get a jolt of energy and start thinking like its the home straight and not much more left, such foolish thought quickly vanish into the breeze as you realise past that hill is a higher hill and past that hill is an even steeper, higher one, by the time you reach Dead Womans pass and you're amongst the clouds you've spent your energy and exhausted every last drop of oxygen you had in you. So its just aswell i wasn't the last one up and had time to catch my break for 15/30 minutes before we navigated down the steep inca steps leading all the way down to the camp site.
The third day was tough, made harder by the blisters and aches from the last two days but compared with day 2 it was definetly an improvement. If i paint a picture of this trek as some impossible path that only made me ache in every possible place then i dont mean to, it was definetly one of the most physically demanding things i've done but the scenery more than makes up for it and machu picchu, well machu picchu has to be seen.
On day four we got up at 4am, reached the initial check point at 4 15 and waited till half past 5 for a ranger to open the gate and let us pass, needless to say we were the first group at this check point, who else would be mad enough to arrive an hour early?
We were told once again the last day is eaaaasy, no problem. Maybe so if you just trek on the last day and skip the first 3 days, if not then you're already spent from the previous trekking. We were estimated an hours trek to the sun gate from which we got our first views of machu picchu but most of us made it in 40 minutes, some of it in even 30. The adrenaline rushing through you and the eagerness to be amongst the first to see the mountain propel you and push you past your bodies limitations but of course the last bit is always the hardest and when you can see the sun gate up there in front of you, and all that stands in your way is a series of steep inca stairs you're giving your last bit of air, puffing and panting, running on empty just to get there, knowing once you're there its done, you've beaten the trek.
I always thought my first view of Machu Picchu would be the most special, it wasn't actually. The first view, the view from the sun gate, isn't the best view, although you get a panoramic view and peek at the ruins obscured by the mountain on your left, its another 15/20 minutes limp untill you get that magically postcard view, wayna picchu to your left and the ruins under its shade. By this point you're drained, sweaty, tired, aching, and the view makes up for all of that. Its all well and good looking it up on google or on a postcard, or even taking the train here but in my opinion you can't fully appreciate machu picchu and the work of 50 years that went into building it untill you take the inca trail that the natives took every time they made the pilgrimage to this place. What followed was a two hour tour of the ruins and the quarry where they mined the rocks and then we were left to our devices to climb Wayna Picchu if we wanted, it was of course purely optional but Victor rightly so reccomened it as it may be the last time we get the chance to.
I took a deep breath in and took the path up Wayna Picchu, i suffer from Vertigo now and again and this was a bad time to get it. The path was pretty sketchy at times and on more than one occasion all that saved you from a painful fall was a rope to hold yourself up with or the stone wall along some passes. Just before the top i was feeling pretty rough and the steep steps up with a sheer drop on one side didnt help, i looked down and nearly didn't go on but i was nearly there now so i had to give it a shot. Somehow against my better judgement i got to the top, i was scared as anything but i'd done it! I made way down and had a short rest before i took the next bus to Aguas Callientes, our meeting point.
Throughout the trek the porters that carried our bags put every tourist on the trek to shame, most of them weren't over 5"5 and cant have weighed more than ten stone at most but each porter carried 25kg on their backs and with nothing more than sandals on their feet got to every camp site hours before any of us and despite all this they clapped us when we reached the camp site. These people have a bmi of practically no fat whatsoever to manage this once let alone 5 times a month like these people do but i suppose they have no other choice as they dont have any degrees and agriculture doesnt pay well.
The trel left me exhausted even after a days rest but also proud to have seen it as i don't know if i'll get such an opportunity again.

Cuzco

2007-05-27T17:07:00.000Z

8 hours on a bus never felt so long, we'd booked a tourist class ticket only to be thrown on a shitty semi-local bus just before our departure, the company clearly had some sort of commision deal with locals as we stopped every 10 minutes so that old ladies could sell us stale cheese and bread, thanks but i think i'll pass. By the time we'd gone half way everyone on the bus was getting sick of it, people started stomping on the floor and banging on windows with their fists in anger but the driver wasn't fazed, i wouldn't be suprised if it was routine for him.
We knew our hostel was on a hill, thats kind of why we chose it so that we could get fit before the inca trail, what we didn't realise was just how steep this hill was and how unhealthy we were, in my defense even locals were puffing and panting up it! One pay off of being in a hostel on a hill was that the views from the hostel bar were pretty good, a view of practically the entire city including the footbll stadium and airport on the other side, but with that comes the negative of having to climb an incline higher than 'mount' tabor in portland, oregon every time you want to get back to the hostel.

Cusco is a town thats embraced its past, it was the capital of the shortlived inca empire before the conquistadors came in and overthrew the defsneless incas whose knowledge of war was pretty worthless compared to the spaniards, reseating the capital in lima. Thanks to the discovery of Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham Cusco enjoyed a revival and new beggining as a tourist town. Walking down cusco's main square or narrow side streets you won't see too much inca architecture as the spaniards tore most of it down, stole the gold leaf from religious buildings, and erected churches but go into any of the multitude of tourist shops, trust me they're not hard to find on any street in this town, and you're sure to find all manner of inca crafts from alpaca rugs and clothing to inca style ceramics. Aside from the usual handicrafts you'd expect to find theres also a lot of chess sets in all shapes and sizes, the special thing about these sets is that they depict the war of peru, incas verses conquiestadors. You can't say cusco hasn't taken the spanish occupation and turned it into a money maker. The main square, or plaza de arms, is a small but busy area, walking down it is like walking down a tourist mine field, dozens of locals jump out and beg you to have a massage or do a tour. These same people stay out all night and when the party crowd comes out tempt gringos to various bars with free drinks vouchers.
A night out in cusco is unlke any i've seen before, the town takes on a whole new look, all the shops close and suddenly bars appear out of no where, door men man doors in the main square you'd be hard pushed to find in the day time when they look as inconspicuous as abandoned buildings. If you look local nobody will bat an eyelid at you however if they suspect you're a gringo then expect to be bombarded with people running at you literally pulling you in every direction and plying you with free drinks vouchers. We went out with a canadian called Glenn that we met in the hostel bar on the 2nd night, we were hoping to go to a place called the Blueberry lounge that Glenn had heard good things about however we soon gave in to the pressure of free mystery mixers and went on a free bar crawl for the whole night long, never even finding the Blueberry lounge in the end. The bars here were mostly gringo infested seeing as it was the start of high season for machu picchu visits however we did stumble into one local bar where we were the only gringos and everyone stared at us when we walked in. By the end of the night the lure of free drinks started waning but not before Tim and Glenn danced on the bar of one the places and we met a group very drunk spaniards and a iranian canadian who sounded like a new yorker even though he came from the opposite coast. By the time we left for the hostel we were being yelled at and kicked out of places, 'why you gringos no buy drinks?', because we're getting FREE drinks all night, thats why.

On our third day in cusco i fell ill, i got a bit of a temperature and was feeling nasueaus, light sensitive, and felt sick. In the evening i had to call a doctor over to the hostel to be on the safe side as i felt awful and he told me i was likely allergic to the anti-malarial drug i was taking, i was to stop taking it immediately and he gave me 3 pills to take before my next check up tommorow. Right after taking the first one at 8pm i ran to the bathroom and violently vommited up 5 consecutive times, mean while 2 guys were just checking into our dorm room and the first thing they heard was me throwing up in the bathroom, i wish i knew what they were thinking.

There are plenty of markets in cusco and we only went to 2 large ones but they seem to all sell the same stuff really apart from the electronics market which, you guessed it deals in all things electric aswell as some clothing , including all your favourite brands such as Sonia stereos and Adibas trainers. Pirate dvds and cds are a huge ecoconomy here and you'd be hard pushed to find anything thats genuine and if you do you wouldnt bother buying it as its even more expensive than the UK. A second local economy thats pretty common here is fresh juices, there are countless stalls in and outside markets where you can order a fruit juice made right in front of you, we tried one with Glenn at a market where four 4 rows of fruit juice stalls with women yelling and flagging you down with newspapers. The choices of juice ranged from the exotic to the plain and then to something called the special which i believe may have included beer in the mix. I went for a thick orange juice which was pretty tasty and filled you up like a meal.
Food in cusco is plentiful and varied, as in any tourist town you can find pretty much any cuisine you want from the standard burgers and fries, authentic peruvian cuisine, italian, mexican, chinese, even Indian, so you're never at a loss for choice. We tried quite a few cuisines available here, from posh but pretencious polenta to authentic andean food. One of our first meals was at a posh little place, the kind where your plate is 3/4 empty, 15 minutes go to cooking, and 30 on presentation. The first time we went we had tapas, i've never had it before so im no judge on what it looks like but this stuff was clearly not run of the mill spanish food, there was so much effort put into making it something 'special' it turned into a ridiculous fusion of flavours. We never learnt our lesson it seems because we returned there another day with Glenn and Blake, Tim ordered a pasta dish which came to him as 4 large past quills on an over sized plate, Glenn ordered what was an anorexics serving of potato salad, and i got polenta that looked like some one had already chewed it, tasty. The joke was on us because Blake ordered a sandwhich, it was the cheapest meal of the lot and actually deserved the title of main course because unlike ours his dish was actually a beast of a sandwhich.
Peru has 2 main national dishes depending on whether you're on the coast or by the andes, ceviche and Alpaca. I'm not a fan of sea food but here i was in peru so i had to at least try ceviche once. If you don't know what it is then think sushi, its a platter of raw sea food seasoned with a lot of lemon, sweet potatoe, and mild spices. It wasn't long before the plate arrived and i was facd with the confusing task of working my way into it, first came the shrimp which i had to dissect to get to the meat, then muscles, and other sea food i wouldn't even recognise. I'm not one for fish so this was a little strange and not really to my taste, the taste of the sea doesnt really appeal to me but i gave it a go anyway and it was pretty good for dissected sea life. I'd tried llama in bolivia and so alpaca was a must, the dish i ordered was Alpaca with andean sauce, no idea what andean sauce is but as i was a stones throw from the andes it seemed a fitting choice. I don't know if mine was overcooked or something but where llama steak was juicy alpaca was tough and chewy, cutting it practically wore me out and the andean sauce it was soaked in made it taste worse. I don't know whats in the sauce but it was a green colour so maybe pistachio or peanuts because it was too salty to be avocado, the sauce ruined the meat but there was so much of it that you couldn't get away from the stuff. The peanut soup (apparantely a Mexican dish) i ordered as an entree with my alpaca was a lot nicer, tasted a lot like you'd expect but delicious rather than just salty, the soup was so filling that by the time my huge alpaca steak came i was already full.

Although our experience of Cusco before the Inca Trail was pretty limited considering we'd spent a week here without doing one touristy thing apart from visiting the tourist markets i really liked the city, i liked the look of the place, the architecture, the culture, it was just one of those times when you just settle into a city and don't really have to do much to enjoy it. Now roll on 25 miles of trekking on the Inca Trail!

Puno

2007-05-26T16:51:00.000Z

Puno, Peru

Expecting the worst from our bus from Copacabana to Puno, I was actually pretty suprised when the bus pulled off on time and took us all the way across the Bolivian/Peruvian border, the same border we had been across just two days before. The same shoeshine boy was there, he had an excellent memory for peoples faces, and greeted people he remembered and asked for foreign coins from other people. He was very popular, and got his foreign cons, he must have quite a collection.

Puno isnt an attractive town, most building are concrete with steel supports sprouting forth from the tops waiting for a seconds storey that may never be built. There are two types of taxis, shitty little motobike taxis which look very unstable, however most of them had Batman mural painted on the back of them. Hmm, Im not sure whos gonna be fooled by that, No cars in Peru quite match up to the Batmobile.

We decided to make the effort to go to a Hostel specifically, so we could talk to people again, Though cheap, Hostals with an a not an e, were boring, no social areas. Our Hostel, Virgen de Copacabana, or something to that efefct, was in fact, empty, so yet again we had no one to talk to. We decided to arrange a Tour of the Uros floating islands and the peruvian side of lake titicaca. We were gonna be picked up at 6.30am, so I needed an early night. at nearly I got into bed. But then it dawned on us, was Peru time, the same time as Bolivian time. We had no idea, and searched through our guidebooks hoping it would tell us such a small fact. In the end we scared the crap out of the Hostel Staff by shouting !¿WHAT TIME IS IT?¡ at them, turned out i had got into bed at 8. I felt pretty stupid for some reason.

6.30 and it was freezing, Puno and the whole take titicaca region seem to have a problem with no heating or hot water. So after much shivering, we got picked up and whisked away to the Boats. Not before entering traffic, 6.45am and ahead of us was a marching band piping away. The night before we had witnessed 3 different marching bands in 5 minutes. It must be the craze here, like happy slapping, except peruvian youth have got the exact opposite, and are taking their trends from the salvation army. But 6.45 in the morning honestly, who could face that.

The boat was helluv different from the Bolivian one, we had nice soft reclining chairs and a man who played pan pipe and charanga versions of beatles songs. We even had a tour guide who claimed his name was Julio Iglesias. Anyway, we arrived at the Uros floating islands, and to be honest the whole thing was a lesson in Tourism destroying local culture. The islanders, who lived among the reeds waved at us and sang song as we came aboard their islands, they then posed and pretended to be going about their day whilst at the same time keeping a money pot in hand watching for anyone wanting to take a photo of them. Julio explained that 19 out of 24 islands welcomed tourists, 6 refused, good for them. As we left, they sang twinkle twinkle in bad english. Some people enjoyed it, I felt kinda weird about the whole thing, but ah well, i paid for it the same with everyone else.

Moving onward to Taquile island we hiked a bit more, good preparation for the Inca Trail, we were again accosted by locals with crap to sell. Sr. Iglesias took us to a restaurant so he could get a free meal at our expense. Ah well. We met a cool bunch of people, two doctors from nottingham, and old family from South Carolina, and a very proud yorkshireman. That night we all hit the town and met some dirrty southerners. Who were very mouthy when drunk, but all we did was fuel the mouthiness with pisco sours. it was funny, towards midnight, I ended up just watching this mouth londer going at it with the 60year old yorkshireman, it was pretty funny. But time to call it a night, early bus to cuzco in the morning, we headed back to our Hosepedaje via an ensuing riot between the cops and some drunk peruvian men, We manged to get past them whilst they were repeatedly hitting a passed out drunk man. Maybe it was a marching band that go out of hand.

Hotest place south of Havana?

2007-05-23T16:20:00.000Z

Our coach taking us to Copacabana was supposed to pick us up at 7 15 and we were told to be ready at 7am so we woke up about half an hour early, giving us plenty of time. One thing we forgot was that there is a 4 time difference between here and the uk, im not talking gmt-4 and all that gibberish, a lesser known fact is that bolvian time is routinely veeeery flexible and 7 15am can easily mean 8am or even later for no explicit reason.
Once we'd left La Paz eating our dust our hosts kindly let us all know there was a roadblock (something about increased road tax i think) along the way so we had to take an alternate route, no problem though as that was only to take another 1/2 hour. Ok that may have been a teeny fib on their behalf as what was meant to be 1/2 hour was actually over an hour and by alternate route they meant they would drop us off past the peruvian border and then leave us to make our own way to copacabana. Fantastic. Of course everyone protested, took down staffs details for complaints (really not worth it in Bolivia where a relaxed pace of life is an art form), and demanded the company pay the extra 7bs for the mini van across the border and then the cab fare to copacabana, 'no es mi problem' apparantely. 14 of us shared a cramped mini bus for a further hour páid for out of our own pocket whilst our luggage hung above us on the roof precariously balanced on this van that tossed and turned left and right at every pothole and struggled to reach speeds higher than 20mph. Somehow we made it, luggage intact, and we all went our merry way to the peruvian immigration officials so we could be stamped on our way out. The officials took a liking to me and searched my belongings, don't worry they didnt find the crack i smuggled in.
We shared a cab with some 'merkans and went to the first hotel on our list, a place so shifty they wanted no ID, no names, no money up front, no nothing untill we checked out. Tim did well to notice that over 5 members of staff had an eye missing for some reason, i'm sure they just all happend to lose them in a mass scissor carrying while running incident.
On our second day we woke up early yet again to give us time for breakfast and to book tickets for the 8 30am tour. We stopped for breakfast at the first place we noticed, a tiny little hole in the wall kind of place with no more than 3 tables and an elderly woman who mistook Tims request of mueli for sugar puffs with bananas and yoghurt.
On the boat to Isla Del Sol we all got on the top deck, really just the roof with two benches stretched across the length of the boat. Once the boat left the harbour, winds tossed the boat around like a plaything and froze us all, making us regret ever thinking to go on the top deck. Needless to say everyone sat on the bottom deck on the way back and i wondered if everyone who´d done this tour made the same mistake as us.
We were all dropped off at the north pier of the island and told we had around 3 or 3 1/2 hours to walk the distance of the island down to the south pier where we´d be picked up. At first 3 hours seemed cutting it a little thin but in the end i managed it in around 2 hours. The path down the island was pretty clear so you couldn´t really get lost without trying and it followed the perimeter giving you constant views of the lake and the distant royal mountains crowned with snow on their summits. A few miles into the walk we stumbled upon a tour of the ´museum´ and thinking it was the only way down to the south we paid the 10bs fee to gain entrance. Perhaps museum was a little misleading a word to use as the place in question was actually ruins and a short guided walk by a spanish speaking guide. I didn´t really understand much of the spanish so the guide portion was pretty redundant but the ruins were quite interesting, especially the small maze of intertwining tunnels and rooms that somehow all joined together. On the way back from the museum we realised we didn´t actually have to go there as it wasnt on our route but it wasn´t much money wasted anyway. Back on the beaten path Tim and I went at our own paces and i sped ahead trying to get some good excercise done in preperation for Machhu Pichhu. The majority of the route was a collection of steep hills, firzt you go up puffing and panting wondering if you can go any further and then you´re rewarded with an easy walk down for just long enough for you to catch your breath again before another steep incline. The scenery varied quite a bit, all the while the mountains and lake were visible but the immediate vicinity varied from small forests to red rock and to villages. On the last stretch of the walk you entered one of the main villages and little kids constantly begged for sweets but all i had to offer was water, probably not the worthers or snickers they envisaged. Most of us arrived at the meet point at least 1/2 early and when Tim arrived he brought with a group of four British guys he´d been walking with. They´d been all around the world on their trip and had recently walked Machhu Picchu so we mainly talked about that and in the evening 3 of them and a japanese man joined us for dinner at a local restaurant where we had our first 3 course meal since i can remember on this trip. After dinner we all went our seperate ways, meeting again by chance the next morning hanging around the main square.
Our stay in Copacabana was pretty short lived but we did pretty much everything without rushing it so we left on third day ready to take on Puno and the floating islands.

Out of Breath in Bolivia

2007-05-21T23:54:00.000Z

La Paz, Bolivia

An overnight bus on an unpaved gravel and dirt road all the way from Uyuni to La Paz was never going to be comfortable, ah well such is travel in this continant. I never have to try one of those massage chairs that you find on ferries and in shopping centres now, because i know what its like to have a vibrating back for 6 hours. Arriving into La Paz at 7am with a wholsome breakfast of a bag of oreos and a mango juice, we set about getting a taxi without being scammed. Our h0ostel was metres away from the Bus Station, we didn´t know this until afterwards. The taxi driver took us around the one way system to get to the opposite side of the road, egtting increasingly frustrated as he had never head of Arthys Guesthouse. He also keep saying ¨Grand Bretañge¨over and over again. Eventually he dropped us angrily outside our hostel, 10 minutes later then it would have been had we walked.

The hostel was highly recommended, hidden behind a bright orange steel door. The hostel staff greeted us at the early hour and invited us to watch their collections of dvds (it was an impressive cavern of pirated stuff) whilst they waited for our room to be cleaned. They referred to us by name which was strange, although having only about 10 guests at a time, means i guess they can take this personal touch. Outside we heard the no familair noise of firecrackers and drums, there was either a protest or a procession going on. Looking out it appears the entire poputaltion of la paz´s school were out in force. All proudly proclaiming membership of the student union, and all seperated into blocks accroding to subject. The PE block wearing all shell suits. It was a fantastic sight and the kids poured down Ave. Montes for at least 30 minutes. I have no idea what the occasion was, but it was inspiring.

Breakfast was had at 100% Natural on Ave. Sarataga. It was amazing for 16 Bolivanos (thats approximitly 1 quid) we had a massive breakfast of eggs, bread, jam, banana or papaya juice, a fuit salad, strawberry youghurt museli mash up. Followed up by delicious Coca Tea, this time in its proper leaf form. Coca tea has been a must since getting to Bolivia. It helps with the altitude, and it tastes pretty good. But is illegal in the UK. Due to the fact that if you had about 60kg of coca leaves you could make a 1kg of cocaine. As tea or chewing leaves it doesn´t have much of an effect except for a numb mouth if your chewing the leaves.

We met Ginney, a Dutch Girl we had met at the Boca game in Buenos Aires. She had placement at the Dutch Embassy in La Paz, and was having her last few days of freedom before starting a hectic schedule of meetings. We took her to the Witches Market, which wasn´t as impressive as I thought. There was a few weird things like Llama Fetus´ and other dead things. But the majority of it was touristy Hat and Glove stalls. I did buy some Evo Morales souvenirs which Ginney helped me get the price down to 4b´s from 10. I wish i knew spanish. We also checked out the coca museum, which was very informative, encompassing the culture of coca in Andean society, along with how the west has exploited their ´sacred´leaf and used it for evil, Cocaine, Coca Cola etc. It was worth a visit, and they give you leaves to chew whilst you walk around.

