Seen so much

Boquete, Panama

2006-06-07T10:00:00.000+10:00

Hey!

Already things have moved quickly from El Valle, Panama to arriving the day before yesterday here in Boquete, Panama where the rainy season is in full swing, so it's wet as and a $2 brolly was a wise purchase.

I've made the mistake of easting at a dodgy restaurante with food that was barely even warm and spent the last 24 hours making a few long distance calls on the porcelain telephone. So, things are looking back up, but I'm gradually gathering the strength back to get into the local cuisine which is cheap as chips, and a whole meal with main, drink and coffee afterwards will set you back around U$3 - 4 which is even cheaper than back home in Brisbane.

Yesterday was a trek through the Boquete jungle to see brightly coloured butterflies and strange bugs, then howler monkeys up above as they cruised from branch to branch with little babies in tow. The rain started about an hour into hiking and it just got heavier to the point where my shoes were filled with water and mud, and nothing could get any wetter, but my trusty jacket Big John pulled his weight and proved a worthwhile companion, particularly to keeping the camera dry, good thing I didn't follow through in binning it in Lima when the thought crossed my mind. There are parts where I could see the Lost writers getting their inspiration, as I'd walk alongside a pipe the weaved through foliage and near huge ancient trees and then a large turn valve would appear out of the jungle next to the river which was a surreal invasion of man made object integrated deep within the jungle. On the way up we crossed a creek at many points, and the rain comes down so hard and heavy here in Central America that the thunder makes an almost explosion like sound that you don't hear back home, and it sounds the world is going to end. So, the creek was now a raging torrent on the way down that required a little ingenuity to figure out how to cross the waters which could easily drag you ever the rocks, and the way my stomach was feeling at the time, the less tumbling over rocks, the better.

So tomorrow, it's leaving time for the island retreat of Bocas Del Toro in Panama which I understand is now quite touristy and getting all sorts resorts and commercial attachments on the main island, but the surrounding spots are supposed to still harbour some nice spots.

So, until then, take it easy. Adam

El Valle, Panama

2006-06-07T08:54:00.000+10:00

Hey!

Well Panama City was so much fun seeing the place and catching up with Vance and having so much to catch-up on. I never knew where the rime from Rio to Lima went, and then the time in Panama seemed to dissapear just as fast, so then it was on to make my way through Panama stopping briefly at Santiago and David for transfers on my way to Ell Valle.

I've met up some people I'll be travelling throughout Central America with, and it's me one and other guy who's around 55 and I'm sharing a room with him, so Dan hes got big shoes to fill mate! The rest are four girls ranging from 25 - 35, so all pretty close knit and havent quite seen the sights of Panama, as I've have nearly 2 weeks to kick back and do it all at a very leisurely pace which was awesome and the break I needed. This time Im catching everything from cabs, buses and ferry's to get where we have to be, which is good and gives you a bit of freedom to go with the group, or own your own without the roll calls, and meet them up at a later town which is neat.

We arrived in El Valle, and its a sleepy little Panamanian town inside a Volcano crater, with not much to do but hike the surrounding mountains, oh and of course go to the local discotech! After doing a low key hike of La India Dormida and a swim in the waterfalls, I treked down the road to check out the discotech. It felt like highschool all over again, with everyone sitting around waiting for everyone else to shake their latin butts to the Regaton and Merengue grooves pumping throughout the place, and I mean pumping where you could head the corregated iron roof on the huge big shed rattling ALL NIGHT! The local latin lads rocked up tanked and barely able to stand, but it didnt stop them taking the lead to show the gringas a move or two on the sparsely populated dancefloor. Nothing in Central America is ever subtle, and that included the moves of the latin guys on the ladies, and the hands were exploring the ladies faster than you can say teen steam Rich D! :-) Before they knew it they'd scared the ladies off back onto their seats to remain wall flowers, and these poor hapless latino guys where left scratching their heads wondering what they did wrong. Aside from their total lack of tact with gringas, they were nice guys who constantly shouted the table beers, and for 50c a stubby and with $1 Cuba Libres I'd be doing the same. Monica and Rachel, the Zouk moves were fresh in my head still after all this time, but Merengae and salsa are the only dances anyone recognises in South and Central America, with Regaton coming in to be the closest relative of Zouk, but absolutely no one dances Lambada here ANYWHERE! Where in Costa Rica, Nicuragua, Homdurus, Guatemala or Mexico would you find a Lambada club?

Anyhow, keep on truckin. Adam

Life in Panama City

2006-06-07T08:47:00.000+10:00

Hey!

I've been keeping an online travel diary with lots of photos too, its at http://www.travelpod.com/members/bigjohn

Hope everything is going well in Oz, I hear everthing is pretty dry and it's getting chilly there, which is the opposite to Panama which is very wet and with a tropical humid feel which comes with the rainy season.

So, Panama has been great, I've been up to so much, it's hard to know where to start but I'll try to fill you in as best as I can.

I've been hanging out with, Vance every second day or so and he was a top tour guide to take me here, there and everywhere around the place, from the old city ruins, to a fort town in the Carribean. We went out to the Gatun locks with Vance on the Carribean side of Panama and saw great big ships as high as 10 storie office towers (at least) pass through the locks and raise up above your head, it's a must see, but I just don't think photos do it justice.