We went to a Ducth Bar, called Sol y Luna, opposite an english bar, Olivers Travels that night with some guys from our Hostel. We had one problem, the hostel set a compulsory midnight curfew which was annoying but we got back for 11.55. Before leaving the bar, we were presented with a flyer for Cholitos Wrestling, which is the native women wrestling. It sounded completely bizarre and somehow we got signed up to it. Howver the next day we didnt end up going. I think its a better idea we didnt as....wrestling just doesnt appeal to me, despite the potential comedy value.

I preferred La Paz as a city to Buenos Aires, Ok so the air was filled with just as many fumes, and Collectivos and Micros stalked you down the street trying to get you inside their vans. And of course the high altitude and constant hills meant yo were out of breath before youstarted. I don´t know, despite all that I preffered it.

Uyuni

2007-05-20T16:35:00.000Z

Due to complications on the internet and telephone we hadn´t booked any where to stay for the night so we stepped off the train, eyes blood shot, tired, and eager to find a bed as soon as possible so we could catch some sleep. We passed several touts offering taxi, probably best to leave it, and followed the crowd to whatever hostel or hotel they take us to. Eventually we realised that as usual the crowd is usually just following another crowd and no one really knows where theyre going, after a fruitless walk we retraced our steps to the train station and found one of the hotels on our list a mere block from the station if that.
After a beatiful and much needed sleep we arose and walked around all day trying to find a tour. It wasn´t untill evening we settled on one that offered a two day tour with an english speaking guide starting tommorow, sorted.
On the morning of the tour wesat in the guides office doe eyed as they darted in and out of building. Finally an hour after we were scheduled to leave a man steps into the office and tells us we´re to go in his car while the other 4 people on our tour go in a different jeep. We were reassured that our guide would pick up from the salt flatsn hotel and would take us for the next portion of the tour, it wasn´t ideal but we didn´t have all that much time to think about it with a jeep full of people waiting on us. The driver and tour guide didn´t speak a word of english but there were two english speaking women with us and one of them spoke great spanish so at least we had something. On the way to the salt flats we stopped off in a Train Cemetray fuill of rusting shells of trains, the sun was near blinding but a cold breeze kept the temperature down. We all got out for a short photo opportunity before setting off again. Before we knew Uyuni was just a distant speck in the horizon and for miles in any direction we could only see salt, every know and then you had to remind yourself this vast mass of white was salt and not actually snow. We got off several times to take photos and then later at a tiny town whose sole purpose seemed to be to lure tourists into buying all manner of salt built souveneirs. There were a few ´pet´ llamas roaming, each one with a hoard of tourists stalking it. One girl got llama spit in her making everone nearly piss themselves laughing, i spose i don´t blame the llama either.
We left there not a second too late, as the driver didnt speak english we didn´t have much of a clue where we wer going today except that the others with us were all on a one day tour and they just had the cacti left to see and what they were told was a 3 course meal including soup. We arrived at the cacti rock after an hour in this white nothingness and had 20 minutes of wandering before dinner was served. The cacti in Bolivia were just like those you see in cartoons or old westerns, huge green sons of guns. They definetly beat any we saw in Death Valley much to the jealousy of Sebastian our driver for the road trip who wanted more than anything to leave california with a photo of a descent sized cactus. Dinner was served but it was dinner as we knew it, Tims vegetarian option was just avocada pieces and cheese while the rest of us were offered a strange most likely pork concoction. Our ´desert´was a banana each, so much for a 3 course meal with soup then. I still had a pack of peanuts with me that i´d bought before we started off and i munched on those on the next leg of the trip. We drove up to a smallish house in the salt desert where Tim and I were to sleep the night whilst the rest of our group went back to Uyuni. The driver took us to the front desk where a short indiginous lady addressed us ina thick accent, she spoke way too fast for us to understand a word but the german girl, Tanya, in the car translated for us. They wanted a voucher from us so that we could stay in the hotel but that was news to us as the tour guide mentioned nothing of the sort. The woman stood her ground against our driver who of his own free will was defending our case and as Tanya later told us he said he would cause such a stir when he returned and did more than could be asked of him to help us. Regardless the woman insisted we produce a voucher of the $50 it costs to stay here, we sure as hell weren´t going to pay that as for one it was way too much and we´d already payed our tour guide for the nights stay. There was nothing left to do but take the jeep back to uyuni and have it out with our tour guides. Before we even got 100 metres from the hotel 0ur driver received a call, it was our tour guide. The signal was so hit and miss out there that he had to stand on the roof of the jeep to hear anything. I don´t know how the conversation went but after a lot of shouting the driver turned back, handed the hotel staff the phone and everything was all sorted somehow. We got out the jeep thanked Tanya for her help, apologised to everyone in the jeep for their time being wasted, and lastly thanked our driover profusely for everything he did. Were left alone in the hotel with the family that ran a bolvian guest, neither of which knew any english really, but that was fine, it gave us a chance to learn spanish under pressure.
The hotel was a small converted family home with an extension of four small bed rooms and a guest dining room. It was entirely built from salt bricks and even the tables, chairs, and beds were made out of salt, but we did have mattresses and blankets. We watched the sun set outside before being called in for dinner. It was incredibly surreal being here, there was electricity in the guest areas, probably was in the staff quarters though, meaning that we kept warm by means of a small stove and saw by means of one candle. What followed was a great dinner of soup and pasta, not adventurous but good none the less, and a card game with teh other guests, apart from tje bolvian two more surfaced- a dutch man who´s been travelling south america by bicycle for 3 months and a japanese guy who´s been on the road for nearly 2 years now! After cards we all went outside to witness the most beatiful night sky any of us had ever seen. Because there nothing but salt flats for miles in any direction and definetly no electricity or buildings we could see the stars almost touched the horizon. It was a spectacular view and you could even see mars if you looked hard enough, one thing that was strange was that the moon wasnt anywhere to be seen.
In the morning i woke up at 5am to catch the sun rise, i stayed in bed for another hour watching out the window for the view to get lighter before i stepped out into the cold. It wasnt till 7am till the sun did slowly creep up but despite the biting cold freezing my fingers the view was worth it. It started with a golden glow over the entire eatern view and within half an hour or so the sun rose from under melting hard salt and changing it from its icy texture to a powdery substance.
We had no idea when we were being picked up but we knew it had to be some time before noon as we still had the rest of the tour to finish before arriving in Uyuni at 4pm. Around 11am we were picked up by someone i recognised from the tour agency. He didnt tell me anything untill i noticed we were heading back in the direction of uyuni. He didn´t speak any english either so i tried in my best spanish to ask where the hell the rest of our tour went, he just said that was the end of the tour and that we were being returned to Uyuni. I was pretty pissed off as this just another way they screwed us over but it was useless trying to get anything out of him with my limited spanish. We arrived in uyuni by noon, 4 hours before we should have. We stormed over to the office to get our backpacks and some sort of refund for their awful service. When we walked in the woman looked at us with dread, she spoke no english, i was at my wits end. I demanded a part refund for the rest of the trip, they threw us onto a different tour at the last minute, they didnt give us an english speaking guide as promised, our tour ended way too early, and they almost fucked up the hotel stay in the salt flats. We both yelled and yelled, it was obviously no use. I demanded to know where the guy we spoke to originally was, she just fobbed us off eventually saying hed be back 7pm instead of just late, probably another lie. We took our bags and went to eat. We never did see that guy again nor did we get any money back but we did see our driver around town, we recognised each other and said hi. We shook his hand and thanked him yet again for all his help even if we were still screwed over by the tour company. In lighter news i tried llama steak that evening, it was actually better than it sounds. I know what you´re thinking and no it didnt taste like chicken like every other strange taste, instead it tasted like a strange mix of liver and the pork burgers my mum makes. Im definetly not a fan of livcr but llama steak was something i could eat again and a good sized serving aswell.
A last word of warning to anyone going to the salt flats in Uyuni, do not under any circumstances book your tour with Sumaj Jallpha.

Luxury Buses and the Cataratas.

2007-05-12T16:48:00.000Z

Puerto Igauzu, Argentina

My first south america entry, wow, what can i say. Its different, very different. From Buenos Aires we took a Bus to Puerto Igauzu with a company called Via Bariloche. Let me tell you, We felt like kings. For very little dollar we got a Cama Ejectivo overnight service, and it was nothing but. Arriving on the bus we almost wept, the seats were big and we had the whole front window to look out of, or not, we had curtains as well. Settling in and stretching out, smiling like mad men, we were offered a sweet by the Captain. We knew this was too good for us. Any moment wed be found out and be shoved onto Greyhound Argentina. But no, the TV screen flickered on a palyed some of the most inoffensive soft pop ever. It was hilarious. Here we were hurtling through Argentina listening to Lionel Richie.

Food was bought to us, a rice and salad dish, Mmm tasty. Oh wait, that was the starter, they main course came and was not vegetarian but appreciated the look of it. Red Wine...yes of course. White wine...FILL ME UP. Champagne, Whiskey...keep it coming. Blanket, Pillow. Really cheesy Denzel Washington Movie. Why not. I had the best nights sleep on a bus ever, the seat reclined into almost a bed and I was away. I didnt think things like this existed. In the morning another film about Wine or something came on. it was cheesy as hell. But i watched it attentively, soaking in the luxury because i knew that we might never get this again.

Our Hostel in Puerto Igauzu wasnt quite the luxury we had on the bus. But wasnt too shabby. We were too late to get out to the Waterfalls today, but we booked a fairly cheap adventure tour for the Brasilian side of the Igauzu Falls, including Biking, rafting, and a boat under the cataratas (waterfalls). A quick look around the town established that we were definitely in South America. People sat drinking Mate on their steps and people vied for our money for bracelets and tickets etc.

Early the next morning we headed to Brasil, which sounds dramatic, but remember Igauzu falls are in the middle of Argentina, Brasil and Paraguay. We went with two Spanish Doctors, Alberto and Jesus. One of whom lent us 10 pesos because we didnt have enough to Pay for the park entrance. Our first activity was a 9km Mountain Bike ride through the Jungle. I loved it despite having a shitty bike which had no back brakes. meaning i refused to brake downhill otherwise id go over the handle bars. The ride was kinda hard, the uphill bits testing our gears, and testing Dejan whose experience of cycling has come mainly from this trip. There was all sorts of anilmals around. Monkeys could be seen watching us and swinging from the trees. I saw about 3 animals i have never heard of before. It was bizarre. Eventually, we stopped, and got into a boat. We sped though the Rio Igauzu watching alligators and more butterflies. Then we were told to roll up our trouser and take leave our valuables on the boat. We jumped into a rubber canoe and tried in vain to follow our guide. Due to some...erm communication problems between dejan and I, we ended up going in circles for a while and completely missing out turns. Evetually we were fished out bu the main boat. It was fun, and very very wet.

Now it was time to see the actual falls. You could hear them coming as you walked the trail louder and louder. Eventually they came into view. Magnificent. It was breathetaking. Huge and colourful. Then we realised we were looking at the smaller falls. The more impressive partwas round the corner. HOLY SHIT. It was amazing, one of the most beautiful and impressive things ive ever seen. Photos just didnt do it justice. But I still tried nonetheless. There was a walkway underneath the main spray of the falls, which i cant for the lifeof me work out how they built with such currents. Everyone was soaked and electronic equipment was sacrificed for the thrill of the falls. It was spectacular. But the fun wasnt over yet. We took a boat out under some of the waterfalls. The driver basically drove for maximum splash impact. It was freezing, but great. Around 5, our day was over. Maybe too soon, but i was tired out and cold from river water. To the Argentine side tommorrow!

The next day we took a more relaxed approach to the falls. We wandered casually around, admiring the beauty. Some of the views were more impressive on the Brasil side. But here you got to get really close to them biggest falls. It was impossible to see through the spray of the waterfalls at points, but you could feel the power of them. It was amazing. Imagine a the biggest waterfall you can, then quadruple that size. It was amazing. I cant stress that enough. So far the highlight of our South American trip, but its up against a lot of competition. We would be taking a 50 hour journey to Bolivia that night. It would test our patience and our will power but at the end of it would be the impressive Salar de Uyuni.

boca jnrs vs Argentinos Jnrs

2007-05-10T03:36:00.000Z

I''m not sure about Tim but i certainly wasn't leaving Argentina without seeing a football match and a football match we saw. We'd payed an extortionate price (probably 5x ticket price) to see Boca Juniors play Argentinos Juniors but it only worked out at 30 pounds so we werent exactly breaking the bank here. Ignore the word juniors in the name, i haven't a clue why they''re called that but neither are actually prepubescent kids.
Keep on track dejan! Following a 3 hour search for the perfect ingredients for nachos i end up with a couple of packs of nacho flavoured doritos (don't bother trying them), a packet of mozzarela (by name only), a tin of sweet corn (don't ask), and a tin of something called Salsa Portugese, what that is i don't know. Nor did i found out as i happened to forget the key ingredient to any home made nachos, no not salsa, not beans (couldn't find those buggers), but a can opener! In the end i had to do away with any hope of actually eating nachos and tried to get mozzarelo covered doritos going before the match. Well as sods law had it i'd only just finished cooking them when one of the hostel staff members ran upstairs to inform me that the pick up for the football match was waiting for me.
But who gives a rats ass about my dietary habits', i'm sure you'd rather hear what happend at the match. While passing the time in the mini van to the match talking to travelers around us some one spotted a burning car. For whatever reason there was a car alight, with smoke getting thicker and blacker by the second just on a by road. Everyones first instinct was to take a photo like the tourists we were but i couldnt manage a good photo fast enough myself. On the way our guide informs us that we have seats on the Argentinos side and not to cheer on Boca under any circumstances, he stressed the latter point. At first we were all kind of dissapointed as we hadn't even heard of the other team (which happened to be the home side) and Boca was known for having a lively atmosphere. Once in the stadium we looked around and it was clear that the boca fan base had more homogeny and community about them. They were chanting almost like an army, nearly every one of them was on their feet singing and dancing. Blue and yellow flags covered almost every inch of the away stands while our fan base seemed to be almost asleep, a small passionate clique was giving it all while the rest were practically dead. Then came kick off, thats when our side became alive, we all chanted in unison, what i don't know again but as far as i know most argentine footie chants are something about some ones mother or fucking off. All sides of the stadium became alive and it finally felt like a match worth watching. Seeing as Boca were a globally known team while i'd never even heard the name Argentinos before made me think we were rooting for the under dogs but that didn't seem to affect the side at all as we got a 2-0 lead by half time.Before the match was over Boca had managed a goal without reply, then another. It was getting tense and i was starting to lose hope of a win, setting my sights on a draw at best. Both teams were attack based so every moment was a thrill and somehow Argentinos came through in the end to steal a 3-2 win.

Telefonico and tofu

2007-05-09T00:17:00.000Z

I got out bed around noonish when i heard the sound of distant drums getting ever nearer. What the hell is that on a week day afternoon? You can't have a parade for no reason mid week, can you? When i looked out of the window i saw a mass of blue and white, a float with a man shouting passionately through a loudspeaker, a huge crowd behind him, and two men ahead of them letting of fire crackers at random intervals. This wasn't a parade it was the second demonstration we'd seen in two days, the first being some thing outside the congress or some presidential building. The protest stopped at a building across the street, just ahead of ours and the passionate speech turned to song. Everyone was singing a protest song against Telefonico (the building they were outside) to a samba rhythm being pounded out by drums, beats any UK protest song. My spidey senses told me they were demanding a 25% wage rise and probably something else and that Telefonico must have been some sort of telephone company, i don't know how i was blessed with such skills of sleuth.
After having steak for two days in a row i thought it'd be a good idea to compensate with some vegetarian food, easier said than done in Buenos Aires. We searched all over for a Tapas place before finally resigning to the fate that not every spanish speaking city has to have a tapas bar on every corner and so we headed back closer to home. Whilst traipsing around aimlessly, searching for any where that Tim could get more than chips or salad (again harder said than done when you're in the capital city of a country whose main export and industry is beef) we found an all you can eat strictly vegetarian buffet for $12pesos. I take all you can eat as a personal challenge and thus we left the restaurant crawling on all fours. For a change (no laughing you in the back, yes you) we had beers in the hostel bar, happy hour every night, and watched Casino Royale. One word review? Ok-for-a-bond-film. I know its not one word but we can pretend can't we.

Subte-ranian jungle

2007-05-08T23:52:00.000Z

After spending a week here in Buenos Aires we've seen quite a bit of the city and i started to get a clearer idea of what the city is actually like rather than what you may notice on weekend break. The Subte (subway) is a melting pot of humidity and characters, even with the fans on the searing heat rises up to the streets above. On our second day we took our first Subte on the way to the main bus station so we could book tickets for our next destination. The underground here unlike other big cities we've been to seems to be a world untu itself. Where in New York the subway magnifies the culture of pan handling and yuppies and D.C's subway reflects its slightly saner pace of life the streets of Buenos Aires in no way prepare you for the subte. As you enter its dephs the rush of humid heat slaps you in the face and a horde of people rush THROUGH you. Although they have beggars on the underground here like in NYC theres a different etiquette to it. In New York you're likely to see a man step into a carriage and either mention a vague charity like '"i'm collecting for the children folks", the children? Which children?! Or you may encounter another man walk in with a páck of butterfingers of kit kats and sell them for a little over retail price so that he may earn a wage. Instead in Buenos Aires the people trying to sell you stuff take a more personal approach, they step in and say nothing. If theyre selling napkins or whatever else it may be for that matter, theyll place one pack each on each passengers thigh. After handing one to each passenger they come back round and either take a donation for the pack, i assume they expect a little more than retail price so they can actually earn a profit, if you don't extend any money to them as they pass you the second time they just collect their stuff and leave for the next carriage. Another time on the Subte a boy came into the carriage, walked into the centre and dropped 5 balls out of his hat. He said something in Spanish which i couldn't understand and then he started juggling the balls. At first no one really took any notice then he began to do some really fancy stuff like catching one ball on the back of his neck while still juggling and later catching it whilst still juggling the other four balls in the air. He really had some talent and by the time he'd finish the whole carriage clapped him, afterwards he collected donations and he got some change from everyone there. In contrast to the pan handlers in nyc who'll tell you if they think you're a prick for not being able to lend even 50c or give you a sermon on the matter the beggars and homeless people here show a mor quiet humility. They don't hang around bothering people if they know they're not going to get anything from them and i suppose that works better as most people arent going to be swayed by rants if they weren't willing to give anything in the first place so at least this way the person retains some sense of dignity.
The bus station here was nothing like what we were used to in America, instead of a choice between Greyhound, Amtrak, or the door, here you had over 100 different companies offering their services, each with their own counter. This made prices more competitive and perhaps service more specialized but it meant you had to find out which company you needed rather than just wander in or you'd be there all day.