Afterwards we headed out to the Carribean to the old fort town of Portabelo to look around at the ruins before catching a boat to Isla Grande for a swim in the turqouise waters and laze on the nice beach and a walk around the island to find modern ruins of a tourist has-been resort, with part of a roof missing and signs of abandonment all around, it's easy to see how a restoration of the site could make the area come alive and you'd make a mint. The people were friendly, with them mostly speaking Panamanian Spanish or a Jamaican sounding tongue as you'd pass by, and they'd be content to go about their business as their dogs followed us around in the search of food, or just a good walk which they hadn't had in a while. Up here, there's a big following of the black Jesus with churches dedicated to it, and it's funny to see a white Jesus statue with no African features painted black, and they have a shrine out in the water with waves crashing up on it. It was around here that one of the dogs found a Pringles container to drag around and it thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. The town center had a MacDonalds play center sitting there that the kids would use, but there's no sign that there was ever a MacDonalds there to begin with, so it's just another one of those funny things you see throughout South and Central America.

One of the first things I did in Panama city was go out to Casco Veijo and looked at the French architecture that the French canal workers settled in their time here, before they got basically wiped out by the Malaria, Degue and Yellow fever that was around these parts. I passed through San Filipo on the way there, and it's the real ghetto area around here, which is as rough as it gets, and the worst I've seen, even worse than Bolivia and Peru, but it's just the basic way that some people like around here, were sorting scrap metal is their day job and guarding cars is how they get by. In saying that it's very colourful and there's modern day ruins of houses that copt a bombing or something amongst the rest of the houses and apartments which are barely standing, and others which just need a paint job and maintenance. The history is abundant everywhere here, and that's especially in the Canal.

Another morning, I went out to the National Metropolitan Park where you can hike a series of different trails taking in the wildlife and getting a glimse of Tucans, 2 toed sloths, leaf cutter ants, monkeys and other animals. I only managed to see the leaf cutter ants, and had a monkey bark at me when I got deep into the jungle, and I saw something scurry off a couple times but I wasn't sure what it was, but it walked on four legs and was a redish brown colour. The rest of the time I'd see brightly coloured lizards and birds, an alligator and some tortoises. But I seemed to go off the track at some point and ended up hiking a path that took me a good 90 minutes with no break, and it turned out it wasn't even on the map, so at least I got to go off the beaten track, and there where moments where I wasn't sure where to go next until I spotted the next marker hanging off a tree branch. The whole time I never saw another person, as it's the low season here and you're lucky to see anyone else anyhow, but only when I stuck to the road on the way back did I pass by one other person, so at least I didn't have to deal with crowds this time and the views of Panama City through the jungle where it was a bit surreal at times.

Another spot I visited was Isla Taboga on the Pacific side, where I went yesterday. Catching the boat was tricky, as the conversation went a bit like. 'Can I buy a boat ticket to Isla de la flores' 'You've missed the boat' 'What time do I come back tomorrow' 'Come back for 8.30am' 'Ok 8.30am is it' 'Yes, now do you want to buy a ticket for today or tomorrow' 'I thought the boat had left, that's why I was coming back tomorrow' 'No, it's here, but did you want a ticket for tomorrow?' 'But you said it left, ok today please, that's why I caught a cab out here' Mandatory eye roll because she has to do work and print up a ticket for me now, and I got on the boat.

So, Taboga is a nice island with a sandbar that joins it to another smaller nearby island until the high tide cuts off the natural bridge between the two. I got the feeling that Gringo's aren't the most favoured even though they'd pump a considerable amount of money into the island, as the place known as 'the friendly island' was far from friendly and everyone seemed to have a scowl on their face, even more so than Panama city. I soon learnt that the island harbours a fair amount of anti-American sentiment (more so than Panama City) for many reasons, but one was that the Americans used to use one side of the island for artillery target practice, and there are a heap of unexploded munitions over that side of the island. So, if you're sick of searching for bomb casings which can be found around the place, you can hike to Cerro de la Cruz which is a Crusafix at the top of a hill, but I took the wrong way going up a winding dirt road that never seemed to end as lizards, snakes and birds dashed off the path as I walked along, until heading back to town. Then I went in search of the bunkers that the US Military had on the island, and I didn't find them either, but just a burning pile of rubbish. However walking around the forest, I managed to spot a poison dart frog with it's brilliant green markings on it's black body, as it jumped around catching sand flies on nearby plants. Some of these frogs and said to be very poisonous, with their bright colours servings as a warning signal to other animals, but they make for some great shots.

Finally, I manageed to catch a short flight out to the Pearl Islands where Survivor is filmed on the uninhabited islands in the Pacific, and Isla Contadora is the main one. They are the picture perfect tropical islands with white sand and turquoise waters and with endless palms. Very similar to the Carribean with beach shacks and locals in hammocks everywhere who live life just like you see it on TV, one day at a time. The beaches on Contadora are those to provide a true island retreat and for a main tourist island with a few hotels around to stay the night, its unbelievably quite and relaxes, with non of the chaos that popular spots with their increases crowds, celebrities and drink prices often harbour.

Some interesting facts about Panama that I've learnt and have noticed around the place are thing like:

- It's not uncommon for people to have a servant, houseboy or maide who cleans and does the 'unpleasant' work for them, and no one pumps their own gas, they'll even pay someone walking on the sidewalk $1 to pump it for them, everyone is really lazy from middle class and up.

- Panamanians will go to the beach with their nice car, get out on the sand in their bathing suits, but never go in the water, but if there's a pool, they'll all be in it, as swimming in the sea is known as dirty, but a pool which can be a soup of the best bits of everyone is ok!

- Panamnians think it's a crime that they have to work and show a definite resentment to you when you ask something of them, like your change back!

- Because your white, you have money - end of story! So, the cabbies will try to charge you as much as they can for a particular zone, I found asking the price to agree on it only helped in raising it. Learn the going rates and just give them the money with no questions, if youre lucky you get change.

- Police are not opposed to bribes, and if or when a cop books you on something and the hat comes off, it's $5 in the hat and you're on your way. They'll even look for bribes around Christmas by booking you on fictional offences, and it's a little extra money around that time.

Take care all, and keep well. Adam

Lima, Peru - End of the road for South America

2006-05-22T08:01:00.000+10:00

Hey all, What an amazing (almost) 3 months it has been to say the least. Before we knew it we were at Lima, Peru and all sitting down to a final meal in the purpose built Mira Flores of Lima, which is the happening spot of the city and a more upmarket area of town with restuarants and swish hotels along the strip to entertain every brand of traveller. Lima is another city that has a lot of European influence from the takeover by the Spanish, very much like Buenos Aires and Santiago, but on a smaller scale. It's felt like Rio De Janeiro was only 1 month ago at times, and then like it was 6 months ago at other moments where the schedule was too jam packed to realise where you were that day, if I was in a hotel or camping the night, who was that I just met again on the street - I'm so bad with names, what was that I just ate, after a while the head was filled with so much, you just couldn't take in anymore information and it was time for a chillout day to watch movies. The last 3 months have been spent with some truly excellent people that I've met from all over the world, as we took in some of the most amazing sights that South America had to offer. Everyone I've met has had they're own experiences of the places visited, and theres been no shortage of stories to tell from the time spent Latin America thus far. It could've been lazing on Ipanema beach in Rio, partying in Carnaval, getting soaked at Iguazu falls, staring face to face with tucans in Foz Do Iguazu, shopping after a day of Island hopping in Parati, san dune surfing, climbing unexpected peaks in Ushuaia, coffee in Santiago, outrunning club security in Buenos Aires, seeing Volcano's erupt, or experiencing the seemingly never ending pursuit of Machupiccu... and it's all been a lot of fun whatever we did, and way to get to know your fellow travellers that much more. So, now it's been thunderstorming in Panama and it sounded like the world was coming to an end, but I've got plenty of things to do still, I've hardly had a chance to see the sights around here yet, but one of the first will undoubtably be the Panama canal in the days ahead, then a trip through the museum district, and a browse at the many shops here with good prices on everything electrical from shavers to laptops. So far, it's been a smooth transition into settling in Panama city, company is never scarce as I'm catching up with Vance any day now, and I've also befriended two lovely colombian ladies who happen to be staying nearby, and although every conversation with my very broken Spanish is never short of hair pulling moments and frequent ´no entendio´s, there's no better way to learn than being thrown in the deep end, and I've already improved my Spanish vocab with some Central American Spanish terms thanks to my new teachers. Hope everything is going well for all abroad and those back home, and when time allows, I look forward to hearing how everyone is doing and stay tuned for more updates. Attached are some of my favourite photos from the South American leg. Adam aka Big John