Our first taste of South America

2007-05-02T22:08:00.000Z

Stepping out of Ezeize airport was like stepping into another world but ill get back to that in a minute. Before arriving in Buenos Aires we had to embark on a full day of travel, we got up at 7am, ok thats the first lie so far, Tim got up at 7am. I however was lazy and spent an extra half an hour in a drowsy state and so when i finally got up we had to rush if we were gonna get to the airport in time. Some how we made it two hours early to the airport so we had plenty of time to check in but of course the laws of nature decree that whenever one thing goes your way a thousand other have to go contra. If it wasnt the confusing ticketing process that required you to use a self serve machine for a printed e ticket that actually had no practical use as you then had to join another queue to get a valid ticket then it was the extensive near cavity search of tests the security carried out to make sure you were worthy of using their planes. The list of exasms started with a simple luggage and person x ray, no problem. Well no, not no problem, you had to take off your belt, shoes, even a zip hoodie, anything and everything that wasnt your trousers and tee shirt essentially. Then they had you stand in a glass box that apparantely tested for bombs. How did they do that you ask? Simple, you stood very still in this incubator then without warning consecutive short bursts of air blew at you like a machine gun round for no reason. Security reasons my ass, they just wanted to piss with people and give the tax payer some sort of evidence of their new "safety measures". After all this crap they still werent content that you could be trusted, theyd already x rayed your bags at this point however they still had to look through every pocket or crevice in the bags just for the hell of it, and the icing on the cake? After all this they then let you go on your way with a smile and "have a nice day", HAVE A NICE DAY?! They frickking did everything short of shoving their hands up my crack to look for... well crack and they still say have a nice day after.
Once we actually got on the first plane, a 5 hour flight to Washington DC, dont even ask why we have to go back all the way eastwards to DC to go south, unlike the examinations this was pleasant enough. As it was a relatively long flight they provide each seat with a small tv screen showing aroung 10 channels, mostly with one film on each being repeated over and over till you arrive, its not that bad, at least its some way to while away the time. As an aside ill reccomend you watch The Pursuit of Happyness (yes with a y not an i) starring Will Smith. If you didnt know, the story goes that Will Smith is a down and out recently single father struggling to bring up his child with various obstactles in his way such a lack of income and homelessness. Yes, its kinda cheesy but i think Will Smith actually plays the role well and you do get sucked in and start caring for the well being of the characters. Dont bother with Norbit by the way, its an utter waste of time and off hand, its the worst role ive seen Eddie Murphy play. But i digress, after passing immigration and collecting our bags which were for some reason each stuck in see through bin liners we made our way out of the Aiport. Inside the airport you could believe its any airport with lots of English signs and plenty of Engsslish speaking staff but once you leave the security of the airport the various (probably semi legal) taxi drivers yelling at you in spanish offering fares cheaper than the next guy remind you youre now in South America and in a proud Country that doesnt necessarily want to communicate in English just because youd prefer it. We weaved in and out the cab drivers and headed for the bus ticket desk, straight away the woman at the desk asked us if we wanted to speak english and continued the rest of the conversation in English making it ten times easier for us to communicate where we needed to go. We got a cheap $10 coach fare to the town centre from whence a mini van would take us the rest of the way. On the short bus ride to down town i read every little spanish word i saw and if i didnt know what it meant i looked it up in my phrase book, probably looking psychotic to anyone who didnt realise i was looking at a phrase book and no doubt pissing Tim off who just thought i was talking gibberish as per usual. As we got closer to down town the relatively empty fields and motorways made way for decaying building, some missing a roof, some with massive gashes in the walls, all densely packed together, this must have been a barrio i thought to myself, not wanting to arouse any more suspicion in time that i was just blurting out random words again. Further into the centre we saw more and more densely intervowen houses,then densely intervowen tower blocks, with the odd futuristic skyscraper protruding out like an eye sore. Soon enough we reached the terminal and as we got out a guy immediately reached out his hand to us and said in a Cockney accent "hi im mark". Ah, another Brit, in fact we werent the only brits on the by far, you could tell them by the way they frantically leafed through their lonely planet guide, Tim and i did what we usually did and just waited untill something made sense or some one who looked like they knew what they were doing turned up. It worked once again as a suited castillano (argentinian) said something in spanish that was too fast for me to even guess at but turned out to be a request for my destination as he turned out to be our mini van driver. We hopped in and Mark followed us, he hadnt booked a hostel and the one he was planning on staying in was the one we couldnt find enough room in 3 days ago so he decided to try our hostel. We were hoping Mark could be the translator wed been looking for as hed been to argentina before but we were out of luck as he didnt know a word and the only reason he got by last time was because he had an argentine friend accompanying him,a a privilege he doesnt have this time. We arrived at the address of our hostel and we couldnt see anything that looked like one, thats when the driver pointed to a crevice like door to our left between to shops or something, ah gracias. We dropped off our backpacks in the storage room and looked for our first steak, well my first anyway as Mark had tried them before and Tim was a herbivore. Soon enough we found this small place with an elderly man waitering. We walked in and leafed through the menus, ah Lomo, apparantely thats the best cut of beef, ill have that i reckon. So he asks me a second question, er sorry, what? He didnt know a word of English and i was barely better at Spanish, he offered me two choices, ok one must mean rare and the other well done. I pointed at the first thinking i had a 50/50 chance of getting a well done steak, as he went to prepare the steaks i leafed through my phrase book just to reassure myself. Hang on a minute that means raw, RAW! I jumped out of my chair and raced over to the guy and in broken spanish i asked for medium rare, i must have said something relatively spanish as he understood, that also explained the shocked look he had on his face when i ordered it. Tim went for a spanish omelette, what he thought was the vegetarian option, not so as he spent more time fishing for salami than eating his omelette. Meanwhile i enjoyed the best steak of my life and for only $4 or so. After dinner we hung around the hostel and once again we scored a semi private room as our two bed in the six bed dorm were behind a wall and door without a lock. Some time later we met one of our room mates, a Mexican who was on a short holiday in Buenos Aires and leaving the next day, he spoke perfect english and told us how hed eaten at the pizza place next door and raved that it was the best hes ever had and he definetly recommened it, so we thought wed venture there ourselves and see what all the fuss about. The layout of the place was very down to earth and what you migh expect of such a highly recommended place but it wasnt the first time looks turned out to be deceiving so we stepped in waiting for a moment for one of the many waiters to attend to us perhaps, nope. ok we then went to the till. the guy ignored us completely, we figuired ok well grab a table and then maybe theyll notice us. After waiting a while and seeing several couples walk in and be served immediately i stared one of the waiters walking right past us to no avail as if we were ghosts. clearly we werent welcome for whatever reason so we wasted no more time there. We walked to the next pizza parlour on the street, sat a table and were actually waitered immediately. The waitress took our order and we replied the best we could in spanish, in less time than we spent waiting to be served at the other place we were presented with our beer and vege pizza, the way these things are supposed to work. After pizza we went back to the hostel for a few more of the same beers as it was happy hour.
Despite the snotty waiters at that pizza parlour, the never ending smog in the air, and what ever else i really enjoyed my first day here. For some reason i enjoy the way that even crossing the road is a mission with various hazards, be it pot holes, maniacal drivers that stop for nothing, or just street sellers flinging things in your face.

Back to the City

2007-05-02T15:59:00.000Z

San Francisco, California

With less than a week to go before we flew to Argentina, we started taking Malaria tablets for our various treks in South America. It was a reminder that the USA trip was coming to an end, very fast. We took a bus back to SF, not greyhound however, the relative comfort and speed of Amtrak Buses. It took us right to the Tram stop we needed. Although we spent about 20 mins walking back and forth unsure of where are stop was. It was actually underground. Vanessa had sorted us out with a place to stay, with her friend Carina, who was travelling to europe soon. We took the Tram out to her house and rang the bell, nervous about whos couch we were about to surf. No answer, no problem, we have a number to ring we'll do that.....No answer...hmm. The lights on...someones home...oh wait the lights just went out. We started imagining Carina hiding behind her curtain scared to answer the door and regretting she ever said yes to Vanessa.

About 10.30 we began to get worried, and started to deliberate the trek back downtown to a hostel. We had one last try at the door, her neighbor answered and we were let in to knock on her door. Carina answered and wondered how we had got to her door, we expalined the situation. Then realising we hadn't actually introduced ourselves, quickly did so. The doorbell was not working and our phone calls hadn't gone through. Ah well, as long as we were in. Carina was very nice and made us feel right at home with beer and a comfortable sofa. As with everytime we stay in someones house, we never know what they expect of us and what we expect of them. But Carina said we could stay until our flight. Which was so helpful, becuase I am so low on money, and saving 20 dollars a night on a hostel is a godsend.

We finally got to go to Berkeley the next day. It was one of the places i had most wanted to visit on this trip. It didn't dissapoint and I did lots of record shopping at Amobae and rasputins and other places. Walking around it suprised me how nice berkeley was, I expected it to be a little bit more city like. But it was pretty suburban most of the time, very leafy. We walked around the univeristy campus and around all the streets mentioned in old east bay punk songs. Back at Carinas, we met a bunch of her friends. They were heading out that night, and I think pretty much assumed we were coming along. We went to Carinas boyfriends, Adam, house, and took a beer bong, played beer pong and all manner of typical american college drinking games. Then the tequila y limes came out and the whole bottle was drunk before heading out to someones house...I have no idea who, but we were very talkative and If my memory serves me correct i was awarded a coconut bikini for my services to something. I really cant remember much, except for drinking whisky or something.....

I woke up on a sofa, I had no idea where i was, after looking around for a while and discovering a sleeping tortoise at the end of my bed, i concluded that I was at Carinas Boyfriends house, but it took me a while to work out. I think i still had the coconut shell bikini on. In about an hour we were heading to a baseball game. The Oakland Athletics versus Tampa Bay. We got in free, but were very late due to the previous evenings activities. But we were there long enough to learn the rules and to watch Oakland kick Tampa Bays ass 12-2. Whatever that means... Baseball was very much an entertainment thing, rather than a sporting thing. There were singalongs, constant breaks and adverts and lots of loud music. But not really much action on the field. That night we were back at Adams places drinking more beer, feeling a bit worse for wear but watching a bunch of movies. Which was fun. I really miss watching films, it hard when you dont have your own bed to kick back in and watch TV. So we watched about three.

The next day we had a gig to get to, in Berkeley at the world famous (albeit to a few). 924 Gilman street. I was really excited, this was one the few places i knew i had to see in the USA. An all-ages volunteer run club. I was suprised to find it wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but just on the edge of a nice looking neighborhood. As soon as we walked through the unassuming door next door to a caning shop, we were asked to volunteer. I took the duty of selling memberships for the first half of the show. Dejan for the second. We got in free, unfortunately there wasn't much to actually do. And i only sold one membership the whole time i was sitting there. It was cool though, and i wish Leicester had a similar place. Among the characters there was Robert Eggplant, editor of Absolutly Zippo fanzine and member of Blatz. Absolutly Zippo is probably Berkeleys third most famous zine, Cometbus and Mazimum RocknRoll preceding it. Any thats only really interesting to me.

We had a take away indian meal that night and contemplated our last full day in the USA the next day. Three months had gone really really fast, but only in reterospect. Looking ahead to the next two months seems like an eternity butwhen we look back on it, it will porbably seem like a flash. We did some last minute preparations, i tried to learn a bit more spanish, and failed. Tuesday morning we took the Bart to the airport. it felt weird to be heading back to washington DC, closer to home than ever, but then flying for another couple of thousand miles to a new continent. This is gonna be fun.

Santa Claus, i mean Barbara

2007-04-25T03:43:00.000Z

We had no idea why we were in Santa Barbara, what there was to do but we did know Vanessa had invited us to stay at hers so why not. First off Vanessa and her friend picked up at the greyhound station and gave us a quick tour of Isla Vista, our home for the next few days. There were fast food restaurants on every corner, more coffee shops than you could count, and a fake joint rolling competition in the park, this was definetly the college town Vanessa told us Santa Barbara was. One thing i didn't realise what that Vanessa lived in one of several co ops in the area, this meant people were allocated hands on roles such as maintenance or events organiser which gave promoted a DIY ethic. Aswell as a huge, and i mean huge student population Isla Vista was also home to around a 40% Mexican population at least untill recently when more and more families were being driven out by land lords who realised they could make a hell of a lot more money from students than underpaid Mexican families. The students seemed to show solidarity and extended a hand in various ways, one of which that Vanessas co op played a part in was offering to store displaced families belonging in their storage spaces while they were transcient.
In the evening we had our first In N Out burger with her and Peruvian friend of hers, we'd seen In N Out before on our road trip but we dismissed it as just another burger place. It turns out we were wrong as it was a burger place with a difference, they were famous for having the best quality food as far as fast food goes, they also had a cryptic menu. The placard only mentioned about 5 items but there were 'secret' options you could ask for, such as an infinite choice of patties (burgers) in your buns, a vegetarian option, and the option of having your burger or fries 'animal style', i never found out what animal style actually meant but i do know it tasted good and sometimes thats all you need to know.
Afterwards we crashed just a few parties from the vast array going on that night. Most of the parties seemed to be going in beach houses that looked straight out of the OC, including one that had a White Stripes cover band playing just for the hell of it. I don't know much about the White Stripes but i really didn't expect a mosh pit to break out at this show but it did. It wasnt much of a pit with the combination of sandals and a completely disregard for other moshers, people were dropping left, right, and centre but i dont think there were any serious injuries. I suppose its hard to really hurt someone when you're wearing sandals in a mosh pit.
On the way to another Co Op called Biko where some of Vanessas friends lived we met up Mohammed a student who was living behind Biko in a tent and David, another student who we'd met early that day.
When we got to Biko it wasn't long before Vanessas was putting dressing Mohammed up as a transvestite with make up, he looked the part with the pink feather boa. As the evening went on somebody challenged Mohamed and another guy to do a strip tease on the table, Mohammed stipulated we had to all sing a playground song that went

Theres a place in france
where the ladies like to dance

theres a hole in the wall
where the people watch it all

We all called their bluff and in the end neither one bottled it, we later found out Mohammed was no stranger to random strip teases and reveled in them.
The next few days we watched a LOT of movies on one rainy day and in the evening we went to a free improv comedy show nearby. In parts the show was really funny, other times it was a little weak, but somewhere in the middle one comedian did a hijacking stunt that didn't rub so well with most of the audience as it conjured up images of a high profile school shooting in Virginia a few days ago. He ended up sitting out most of the show in the end, but the rest of the cast went on regardless.
On our third day in Santa Barbara we went to downtown and the pier where we watched a group of scuba divers working, in the evening we went to one of the coffee shops with Vanessa where we ended up talking to two guys at a table near us. One of them worked at the UCSB (University of California Santa Barbara) radio station, co-presenting a punk and hardcore show. He invited us down to the station for the show that night so Tim could do this English skit with them, 'yknow i can do a great english accent... (cue Tim). You get the drill. We ended up going as we had nothing better to do, ok it didnt take that much to convince us. They showed us to the radio station vault, an enormous collection of cd and vinyl from every genre you could think up. Their punk and ska collection was enough to spend days leafing through, but we weren't there to look at vinyls. We hung around in the studio for the night, Tim making a few guest spots now and then in between ultra fast hardcore. After the show one of the guys, Mike exchanged numbers with us and told us he'd try and get a copy of the show to us tommorow if we texted him, in the end that didn't materialise but we still had a good time any way.
On our last day in Santa Barbara we drank wine and beer on Vanessas porch with David while Vanessa cut Tims here. Despite the wine she was drinking, the awful light outside, and her self confessed lack of real hair dressing ability she managed a decent hair cut. Dammit.

Ghost Towns, Orange Groves and SNOW IN CALIFORNIA!?!?

2007-04-20T00:21:00.000Z

Road Trip Day 2 (somewhere in California)

Las Vegas looked a lot different in the morning, the concrete hotels looked less glamorous without their lights on. Ah well, i guess one night is good enough for Las Vegas if your not planning to gamble. We drove the quick way back to California, not the engine destroying death valley route. We passed through weird desert town, most looked deserted, with empty houses and old restaurants. It was weird to see such isolation. I wondered what the few people that lived there did with their lives. There was no shops, no services to offer. Ok, no useful services, scrap metal and fencing doesn't really cut it as useful when theirs no one around to offer it to. We decided to go to what was mentioned as a Ghost Town on our map. Calico. When we got their we realized it was a complete tourist trap. And in fact the town we had just passed through was the real Ghost Town, just a little bit more modern, old abandoned houses spray painted with "Keep Out", "Danger" and "God Bless America".

The Calico Ghost Town was pretty much a bunch of old looking Wild West houses, complete with saloons doors. It was very much occupied by buses of school kids. I felt a little duped. I wanted to see old sandblasted huts and tumble weed. This is America though. Ben, the australian with us, immediately made friends with a French Girl who was in the town, and tried to get a place to stay for when he traveled there. It was funny to watch. We spoke to one of the staff their and they just couldn't believe that we had just 'taken time off' to travel. It seemed like a completely alien concept. Maybe this person had never left the desert. Maybe he was a ghost...eh?...eh?

Our journey on the road continued through the illustrious town of Bakersfield, which was pretty damn shit. But we stopped at an 'International House of Pancakes', (IHOP) for coffee, so all is forgiven. After many hours we found ourselves flying through vineyards and orange groves. for miles and miles. We passed over one set of mountains and stopped in the valley before the next mountain range. We got some subway sandwiches who's employees again seemed confused about why a German, an Australian, and two English people were traveling together without their being a punchline, and why we were in their gas station/subway in the middle of an orange grove. Ah well, we erm..'liberated' some oranges from the roadside, they were huge. But i don't think we ever ate them.

The sun went down as we climbed the mountains, we watched the temperature dial drop, yesterday it was tipping 100 degrees, now it was heading the wrong side of freezing. And ice starting appearing on the roads. Now i never expected snow in California, but thats what we got. Eventually we reached some accommodation, a huge hotel cabin thing in the forest. We arrived just in time, the office was about to close and we would have been stuck on a mountain with nowhere to sleep. There was big roaring fire going and we had some beer. Could this be any better?

Yes, because the next morning we had to wake up early again to, as Seb says, "Eat Kilometeres". We stopped for a while in Seqouia National Park to stare at huge fuck off trees, including the very American named 'General Sherman', the worlds biggest tree. It was huge, and would take several hippies to surround it, and about eight big ass Canadians to chop it down. It was pretty cool. The trees only grow at a certain height, above 6000 feet. The air is thin here, the signs warn, take it easy when walking back to your car, benches are provided. Stupid fat Americans. Dejan and I spotted a chance to practice for the high altitude Inca Trail trek in Peru. It was only 15 mins walk but yes the air was thin, and it was hard to walk and talk at the same time, you had to make a commitment to it. God Machu Picchu is gonna be hard. If that wasn't hard enough, we had 20 mins to run up Moro Rock at 7500ft, before we had to make it to a certain road that was only open every hour. We did it, breathlessly. Dejan got vertigo and stayed back. The view from the top was spectacular, snow peaked mountains and one side and a valley as deep as the Grand Canyon on the other. We made it to the road in time, and continued our journey.Destination Monterey!

By dusk we made it into the town, we walked around the really really touristy, Cannery Row, setting to John Steinbecks novel of the same name. He's from round these here parts dontcha know. Monterey is expensive. We went to a cafe which sold $10 veggie burgers, but they were nice...very nice. The next morning Ben had to get a bus back to San Francisco, he was flying to Heathrow later that day. We however had to get to near San Luis Obispo. Seb went to the Aquarium, Me and Dejan went to check out where the Seal Noises we heard were coming from. It was like a gang of them when we found them, most of them were face down in the water in a ring, but some were baiting the tourists for food or perhaps money for crack or summat. It was a noisy sight.

Back on the road, we ended up stopping every five minutes because the views of the Pacific were so astounding. Everytime we stopped the view got betters. Wild waves crashing against battered rocks. It was all amazing. Eventually we stopped at this wide golden beach surrounded by huge cliffs. The light was turning to dusk, so there was a weird hazy glow in the air that is too hard to explain. There were a loads of huge eagle looking birds picking at a dead seal, its skull showing. The place despite clearly being visited everyday and only five minutes walk from the road had a prehistoric air about it. It was beautiful, i didn't wanna leave but the tide was coming in, violently crashing at the rocks around us.

About half a mile down the road, there were hundreds and hundreds of Elephant Seals resting on the beach. The smell was pretty disgusting, but just seeing countless seals all cuddled up to keep warm, occasionally fighting for position. It was bizarre, but again a fantastic sight. One that only happens a few times a year.

By nightfall we had made it to El Paso de Robles, Paso Robles. This was the last night of the Road trip, Sebastian would be heading back to San Francisco, we would be catching our last ever Greyhound Bus to Santa Barbara in the morning. We went for Pizza and drank Mexican Beer. It was a weird end to the week. But we had seen so much in so short time. California has every type of every Country in it. Deserts, Mountains, Plains, and Beaches, its so strange to go through all of these in so shorter time. Like most things on this trip this week has been a taster, for spending more time in these places in years to come. I would love to spend more time in Yosemite and exploring the areas we've seen this week. But next time i guess...

ROOOOOOOOOAADD TRIIIIP!

2007-04-16T06:00:00.000Z

If the title doesn't make it clear enough today was day one of our road trip with Sebastian the German and Ben the Australian. Unlike us three Seb actually went out of his and brought some road trip music, 60s and 70s music but road music nonetheless. What did Tim and i have to offer? Punk and Hardcore.
On the BART (Bay area rapid transit) train, en route to pick up the rental car anxious thoughts raced through my mind. I hope he didnt go with Rent-a-Wreck (a real company believe it or not), i hope the cars big enough, i wonder if we're all going to be at each others throats when we realise we have 7 days in each others pockets?
Lo and behold our car was no wreck but actually pretty nifty, it was a chevrolet Malibu, ignore the curse of american car manufacture because this car was actually alright. It was also a beast of a vehicle, a narnia sized boot, and more leg room than you could shake a stick at (what the hell am i talking about?). This was definetly way better than the Greyhound, at least this time there was no obese guy crushing me as used my fragile body as a pillow, nor were there any mad men either, well as far as i knew so far anyway.

Our first heading was more or less directly east towards Yosemite National Park. Along the way we tested out some of Sebs cds, yeah they were cheesy but they kinda worked for road music.
We reached Curry Village (our humble abode in Yosemite) around 5pm, the sun was starting to set but we still took in some stunning views of water falls, towering cliff hanging over us like ancient guardians of the park and enormous man eating bears. Ok the last one was an embelishment however the staff at Curry Village were very vigililant about not attracting bears, responsibly they provided bear proof lockers for anything with a scent, i wanted to ask if bears were attracted to sweat and unwashed clothes but i didnt.

After a short trek into the park the sun went down and we had no choice but to return back to the village and go to bed, well return to our wine and beer. We rented the cheapest option was essentially just a tent, the outside temperature was below zero and inside was no better.

After a great nights sleep laying awake in fear of bear attacks or frost bite we took to the road again, this time heading southerly for Las Vegas, home of throwing your money down a drain.

We took a scenic route through death valley, in hours we left the abundance of greenery, mountains, and waterfalls so desolate sand dune after sand dune. It was incredibly surreal travelling in the desert, ahead of us lay a seemingly endless straight line of tarmac and for miles either side all you could see was sand. It took us all the way into nightfall to reach Las Vegas but we made it either way. Our hostel was reportedly the only one on the strip, and it was but waaaaaaaay down the strip. The booking we'd made online for the hostel was apparantely a technical error and there were no beds available however they did offer us the tv room and bedding, we had no feasible alternatives so we took it. As the hostel was right at the far end of the strip we got a scenic tour of the lights and flamboyancy of the famous casinos through our car windows before we reached the hostel, each casino tried to out do the other, most cost millions upon millions and there were dozens in the area so i wonder how they all make such profit but they must be rolling it in as there was a new billion (BILLION!) dollar casino being constructed on the strip. The night before our road trip Tim and I found out the gambling age in Las Vegas was 21 not 18 as we thought and the internet also said they strictly adhere to it, not looking to promising.

The four of us took the bus to the strip (which stopped at almost every casino making it just that easier to gamble your savings away) where we first went to the Mirage which had a famous Volcanic Eruption water feature every hour. Yes every hour of every day, can you imagine the running costs of that alone. As soon as we got off the bus we got a painful reminder that we were in Nevada in the form of a sand storm that got you in the eyes no matter where you turned. Inside i laughed at the idea of the yuppies in their fancy clothing trying to look good with sand in their eyes, not an easy task i assure you. The water feature was just as flamoyant and over the top as the idea of a volcanic water feature suggests, lights gave the base an eerie green glow turning to lava red during the active phase of the volcano, atop water boiled to bubbles and finally erupted, the wind throwing it all in the gaping tourists faces, ours included and a ring of fire encircled the top. Larger eruptions followed for a few minutes and then as if nothing had happened at all it calmed, looking pristine till the next hour.