Inka Trail and Maccupichu

2006-05-11T10:00:00.000+10:00

Hey all, Hope everything is going well back in sunny Brisbane, it must be getting a little chilly now. So, we've done quite a bit now, so with fair warning, this is a long email, or mini- novel :-) Well, to sum it up, The Inka trail is nothing short of amazing, with the first day being pretty easy and I'll admit that I've done a few hikes now and I've adapted to the altitude well, (must be all the conditioning at BJ's :-) and after lunch I felt like I was on something of some sort cos I was running up the hills and really flying to the end of the first days course and nipping on the heels of the little Andean porters to some stops. These guys are fit as and zip past with loads of 20kg on their backs and sometimes people who are having trouble. So with the ease of the 1st day behind me, that was about as easy as it was going to get, cos the 2nd day was a relentless battle uphill over stone steps for a few kilometers before approaching dead womans pass, which is around 2 and a half hours of more uphill battles before around 1 and a half hours descent over dodgy ankle breaking territory of steps that claimed a couple of folks, but the views were unforgettable as you looked out over the cloud forests and to see condors soaring high above. I saw some ruins towards the top of a mountain pass and after a general consensus with others to decide to give it a miss and head back to camp, the decision to push on and take the time to check out the ruins was worth it. It was a fortress of some sort, or more like a watch tower that is mostly covered in mist, and when then air cleared for a few minutes it gave a great opportunity to admire the views from below the forests and spot some more ruins across the valley. To see the ruins though, meant pushing into top gear for the rest of the hike back to the campsite which was not the original one planned, but instead one which was another 2 hours hike away. At the end of the day, the light was fading quickly and as we passed through paths with no railings to stop you dropping off a 150 to 200m drop (maybe more) to the forest floor below, I thought with still no sign of the camp ahead, I'd start getting concerned in about 20mins, and then 5 minutes later we saw the silouttes of the tents setup by the porters, with the deep orange sunset glow over the South American jungle hung in the background, it was nothing short of a warm welcome home for the night. As the birds and animals sung out through the jungle and cloud forests below, the light eventually dissapeared to give reign of the night to the moon which equally lit up the sky to coat the hills, tents and all in a light pasty glow, that my camera had a hard time trying to capture despite playing with exposure times. At the end of the day, it was around 12 hours of trekking to rack up a total of 27kms including all of the uphill passes, so not a bad days work, and I had the blisters to show for it. On the third day, it was only projected to have around 6 hours of trekking throughout the day. On the way, I found a museum with wildlife from the surrounding jungle, including turrantulas, giant moths and butterflys, tucans and bird of paradise. On the way down the photo opportunities were abundant and I had no problem filling my photo quota I'd set myself for a four day journey, but with Maccupichu still laying far ahead, I had to hit the brakes a bit on the photo shutter. I think the best part about the third day, was walking to our stop in Aguas Calientes along the railroad which goes from Machupiccu to Cusco daily. The train wasn't due for some time so it was safe to wonder along the tracks and admire the river rushing by, which can go up to class 5 rapids we were told. After becoming frustrated with how hard it was to walk on the stones of the railroad, I ran along the wooden beams on the railroad for a while it felt to me, but others said it was around 3kms I was running for, explains the attractive but musky smell I would've exhibited afterwards :-) As we saw the railroad up ahead, so was Aguas Calientes, our stop for the night, and then further up after passing markets and more begging children and stray dogs, there were Pizzerias everywhere and a few familiar faces who were not doing the trek but Maccupichu. All of a sudden people where everywhere as we walked into this strange little riverside town, feeling like long lost explorers, with walking staff in hand, sore and exhausted from our 3 day 44 mile trek, to be given a crowd of smiles and congratulations for our efforts, all before we were about to see what we came for... Maccupichu. After a night of congratulating our awesome and amazingly fit porters on a job well done, and a bit of dosh for each of them to buy a beer with, we awoke at 3.30am to get ready for the trek up the mountain to Maccupichu. Only time for a bit of breaky before setting off down what would prove to one of the longest roads I've ever walked. As it was still pitch black, and the sunrise was still a while off, I'd stopped to refill my water and when finished looked up to see the torch light I was following was now long off in the distance, and knowing if I'd stopped to undo my carefully crafted backpack setup to get the torch, I would've lost the guides and had little chance of finding the right way to go, so there was only one thing to do but sprint ahead as fast as possible to get back into the light and stay with it. As I approached the torch light with what looked like 3 or 4 black wisps of people around it, they became clearer but it was utterly silent around as we made giant and fast strides through the blackness not knowing if my next step would collect a stone to trip me, or a pothole for a worse outcome, but as they say 'It'll be alright', and it was as I stayed with the torch lights for long enough until the blackness began to fade in preparation for the sunrise. The road just keeps going and going until a set of Inka stairs was found and half the group took the stairs not knowing where they'd leave and the rest continued on the road, including me, but later I found the stairs were definitely the go, regardless of the large huntsman sized spiders inside on the walls. Again it was like the Inka trail with a relentless pursuit to the top with gravity being no friend, and I was once again feeling the altitude and exhaustion hit me every 20 or so steps until finally arriving at the top with a shirt so wet, I could wring it out... nice! We'd already been beaten by a couple of buses by the time of arriving to Maccupichu on foot, so the tourist line was growing at 6.30am! It was very misty inside until akround 9am were it slowly cleared to provide the perfect money shot, which amazingly I missed and never ended up taking, as is not like me. This was mainly due to exploring all the little houses throughout this ancient city, which has halls, house, playing field, alters, a sun temple complete with a sun dial and a stone which is astronomically aligned to the Southern Cross to the level of it's direction in the sky. As well as this, there is a nearby mountain named Wayna Pichu which I wasn't going to climb, but before I knew it I was up the top, to see Maccupichu as a small shape on the opposing mountain face, the views were incredible and thankfully there was no wind with many sudden drops off the mountain around, where it was game over if you were to miss a step and vertigo got the better of you. So, after it all I can honestly say that the Inka trail is the hardest trek I've ever done and possibly ever will, depending on how hard the hike is through Cambodia to Angkor Wat I've heard so much about, that could be next on the list but some time away. I saw so much on the Inka trail that I think a lot must miss when you get to the point of exhaustion that the camp site is the only thing you want to lay eyes on. The Inka ruins along the way show the civilisation that once exhisted before the upheaval of 140 Spanish conquisquadors, to the city of Maccupichu, that throughout 40 years of war from 1534 to 1574 was never spoken of and never ever discovered by the Spanish, and lay undisturbed until 1911 and then rediscovered in 1941. I'd recommend everyone at some point to make time see this place which leaves you a bit gob smacked as the sun rises over the glowing mountains, it's little wonder the Inkas were so in tune with nature with the million dollar views they had every morning and afternoon. Although word of warning about the train from Aguas Calientes to Cusco, is that I don't think a Peruvian train ride is ever smooth. At least once, the whole train slammed to a stop with carriages smacking each other and a loud crunching sound when the train tride to start up again, we thought they'd hit a llama for real! But it seemed it was because the tracks having half switched over and not the whole way, so that'll happen ey. Now, it's a night in Cusco before travelling up the coast of Peru and staying on the beaches. Cusco is a nice spot, which I think you'd like a lot Dad. We've had plenty of warnings about pick pocketing and muggings, but it's been ok so far, I'll give the Peruvians credit for their efficiency when it comes to everyday things, particularly the mid-sixties lady I saw peeing on the footpath last night on the walk home, why find a toilet when you can go where you sit! There's no shortage of nightlife around here, with a few dingy pubs and clubs, and every clown under the sun offering you free drinks for the night if you go to their club, and then it's anything goes, as the saying around here goes 'Well, how about something for the head?' and 'I got weed, I got Coke, I got the best stuff maine!' it's the real South America but they are not always real dealers and are often undercover cops looking to throw tourists in jail or make around U$200 a pop from bribes, but look but don't touch is always my personal philosophy. But this hasn't stopped some of my travelmates trying the local treats and others coming back with some hairy stories, like my little mate Peanut who was dared to run over a Police car, did it, then things got serious when a cop with an AK semi-automatic ran over with another one with a baton who grabbed him for a night or two in the watch house, but a sorry and a S$50 (around U$15) handshake to the officer got the little guy out of trouble with the Peruvian police, it's just the Chilean ones who pride themselves on being unbribable. That's all for now. Take care all and keep well, hasta pronto and enjoy the pics! Adam