We eventually made our way inside a casino, Tim and I figuring we might as well give it a shot. No door men waited at the doors so we all just walked, we got to the casino floor and nobody blinked an eyelid. There were even younger people than us in there too, so much for the no platform policy of vegas casinos. Before Sebastian seemed most exhited about the casino, he thought out loud his plans, i'll bet $10 then leave it, no $20, or $30 and i was no different. In the end Seb only played a slot blackjack machine once, lost and grew cold feet. I on the other hand fluked my way into a winning streak, i was only like $5 or $10 dollars up but considering i was playing 25c and $1 games i thought i was doing ok. Then like a vegas cliche i ended up losing my profits and left around $10 down. The funny thing about Vegas is that they don't id, they just have waiters constantly hanging over you like vultures, waiting patiently game after game saying nothing, until you make enough profit and thats when they ID you and take back their profits. I didnt spend enough to become a target but Ben met a guy who said a lot of his friends were targeted and lost their profits that way. Another funny thing about Vegas is clocks, there are NONE. You don't really notice amidst all the lights, water features and glitter but there are no clocks on the strip, yet another subtle way they maximise profits by keeping you from realising just how long you've been staring at that slot machine or roulette table. The three of us went to bed in the early morning leaving Ben who'd put his name down for a poker table and was waiting his turn to play.
In the morning we jumped back in the car onwards and upwards, well eastwards, to Kings Canyon and Ben related to us the story of how he ended up leaving $30 up, at least one of us won.

See All Road Trip Photos Here

I could make a comment about San Francisco and Flowers in Hair But i Won't

2007-04-15T17:36:00.000Z

San Francisco, California

So we made it to California, Our final destination on our USA trip. We were three weeks early for our flight, which is always being prepared. So what better to do than to hang around and do nothing like the rest of the people in this city. We were staying in the Green Tortoise Hostel in North Beach, which was quite a hefty walk from the transbay bus terminal. As you know if you've been here, or ever played a computer game San Francisco is very hilly. I swear the locals have double jointed ankles to survive or something. It was 12 noon, but due to being on the Greyhound all night it felt like 7. We hung around a little bit, taking little walks round Chinatown, and down to their piers. It was nice. And of course we knew are directions from Grand Theft Auto, set in San Francisco. Who said playing playstation would never help you in the real world.

The next day we walked to Coit Tower and looked at amazing views of the city. The sun was just about to set behind the Golden Gate Bridge, so we took the elevator up to the top, and took soo many photos of the city getting Dark, it was a beautiful view. Dejan who had said in the day time, he could really see the attraction of city, kinda changed his mind when he saw the hills light up with street lights. It was pretty cool. Thats views you don't get in Leicester.

On the notice board back at the hostel, I saw a note offering a road trip around California for a week. Checking out Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas. That would be perfect for us. So I contacted Sebastian, and he was happy for us both to come with. Next week suddenly had a sense of adventure to it. Plus we had really really wanted to See Yosemite before we left.

Friday, a perfect day for walking for hours and hours. Leaving our hostel in the morning with the aim of walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, we detour through Fisherman's Wharf. A big mistake, we should have done the Opposite. I've never rushed through and area more quickly in my life. Don't go. No. Stop thinking about it. DON'T GO. You've all seen people dressed as statues before, so don't go. You've all been pissed off about tourist prices for food. So Don't Go. Are you getting this? Anyway, from the we took nice walk along the beach towards the bridge. It took about three hours. But the bridge was excellent, we sat underneath and watched surfers hurtling towards rocks in freezing cold water. Walking across the bridge was alright, not all that great. But there were Signs that said "There is Hope, free crisis counselling" signs posted along jumpable points along the bridge. We had been walking for hours when we got to the other side, but there was no sign of a bus. So we had to walk back across and wait for an hour before any bus heading to Downtown arrived. But we were sucessful and it was great day out.

We made plans to meet Nick, the english guy from Portland, who had also arrived in SF. As he clued into our diet of Burritos. We decided to go for a Burrito in the Mission District. Walking past lines of homeless people queuing for bed for the night. We arrived at Nicks hostel in the heart of the tenderloin. The Mission district was pretty cool, and the Burrito fantastic. Overcrowded and very recommended by guidebooks. I just can't remember the name, you'll know it if you see it. For some reason we started talking to the American SWP who were on the street, then a maoist group. Ah well, why not. they gave me a free DVD. Our walking tour continued up towards Castro, the gay district and then to Haight-Ashbury. It was tiring on the legs but we found Amoeba music, a huge independent record store. I Bought road trip music. Ok not really bit, I bought four cd's. We caught a bus back to our hostel to show Nick the Beat Museum a few doors down. I confess, i barely know anything about Jack Kerouac and the rest, but i learned a lot, and all the staff were so keen to tell you everything you needed to know. Recommended reading lists, places to check out. It was pretty fascinating.

We sat up that night making road trip plans with Sebastian, and now Ben, an Australian guy. The week was looking to be fun. Lots of driving but lots to see. We met another English guy (this hostel was full of them) who was insistent we drink beer with him. Which we did, we also met two Canadian Games Programmers who were pretty interesting. One of them looked like Marcus Bridgstocke. We met a lot of people that night, none of whom I can remember the name of.

Sunday, today we took a boat across to Alcatraz with Nick. The island was full of people, but it didn't make it any less strange that we were in a prison. The staff gave some excellent and imaginative talks about events on the island. The Audio tour was really good too. Except to fast to walk through without pausing and you always ended up having your player synced with someone else, so it looked like you were following them around. Worth it though. Back on real land. We went for chinese at the House of Nanking. I really liked my food, Dejan seems to have been put off chinese food forever. Ah well. More Burritos. Road Trip Tommorrow.

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What I Love About Portland...

2007-04-11T01:50:00.000Z

Portland, Oregon

Portland for me, was another those places which i know i could live. The weather is only slightly better than England, meaning the transition wouldn't be too hard, its rains most days in winter but the summers are beautiful. Portland is the only place so far in the US, where the Grass is exactly like the stuff in the UK. Not that uncomfortable scratchy stuff you remember from your holiday to spain. I Sat under the Hawthorne Bridge with bare feet. It felt nice, and reminded me of doing that at home, before getting stung by a bumble bee.

Portland is a city run for Bikes. All around the city there are artistic bike storage places. from secure boxes to sculptured poles weaving their way our of the ground. I would say most people we met had a bike, and porbably rode it 50/50 with their car. Portland is reletively small, you can easily get from a to b. Even if a is on the other side of town as b. Whole communities grow out of their love of cycling. I picked up a couple of zines dedicated to the culture. Even the hostel was bike friendly as Dejan has already mentioned a huge Easter ride, full of cyclists in bunny rabbit costumes and even a realistic donnie darko rabbit suit thing, finished at our hostel.

The downtown area is alright, we hardly explored it, because the outerlying districts,s eemed to be were all the fun was. But downtown, there is one jewel. A major one. Powells, city of books. The name is an undertstatement, i've never seen so many books. It is the largest new and used independent book store in the world. I didn't know where to start. But i did see a cometbus poster which I sorta liberated from the walls. We watched a presentation by Susie J Horgan, who was critical in documenting the early 80's DC hardcore scene, her photographs centred around Minor Threat and Black Flag.Her insights were facinating and it was excellent to meet the photographer of the infamous minor threat record cover.

The people we met at the hostel were excellent too, the first night we met a Guy who was a personal trainer. I thought he looked about 35 or so. No, he was 56! He showed his ID and
proved it, luckily he didn't seem to sensitive about his age, i guess you wouldn't be if everyone thought you were 30. Anyway, he talked about all the places he had lived. He told us to go to Cleveland, OH. Which i was specifically told not to do in a Zine. But i am now hearing good things about. We also met Kim, which is his last name, because his first name is too hard to pronounce. Anyway Kim, was korean and had come over to live in america, he had all his stuff with him and was looking for work. He had about 5 baseball gloves with him. He was an interesting guy, really into the American Dream idea, he even had the National Anthem as his myspace music. He struggled to find work in the time we were there and I think he got kinda depressed that portland wasn't the city for him. By the time we left, he was already talking about moving on.

Dejan already mentioned Nick, from Huddersfield. Anyway, he pretty much sussed us out from the outset, that Dejan liked to eat, burritos espeically. So we hung out with him as well. He is also heading to San Francisco around the same time as us, but taking the wimp option by using amtrak rather than the proletarian GREYHOUND! I bet there are hobo's hopping trains calling us wimps for riding the dog. Anyway, we made plans to meet with Nick in SF. We also met two Canadian guys from Vancouver, who bought lots of beer, did acid and stayed up all night with us, talking philosophy, culture, the usa and everything else. It was a fun night, did i mention tequila. no? tequila! there.

Portland was also were I really started getting the hang of my camera. I can now quickly operate it fully manaually and do other really insignificant boring stuff which makes my photos look a whole lot better. So consequently i took about 300 photos at the beatiful Japanese Gardens. And now have to wait to upload em all, because theres to many. I may end up taking thousands at Macchu Pichu at this rate.

I highly recommend Portland, not really as touristy city, because theres not a great deal to do. But its a great livable city, I could imagine myself cycling through the streets to see people, maybe work as a Bike Messenger. Going record shopping in Green Noize/Dirtnap records,and spending my weekends working my way through the vast recesses of Powell's. And then drinking Mate in Chance of Rain.

Portland. Go there.

See All Portland Photos Here

Portland not Poland

2007-04-10T19:33:00.000Z

It was the better half of 10 o'clock when the greyhound spat us out in Portland, starting our race to get to the hostel before the office closes at 10. Despite being more interested in showing us all the apparantely glitzy hotels along the way the cab driver managed to get us to the hostel just in time somehow.
Our first night here was spent just hanging around the hostel, getting our bearings and a feel for the place, ok we were just lazing around after a painful greyhound journey.
Although we were in a HI hostel, HI hostels being notorious for being sterile, the place had some character. The staff seemed like they were living organisms and not HI brand automatoms, couches didn't necessarily match, the place was perfectly well kept, just not so much so that it felt unwelcoming. I digress.
Although Tim knew about some bands and a local record lable with a shop in Portland neither of us really knew anything else, except that no one we met had a bad word to say about it which a hell of a lot more than most places we've been to. So, we began with what we knew and found a few local record shops and ate at the Mexican restaurant across the road.
By day three we still hadnt seen the centre of portland but that didn't seem all that important anyway, nearby we had all the restaurants you could wish for, music shops. a small mountain in short walking distance, and more.

On day four we walked Mt Tabor with Nick. It was only a 40 minute walk from the hostel so it really wasn't much of a mountain but rather a steepish hill with a reservoir and tennis courts half way up but the views from the top were still pretty nice. A rain cloud was forming at one of the other mountains across Portland that we could just see as we were setting off up the mountain and within minutes of reaching the summit we heard the rain cloud approach us from below in an occasion of unfortunate beaty, the unfortunate side of it being that there was no shelter on the top of the mountain and descent was nigh on impossible untill we waited a short while for the rain to cease and then for the ground to harden just a little before we braved the trip down again. That all said the walk was really worth it and the walk down even more so because when we got to the bottom Nick and i went to Cha Cha Cha's (the more classy of the local Mexican restaurants) where we had two amazing steak Burrito Mojados which are essentially steak burritos covered in delicious sauce, gaucomole, and yoghurt or cream i imagine. Food at its best and well under $10 with refillable drinks.
Day 5 happened to be Easter, a fact that escaped us untill a group of us guests heard this uproar outside that sounded like an armed invasion or something but turned out to be a mass of bunny people hybrids, in numbers that were probably unrivalled any where else on earth. Everywhere you looked you could see cyclists in bunny costumes, thats how they celebrate easter portland style it seems. Tim had a field day with his camera.

On our penultimate day in Portland we went to the Japanese gardens which were hidden away atop a small hill past downtown Portland. Atop the hill there was little left of real, authentic Portland greenery but what was left made for a strange juxtaposition of huge trees surrounded by fauna that looked like something out of Jurrasic park and in the middle of all this was the serenity and organised beauty of a japanese garden. Although i'm not sure which i preferred truth be told.
Our last day in Portland was just spent relaxing before the greyhound journey ahead of us and scoffing down one last burrito at Cha Cha Chas.

See All Portland Photos Here

Back to Vancity

2007-04-04T03:54:00.000Z

Vancouver, British Columbia

Arriving into a City you already sort of know was quite refreshing. There was no worry about which bus to catch, where to avoid and what the hostel was gonna be like. We knew our route and which train to catch. There is something to be said for that feeling of uncertainty and wonder, and a slight nervousness when arriving in a strange city that I haven't read about in guidebooks. We booked ourselves into the Seymour Cambie, 10 blocks from the Gastown Cambie which we stayed in first time round, then took one look at the prices in the bar and went back to the old hostel for beer.

We waited around for something to happen in the bar, then just as we were ready to call it a night. Raphael from the first Vancouver stay walked through. It was a weird recognizing someone you barely know moment. He sat down and told us his sob story about Bad Luck with a girl in Victoria, which he had been to and come back from on the same day as us. But now he was gonna ground himself in Vancouver. By the sounds of his travel stories, his Grounding won't be a permanent thing.

Raph introduced a friend of his, who over the course of the night i forgot his name, his face and also anything about him. But we did make a plan to meet tommorrow at 20.00. After many pitchers of cheap Granville Island we stumbled back to our hostel. I awoke the next morning the same way I do everytime I do in Vancouver, with a hangover. I couldn't recall last night, but I remember a plan was made. And we had to be at the Cambie at 8. Like we wouldn't be there anyway.

That night, I sat eating a Veggie Burger when this guy comes up. Oh this must be him, DJ. He's a Stand-Up Comedian and we're off to see him do open-mic. Well, why the hell not? We took a bus from the scummy bit of town to the Bar. DJ explained he wasn't just a Stand- Up. He also "dabbled in Adult entertainment". What? So you hang around in Porn Shops. No, he Produces, Stars and Directs erm...Adult Entertainment. And his stand-up was based on this. He went into quite a lot of detail. But essentially he had aspirations higher than porn. He wants to write and direct a comedy film about the Adult Industry. Anyway, he was sound, and a very funny and professional Comedian. So check him out www.djwhoisnotadj.com. Its a safe link. The other comedians were mixed, most were new to it or where trying out new bits, but it was good fun, and free. As DJ kept saying, you get what you pay for.

We left Vancouver the next day for Portland. An early set-off for a late arrival. Not many Greyhounds to go now though. Our passes expire on the 11th.

See All Vancouver Photos Here

Island Hopping

2007-04-03T01:33:00.000Z

Victoria, British Columbia

I was worried I wouldn't recognise Justin or Michele, who were our hosts in Victoria. I haven't seen them for about seven years, so i too would have been almost unrecognisable, having been a kid back then. After a lot of staring at random people, I recognised Justin coming down the road, there was "oh yeah, so that what he looks like" moment in both of us i'm sure. Anyway we came to their house, which i recognised the house from my memory staying there watching barney the dinosaur as a kid whilst their house was being redecorated. We were introduced to the family. Justin, Michele, Zach, Emily and later Natasha.

It was refreshing to be in someones house after so many nights spent in places with all the rules of hostels. I did feel slightly awkward as we had kind invaded their home at fairly short notice, but we were put at ease, "help yourself to a beer or some food". We took a walk to the local pub and saw Strongbow on tap. I ordered before checking the price. $7.50cdn. Expensive. I wouldn't pay that kinda of money in London. So yeah we drunk our 'slightly less than pint' 20oz glass of cider. Then followed that up with the cheapest nastiest domestic beer to make up for it.

The Aylwards, or rather i guess, Zach had a Xbox 360 in the basement so we messed around on that and failed miserably. I had a great nights sleep uninterrupted by the actions of any travellers, because there wasn't any! eh.

Next day we took a walk on the beach and kicked beautifully formed bits of driftwood that fall off the log barges. Across the water was the US and Washington State. We walked downtown and realised how British Victoria was. The buses were all the leyland double deckers with UK number plates obscured by British Columbia plates. I found a few cool record shops and a really good bookshop full of books on Anarchism and a plentiful zine section. We checked out chinatown, incidently the first we had been to in North America. It had a few cool alleyways but nothing to shout about unless you had money. But there was a Veggie Dog stall selling them for $2.

The next day, the family were kind enough to offer us some bikes, so we could ride the Galloping Goose bike trail which followed an old railway line around the island. We rode it for about 15km through towns, rivers, tress and hills. The bridges along the route were covered in cool murals and art, and there was lots of plaques to learn about the scenery and history of the route. We stopped at a Bay, which was pretty empty and deserted, apart from the driftwood which is a feature of all the beaches and waters in this area. We rode the 15km back, and I relised I miss riding my bike. It would be fantastic to tour the country on it. When I get back i want to fix up my bike and sell it to Dejan. He consents of course. I come up with a lot of plans for my return, lets hope i actually get em all done. That night Zach thrashed us at Xbox, maybe i'll get good at that on my return. Not likely though.

I think we may have wasted the next day, we did do some more wandering downtown, and went to Green Cuisine, a pay by weight vegan buffet. We saw our chance to to save money, but unfortuantly place two hungry travellers in front of a buffet and we quickly come out with heavy plates. Mine came to $13, Dejans to $16. Damn my eyes! We finsihed it out of spite for their system and waddled home.

We decided we'd move on the next day and head back to vancouver to take in some more before Portland. So we said our goodbyes that night as everyone would be heading off early and we would be unwakable before 10am. It had been great being in victoria, just relaxing, seeing familair faces and catching up on our non-existant and depleting budget. Eating healthily and exercising as well. It was like a Detox weekend. Except with lots of guinness intake, a health drink in itself. I sat p til 3am, watching episodes of Lost on their TV recorder. Everytime i tried to leave, it got more exciting.

The next day we packed up and tried to leave the basement and the house as we had found it. Michele came home with subway for both of us, which was lovely. Then she took us for a scenic ride around victoria stopping to look at seals in the marina, which had been let out into the wild when the Aquarium closed down. They stuck around because people fed them. Michele dropped us off at the bus station and we said goodbye. Then we reliesed we should have checked the schedule because the next bus wasn't for two hours.

Thank you Justin, Michele, Natasha, Zach and Emily for letting us invade your house for those days. It helped us out no end. Cheers.

See All Victoria Photos Here

North of the Border

2007-03-29T03:09:00.001Z

Vancouver, British Columbia

The border control at Vancouver was helluva better experience than coming to the US. They just didn't care that we had no idea how long we were planning to spend in their country. So we made it to canada, another stamp in the passport. The half empty greyhound bus spend about two hours on the Highway outside the city. We realised we had an hour and a half to get from the Station to the Hostel to the Gig. The race was on. Somehow we managed it.

We found the skytrain, got off at the right stop but got sent to the wrong hostel by a Guy who was trying to help. Canadians are friendly, but often wrong. We got to the Cambie Hostel in Gastown. Checked in, threw our stuff on the bed. I took off the Against me hoodie I was wearing because its such a Punk Rock fashion Faux-pas to wear the clothing of the band you are seeing. 45 minutes to go. It was getting like 24. except with the threat of PunkRock music rather than international terrorism, and two hungry travellers rather than Jack Bauer. We didn't know where we had to go. Dejan guessed the skytrain station out of his hazy memory. But hit the jackpot, we followed a bunch of drunk looking people up the hill. Sure enough there was the Croatian Cultural Centre, beckoning us like an Eastern European themed gig space.

I was gonna test Dejan on his Yugoslav language skills but realised the sign I had pointed to was written in both English and Croatian. The place was huge compared to the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis. I got patted down with no real warning by security, she just held out her hand and said, "ready?.....". Wahey, we were in Canada we could get drunk and watch Against Me! Before the gig i was deliberating on whether I should take my new camera in the hope I could get some Award-winning shots or just get stuck in and Bounce around in the mosh pit. I made the right decision. Who needs to photography anyway. We spoke to a group of Canadians who were pretty cool. Then I spoke to Andrew from Against Me, he complimented my This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb t-shirt.

The gig started, sorry 'show' as they call in on this continent. Fake Problems played a decent set interrupted only by our insatiable thirst for terrible Canadian beer. Riverboat Gamblers just didn't have the same chance to show off their talent as they did in St Louis, due to the line of Security and Barriers, so no jumping on tables this time. Against Me! were as amazing as usual and the show ended 50 minutes later with everyone dripping in sweat and some blood, but mostly joy. Back at the hostel, we treated ourselves to a couple of Pitchers of whatever was cheap in the Cambie bar, Because of course we had to celebrate being in a less insane country than the USA.

My Head kills. I don't want to move or talk or consider life as an option. The next morning. Unfortunately for me, Dejan was 'chipper', and had no problem proving it to me. Eventually i fell out of bed because i couldn't reach the ladder, and we went to get our free muffin breakfast. In the cafe they were playing Against me! and talking about the gig, i wanted to talk about it to, but I sounded like a mute Joe Strummer on a bad day. So I just supped water and Coffee and attempted to eat carrot cake.

I decided whilst my brain felt like that of a confused five year old, that I might as well treat it that way and head to Science World to re-learn some basic knowledge. I had been there when i was young with my Dad, and even got on stage for something. They didn't let me on this time, despite my best efforts and the lack of strong competition from four foot tall kids. We spent a fun day competing with these school kids of goes on exhibits. The was an exhibit where you competing using brain waves to push a ball towards your opponent by relaxing. I won straight away but i suspect that was due to my lack of any brain activity whatsoever.

Back at the hostel, Dejan got talking to a Californian language student and a very very proud canadian. She mentioned that when Americans go travelling they sometimes wear Canadian flags to deflect any negative attention. The canadian got really angry, biting his lip and trying not to shout, WHAT?!. Bizarre reaction. We went to the bar and sat down with the Californian Girl, Vanessa and Canadian with Polish Birth, Rapheal. Of Course we spoke about cultural differences. Me and Rapheal spoke of football and Vanessa taught Dejan sign language. Which is another thing he has added to his 'to learn' list. Before we knew it, last call. We were supposed to leave the next day at 10 to get the ferry to Victoria but made plans with vanessa to see Stanley Park.

We checked out and stored our luggage and drank coffee before walking to the Park. I realised on the walk how little of Vancouver we had seen. The Park was beautiful and we took shortcuts through all the half-felled trees. I took photos of everybody and all the statues, and mountain views. I regretted that we had schedule to keep as we had covered very little of the Park. But we had made a new friend in Vanessa, and a town to visit as she raved about Santa Barbara.

The ferry ride to Vancouver Island was something else. I was expecting something akin to Calais-dover but it was like gently floating through Islands and watching driftwood float to the shore. If it wasn't windy and kinda cold, you could believe you were floating down the amazon. We stood at the front of the ship and I listened to Dejan talk about his memories of Bosnia. It must have felt a world away. For me just floating through spectacular views seeing Mountains and far off islands just made me realise how far we had come. We had crossed an Ocean and an entire continent. By wheels, on our feet, in the sky and now by boat, and I felt absolutly free.

See All Vancouver Photos Here

Seattle

2007-03-25T04:16:00.000Z

Seattle, home to grunge, Frasier, and a tall needle with a space ship balancing atop it. What more can i say? Well quite a lot actually.
As per usual we were pretty shattered after the greyhound journey, during which i was distracted by this guy sitting behind us. He stank of alcohol and was telling the guy next to him how he'd been in the Marines, the Navy, the Army, the SAS, how he'd seen it all and could make you go insane if he told you the 'truth behind whats happening in America'. You't think with all that time in the Armed forces but you'd be mistaken, he also had time to have been a chef in over a dozen restaurants..right, yeah. The guy next to him really hadn't a clue what to say but was too polite to tell the guy to shut up so he never got the picture.

We arrived in time for a free breakfast at the hostel so we ate a largish meal of fruit, sandwhiches, and then some chocolate cake, yknow just to keep it a balanced diet of course.
Afterwards we headed over to nearby Pike Market which was at the bottom of a seriously steep road, one i'm thankful i don't have to climb up with my backpack when we leave.
Aside from all the fish and sea life you'd expect at a fish market there's bbq stand after bbq stand after bbq stand, each one adament that theirs is the best in town.
There are also lots of small independant shops around this area, my favourite being the Anarchist book shop which had quite a good selection of alternative literature.

By the time 11am rolled around we felt we'd been up for hours, and we probably had but we stil had the rest of the day ahead of. Remembering what the Canadian guy in Chicago told us we headed for the Experience Music Project (the Hendrix dedicated museum of music)- "just look for the ugliest, craziest looking building and you'll know you're there". Well he wasn't wrong. The building looks like an acid trip from the outside, starting off as a bland 'modern' frame at the bottom half then spiralling out into a rainbow of colours and shapes that stem outwards.
Inside we blagged our way into getting 'youth' tickets because we're cheap and actually succeded.
The museum wasn't much like a museum at all, rather than exhibits it mostly had video excerpts of interviews from a multitude of artists on various songs, genres, road stories, etc etc. Ok, so it wasn't much of a museum what so ever but it was a pretty cool idea nonetheless.

On one floor they have an interactive area where you can 'jam' with others in various boothes and i use the word jam loosely as the instruments were half midi players with minds of their own. Even the acoustic drum kit had samples coming out of it! Then there was this area that claimed to let you play on stage, we're thinking ok this looks interesting. We join the back of the queue and when we get to the front we get asked which one of three songs we want to perform, we pick a random one and decide we'll just play an Against Me! track instead. Again not so. The part where you pay has guitars, mics, and a kit, everything you'd expect, and a karaoke style teleprompter for the lyrics.With one twist, the guitars were modded so they played the right note for the song no matter which strings you plucked and so was the kit, so we didn't get very far trying to play Pints of Guiness.Once we realised that we just pissed about and waited for it to end. After we went through the exit we were handed two tickets with Static Bagel on them, we'd played our first gig and we were cencored.
Back at the hostel we met this Spanish guy who looked like Robin Williams with a beard. He said he was from LA and here looking for a job on a fishing boat so he could fund his vision of buying a big boat, buy Honda Accords from Japan, then ship them to the UK and make a profit. Still with me? Well thats not all, he wanted me and Tim to get in on it so he asked for our emails and was adament he'd email us as contacts in the UK when he got his idea of the ground.

Our second day in Seattle was spent mostly in a local music shop and then later back near the EMP to watch an Imax 3D video at the Grossology museum near to the EMP and Space Needle. You had to pay extra for the museum entry but we didn't and actually found the museum exit so we took the backwards route of the museum which turned out to be pretty crappy. As the name suggested it was just weird facts and stuff for kids but it did have a cool. powerful as you like fan (as seen in the flickr photos).
Its now day free in the Big Brother house, sorry Seattle, and we're just lazing around, waiting for our greyhound to Vancouver, where for the first time since the end of january we'll be able to drink legally, WAHEY!

See all Seattle photos here

Bozeman, Montana

2007-03-24T03:34:00.000Z

See all Bozeman photos here

MOUNTAIN TIME!!!

2007-03-24T02:43:00.000Z

Bozeman, Montana

Back in Chicago, we looked upon the next weeks leg of the journey as being pretty hellish. Someone needs to put a city of interest between here and Seattle. Minneapolis was actually on my list of cities to visit, but we didn't have enough time to spare there to enjoy it. So onward 16 hours into Wisconsin, then North Dakota before finally arriving in Bozeman, Montana. Set right in the rocky mountains. These places are so remote that Greyhound doesn't cover it, they shove you over to other bus companies. So most of our journey was done with Rimrock Trailways which actually were refreshing compared to the dog. The driver joked and interacted with you, and they let you know what was causing any delays. That was a surprise, on Greyhound you are left in the dark on everything, There is no explanation or apologies for why you might arrive into your destination 7 hours later than planned.

Crusing through the Montana scenery, I noticed in the middle of nowhere, a big sign saying. "Meth: One Way Ticket to Hell" and "Meth: Not Even Once". This seems really odd in the middle of rural area. But the midwest has a huge problem with homemade Meth use in rural areas. Theres shit-all else to do but cook up your own drugs.

Bozeman isn't exactly rural. It's a college town and full of people dressed in Ski-Wear, but of course the day we arrive any place nowadays, its 25 degrees out and boiling. I'm always dressed for Snow and Wind, but just turn up Sweaty and Tired. We trotted through downtown, making note of all the record shops and, ahem, a Camera Shop. The hostel was pretty much like Toby's in Gainesville, very relaxed. A girl called, Elise, checked us in, she was working as Manager to have a place to stay. Checking out downtown, I walked into the local camera shop. And Immeaditly found a Camera one model up from the one I wanted for $200 cheaper. I pretty much bought it then and there. Yes, now i would be able to get a lot more out of this trip, Photography wise. The shop saw my eagerness and dropped a couple of dollars of the cost of the lens and a memory card. Many test photos were taken.

Back at the Hostel, we met a friendly Guy who talked to us quite a bit. yeah, a lot. oh, god. TOO MUCH. Not only was he B O R I N G, but he was reminding me a hell of a lot of Creepy David from St Louis. He offered us Ice Cream sandwiches, and kinda shoved mine down my shirt. Pretty damn creepy. So we avoided him as best as we could yet still managed to here his life story.

That night we found out that today was actually Elise, the assistant managers 21st birthday. She wasn't going out til tommorrow, but had a bottle of bubbly to drink. So we kindly and in an act of pure selflessness. We offered to help drink. As is the way with sitting and drinking, eventually the Conversation turns to Politics and in this instance about Patriotism. I explained how I personally feel Patriotism is a dangerous idea. But also that the mainstream of Britain are not Patriotic about the War. And also this idea of "supporting the troops" isn't as fanatical if at all. She couldn't understand how you wouldn't be patriotic about your soldiers. I explained that I felt that the "Coalition" were the enemy in this war, a war i don't support. Therefore I cannot feel patriotic about the Troops as they are the Evil Invading occupying force. But Happy Birthday anyhow.

Friday, we took a walk to the musuem of the Rockies, which had very little to do with the Rockies. But had loads and loads of Dinosaur skelotons. Dinosaur bones are regularly being found in Montana. Some of the dig sites were just a few miles away. That was pretty cool to think about. So yeah, more photos were taken. We kinda just lazed away the rest of the day, playing guitar, reading and whatever else.

It was great that we had decided to stopover in such a Laidback small town. It would be too easy to go crazy from just going from Metropolis to Metropolis, never finding a hostle with a porch to sit and strum out the day with a view of Snow capped mountains rising above cute little houses.

See all Bozeman photos here

MPLS

2007-03-20T15:08:00.000Z

As we stepped out of the greyhound station doors a bitter chill ran right through, back to winter it is then.
In all honesty there isn't a hell of a lot to say about our stay here but i'll work with what i've got shall i. We arrived at the hostel around 9ish , a traditional looking house with a musem overlooking it across the street. I rang the doorbell which was more of a symphony than a bell, lingering on for second after second of droning ting ta ting ta ta tiiing.
Finally a guy answered the doorbell. "you here to check in?", im standing there surrounding by bags "er, yes?". "Well the office is closed till 10am so you can't yet", can i at least leave the bags here untill then? I guess but nobody'll be watching em or anything. We took our chances and left the backpacks there while we went to the nearby corner shop for snacks and returned to ring the bell again.
Can we check in now?
What time is it?
Quarter to i think
Well its still not open
THROW ME A FRICKING BONE WHY DONT YA

After much manouevering we actually get let in to hang around the lounge area untill check in time. As the most recent reviews suggested this place was a construction site, the only area downstairs unblemished was the immediate view from the door and windows, there were kitchen appliances, tools, and yadda yadda yadda every where, BUT its the only hostel in Minniapolis so we had to put up and shut up for one night.
We were finally checked in on the strike of 10, talk about regimental, and we went straight to our dorm room which was a 16 bed dorm but apparantely theres only one guy there at the moment so its pretty dead. We got there and theres this fat guy just waking up dressed in this ridiculous full body underclothing like a cross between victorian night clothes and something David/Dafyd from Little Britain might wear to bed. Its been a long journey though, i've had barely any sleep, i'm shattered so i just mumble 'hows it going' or something and jump staight in bed.
We woke up somewhere around noonish and decided to head over to the Museum seeing as its local and free, and something of tradition for this trip it seems.
The art museum had a really vast and varied gallery as is pretty much standard for US galleries it seems. Its like no matter how small the town or how obscure the gallery you're bound to find something you recognise and this was no different. It brought back memories of art lessons, i could see so many paintings i'd studied from books and took influences from right here in the flesh.
After the gallery we tried our luck with the ancient little windows 98 ran pc which seemed to freeze every time you looked at it. It took us two hours to admit defeat and take a look around town instead.
We didn't really find anything that interesting in town but on the way back we saw a little Turkish restaurant and went in for falafal. The waitress got talking to us and chatted about her travels a bit and how she plans to get back on the road soon, we must have appealed to sens eof generosity or just looked down and out because she gave us a free baclava to share between us. Eitherway we appreciated the gesture.
We didn't do much else that day except go to a cheap but shady looking internet cafe not far from the hostel and hang around the hostel. The guy who checked us in turned out to be the son of the owner and more of an evening person because he got quite friendly and told us about the people he knew in bands like Dillinger Four, NOFX, and some others i think. He also had loads of questions about England which was fine too.
The next morning we got up and around 10 to 11 (nearly check out time) one of the women working there went to our dorm and pretended to look busy, she seemed pretty uptight and like she was checking that we were actually ready to leave even though the place had like over 20 beds and 3 guests including us. Our greyhound was at 6 i think so we asked if we could leavc our bags somewhere out of the way in the hostel like we normally do when we have a late bus but she wasn;t having any of that, so we had to use the greyhound lockers in the end.
Well that concludes the Minneapolis portion of our journey, y'all come back now y'hear! It does actually get better than this, hard to believe i know.

Site Update

2007-03-18T20:04:00.000Z

The site has kinda got a bit messy, with us doing blogs out of order, and mentioning the days events then going back and doing older ones. So I've tried to put everything in Chronological order. So if you go back a few posts, then you'll see a new one on St Augustine, FL by me. A Series on Houston by Dejan and one on St Louis. and a lot of the older ones have been put in the right order. We'll try and be more regular with updates but there have been a few snags along the way which we will explain later. We're gonna try and get up to date whilst we have free internet. Anyway, keep them comments and emails and ~~donations~~ coming.

Pizza, Paddies and Me

2007-03-18T20:00:00.000Z

Chicago, Illinois

We wasted a lot of time those first two days in Chicago, trying to sort out what the hell was happening took up most of the day, and also we felt pretty depressed about stuff. But on the Thursday we finally made it downtown and walked around tajking photos and shivering in the Cold. Chicago had experienced a winter heatwave the day we arrived with summer temperatures heating the streets still filled with snow. But by the time we actually got around to sightseeing it had gotten back to the usual freezing as hell weather. I liked the feel of Chicago, it felt, well, nice. It didn't seem too uptight as a city, maybe that just shows how comfortable I have become with the look and feel of American cities. They are usually big ugly brutes of cities, your space is constantly being invaded with billboards for everything, stuff we're not used to seeing advertised in a public setting, like hospitals, sex shops and RELIGION. Always with the Jesus, I tell you. But Chicago was good, even with the noisy subway which wasn't really 'sub' as most of it ran noisily above your head in the street, creating big sparks.

We took a walk around the park by Lake Michigan. They have a cool looking mirror blob thing, it looked great, but i have no idea why it was there. It was free day at Chicago Art Institute, so of course we took advantage. On this trip we have been to so many Galleries that I have developed a pretty good idea of what i like to linger over and what I merely glance at, my notebooks are filled with the names of Artist and Photographs and paintings.

Saturday came, St Patrick's Day, I started to get excited. Dejan was just cynical. If only he would pretend to be Irish like everyone else here. So we went out on the streets, me dressed all in Black, among all the people wearing Green. We Squeezed into a loud and intoxicated subway car and tried to converse over the noise of crappy fake Irish accents and the swilling of beer. We had no idea were the parade was, so we followed the mass of people leaving at Merchandise Mart, who must have been wrong, because no one knew where to go from there. Eventually we found the river, and watched the Green Dye float downstream, it looked toxic, especially as it was filled with bottles, cans and random green objects.

The streets were packed with revellers, and no one seemed to know where they were going, So we just followed what seemed to make sense. Look for where the Police seem most angry and that'll be the parade. We found the parade but couldn't see shit. The place was packed, after about ten minutes of watching crappy floats advertising stuff at us, I realized it didn't make sense to me, it was too American. The Irish just wouldn't bother with it. So we decided to try and join the parade, and be part of the madness. I saw a street tram with a banner saying "Moriaty Clan" on it. My Dad seems to think his name was originally Moriaty or that there is some claim on it. Who cares, Hi dad. But today it was a good enough excuse to join in. We soon found ourselves marching and picking beads and sweets off the floor to throw at the crowd and the TV cameras. The parade was actually really short, I guess I was expecting a 4 mile March like at Anti-War demos. I also felt the urge to chant, so we chanted "One Solution, Revolution" and "Intifada".

On Sunday we decided to get some proper Chicago Pizza. Giodiani's was highly recommended and not overly pricey so we ordered a huge Pie. It was excellent, but again HUGE. After two slices i felt full, and grudgingly scoffed a third. A Doggy bag was needed for the last two. Waddingly down the street all bloated, we realised there was no use in us having the pizza, so we looked for a Homeless person to give it to, whilst it was nice and hot. However such is sods law the one time we were actually able to help out, we couldn't find anyone Homeless. They never have a problem finding us when we have no money. Finally someone walked past and said, "Oh you got spare pizz..." Yeah just take it. The easiest meal he got all day.

See all Chicago photos here

Dude, wheres my trip?

2007-03-16T01:35:00.000Z

Chicago, Illinois

It was somewhere back in St Louis that I discovered a potential problem with our Macchu Pichu trail vouchers. They were booked for May 3rd 2008, and not 2007. But our STA receipt said 2007. Not to worry, I'm sure, we'll ring when we get to Chicago. When we actually got to Chicago, Dejan found an STA Travel branch, so we went in and asked about it. The lady there had a quick look and then dropped the bomb. Your not booked for 2007. Leicester has made a huge mistake and the trip we wanted wouldn't be free until May 31st. We would need to be halfway across Bolivia by that point. Fuck. Realizing how huge this error was, the Chicago team did all they could to re-route and reconfigure. Not looking too good. We went to go get Burritos for breakfast to cheer us up or something.

I got pessimistic, fast. We were gonna have to come back early. Leave the US and go straight home. Damn. Thats like, our WHOLE YEAR RUINED. Maybe we could come back in 2008. In the summer, STA would have to refund. I started to see small positives in the HUGE mass of negative. At least if we did come back later I could bring better camera equipment, we could research more. Grudgingly I think me and Dejan accepted our probable fate. Me, i think a little easier. It would be great to get back to Jo and we could do some serious band practice between now and September. Back at the Hostel i just wanted to talk to someone from home. So I rang my Mum and Jo. i felt there was just nothing STA would be able to do which wouldn't mean we'd have to rush a huge portion of the trip or that would leave us waiting around in another country.

We spent two days in Limbo, not really knowing what was to become of our next few months. Finally, we went back into STA preparing to just let em know we wanted to come home and try again next year.
"Hey Guys, you heard the good news then?"
What? No! STA in Leicester decided they would take care of the costs of rearranging the trip including providing an extra flight or two to mean we didn't need to rush any of it. So, of course there was no way of saying no to that. We were back on.

New Itinerary

San Francisco to Buenos Aires (via Washington DC) May 1st.
Overland to Igauzu Falls and La Paz, Bolivia.
Overland to Lake Titicaca, then to Cuzco
June 1st til June 7th, Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu.
June 7th Flight from Cuzco to Lima
June 17th Flight from Lima to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Overland from Sao Paulo to Rio De Janeiro.
June 27th Flying home from Rio.

So there we go. All set, with a renewed focus. In two days we had out trip completely turned around about 760000 millions degrees. I got really excited about it again. Bring it the fuck on.

See all Chicago photos here

Don't meet me in St Louis, I won't be there.

2007-03-13T01:44:00.000Z

St Louis, Missouri

I just couldn't be arsed with another long greyhound journey. 36 Hours to Chicago just didn't seem appealing. I guess we could take 22 as a compromise. So we went to St Louis. Gateway to the west, except contary to what we should be doing we were heading slightly back east. The hostel we were staying at had some interesting reviews, "It really is a strange place and that is its charm. I love the creaky shabby style of the joint. Some of the other roommates are also a bit weird but that just adds to it." So we thought, fuck it, we've been to worse. St Louis sure looked like a dump. Its essentially what most old UK industrial towns would look like if most have them hadn't undergone, ll this regeneration. Having said that St Louis did look like it was trying regentrify itself. Back in the early part of the 2oth century, this was a thriving city, hosting a world fair, basically to egotiscally celebrate itself, and show off to the rest of the world. Building a completely pointless yet somehow cool arch in the middle of downtown, as a gateway to the west.

The hostel owner sounded like he had never seen caffeine in his life, Speaking slowly and boringly he didn't ask any questions, and seemed offended that I hadn't taken his offer of a lift from the Greyhound Station, which i would have done had he answered the phone, and if I had listened to Dejan, who proved to be the voice of better reason on this. Walking around the town was empty, it was sunday, but it seemed a little ridiculous. We took a walk around to try and find a shop to buy a travel chess set. And came across a shop selling them for far too much money. But the owner did give us tip, go to the City musuem. Which we did.

The City museum was mad house, the were slides and ball pit and just general playground fun everywhere. It was closing in an hour, so we decided to come back tommorrow. It was hard to see what was museumy about it. The next day, when we returned it was closed. Crap, we should have read the sign which CLEARLY stated closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Damn. Back at the hostel, we had a new guest. A guy called David, I asked him why he had came to St Louis. He said, "Well, i'm interested in Geological Location and i've found that St Louis is the luckiest city for me". For some reason i assumed he must have been some sort of Geologist. But no it turns out he was a nutter. He kept talking about all sorts of astrological bullshit, about all the failed marriages and lives he's had, due to plutos alignment and auspicious transients. I began to get quite scared of him. But we had a reason to get out of the Hostel that night as AGAINST ME!!!! were playing, we had been trying to see this band the entire trip and finally our paths had crossed, probably due to saturns alignment with Plutos moon.

It turns out the people living across the road from the Hostel work at the club they were playing at, so i knocked on there door to see if they could hook us up with free entry or at leat lift. Instead I just got worried. The guy invited me in, and we checked the website for the club were he told me it was 21+. I was seriously pissed off, but the Guy was nice, he rang up his girlfriend to ask about it and after about 20 mins of me worrying he found out it was all ages and then i lstened to him and his girlfriend bitch about the owner of the hostel, who wasn't renewing the lease on their flat.