Puno, Peru

2006-05-02T10:08:00.000+10:00

Hey, It's that time again, the latest report is Puno, Peru where I've just returned from staying with a local family on a remote island in lake Titikaka and taking part in their village life, like soccer at 4000m altitude, which makes you puff sooo damn bad, but gets the fitness back quicker than a week at the gym. On the way over to the island, I dropped by the floating villages of Urun, which are all entirely made or reeds. The base of the island, the houses the boats, everyting almost is reeds, they even eat the white base of the reed, which tastes a bit like celery. 99% of the babies there are born on the islands with the local mid-wife and they live to around 65. They even have a whole in the island which is a little swimming pool to teach the kids how to swim, and they eevn made a pool fence out of.... yes, reeds. But no reed island is complete without solar powered cable tv which everyone is South America seems to have. On this island 14 families lived there, and this island has grown and shrunk over the years, but if any of the family has a problem that can't be solved via fight to the death (joking about that part), the just literally cut that part of the island off and rent a couple of motor boats and tow it off to another part of the lake, anchor it, and live their, or join another larger community island. Infact the island I visited was originally 10km away, and it was towed to it's current spot via rented motor boats which is a funny concept. The arts the do their are amazing and made for some great gifts to take home, but seeing the place was an awesome experience. When with the local family, I stayed in a mud brick home with a corregated iron roof and indoor wood stove, the whole deal when it comes to rural South America. At night we were dressed in local attire, for men it was a poncho, and the women wore the clorful dress, white decorative blouse, and black decorative hood, and all of them dance this weird Peruvian dance which is vaguely reminiscent of Merengue and Monica and Rachel, it reminded me of a night out at Bulimba, but we had a Peruvian folk band instead of the whole DJ setup :-) They have words printed on the stadium in Quechua which is not Spanish and a diffferent language, that mean 'Don't be lazy', 'Don't lie', and 'Don't steal' to keep their community honest, as they had police on the island 20 years ago, but they caused problems, so now if anything happens like a drunken brawl and I'm not sure if this includes visitors, but they whip them in the soccer stadium by giving them 3 lashings with the god awful huge whip that would have to tear skin off bones, and if you do it again you get a another 2 sets of 3 lashings twice as hard! So with that being said, no one was whipped last night! The most surreal thing about the island was being woken to a farmer or shepard playing a flute throughout the hills, rather than the roosters I've become quite acustomed to. After leaving my brief hosts for a very cultured experience, and their unreal vegeterian food with alpaca beanie gift in hand, we caught the boat to a neighbouring island for a quick 45min trek up the mountain where little gypsie girls charged for photos as they posed for you. The landscape, with farmlands and blue sea views (but really lake Titikaka) made this place seem like the Mediterrainean, although I've never been, I could only imagine this is what it would be like. We'd cross through stone manmade arches that seemed to have no support but stayed up from their weight combined with gravity, and the pressure of each stone leaning against the next. Up top I entered the local square through another arch with catholic cross adorned atop, but they're not really catholic and no catholic preists reside in the churches in this more touristy island, so strange I thought. Little peruvian girls come up and try to persuade you to by wrist bands for 1 sole which they whisper so quietly to you, and I repeatly so 'No gracias' around 5 or 6 times before they get the hint, and I'm left wondering if I should've given her the 1 sole just for her persistence, but like anywhere I avoid giving money to kids. The kids and adults however do have a knack for hitting your pity bone, and if they don't chant 'Amiiiiiiiigo' in a whining voice like someone begging you to put them out of their misery, they'll then try to put on the waterworks and give you an oscar worthy crying act that worked on a travelmate in La Paz. After a look around, I went for a wonder and had some local kingfish to cure my never ending hunger from all the exercise, which is never a bad thing. On the way down there passing through more 'Catholic' arches and over 542 stone steps to the dock, I grabbed the boat back into Puno which gave me 3 hours to grab some sun upstairs on this rickedy little deisel boat. So tonight is drinks and dinner in a place somewhere around Puno here, which means I have to rush off as usual. Only 4 days left till the Inca trail and 3 days later I'll finally have made it to Machupiccu, can't wait! Hope all is well back in sunny Brisbane. No USB port here, so no photos this time sorry. Take it easy Adam