After getting our hands marked with huge black X's. The Show started with Fake Problems, who were simple and fun, up next came the Riverboat Gamblers who fucking rocked. The singer was mental, he dove into the crowd and ran up and down the length of the bar. And jumped on the table next to me and screamed in my face. Excellent. There was much moshing to be had despite the small size of the pit area. Against Me! came on after much wait and launch straight into Pints of Guiness". Everyone went crazy, and they didn't stop going crazy until they startedplaying there new stuff. During"White people for peace", a new song, I noticed that there was barely anyone singing. I was, but i was making up most of the words. Either way its a great song.
The rest of new stuff though, everyone clapped along because they ddn't know any words. Then they launched into a few classics before leaving the stage with "The Disco before the breakdown" which i have never heard live then 'We Laugh at danger and Break all the rules.' It was an amazing show, but i wish they had played for another hour, Or at least until they had played everysong they had ever done.

Walking back all sweaty, we managed to get a lift of the University Campus Police, which was pretty cool. I think, the two cops were argueing over the music selection. "Don't turn off that old skool", one said as NWA was changed to right said fred. David the fucking freak was asleep. Good. Bastard. Until the morning when he woke up and sat at the end of my bed, talking to himself. I just pretended to be asleep, because i didn't want to talk to him. He got up and left, so iI jumped up to get ready. But then he came back, and smiled in the creepiest way before saying in an uncanny Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka voice, "Morning...". God he scared me. He asked us where we were staying in Chicago. I lied. I didn't want him to know. I asked the hostel owner if he would give us a lift to the Greyhound, as was offered on the posters he put out warning people about how dangerous the area was, but i must have pissed him off earlier or something as he just shrugged and said, "You could walk, its not that far". Damn. Ah well, we only had a short ride til Chicago. I wasn't dreading the bus Journey away from David.

See All St. Louis Photos Here

A NAS-A Day Out

2007-03-09T21:35:00.000Z

We were two tourists in Houston, well 3 now with Christian here, so we did what any self respecting tourist does and went to the NASA space centre.
Inside it was a cross between a museum and a play centre, with as many interactables as exhibits displayed. We tried the usual gravity tests and then we got to the good stuff, this seat where you experience some of what its like to steer the seat in space but that wasnt too hard either but then there was the shuttle landing simulator. Much like the flight landing simulator in DC except the conditions are tougher and you have 3 levels of difficulty. At first i couldn;t even land the shuttle at all but i hate losing so i kept at it and five goes later i not only landed it but got within a whisker of the high score. Behind the simulations area was this life size model of inside the living quarters in a shuttle and there was a member of staff giving a demonstration to doe eyed kids, "nowadays the astronauts eat a varied diet onboard the shuttle, here we have a pack of macaronni and cheese, is this YOUR favourite vegetable?" FAVOURITE VEGETABLE?!! There wasn't a hint of irony in her voice and worse still none of the parents present even batted an eyelid to such a ridiculous idea.
Further on down the line we joined a tour of the actual present day mission command buildings which was humbling to know inside these buildings are todays astronauts, some of which may've been on famous missions into space. Most of the tour was inside the mission control room the used for most of the famous missions such as the various moonlandings but since the late 90s this room is no longer in use and has been replaced by an identical room one floor below. At the end of the tour we stepped inside a huge warehouse which as we're told houses the world's largest rocket, i'm not sure if there's any scientific benefit in having the world's largest rocket or if its just another American thing but it was cool to be so close to a functioning rocket.
After the tour we headed back to the hostel and finished our last night in Houston the best way we knew how, finishing up the last of the beer and two malt liquor bottles Wednesday bought.

See All Houston Photos Here

The day after the night before

2007-03-08T21:05:00.000Z

Actually despite the title of this post i wasn't hung over today but that's because we didn't drink too much that night.
Last night Wednesday told us about an art museum that was down the road and had quite a good collection, it was also free on wednesdays. The sound of that magical 4 lettered word played us like a piper and we headed over there when we returned to the hostel. What started out looking like quite a small place at first turned into a huge maze of buildings and corridoors. They had everything from impressionism to modernism and everything in between. They also had a buffet table laid out in a side room waiting for the 'guests' at the art show later in the evening, we tried to sneak in but the security guards seemed to have us sussed and gave us no opportunities. We've been to quite a few art museums over the course of our trip and so i've kind of become desensitized to seeing pieces in the flesh that i'd studied at school and never imagined i'd ever see so close up so sadly i didn't see too many works that amazed me as i'd already seen so much great art. At the end of the gallery we came across the modern 'art' section, sadly im an art snob and hate all this weird new stuff, especially the modern installation art so i wasn't exactly impressed by this collection, however there was this one 'piece' which was a fully functional snooker table with a plaque next to it that explained that the artist intended for this piece to be interacted with by the audience, so we picked up the cues and did just that. It wasn't long before Tim and I realised we knew as much about snooker as fish knew about land and were terrible at it so we ended up surrending to the table before we even potted our first colour ball (and believe me that was a long time).
When we returned i sat outside and was eventually joined by the whole troupe of Christians volunteering at the soup kitchen. They seem alright and not quite as fundamentalist as they first seemed but i didn't exactly want to discuss religion with them so i didn't get the complete picture. For ages i sat there while they fired off questions about the trip, about england, about hostels and everything else in between. It was a little weird sitting there answering all these questions but at the same time it was quite nice to see just how interested they were. I asked a few questions about the soup kitchen and they said there were some interesting people there but they didn't seem to want to talk about that too much, i suppose you wouldn't if you'd been working there all day for the last week or something. They said they were going in the morning and were off to a house party or something so we said our goodbyes and they wished me luck with my travels.
While i was still talking to the group this British guy stumbled towards the hostel looking lost, "hello is this the hostel?". He had this strong southern accent but he was unmistatinkly English just by looking at him in his sandals, shorts, and pale legs, a bit like us i suppose except without the sandals. Later on when the Christians left i introduced myself to the new guy, Christian.
We (Tim,Tony, Wednesday, Christian, and i) went to IHOP for a late night supper and i had this monster of a pancake mountain which i didn't manage to finish.

See All Houston Photos Here

Birthday Bonanza or two

2007-03-07T20:14:00.000Z

Well today i woke up a frickking hang over, serves me right for starting my birthday celebrations a day early. Ike recommended we eat at a taco place two metro stops away and as my parents kindly gave me a top up in my bank account for my birthday we thought we'd treat ourselves and have breakfast there. Ike also mentioned a record shop next door to the taco place that was supposed to have lots of great alternative music but mostly rockabilly.
After breakfast we had a peek around the shop and it was pretty cool but we both walked out having not bought anything, which i suppose is a blessing in disguise considering how small our budgets are.
Despite my hang over i was determined to party on my birthday so Ike, Wednesday, Tony, Tim, and i sat outside drinking by the bbq which Gordon was manning. He had that bbq down to a tee, he'd been manning it since last night which is when he'd started slow roasting it and to stay awake he was drinking beer all night but he had a good tolerance to it. There was supposed to be a good band, Explosions in the Sky, playing at Numbers that night and Ike was determined to take us to see them. He described with the eagerness of a child at christmas how they were a guitar rock instrumental band who had this amazing hold on their instruments and fantastic mastery, i could just see Tim dying inside at the thought of guitar rock but i was up for it and i'm sure Tim was up for just going out. Ike said we should get there for 9pm but as the beers kept flowing and the hours passed we actually left closer to 11pm. Just before we left we had time to sample some of the bbq and it was amazing! I'm not really a fan of pork but Gordon wasn't wasting his time slow roasting it, it was hands down the best pork i've ever eaten.
We jumped into Tonys car, Tony first as the whole of the drivers side was held together precariously with duct tape!
We drove up to the bar, parked up in a nearby side street and headed for the bar, it was past eleven now and everyone was heading away from the bar, "they've not finished have they?" "yeah it was an early show man", dammit. We walked outside the bar for a while and in the middle of all this Ike started having a tantrum with Wednesday and walked off. Wednesday and Tony were stoners so Wednesday tried to get some weed but nobody was selling untill they find these three short black guys siting on the hood of a car. "Yeah i can get you what you need, give me $10 and i'll be back in 5 minutes". There was something real shifty about him, his friends jumped back into the car and drove off, he went in the other direction. I couldn't put my finger on it but there was something a little weird about him. He returned with a paper bag and handed it to Wednesday, she and Tony looked in, it was just grass! Green grass with even a clover in the mix! That little bastard bolted and Wednesday ran right after him. They went down an alley, minutes went by and we couldn't see or hear any sign of them. We started worrying, she shouldn't have chased after him for $10. I moved to the side get a better view of the alley they ran down, "maybe we should go have a look", "no she's got it covered". I see these two big fat black guys walk into the alley take a turn into the left and not long after just strut back. Ok this could be bad. A few more minutes pass and we see this short black guy limping on the other side of the road from us. "Hang on, isnt that the bastard?!", Tont shouts. The guy doesn't bat any eyelid, just keeps limping on as if he's never seen us before. Tony takes the initiative and follows the guy round the corner. He returns half a minute later saying how he demanded to know where Wednesday went and the money back. The guy just kept saying "she got me ok, she got me." There was fuck all Tony could do with that so he just came back and we waited a moment more untill we saw Wednesday walking back out of breath. We run over to her and sure enough she's fine. She explains how she chased him down that alley, grabbed him by the neck and demanded her ten bucks back but the guy just kept laughing "you got me. you actually got me! you must be a cop", "i aint a cop, im fucking from cali!". She starts saying how she had him on the floor, with her foot on his face when his friends turn up (probably the guys we saw go down the alley earlier), "you cant be having yo foot on our boys face!" "your boy cant be having my money!"
Two guys made there way closer to her so she ran for it and didn't even get her money back in the end.
I'm not saying this story is without embelishment but that's the way Wednesday told it to us free and its the only version we know.
After that we went back into Tonys car and drove to 'the bar next door' which is actually more the bar half a mile away but we were driving so who cares. We got there, walk upstairs and this blonde woman coughs, "you here to see the band", "er yeah?", "its $5 but i'll let you guys pay $3". We pay up and go back up the stairs. Its a poky little place and there seems to be some sort of party going on in the corner. We find seats and then we see that the band are actually packing up, thats the second band we missed tonight. Tony goes back down and returns with $3 each for us, nice.
It looks like its some gay guys birthday or something; he's being spanked in the corner by his mates, oh and theres free birthday cake. Tim tells me to wait there, he and Wednesday return with a slice of chocolate cake with a penis candle through it! Happy birthday Dejan. They even lit up the candle for me. The cake was quite nice actually, and no i didn't keep the candle.
Wednesday stayed to talk to Ike and the three of us drove back where i was greeted by Gordon on the porch. "I bought you a birthday cake and ice cream but inbetween manning the bbq and all that food we never got round to handing it out", this was a pretty eventful birthday already and a pretty damn good one actually but i never expected to have the hostel manager think to get a cake. I don't know about Tony but Tim and I were shattered so we didn't stay up much longer.

See All Houston Photos Here

DEJANS BIRTHDAY!!!

2007-03-07T18:12:00.000Z

Its Dejans birthday today, the celebration started early though last night with lots of drinking and merriment. Tonight will be more of the same. Texas. Beer. Cool. Send birthday greeting now!

Texas part 1

2007-03-06T20:48:00.000Z

For the first half of the greyhound ride we endured the happiest man on earth! He kept calling me G for some reason and cracking jokes and god he just wore you down! Somewhere down the line we had a stop and this huge bulky, all in black, white, angry son of a gun got on the bus, there was something off about him since we first saw him. At that stop we had a short break so Tim and I got off and that's when we first saw him, he came up to us and asked us if we smoke, we didn't so we couldn't help him out and he stormed off for some reason. He was Carrying this big blanket and he threw it down to the ground and started kicking it out of no where.
Once we all boarded again, crazy guy as well, the driver eventually told us a bus had broken down nearby and as no one else is available our driver has to go collect that bus load and return to take us on our way, he promised he'd be 10, 20 minutes but in the end we were 1 hour and a half late. Normally we'd be pretty angry but you soon learn to expect the worst from the Greyhound. To add to the 'Greyhound Experience' the shifty white guy ended up in an argument with this woman at the back of the bus. It all erupted when we heard this shrill voice yell out 'STOP TALKING TO HIM 'BOUT DRUGS! He's an eight year boy!' For some reason he thought he'd tell her boy about the wonders of crack and how great it was.
Oh and then we entered Texas, the lone star state, home of immigration patrols who seem to work on commisson! I was woken up by these two 'bigger' cops, 'aright we're the immigration police, we just need to know a few details and we'll let you all go on your way'. He went through most of the bus quite quickly then he stopped at these three latin guys behind us and spent ages there it seemed, untill i heard clicking. 'Come back here a second, jerry', he was calling the other cop over. There i was just waking up and these three guys were being escorted off the bus in handcuffs! This is the sad truth of Texas i was expecting. These guys were on the bus with us all the way back in Miami and now when they go back down south they get busted by immigration. It was surreal and sad to think what might happen to them but the other passengers were unfazed, it was just routine for them.
It was 1pm and we'd actually arrived in Houston, we'd done it, we'd left Florida and god awful Miami behind, and the icing on the cake, we didn't have to stop over in Jacksonville; Satan's holiday home! Everything was finally starting to look up, until we realised this hostel was harder to find than we first thought. The web site and advert on the greyhound station wall mentioned a bus that didn't even go in that direction anymore and out of desperation we boarded a random bus going somewhat in the right direction, and then? Well then we missed our stop and ended up on the other side of town until the driver asked us where we were actually going. He let us stay on the bus so we could catch the stop second time round and so we waited on a bus ride that wouldn't end with this seriously annoying near deaf elderly lady. 'You here fer spring break?', no we're just backpacking around, 'WHAT? Are yer here fer the rodeo?', 'what rodeo?', 'whats a ro d o?', 'WHAT?!'. Finally she goes 'yer speak English?', er yeah i do last time i checked. Bloody senile nutter!
In the middle of all this we got off a few stops too early in earnest and ended up walking despite our 2 hour effort not to have to walk until we stumbled across this little house that only differed from the rest with its familiar neon sign. Outside there was this punk woman, dressed as an old school punk, drawing or writing something. I was too tired to introduce myself right now but it was nice to find a punk. After we checked she later introduced herself as Wednesday and her Rockabilly boyfriend Ike who looked a little like and sound like Dee Dee Ramone, well to me anyway. We also find this group of around a dozen people sitting in a prayer group at the dinner table so we left them too it and kept our distance. They turned out to be on a spring break trip working at a soup kitchen and weren't quite as creepy as we first thought.
Oh and we also met Tony, a 19 year old hippy/prog rocker who'd driven down here from Ohio in his beat up car.
That evening Ike and Tony went to the local supermarket and Ike discreetly told us he could buy us beer if we paid for it so naturally that night we all sat outside drinking until the early hours. Tim mentioned it was my birthday and gave me a Danzig CD which we put on and had as background music until Ike went 'is this still the intro?', we looked the cd player, we were7 tracks in and it was a strange overblown instrumental CD with Danzig's name on for some reason, still the thought was there.
Wednesday told us about this crazy hippy lady staying at the hostel who was a 'trip', she was a trip alright! She drove up in this big SUV and tried her best to manoeuvre between Tony and Gordon's (the hostel manager) cars but ended up knocking Gordon's, turns out she's routinely this bad a driver. In fact the next time she tried that and Gordon saw her coming up to the drive he shot up like a bolt, jumped into his car and literally sped down the road and parked on the other side so she couldn't get near his car! But i digress.
So she pulls up and we introduce ourselves, almost immediately she jumps into this insane rambling about how the FBI, CIA, and any other acronym you can think up is after her. How she used to be involved in human rights and now they re after her, she just wouldn't stop with the most outlandish and ridiculous stories. She also had this thing about being followed and she was convinced her car was going to get broken into tonight by 'them' because 'they did it before', needless to say nobody broke into her car that night and probably never did. She ended up giving me this sage stick as a birthday present and said how its saved her ass many a time when sniffer dogs were looking for weed. I'm not sure i quite believe that one either but i took the gift anyway.
We spent all night, and the early hours drinking beer and when we ran out of beer Ike went and got two bottles of what they called Malt Liquor but didn't taste half as strong, we finished those two as well and just sat there for ages telling each other stories.

See All Houston Photos Here

Sink, Florida, Sink.

2007-03-04T21:53:00.000Z

Miami Beach, Florida

Due to being really poor in a city of seemingly rich people, we couldn't really afford to do much here, so most of our time has been spent in a really cool little, bookshop/internet cafe/chess place called Kafkas. The ceiling has mural of Franz Kafka and the book selection is an excellent mix of politics, radical and classic fiction. We've all suddenly got a big knack for chess, Dejan espiecally as he kicked mine and jo's ass today. The owner seems to have taken a shine fo us, and really liek the idea that we play chess and card games, as it "keeps us off the streets". Yes, because i was only one checkmate away from heroin and guns. Nah, but he was coo. Despite everytime we came in, saying "oh the gangs here" or "you guys aren't gonna cause trouble are you".

I wouldn't want to live in Miami, by any means, but i have definitly gone from hating it, to seeing some of its charm. If i was the type of person who enjoyed the keep fit and beautiful style then this would be heaven. but as i'm not and never would want to be, i never will. Ah well.

We also went to a Seaquarium, which despite costing a days budget, was fantastic to see whales and dolphins and all sorts of sea creatures close up, in tiny cramped tanks, forced to dance and jump for the pleasure of paying visitors. It was worth it though.

Today we've just been walking around trying to squeeze anything else we can get out of Miami Beach before we leave. There was never much to do in the first place. We spoke to some guy on the street who were travelling around america by hopping trains, they couldn't find anything else to do here either.

Ah well. Whilst Jo has a long flight through time zones, delays and immigration. We have a very blood clotting 31 hour bus ride to Houston, Texas. Should be frustrating, boring and cramped. we'll be no doubt delayed and tossed aside like rubbish. It'll be fun, i can't wait.

miami by jo

2007-03-04T21:39:00.000Z

"why dont you go to America" if i here that once more ill scream i dont miss tim that much. well unfortunately thats not true so i said ok im going to miami with everyones help a crazy idea that was never going to happen was happening the next thing i no im driving to the airport so excited got my bags packed my tickets booked then was the bad news your flight has been cancelled, what!!!!! it cant be?!?! so there i sat waiting 9 hours for the next flight on my own in the biggest airport id ever seen then was the flight eventually i sat down i was finally relaxed when . . . . fat sweaty man hovered over me "er. . . thats my seat" so 7 hours i sat next to him listening to him snore, finally i arrive in Chicago the snow, the immigrations, the running was not fun then the news i didnt want to here "your flight to miami has been delayed" (kirsty next time i think about doing something crazy just hit me) its not all bad i did eventually arrive in Miami greeted by more sweaty people yep tim n dejan dont handle heat to well.
now im about to leave its gone so quick not looking forward to more quality alone airport time thats for sure. the beach was really nice the weather was lovely the card games were never boring but after one week i miss home

back to spoons love jo x x

Miami

2007-03-03T00:45:00.000Z

Miami, Florida

So we're in Miami, florida, Safe and sound, but with a few interesting stories and a lot of stress, which will have to wait for another blog, due to the timers. My Girlfriend Jo came over, which was amazing, its great to have her here. Despite the lack of things to do, except sun on the beach. I expect there'll be more to tell of Miami later on when we have more time.

Tourists on Heat

2007-02-26T17:07:00.000Z

St Augustine, Florida

The hostel owner here at the Pirate Haus inn really is a case. The hostel is decked out in pirate paintings. Walking up the stairs in the hostel, the stairs are inscribed with sea shantys. The owner has a rag around his head and paces about muttering to himself, or us, i'm not sure. When we checked in he explained about all the people staying in out room, "you just missed the australians, oh boy, oh you got some germans in there now, Don't mention the war."

St Augistine truly is a tourist trap, theres no getting out of that. The place is teeming with those shitty train buses you see in every place you shouldn't go to. Souvenir shops everywhere. Fantastic, we're never gonna find any punks or any fun here. Thats the trouble with just picking places to visit without putting any thought into whats actually there. Oh well, at leats its not jacksonville. We took a look around the Old Fortress, and realised that it felt more like europe than the USA. well, that made sense as the City has been ruled by Spain, France, Britain and probably some other in there. The fortress overlooked a pretty bay full of yachts. The weather was better than a british summer and this was february.

Back at the hostel we got chatting to two guys, who said they would take us to the supermarket to get some stuff. One of them, Mike, a German guy who was taking time out from his job as a Business consultant in New York to cycle the coast of Florida. One problem, he hadn't got round to startint yet. The Airport had lost his bags and bent the wheel on his bike, so he had hired a car. He was planning to finally get on his way tommorrow, but was way to comfortable to do so.

The other guy, Dan, was an American from New York State, right on the border from Canada. he explained how when he was 18 he would hop across the border to a bar and get served legally before coming back to the USA to come home. He had come to settle in St augustine and was holing himself up at the hostel after he sold his boat, which he lived on in the harbour for three years. He bragged about the group of austalian girls he took out last night and asked teh german word for girls, "Fraulines". Getting back from the shop, Dan offered us some beer. our first since arriving here, it wasn't all that great. But, we had some who was willing to buy!

We spent the rest of the night talking to with mike about politics and Europe and the USA. Despite him basically being a rich business man, we still had a lot to agree on. At about 2am, he gave us the rest of his bagels and brie. I miss being able to afford nice chese, the nicest we had had since coming was kraft slices.