La Paz, Bolvia

2006-04-29T09:54:00.000+10:00

Hi all, So, it's now La Paz, Bolivia now, and it's already the final night before we're off elsewhere and soon on to Cuzco where we embark on the Inca Trail to Machupichu (Lou and Cesca, thanks for your words of warning, but after all the treks we've done, well... I'm a professional mate, don't really like to talk about it mate! :-) La Paz is a crazy place, and more dodgy than Rio De Janiero, with the first night bringing out the locals to greet us gringos as we got money out of the ATM and hands quickly feeling around pockets to see what they could get. The highlights of the place, have defeinitely been Valle De La Luna (Yes there's one here too as well as San Pedro De Atacama), and the never ending markets. Of particular interest is the witches market which has everything from aphrodisiacs, llama fetuses (ooh tempting! :-), stuffed frugs, to dead armadillos, wildcats and condors, to do what with? Well I'm not sure about the condors, but if you bury the llama in your backyard or under your front door step, it brings eternal peace and well being, so good idea I'm sure but I'm not sure I'll get one back into Oz without hassles. Other than that, did I mention the locals are friendly, a little bit of Spanish goes a long way and Latin Americans are never short of conversation. I get the feeling La Paz is never without it's dramas from time to time, as Bolivia is afterall a very politically active country, and I got to experience a bit of social upheaval first hand in my wanderings around the city. At the markets, a shop was robbed by an Argentinian guy whom the police later caught and with around eight officers marched him through an angry mob of around 150 Bolivians to the awaiting policia car, and the mob turned sour by pelting him with rocks and garbage and wacking him with sticks before rocking the police car as it drove off. So, for a few minutes it was quite a site I captured on video, and so did the local news by the look of it. Even earlier in the day a woman was wrestling guys on the street in a fit of rage, who were reposessing her market stall as she'd not fronted up the deniro's for the every day bills that come with running a stall around here. But she got lucky, and after nearly getting herself run over a few times and wrestling violently with police, they unloaded her stuff and drove off, so a warning to those wanting to sell dead llamas and condors in Bolivia, pay your bills and don't steal! Prior to La Paz and a brief visit back to Potosi, was a stop at Uyuni, which was our base to seeing the salt flats, which were stretched over a vast 12,000 sq km's and a great sight. Sunglasses are a must, as you can easily get snow blind. The intense white of the salt, stretches endlessly into the distance, and cuts off suddenly to meet the blue sky for a fantastic contrast to an amazing place, especially at sunset. Whilst out at te salt flats, we visitd fish island for a trek over the coral covered island that was once underwater, then some BBQ'd llama for the first time, that had a beefy flavour and was very tender you hardly needed a knife. For now, it's making the most of the last night in La Paz, so must rush, it's dinner at this hotel tonight, can't remember the name, wait I remember, it's The Ritz :-) Cao! Adam

Potosi, Bolivia - Havin a Blast!

2006-04-29T09:53:00.000+10:00

Hey all! For me to say I'm having a ball is an understatement, cos when I'm not climbing Volcano's, I'm watching them erupt, no kidding!!! I was leaving San Pedro De Atacama in Chile, and looked out the window and the whole bus screamed out 'PULL OVER, PULL OVER IT'S ERUPTING!!!' and with no warning, ash was pouring out of this baby, but no lava that we could see cos we were a few k's away, but a few good videos resulted and some pics I've included. Rob, thanks for the blogging picture tip, but I'm so go go go mate, it's email for now. How much longer are you in Canada for mate? Tonight it's Potosi, it's been an awesome day. I went down the silver mines with hard hat, headlight and miners overalls, the whole kit. We literally crawled through tight spaces where the air got thin, dusty and then got damp as we saw the miners who had statues that they'd sprinkle cocoa leaves at the base of it's feet, where a llama foetus lay, and they put cigarettes in it's mouth and lit them and also poured this 96% alcohol drink the miners have on it's knees, tits and big clay cock hahah! Stange! Mum, you might not like this, and you wouldn't believe me if I tell you, but I stopped by the markets on the way to the mines to buy some gifts for the miners I met, I bought some dynamite, and a fuse and detonator and went out to the fields, primed the dynamite by inserting the detonator like you see in the movies and blew the sh.t out of a raw chicken the miners had by sticking it up it's a.s, trully unbelieavable! I lit the fuse and ran, then a minute later when I was up on the hill puffin like crazy cos of the altitude effects at 4400m, and it blew so loud and with a huge shockwave that blew over you, sometimes you'd even get little pebbles and stones hitting you. So we set off like 15 packs of dynamite, and then two huge ones, but unfortunately no pics, just video which will blow your mind! I'm in one peice and have all my fingers and toes, but it was something that you can do in Bolivia and I'm so glad I did it! I'm a changed guy already, just like I predicted upon returning to Oz. Other than blowing up chickens, we got a flat tyre and stopped at a place and played hacky sack as is common, but a travelmate noticed some pigs and went to take pictures, until the owner emerged with a two foot machete, so don't take pictures of other peoples chickens! :-) Tomorrow it's off to La Paz, which will be a real shock I'm sure, Potosi is bad enough with dodgy food everywhere were the raw food is just left out in the air and kids cough on the market stall food, and there's a disturbing lack of stray dogs in parts, which makes you wonder what you're really eating! Take it easy Adam

Santiago, Chile

2006-04-11T06:24:00.000+10:00

Hola todo mi amigos! Today is the first day in Santiago, Chile, another one of the latin american bustling cities, however Santiago is known as the most polluted in South America, although it's not as bad as I'd expected. Yesterday was a big travel day which gave a chance to share some photos and videos with the guys I'm travelling with, who've all begged for copies of my funny and quirky videos with random acts of sillyness of crazy to commentary on some of the sights. So Kris, Gary and Johan, rest assured that the nutty loungeroom videos we made prior to me leaving, haven't stopped at all. Santiago bears a lot of similarities to Buenos Aires, and although the skyscrapers in Buenos Aires are much larger, Santiago has a very New York-esque feel to it in certain parts of the city. Buenos Aires has the well dressed men and women who all look like they've stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad, and Santiago doesn't, to put it simply. Also, there's a few little changes, like paying for access to the toilet, and you can find McDonalds and KFC on most street corners if you like that. Although, Chile is an expensive place and a beer in some (rip-off) joints will set you back as much as $8000, but that's for a 1.8litre glass, and the exchange rate is $500 Chilean pesos to U$1, so it's U$16 for that beer, which is around $20 AUD, but we managed to find a latin place which was charging only $4500 for the 1.8´s and even $800 for a stubby, so it varies a lot and the scammers are everwhere. The food is pricey too, and the Chilean's tend to have a large lunch and a small dinner, or even just eat hotdogs, which seems to be the staple diet for a weak wallet, and they're not too bad for you either. As with most big cities, everyone is walking somewhere with purpose, and Santiago is the type of place to keep you on your toes, just like Buenos Aires once again, who had the very dodgy guys waiting up on Florida Av laste at night. At night you get around by cab unless you're 10ft tall and bullet proof. Talking of cabs, they seem to be privately owned as a lot of them have mags and souped up exhausts, and the cabbies have no understanding of speed limits. The cabbie last night was flooring it past another which was sitting on 120 km/h, so it'd be safe to say we were doing at least 150km/h down a main street in the city centre, so at least you get where you want to be fast! So, now the challenges await, from finding an Apple store to see how much to fix a broken iPod, testing my Spanish to post a bunch of items back to Oz, and find the airline office to switch a flight to Panama City next month. Tonight looks to be a big one with a few people I've been travelling with are departing here in Santiago to go elsewhere, fom the Galapagos, Easter Island, to Australia and New Zealand, as a lot are British backpackers and it seems to be the right of passage to go to Oz for a while, because they only ever get one working visa in their lives for Australia, and I never realised how tough Australia is to get into until now. Irasema, I love the photos of the Great Ocean Road, you seem to be seeing quite a few of the Australian sights these days, good to see. Miguel, how's the flatmate and uni working out for you these days? Learning much Italian? :-) BJ, how was Snoop, I read there was as shooting scare in Sydney at his after party! Hasta pronto! Adam