In the morning we rented the bikes, and rode out to the beach, which was actually a national park. On the way we stopped off at the lighthouse and spoke to a couple from Wisconsin who raved about Disneyland. I found some dumpstered homemade fishing rods, which we tried to fish with. We failed to catch anything, no suprises. Despite trying to use a crab as bait, which looked like an alien head. The beach was vast and beautiful. So I buried Dejan in the sand, and then ran away. I think he regretted it as he realized he now had sand everywhere and hd accdently left two t-shirts in Gainesville.

That night we cycled up to the Ripleys Believe it or Not Museum, and blagged our way in as St Augustine Students. So $5 instaed of $20. It was interesting, but i wouldn't call it a museum. But there were some cool things like rotating walk through tunnels which messed with your balance. We ran up and down them falling all over the place. That was FUN!

I forgot to mention that every morning at the Pirate Haus, they have free Pancakes. So we made certain to fill up on them. People got really creative with them with Dan making Djena a huge Ramones one, and me an Anarchy one, fr some reason. Perhaps because he offered his cool leather jacket to us, well more to Dejan, but he already had one, so no Fair. Mine, mine, me me me. It was quite beat up but done up with anarchist band patches which I hadn't really heard of. That night he took us in his Van/Wardrobe to buy beer, he showed us his Machete as well. A big rusty thing tha he kept in his glove box.

We sat on the roof Garden drinking and playing guitar. A big fat redneck from Georgia, he played all these really really bad country songs which his whole family sang to. "If that ain't country, i'll kick your fucking ass". At 9pm. Dan got up and told us to drink up, and said he was taking us to a place you had to see whilst you were in St. Augustine. We filled a 'Nalgene', a big plastic bottle with the rest of our beers and took to the street. At a bar, we had to 'sneak' to the back to avoid being ID'd. We sat on a table filled with tourists and filled the mepty cups on the table with our beer, and started eating all the peanuts on the table whilst talking drunkenly to the other scared looking people on the table.

Then a loud and powerfulsong started up, with four men singing in the strongest deep voices i've seen, they sand sea shantys. We joined in, much to the annoyance of the other people on the table, but to the amusement of the band. After that we walked around St Augustine, for more beer from a petrol station, something which is odd in england, and we sat at the fortress drinking. All together a fun and drunken night our last in the town. In the morning we left for the Greyhound to Miami. Dan was still passed out so we just left him. We found our leftover beers and went on out way. Touristy town. But worth visiting.

Florida

2007-02-23T22:58:00.000Z

God, i love Gainesville. I'm not sure why. Its just an excellent excellent place. Its like a tiny city. Known really for its student population. But i loved it. I might wanna move there the more i think about it. Warm weather all year round. Cycling actively encouraged. Alligators. And excellent punk gigs most weeks.

However now we're in St Augustine, Florida. Americas oldest city. It is old that's for sure, it feels like your in Portugal or Spain or something. But its very touristy as a consequence.

The greyhound here was quick and easy. Although i had a flashback to booking the trip in STA travel in Leicester.

"We don't really advise you travel by greyhound"
"why?"
"Threes all sorts of people on them including parolled criminals"

There concerns couldn't stop us and yesterday not only did we share a bus with a parolled criminal, but we even shared a taxi with him. Nah it was fine, and his brother was the taxi driver and gave us a good rate.

People here are really nice, reaally nice, a guy who appears to be living at the hostel gave us some beers, our first in a month, and also a leather punk jacket, which i claimed, to Dejans annoyance. Cool, but its heavy and has patches of German bands i haven;t heard of on it.

Anyway, today we Cycled to the beach, found some makeshift fishing rods behind the lighthouse's dumpster and attempted to go fishing, failing miserably. But it was fun. The beach was winding and deserted, so what better to do than bury Dejan. He was up for it. But sand in your pockets isn't all that great in retrospect.

Today, we were directed to a record and video shop called Loose Screws. It was cool, and i bought three cds and many posters (which were free).

Oh yeah and i forgot, it shorts and t-shirt tanning weather suckers. HAHA, enjoy the cold.

See All Gainesville photos here

Last day in Gainsville

2007-02-23T05:57:00.000Z

Today was our last day in Gainesville and we still didn't really know where we were heading next. Toby told us there was a farmers market here every wednesday so we thought we'd head on over to the market to see what thats like.
We spent the day in a cd shop till around an hour before the farmers market and then it was off to the market around 5pm.
The market was quite hidden behind the hippodrome but it was really packed full of little stalls and people. Most stalls had samples so we tried lots of home made dips, some delicios fresh and unmodified milk,a delicios donought, and the best bread i've ever tasted. In the end we decided we had to buy one of the loaves but the ran out of stock really quick, the lady took pity on us and handed us a big paper bag of samples and crumbs free of charge.
Toby introduced to a Swedish guy staying at the hostel so we wandered around the maerket with him and later on we did plan to take the bikes out to a political talk over at the uni campus (again thanks to Tobys kindness) but we ended up taking so long figuiring out the combination lock on the bikes that we missed the talk and just went for a short cycle around the neighbourhood around 10pm.
I'm gonna miss Gainsville and i'm gonna miss this hostel, Toby been very generous and everyone here is interested in what you're doing so it feels like a house more than a hostel but all good things must come to an end. Now, onto the news, we've decided that we're off to St. Augustine next which is on one of the Floridian coasts i'm led to believe and we're staying at, wait for it...

a pirate themed hostel!
Pretty strange i know, but it should be different and its supposed to be 'right in the heart of the city'. That either means its in a prime spot or its on gang war territory, time will tell. The only downfall being that to get there we need to take a greyhound back to Jacksonville but HOPEFULLY we won't have to spend another night there where they don't seem to understand the concept of affordable beds.

See All Gainesville photos here

Gainsville Croc' City

2007-02-22T02:52:00.000Z

This morning i woke up to the sound of nothing, no police sirens, no people shouting, no planes flying overhead, just the deafening sound of silence. beatiful.
Toby told us he had an out door shower as well as an in door bath, i figuired when would i next have the opportunity to bath in nature so i jumped at the chance of an outdoor shower. I could'nt believe how warm it was compared to Arctic Blast New York and so cold my face is melting off DC yet Toby kept saying how this was a cold winter for Florida!
The shower was a haven, it was an experience unto itself to shower with the sounds of birds nearby and the suns rays on your neck!
Toby mentioned he had some bikes and said we could borrow them (awesome) to get to the nearby alligator park (double awesome), obviously we took him up on the offer. He drew us a map and we headed off on our way.
At first i struggled some what to keep my balance as i've not owned a bike since i was young and i hadn't rode one so nigh on 6 years but eventually i got the hang of it. People were strangely friendly here and passing cyclists would greet you as they passed which another cool change.
The park was reasonably deep into the countryside but enough so that it was a very long bike ride away. We locked up our bikes and headed off on foot armed with our cameras and a bottle of water.
As soon as we got onto the path we saw a small group of tortoise or turtles (i don't really know which is which so feel free to correct me on this one)and this HUGE tree, i'm guessing it was an oak tree or something because it was really wide. This was a world apart from the national parks of England where at best you see deer or some oaks. Here even the Oaks were dfifferent, they had this moss growing on them, something called spanish moss i think which draped over the Oak and just blocked the sun right out.

A little further on and we got to this large lake, the water so blue its unreal and the suns rays were bouncing off creating this amazing view (and this is february).
There were a couple of crocodiles bobbing up and down below the surface but further still down the path we saw the main branch of their home. We got a little closer and walked this pier like structure around which giant alligators would swim, some of the more daring ones sized you up, got real close under the pier and started measuring their chances. The path was something like two metres wide at most and their was water either side with alligatores in both lakes, in fact there was one crocodile just laying smack bang in the centre of the path so that we couldn't get around it and deeper into the park. We got quite close and pondered whether he was tired, relaxing, sizing up potential prey, or just dead. At one point a small bird danced up and down its scaled back but the alligator made no move, perhaps he was waiting for a bigger pay off! Finally his tail flicked just enough so that we knew he was in fact alive and well, we took two photos for posterity and got out of there before the gator got any ideas.

The cycle back was a little more tiring considering we'd be walking instead of resring but we got back in good time for a show that night at the Wayward Council.
We only knew one band that was playing and that was Ghost Mice, yeah we'd seeb them not half a month ago but it was something to do and they did not dissapoint the second time round. The first band on was a quartet featuring no less than three acoustic guitarists and one violinist. They were pretty good for a support act but i wouldn't have brought a cd, second up were Ghost Mice and of course they were fantastic. This time round i knew some of the songs and even recalled some lyrics so it was even better than the first show. The last band on was a quartet of indie kid types with a white reggae influenced, dreaded vocalist.

I forgot to mention that since the start of the show a drunken man was wandering around telling everyone he was 155, he 'invaded' the stage again for the last bands acts and just stuck a beaded necklace on the singer and mumbled some line strangely enough. The last act were ok but nothing special and the vocalist had a fascination with reverb, for one song he stuck it on maximum and in that same song they had a really long winded rock inspired break down in the middle of an easy reggae sounding song which ruined the track. Overall a great day with quite a lot happening.

See All Gainesville photos here

The city that Winter forgot

2007-02-21T02:34:00.000Z

As we got off the greyhound i felt as though we'd somehow crossed a mine field of insecurity, missed busses, and blagging greyhound staff who passed you around likea parcel- we'd made it!
The sun was out and it felt like a heatwave compared to snowy DC. We wasted no time and quickly set off towards a hostel we weren't even sure existed any more.. then we eventually realised we'd gone a couple of hundred metres in the opposite direction! No matter, we just turned back eagerly with blind hope that weren't on a wild goose chase.
We'd walked around 2 miles now and we were in a very residential area when we saw one house with a small banner saying 'Zen Hostel', the legends were true!
We were greeted by a short senior man who didn't really look like he'd own a hippy hostel but we'd spent over 24 hours in limbo so we were
n't questioning anything any more. It turns out he, Toby, was the owner. He showed us around the place which looked more like a cave of culture than a hostel, a book shelf adorned all sorts relics from other cultures and there were lots of musical instruments and P.A. gear. He showed us to our room and after a short time adjusting and exploring our home for the next 3 days we headed off to see Gainsville had to offer. The firat thing that hit me was how low the buildings were, i couldnt see any 3 storey buildings, i'm not sure if there were even any 2 storey buildings in fact! Later on when we found out from Ron that the county ruled a while ago to put a cap on vertica; planning permission so as to stop the city becoming sky scraper central like more and more cities are becoming. Who is Ron you might ask? Well when we returned from looking around Gainsville ( we found a local ABC No Rio-esque place where a man gave us a flyer for a local show tommorrow) Toby introduced to his friend Ron who ended up kindly giving us a lift to reportedly Gainsville's best grocery store (yep another Americanism).
The shop was pretty cool, like Ron said it had a LOT of produce which was a nice change but we were on a tight budget so the freshest food we got was a melon for tommorows breakfast.

See All Gainesville photos here

Greyhound Nightmares, if only i could sleep (part two)

2007-02-18T20:16:00.000Z

Fayetteville, North Carolina

Pulling into the Greyhound station, the Bus driver informed us he was cutting the bus service here, and thereby skanking us. And he told us, the already delayed riders that he had no idea if there was another bus to get us to Jacksonville. Yeah, cheers. So we were already about two hours delayed. About an hour later a bus arrived heading Miami, and somehow, without us noticing, most of the people on our bus managed to blag their way onto this one., we tried, but by that time the bus was already filled up. The eight people left behind, including us, the suckers who were too slow to get on the other bus were told we'd have to wait until, WHEN? 08.15 Tomorrow Morning!?!?! Fuck. That's five hours away. So we were stuck in a cold uncomfortable bus station overnight, in a strange town. I managed to catch a few quick minutes of uncomfortable sleep, Dejan, who's bag is too big to make a comfortable pillow, wasn't so lucky. At 6am, i just decided to wait it out. 7am came and the sky went from pitch black to bright blue and sunny in less than 7 minutes. Bizarrely fast. I knew how long it was cos by this time i had taken to just watching the clock tick by like a non-existent teletext page, trying to read my 'Evasion' zine through tired and blurry eyes. The clock finally gave in to my staring contest and a bus arrived. I have never been more grateful and excited to be sitting on a cramped and stuffy bus, its diesel smell and crying kids felt like lavender and angelic harp music.

I managed to get a seat with loads of leg room, next to a lovely old lady, who didn't seem to mind that I fell into a long, deep sleep, drooling and probably muttering weird curses on Greyhound, Inc. Dejan got a seat with no leg room, next to a fat lady. I feel bad. I've had at least 20 minutes more sleep than him. I woke up somewhere in South Carolina, fell asleep again and woke up in Savannah, Georgia. I read the rest of my zine until we reached Florida.

Jacksonville, Florida

We arrived only eight hours late for our Gainesville connection. We assumed that the were regular buses. Nope, not so. Just one a day. The one that we were supposed to have got. The next one was 17 hours away. Ah Hell No! Dejan and I spent an hour just pacing, and thinking, and scheming half-assed plans, just trying to figure out what to do. Give up on Gainesville? get on the next bus to anywhere? The ticket agent told us there was a place just down the road which had cheap rooms for the night. Out on the streets, a friendly looking bum took one look at us and grunted. "ya'll hungry?, come with me". I would have, but we just wanted to drop our bags off somewhere. I thanked him anyway, then thought retrospectively about whether we made the right choice. I was hungry, all we had eaten was one bagel and a squashed grape jelly sandwich i had made. Ah well, we could have got robbed, he was very insistent.

The 'St. James Inn' seemed to be some sort of homeless shelter. Until a very rich looking hipster kid came out and asked us snottily what we wanted. A place to stay. Please. "nope can't help", "you know anywhere that can?", "nope". Rude bastard. Back at the greyhound station, we quickly ran out of quarters trying to ring around hotels trying to find cheap rooms. $140!, Sorry no. The best we got was a queen room for $79.09, it was three days sleeping budget. But we had had no sleep and nice hotel room was exactly what we needed. arriving there, the receptionist looked at us with disdain. We smelt like greyhound.

Wow, the room was plush. And whats that, we didn't have to share it a random Swedish dude, fancy that! It had a coffee maker and everything, which I attempted to use, failing miserably, spilling boiling hot weak as hell coffee all over the counter, then proceeding to electrocute myself on the switch. Great. I was tired , we had just spent too much money, i had spilt precious coffee everywhere and now there was electricity pulsing through my body. Nah i was ok, i think I broke the coffee machine though.

Out on the deserted Jacksonville streets, No food place in site. Just churches and building sites. Across the bridge we found mexican food, it was heaven. I passed out about to 21.30 and woke to about three alarms at 06.30. We had to make the greyhound by 09.10. I wasn't taking any chances. The quickest way there was by the skytrain, an automated monorail. It was 35 cents, but I managed to walk behind Dejan and get in free. "Trains come every 5 minutes" said the sign. 15 minutes later, I was getting anxious. Dejan suggested we run it. We'd never make it. Looking down the track, there was a train suspended about 20 feet from the ground just stuck there. Mechanics came and fixed it, and we jumped on, fearing it would get stuck again. It was actually the only journey in the past 24 hours that went ok. Arrived at the now familiar station, got on the bus to Gainesville. Finally, 24 hours late. But I was happy relieved abd whats more, it was warm out. 20 degrees. That's a big change coming form below zero. Maybe i'll get a tan.

Greyhound Nightmares, if only i could sleep (part one)

2007-02-18T05:30:00.000Z

Takoma Park, Washington DC

Saturday, a bank holiday weekend, "Presidents Day", a half assed holiday apparently. A chance for shops to put out cheesy adverts saying, "Four score and twenty ago, we bought this new whateverthehellwe'resellingyou for only 9.99, hurry hurry hurry". It was pretty bad. But just like all the people with a long weekend off work, we decided to travel. Trudging through DC's iced up roads to the Greyhound Station, huge queues were forimg at one of the gates. I made a quick atheist prayer to no one at all, "Please don't let it be our queue" It was.

For those of you lucky enough never to travel by Greyhound, which i guess will be most of you, they are not the ahem luxury of the National Express. In fact, your never guarenteed a spot on teh bus, as the ticket agents sell for a bus even if the bus is full. They will sell 96 tickets for a bus with only 55 seats. So yeah, you really might never get a bus on time. We got in the queue which was starting to snake round the buildingm, there was no way were getting on the bus. It was only 16.00, our bus wasn't til 17.30, we just had to wait and do nothing. At 17.15, the queue started moving, excellent, then it stopped, crap! Luckily Greyhound had decided it was worth their effort to put on a another bus, which filled to capacity, but hey we got it, and we were only 10 minutes behind schedule. Onward ho!

Richmond, Virginia

There was five minutes to make our connection in Richmond. We got to the back of the biggest queue, bound to be ours. Half an hour later, about three people managed to get on a bus, leaving another four or fifty still waiting. Some whining little girl started talking to us, asking about England and bragging about how she had been to Italy. Yeah, i've been twice. She couldn't have been more than 15. Hours past, we were gonna miss or next connection as well. The annoying girl revealed she was 22. NO WAY! How come she acted liek s little spoilt brat kid then. I made a mental note not to sit with her. That was, if we ever got on a bus.

At 22.15, a bus arrived and we barely made it on, sitting in front of a guy who spent two hours on his phone talking to someone abotu how many drugs he takes, and soemthign about his social worker.

Raleigh, North Carolina

Theres a famous song, by Bob Dylan or someone, but more importantly covered by Against Me!, which says "if i die in Raliegh, at least i will die free", looking out the window it didn't look liek the best place to die. Two gangsta acting fellas got on and sat next to us. I was drifting in and out of sleep. But these guys kept trying to be as loud as possible, oneof them kept repeating. "Attention Greyhound Customers, there is an Insane Crip on board this bus, I'm an INSANE CRIP". It was pretty difficult to sleep with taht on, so i shoved some loud music in my ears.

More Tommorrow, and trust me, it gets worse, and longer. But better, eventually. Or does it? yes it does.

Space- the final frontier?

2007-02-14T04:39:00.000Z

Today, we went back to the Smithsonian Insitute, this time to explore the museum of air and space travel (or something to that effect). Some snow had settled from last night(and a small volume of constant snow that followed us all day today) making the short walk from the Metro to the museum seem like a trek.
The first section we explored was an area dedicated to forces and gravity with lots of pushy/pully hands-on activities (always good lol) for us to mess around with. Tim found a set of scales there so we weighed ourselves, turns out tim weighs like .9lbs less than me, we were both around 156lbs or something meaning i now weighed 70kg and had put on 8kg thanks to my rubbish diet of take outs, far too many peanut butter sandwhiches and too much Ramen Noodles.
There were lots of planes and space shuttles hanging off the ceilings so you were surrounded by exhibits and everywhere you looked you'd see something new. One of my favourite exhibits was the extensive collection of space and flight suits including the suit Yurri Gagarin wore. We found this neat little flight landing simulator which is essentially a dumbed down version of a landing simulator, pretty self explanatory but it was a fantastic highlight for me.
We saw an iMax 3D cinema within the museum where (for around $8) you can witness the moon landing, an exploration of mars, a fighter pilots journery through the skys, or a fourth option that escapes my memory in amazing realism and 3d. We threw our budget out the window from that moment on and bought two tickets for the 3:05 showing of the moon landing, giving us around another hour of museum time before the show.
As you enter the show they give you a cheesy looking pair of 3d glasses as you enter what essentially looks like a conventional cinema. For curiositys sakes i watched the start of the movie without the glasses on to see what the picture truly looks like, and its like double vision, theres two screens showing at the same time a few inches out of allignment with each other. With the glasses on the picture was amazing, you could see the astronauts walk right up to your face (i mean off the screen and inches from your face) and as they walked away, the gravel from under their feet looked like it was gonna hit you in the face- it even appears to go through you.
As the movie goes on (its some where around 40 minutes long) you get more and more sub merged into believing you're actually there because its that realistic and as the atronauts come back to you you half expect to see your reflection in their visor! The whole experience left us both (and most of the others around us, im imagine) jaw dropped, awed! It was truly unlike any film i've ever seen.
After seeing some more exhibits we went to the Simulation centre where (again for around $8) you can feel whats its like to be in a racing car, fighter plane, and i think there was a 3rd one. You also get the choice of being a passenger or in an interactive experience, and naturally we unanamimously chose to try an interactive fighter jet ride where one of us is the pilot and the others a gunner. I was the gunner and Tim was the pilot as neither of us trusted me not to crash the plane (*gloat* despite my earlier 'skillz' on the landing simulator *gloat* ).
When you're next in line on the simulator they give you both a short instructional talk on how to use your respective controls and then you have a few test runs on the screen before you try the simulator which is capable of doing barrel rolls and other crazy stuff. On the practise runs we got a best of 13 planes downed and so we were reasonably confidant when we entered the simulator. We then got strapped down and left to it for 4 or so minutes. The simulator was a world apart, i mean have you ever tried to aim at a target when you're upside down and the target is moving all over the place?! Needless to say we didnt perform half as good as the test runs, we got 3 kills on that hehe and when the timer started counting down we just kept messing around with the barrel rolls and making ourselves nearly sick with dizziness.
While we were waiting to get on we could hear the pair before us giggling so hard but i'm sure we were way louder with our maniac cackling, screams of 'oh my god, this is insane' and 'right, NO THE OTHER RIGHT'. Hands down it was the most fun i've had in a long long time!
Throughout the day i kept hearing rattling in my pocket and i couldnt work out what it was, untill some time in the museum when i found it was my camera rattling because 3 of the 4 screws holding it together were lost. It was all still together but sometime inside rattled ominously and gently when i put it in my pocket so i'll have to find a hardware or camera shop to get replacement screws and ease my mind tommorrow.
We've booked 3 more nights as we still have lots more of the Smithsonian institute we want to explore, so expect more of the same in our next few blogs.
Thats all folks
p.s. now do as Tim says and start commenting, if nothing else we'll know we're not the only ones reading this. Tell us what you think, tell us about your day, heck we dont care, you can post what you like!