Conquering Volcanos Vertical Limit style in Pucon, Chile

2006-04-11T05:35:00.000+10:00

Hey all, I'm now in Pucon, Chile where here lies the big Volcano which is called Villarica, which means House of the spirit, and we climbed the bastard yesterday, man what a day it was. We got started at 7am to put on our climbing gear and head up to the volcano where we started above the clouds, and we WERE going to take the chairlift up to a stage and push on to the top, but the chairlift was closed due to winds (yay!) so some hard uphill walking (more or less) with some climbing here and there and we were knackered and at the first stop. After this it ACTUALLY got easier! The ice pick in hand, we scrambled up rocks at a leisurely pace that allowed for a photo or two, then we stopped at some rocks and were the snow began. I'd never seen, touched or even walked on snow before this apart from a little bit I picked up at Ushuaia, but it hardly counted in my book. The whole time was walking up snow steps which went for around 2km up the steep slopes of the volcano in a zig zag, so with the extra length, it was more like 3km up a volcano which has a height of 2847m, so nearly that length in height alone. The trek was harder and a constant painful slog up the snow for a few hours, but what was worse was the fear factor attached with the idea of thinking 'if I step here will the snow break away and I'll fall 100m into the other climbers and knowcking others down' or 'I can see it melting, is it ice now and I'll slip and fall' but it's a mental game as I found in Ushuaia, with the successful climbers who make it to the top are the ones who block out the fear and just on with it and get moving, so as Coldplay is in such a strength here throughout South America, I just played a few of their songs in my head, and I felt my moral go right up to get me through the toughest parts until we reached the peak. I could see the lava flows from the past with rocks and volcanic material that looked exactly like tree roots frozen in rock and cracked in some places. As people climbed up, they would occassionally push out loose rocks, or small boulders that would come tumbling down the moutain as the guides would scream out in Spanish - Rocko! Everyone would scramble to safety as the rocks passed and all was safe again, but they were of volcanic material so a bit lighter and felt more pummicelike than normal rocks, nonetheless, I'm sure if one struck someone in the head from the height they were falling, a eulogy would be read soon after. As we got to the crater, we could feel the warmth of the lava lake that lay below us and the ground grumbled erracticly with slight tremors that would show us how small we were, and then as teh sulphur gases passed over us in thick clouds, we saw a huge shot of volcanic lava shoot about 300ft into the air with a blast of hot air to knock us pack, to see it was surreal was an udnerstatement. As I look down into the lava very cautiously, I saw them, Frodo and Golem were duelling until the ring was thrown into the great lava lake and Sauran was no more! Ok, so that last part didn't really happen as you can tell, so I've had my fun and say now I'll say what happened when we reached the summit, long story short there were no ground tremors or heat we could feel, but the crater was vast, but the clouds of sulphur that flowed past us made us cough a lot and we couldn't see anything, no folks sorry, but no lava for us, but it was a great experience to do it. Soon our descent followed after a brief break and dawning on the (so called) waterproof pants. We walked back down the rocks observing all of the volcanic rock (which is amazing) for the last time, and back to the snow and the ice steps, which proved a little tricky for some, then the fun part where a slide had been made through the snow, I slid for 800m like a slippery slide at a water park, but having to use my ice pick as a break as I dug it in further as I was gonig faster and faster I hit ice and it flew out of my hand leaving me to dig in my hands and feet in a cat brace attempt at breaking which worked, leaving me to climb up very slowly after slipping back a few times to retrieve the pick which lay within a few centimeters reach, all whilst a guide yelled 'Please do not lose the pick!', which normally would've been the last of my concerns, but as the unknown lay ahead and it was my means of breaking down a snow covered volcano, it was my only concern to get it back. As I started back down I stopped breaking and went faster and faster to enjoy the ride and feel my legs and butt becoming very cold and eventually numb. Just after I stopped at the end I discovered a snow crevice which to fall down would've only had one outcome. We walked further down and slid some more down the incredible slides that mustive been 2km of sliding I did in total - such fun! DON'T READ IF YOU'RE EASILY FREAKED OUT ======================================= But, I never realised how hazardous these treks can be, and I'm not the only one as the others I climber with were very shaken up at stages. The worst when one guy I've been travelling with, Peter fell slipped and fell off a snow ledge to dig in his ice pick into the shelf but lost his grip leaving it inside the snow and he rolled down through the snow off the edge screaming into the blackness and we thought he was dead, but only to luckily find him 60m down against a pile of dirt was a streak of luck I can't describe. He was fine, and made it back with all of us to when we met up with the guides friends who sold us a beer for 500 Chilean pesos each, or U$1, so not bad. After a bit of dinner it was off to the hot springs and thermal baths were I eased off a hard days work climbing volcano's with a few cervaces and a grerat old laugh with some guys and girls. You can go rafting here, or horseriding and I know of others who've been skydiving, so there's no shortage of things to do. ======================================= So, now it's Saturday in Pucan, Chile and I'm doign great, feeling great and have just come from lunch at a pizzeria down in centro and will probably go to sit by a lake which has an exclusive cut off area only for the rich, but us budget travellers are allowed to sit by the edge and soack up some rays. Tonight looks like some wine tasting and visiting another set of thermal baths before we get going early in the morning to Santiago where I say goodbye to a great lot of people I've met since starting in Rio De Janeiro all that time ago already! I've recieved a funny nickname that resulted from a jacket I purchased in Punta Arenas for 9300 Chilean pesos to keep me warm, after learning a very harsh lesson to be prepared after my climb in Ushuaia. Anyhow, the jacket has the name 'Big John' embroided on the front and the guys will ask me if we're going out for a hike, 'Adam, are you taking Big John with you, do you think it will be that cold?', and then it migrated to me being known as Big John, haha so it gets a laugh around the campsites we visit, and I find it amusing too I'll admit :-) So, in saying all that and if you're still awake, this is Big John signing off for today, take care all! Adam