See All Washington DC photos here

Washington and Greyhound

2007-02-13T15:48:00.000Z

Takoma Park, Washington DC

The Greyhound journey was quick and easy. Perhaps I'll Have to go on a longer Journey to ger a taste of life "riding the dog". I counted six states that the bus passed through. Leaving the fake looking skyline of New York behind heading into the industrial plants of New Jersey, then into the frozen rivers and farmlands of Pennsylvania and Delawere, before stopping at silver spring Maryland. No fried chicken place or any halal here. Then onto DC. We carried our packs to Union Station, not really knowing whether it was a bus or a train we had to catch. The metro turned out to be a really fast posh subway. The seat were comfy and the ride smooth. A stark contrast from the crazy ventricles of New York Transit, we arrived at Takoma Station and realised that we were only one stop away from Siver Spring, the first greyhound stop. DC is tiny. So small that just walking around the town for two minutes, you end up crossing a state line into Maryland.

The town feels like a hippy kinda place, lots of shops gave me this impression, Bead Shops, Organic Health Food and even a Ecologically freindly pet shop. It was bizarre. The hostel kinda reflects this. A relaxed place, cool art and graffiti adorn the walls, and 70's rock plays 24 hours a day. Free internet as well, is a big plus. This is very much an anti-war house. Anti Bush posters and stickers everywhere, and the various graffiti and post it messages that people have left cotain a lot of political sentiment. Its a hell of a lot friendlier than New York, people here are actually interested in what you have to say. We were up late one night chatting to a UN of hostel stayers. A lady from Missouri, a french student, a chinese guy, a monte-negro born Chicago resident and a posh tory english gapper. We spoke about everything Politics, health care, the war, travelling. mIt was refeshing to actually have people be interested in what you had to say.

Yesterday we did all the typical touristy stuff. White House, Lincoln memorial, Clinton Monuement. I didn't see the president. But a Blockade of screaming sirens and tinted black windows drove past perhaps containing the world No.1 murderer or at least one of his henchmen. We took a look around the Smithsonian Musuem of Natural History, all the musuem are free, and huge, so we'll be looking round some more today.

See All Washington DC photos here

Big NYC Update

2007-02-12T05:30:00.000Z

Ok, so here the big update. Following on from the last big one. I know we keep doing this, doing little blog posts, quickly mentioning what were doing, followed by repeating it in a long drawn out style. I'm not gonna apologize, I like to write reams. So here goes, going back a couple of days.

The third day in New York, A Sunday, we started planning and doing more touristy stuff. We bought a $24 metrocard to get us around on the subway. I had now worked out the seemingly impossible express/local four track system in NYC. I hadn't really given Dejan a chance to work it out, cos i see things and immediately and rush of to do them, leaving Dejan, without trying to speak for him, a bit lost. We headed on the E train to the World Trade Centre site, not really knowing what to expect. What we found was the worlds most famous building site. Two massive block wide holes in the ground, and not really any clue of what stood before, save for some damage in the buildings. Around the corner there was a memorial museum, which was $10 recommended donation for the entry. I guiltily handed over a couple of dollars. The cashier made sure to flash the small amount I could afford to donate on the till screen for everyone to see. The memorial was pretty eerie, but fascinating in a morbid kind of way, hearing new accounts from people directly involved in it. A load of soldiers were arriving in bus loads, obviously the US Military are sending them to the site to gain some sort of "inspiration" from a place where Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan didn't attack, and where no Palestinian, no Cuban, no North Korean ever tried to hurt a civilian. After some quiet awkward time to think, we headed to Wall Street then back up to our hostel.

That night we did ones of thongs that, Ben, the guy from the gig told us about. We headed to a place called the Upright Citizens Brigade, a theatre next to a supermarket. We had no idea what to expect. All we knew is that it was comedy. There were two showings. 7.30 and 9.30. The first one was $10, but the second ones was free. But the only way to guarantee a place was to start queuing about 6.30. Oh and I forgot to mention, this was the night the weather pattern that the news was calling "Artic blast" set in, cold winds -7 degrees in temperature. After about an hour of waiting, sitting on milkcrates shivering, the ticket lady came out to tell us the news. the 9.30 had been cancelled, but due to the cold, all the cheapskates waiting for the free show, could come into the the 7.30 show for free. It was a decent but still amateurish attempt at "who's line is it anyway" improvised sketches. But for what it was, it made me laugh and was worth the nothing we paid for it.

Monday, time for some record shopping, heading down to Greenwich, we wandered around about five records shops until we found the one we were looking for, Generation Records, it had pretty much every record that I wanted. Yet due to my commitment to downloading music for free, I only bought two second hand records, coming to less than $10. It was an excellent shop. After spending the best part of a few hours there, we took a look at some other shops, including a fantastic book shop with the name, Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Books, it had a great selection of alternative books marked down from the publishers price.

That night, with no gigs or shows to see, we headed to Times Square and watched Children of Men at multiplex cinema that was about ten stories high, and to get to each screen you had to take a 20 minute series of escalators. Children of Men, incidentally is an excellent movie.

Tuesday was time for a tour of New York's punk venues, In the day time we tried to find C-Squat, Choking Victims/Leftover Crack home and venue, we failed and went for Mexican food. After that we found ABC No Rio, it was cold and creaky inside, but the walls with art and graffiti. We explored the zine library and talked to the random people who were hanging around. The conversation was fascinating to hear, we heard a Jewish and a black punk argue out their views on white power music and whether it should be allowed to be sold legitimately. The black guy was saying it was no big deal, the Jew was getting really passionate about the fact that Nazis should have no place in society, he was getting strung out trying to get some sense in this other punk.

Checking out of the hostel in the morning, we headed to a hostel we had scribbled on a scrap of paper. It was in a part of Brooklyn that no one seemed to be able to pinpoint. We asked the subway station. "Whipple Street? WHIPPLE STREET?!", he shrieked in a puzzled New York accent. He checked his map, then checked it again, then read out a series of trains and stops. In one ear, out the other. When we got onto the platform, an announcement came over the loudspeaker. "The pair going to Whipple Street should ignore my earlier instructions" he then read out another complicated list of instructions.

We took the train to where we thought the hostel was supposed to be, walking around with our massive backpacks, we looked a picture, standing out completely. Finally finding the street, we walked up and down. Just a few empty lots and an apartment block, and a hell of lot of broken glass, and even a pair of abandoned boots. Ok, so there was no hostel on Whipple street. Our first big wrong turn, ah well. I think Dejan was more annoyed because his pack is heavier and bulkier than mine, and it was quite settled on his back yet. After a 10 minute breather it was time for the back up plan. Another random scrawled address. Back into and straight back out of Manhattan we arrived in another, much nicer part of Brooklyn. We found the address, just a doorway, a wide eyed and excited man approached, "Welcome, welcome to AWESOME bed and breakfast". Asking about the price, we quickly backed out the door, $72 per person per night, almost triple our budget. Back on the road then. We came across a tourist office staffed by three incredibly eager volunteer old ladies. Whilst we took advantage of the free Internet they had whilst they rang around every YMCA they could think of. In the end we decided to go back to Manhattan. We ended up at the Hosteling International New York. It is apparently the biggest hostel in the world, which was nice. Didn't seem to massive though. That night we watched the hostel entertainment, a pretty dire parade of stand up comedians. The quality went from fairly amusing to fucking terrible. I would have preferred to watch Jimmy Car. And its not often I'd say that.

Thursday, back to Brooklyn, only this time without backpacks. Arriving at Brooklyn Museum, we took full advantage of the student discounts. There was an exhibit on French and French inspired American Impressionist paintings. Sounds boring eh? Actually there were a few absolutely amazing paintings, including this one, called, "End of the working day" by Jules-Adolphe-Aimé-Louis Breton. Long name, great pictures.

Friday was back to Brooklyn again, this time to get some photos of Manhattan from Brooklyn Heights. Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, a view that can only be described.

Saturday was the last full day in New York, using the last of our Metrocards we went down to 14th and 3rd ave to meet my Cousin, who was here for the weekend. It was good to see a familiar face. He took us in a Cab across New York with his girlfriend. I can't believe we almost left New York without taking one. That night was.....yep. you've guessed it. Back to Brooklyn, this time for another gig. I had been looking forward to this one for ages. Ghost Mice and Evan Greer. Acoustic Folk-Punk. The gig was in some gallery or squat or something, it was full of Anarchists, Hippies and Vegans. There certainly was an air about the place, i mean smell. It was an excellent gig, and many strings were broken. My favourite moment was when Evan Greer broke a string, took a time out to quickly replace it, only to come back and break it again. The crowd demanded he sing unaccompanied, and we all clapped and made makeshift percussion to keep the rhythm going.Did i mention the gig was completely unplugged. I left with my pockets full of interesting zines to read.

Last day, Micheal Stipe once said, "leaving New York, never easy", he was wrong. Its pretty easy. Get on the 1 Train, hope onto the 2 or 3 express train, get of at 42nd street-Times Square, walk to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, buy a greyhound ticket, get on the greyhound. Stipe, your wrong.

So there was New York, now onto Washington DC and our first Greyhound Ride.

Please comment our entries, is nice to hear from a friend. Tell us about your day, or whatever.

See all New York Photos Here

Brooklyn bound...

2007-02-11T14:33:00.000Z

Whats been happening lately? Well we tried to get a hostel in brooklyn last thursday i think it was, so off we went armed with a short list of hostels and a vague map. Turns out one place we had listed isn't even a hostel any more, the place looked more like a derelict building despite still being on hostels.com's available list. In fact Brooklyn had NO WHERE for us to stay! Another place we had listed was a B&B that was somewhere like $100 PER NIGHT so after exhausting the info at a local tourist office we eventually limped back to Manhattan, this time to a new hostel with turned out to be way better for no real price differencem so things turned out ok in the end. Last night we saw a Earth First (hippy pro animal, vegan group) benefit gig which was a highlight so far. If you're ever bored and looking for new music i seriously suggest searching the net for Evan Greer or The Ghost Mice for some great acoustic folkyness.
Alright, we're being kicked out of the hostel soon and i still havent had breakfast so thats all folks.

See all New York Photos Here

Cereal Killers

2007-02-06T19:06:00.000Z

Still pretty hectic, specially now we have the 'Artic Blast' hehe. We've just added some more photos, and finally some of me (proof i am still alive and that tims has in fact not kidnapped me- is that ok Tim? hehe). Ah yes Lucky Charms, the strongest, sweetest breakfast cerea known to man, just the kick up the butt you need to wake you up morning after morning. Paul, if you're reading this we also tried Mountain Dew- to those who haven't yet succled upon its green teet its somewhat like 7up but with half a kg of sugar thrown just cos they can!

See all New York Photos Here

The First Three Days

2007-02-06T17:57:00.000Z

I know we've already said a little bit about the first few days but heres a more in depth thing.

Day three and its seems like england was just a distant memory. New York has so far been nothing like I imagined. Sure, the scenery is how it is on TV. Tall Growths of concrete everywhere, steam rising out from the ground, and yellow cabs trying their best to run you over. We spent the jetlagged first two days walking for miles, just taking everything in. The grid system here, means there was no way we could get two far lost. Having not slept for more than three hours in sixty caused us to hardly even register that the building we had just floated past was the Empire State Building. Despite New York being so densely populated, there were whole areas we walked in which were deserted. I only saw one other person in the whole meatpacking district. Ok this was at night, but still it was an eerily graffitied ghost town, one that smelt heavily of fish.

Working out how to cross roads safely was a whole new experience, one that i doubt even Alvin Stardust could help us with. Unlike London were you just run between backed up vechiles stuck in traffic, here, you just run and hope for the best, even if the light says its safe to walk, you still have cars turning into you. Pissing it down, with freezing rain, we wandered into Times Square, the lights burnt so much that the temperature in that block must be a couple of degrees warmer than the icy air of the rest of the city. Cold and wet, dragging sodden shoes back to the hostel, it felt like midnight, but it had only hit seven. My chest started feeling liek it was sandwiched between two very sharp things, I think I pulled a muscle. All I could do was lay back in the bottom bunk and try not to move, maybe take some paracetemol.

Somewhere during the night there was a rattling on the door of out otherwise empty six bedded dorm. A small man poked his head in the door, at first glance he looked like a friend of ours from leicester, and i was about to ask him why he had grown a beard. It took me a second to realise where I actually was, by then the man had seen us and left. He came back again much later and climbed into a bed. When morning came and I had lifted myself painfully out of bed, he woke, and again, left straight away. He must have been scared of us or something.

We had our first subway experience, and i was not dissapointed. It was fast, fun, and noisy as hell. Getting off at Central Park, Dejan and I wandered around, me cursing the pain in my chest. Dejan in his own prediciment. He decided seeing the sunshine, to go out in just a hoodie, despite my warnings and offers to go back and get something warmer on, he was freezing. We walked for hours trying to find interesting things. We ended up in the poshest part, to us anyway, of town not really knowing what we were doing there amongst the Designer botiques. We kept walking until we found a scary looking neighborhood were we knew we could afford stuff. I had taken another lot of Painkillers to enable me to actually walk without clutching my chest like a heart attack victim, it helped, but I was left feeling slightly knocked out buy the strength of them. So there we were, walking through the hispanic part of town, me all drugged up and unalert. Dejan almost going blue. We somehow made it back to the hostel.

That night we found a gig, well we wanted to go to it, but we couldn't find it. Walking up and down for ages, eventually a curtain appeared and people who looked like us started queueing. One of the bands summed it up as looking like a speakeasy. The queue ran past a homeless drop-in centre, looking inside there was another queue, mirroring ours, except there was full of sorry looking beaten down men and woman queuing for medical assistance. They would probabaly be able to hear our show through the walls.

We had our ID's checked and out hands marked with big black X's, something i had expected but never experienced. American drinking laws being as crazy as they are. We chatted with a guy next to us about where to go and what to see, and he pulled out a big sheet of paper and started writing down loads of addresses of venues, gigs and record shops. It was great, now we had some relevant direction to go with on this trip. The bands playing were as follows, The Arsons, The Ergs, Zolof (the Rock and Roll Destroyer) and The Loved ones. I had vaguely heard of two of them. The Ergs turned out to be fantastic, so i bought a shirt.

Zolof were pretty good though, with females vocals halfways between something beautiful and the shouty raspiness of This is my fist. The loved ones where good as well, and had a bassist who, despite his small size, tackled any drunk punter who tried to get on the stage. It was a great look at the NYC punk scene. After the show we wandered the 10 Blocks back to the Chelsea Internation Hostel, where we were staying, and after chatting to some rich australians who were sharing with us, we crashed out.

I'll update again soon with whats happened in the past few days, we're heading down to ABC no Rio, a famous DIY punk venue, and C - Squat, a not so famous piece of shit house.

See all New York Photos Here

so far

2007-02-05T03:19:00.000Z

Hey, so far we've seen the italian quarter, the rich bastard quarter, a gig, and just now a Whose Line-esque improv comedy nthing-who's complaing,it was free!

Last night, we went to a punk gig, at a place called rebel, after getting our hands marks with x's to show we couldn't drink, we got a bunch of tips of where to go and see. The bill was a sfollows, The Arsons, The Ergs, Zolof (the rock and roll destroyer) and The Loved ones. The Ergs in particular put on an amazing show while Zolof were plain quirky!

Despite the great views, the bands, etc etc my highlight was simply the 99c hotdogs we found after spending almost an eternity in the rich part of town while trying to find obscure record shops- there's just something special about cheap food!
I think i better leave it there (exclamation mark), till next time
Zolof

See all New York Photos Here

Photos.

2007-02-05T03:13:00.000Z

Got the first lot of photos. No time to tell the storys behind them, but ah well.

See all New York Photos Here

We're Here

2007-02-03T09:25:00.000Z

Manhattan, New York

Well, we're here, in one piece, although not quite in my case, we've spent the last 24 hours wandering up and down manhattan in a jetlagged haze. We've walked through central park, eaten bagels, lots of bagels and been blinded by times sqaure in the rain. But we've barely started doing anything yet. I must have pulled a muscle in my chest, cos i've been in quite a lot of pain, and subsequently just dizziness after taking paracetemol. But all is well, and we gotta decide what to do this afternoon.

See all New York Photos Here

Off

2007-02-01T20:27:00.000Z

Leicester, UK

In about six hours we'll be leaving for heathrow. We'll be arriving in NYC about 5pm UK time, ready for lunch in new york. Thank You all for last night, and putting up wth my drunken and confusing state. Saying goodbye was hard, its getting even harder with each new person to talk to. Make sure you email us any pictures you t0ok last night. I remember a lot of flashes, but thats about it.

See you all in the summer.

A pox of chickens and other concerns...

2007-01-29T00:47:00.000Z

Rightie, new post time i reckon. I've been laying low for the last few days because i caught chicken pox out of no where and had to call in sick and miss my whole last week at work hehe.
The first night felt like i had a combination of hot pokers prodding me without puase and been coated in itching powder for 24 hours so i didn't get a wink of sleep.
I've gotten all my documents, tickets, paperwork packed, aswell as the big backpack so i've not got to worry about that any longer. All thats left is to sort out my on board 'day pack' and eventually pack away my drum kit so thats it safe, which is something i'm eternally putting off it seems.

Costs

2007-01-24T15:30:00.000Z

Leicester, UK

Going abroad for so long is never cheap, as the trip gets closer and closer the expenses we have incurred are going up and up. I have almost spent £2000 on this trip and i haven't even left the ground or had expensive tourist food yet. Heres a quick run down on just my costs so far.

Flights: £893
Insuarance: £155
Vaccinations: £130
Pre Booked Treks/Activities: £525
Hostel: £40
Bag/Clothes/etc: £200

I was prepared for many of these costs, but not for the price I am supposed to pay for a tiny little pill to be taken daily. Malaria tablets, pretty necessary for our south american leg of the journey. Although the main places we want to visit are not the worst malaria hotspots, i don't think i'd want to take the risk.

We have had no end of trouble trying to work out which drugs we should be taking. Dejan was told on different occasions by different healthcare professionals that; we wouldnt need any, it changes every month and they had no idea what we'd need at the time, to take 'this' one, to 'take' that one.

My nurse in the end told me most of that was bollocks, and prescribed me a drug called 'Malarone', she told me it was a "little bit more expensive" than the other drug which is called "mefloquine". It turned out that she was lying. Malarone is fuck of a lot more expensive, in fact i would need at least £175 quid to pay for the correct dosage, as each pill costs £2.50! This is due to GSK holding a patent on the drug. Excellent! So corporate greed keeps the costs of a drug which could save million of lives, out of the hand of the poorest citizens who most need it. And just about out of the hands of me.

Mefloquine however, only cost Dejan around £6 for the whole dosage. The one problem being according to wikipedia, "It is known to cause severe depression, anxiety, paranoia, nightmares, insomnia, seizures, peripheral motor-sensory neuropathy,^[2] vestibular (balance) damage and central nervous system problems......Central nervous system events occur in up to 25% of people taking Lariam, such as dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams.[5] In 2002 the word "suicide" was added to the official product label, though proof of causation has not been established."

Excellent, we have to choose between crippling costs or the possibilty of having permanant mental illness!

Which one will we choose?

Tune in next week to find out......

Links:
Laurences Malaria Drug Guide

Last minute preperations

2007-01-22T23:52:00.000Z

After numerous death threats from Tim and trying to work out this 'internet' thing i've finally worked out how to log in and post.
ALRIGHTY, news, erm. Looks like we've finally gotten everything we need now including all those annoying little things you realise you've forgotten just as you step off the plane We're now at the stage of getting all our stuff packed, co ordinating our luggage so we don't bring stuff we can share, and have all our documents sorted...
What else? ah yeah, tim's been a right pain, mutter mutter, waking me up at all hours for a nappy change, mutter mutter, teething, you name it hehe
Right, i better get back to it!

The Plan

2007-01-19T13:35:00.000Z

Leicester, England

We leave Heathrow at 9am GMT on Friday 2nd February arriving at New York Newarke airport at midday New York time. I'll immediately buy coffee and bagels, becuase thats where my priorities lie. We have from that day til the 29th of April to aimlessly take in as much of america as possible. I want to Visit Chicago and Minneapolis, i don't know why, it'll also be absolutely freezing then. I realised that the South by Southwest Music festival (SXSW) will be on in march in Austin, Texas. So hopefully we can go down to Texas to catch some bands. If we have time I would personally love to go to Vancouver. I went there once as a kid, and remember it being great. But the finishing point is the San Francisco Bay Area.

We take a plane from SF to Lima, Peru. Spending a few days in Lima before flying to Cuzco, to do the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. After that we are free to bum around south america, taking in Bolivia and Lake Titicaca. The Igassu Falls in Argentina and then Brazil, before flying home on the 27th June. I realised i've just condensed half a year into two paragraphs. But ah well. You'll be hearing nothing else for the next five months.

Hopefully Dejan will work out how to post on here, and will begin to tell you of how i'm unorganised and how much pain he's been through just to get me to think about the trip. Ah well.

Welcome.......mortals

2007-01-17T13:59:00.000Z

Leicester, UK.

Hey there, I probably know you.

Over the coming weeks and months this lowly page of not much at the moment will tranform into an exciting collage of travel adventures, stories, photographs and pleas for money. It will become a beautiful yet troubled butterfly after an ugly coocoon maggot stage.

So onwards to the Plan....