Baliroche

2006-04-11T05:34:00.000+10:00

Hey, I'm now in Bariloche, the town of chocolate factories and chocolate supermarkets, it's hard to get your head around how much chocolate is here, and with the snow capped mountains around, it's got the scenery to match a ski town such as this. You can get everything that's chocolate, from 3 foot eggs to animals sculpured of chocolate and watch the chefs build the chocolate works of art, I'm almost waiting to run into Willy Wonka around here :-) Other stuff you can do is, take a char-lift to the top of mountain and look out at the scenery. Infact it is ironic that you get such views for 15 Argentinian pesos and a 5minute chairlift ride, that even rival those you get from a 3 hour trek through forests, rivers, rock faces and boulders with chilling winds like in Torres Del Paine. I never thought I'd say it, but sometimes the easy way out can yeild the better result :-) Bariloche is a town that is very nice with friendly people everywhere you go, who will go out of their way to say hello to total strangers. When it comes to stray dogs, they're in every place you go. I swear I see about 5 dogs on every street block that are pure strays which are are just curious to know if you've got food, and even wander in and out of shops, but the folks around here are very used to it. Only one has tried to attack me in Ushuaia outside my tent which was down by a stream, but raise your hand to it and most dogs run away with their tail between their legs, anyhow I'm glad I've had my rabies shots :-) Prior to this, we stopped into Perito Mereno for a night which was a little place that had about two telephone boxes, and a Telefonica, which is like an overseas call center, and only one phone in the town worked for us gringos. The kids around the town all travel around in gangs just like the dogs that all travel in packs, sometimes up to 15 at a time you'd see sniffing around people and cars, but all pretty harmless. As intimidating as it CAN seem, they always want to say hello and ask you where you from, so a common Spanish phrase I say is Yo soy Australiano, which is I'm from Australia, and theyr're eyes light up and want to know all about life elsewhere. One thing I've learnt is first impressions have been very false with the locals and people I've travelled with and met, as the clueless clown (hate to sound arrogant) I met in a hotel lobby in Rio De Janeiro, is a completely different person to who I was having a steak dinner (best in my life - no joke) in El Calafate, a month or so later. Little life lesson there for the books. Anyhow, I've attached a few pics from back in Brazil and other places like Torres Del Paine that (i think) I haven't sent before. I've found some useful tools online, so thanks Rob and Renee, it's been a great help. Brendan, I'm lovin the pics of your new XR6 mate, all they drive here is go carts, VW's and Peugeot's, so the folks around here would be in constant awe of a rich pimp like yourself, so give it a burn for me. Take it easy. Adios amigos! Adam

El Calafate and Torres Del Paine

2006-04-01T08:48:00.000+10:00

Hi all, Life here is cold, cold, and cold some more with some strong winds thrown in. I've decided that the pain sustained in Ushuaia was not enough, and put myself through more hell and hiked yet another mountain in Torres Del Paine (maybe they intended the last part of the name to be a pun?) which after conquering it in 3 hours and much hurt, I'm feeling it today. All up, I'd rate the hike a medium which was taxing on the body, bhut we were lucky with the weather, and the cold wasn't too bad and the wind was almost non'existent. So in saying that, it was still no Ushuaia with it's winds and cold and Ushuaia still deserved every bit of the hard rating it was given. Also I checked with the guys I hiked with and it turns out we did it in 3 hours, not 4 as I thought, making for 4 and a half hours total time, not bad. Once again, Torres Del Paine, was nothing short of spectacular with the views of the 3 towers of rock that we were really close to and the ice pack in the upper ridges, was amazing. Waterfalls and rapids, with rock faces to pull yourself up via rope, it's nuts to think you won't stay (are get back to being) fit with some of the day trips I've been lining up. But, now I've moved on and have left Chile (temporarily) and am back in Argentina in El Calafate which is a little town in the middle of nowhere and am about to get a bite to eat as I'm starving. When I wasn't hiking, I went fishing in some of the windiest spots I've ever been, as it literally picked me up off the ground in parts and I was clasping onto ridge walls as not to get blown into a place I didn't wanto be, but it was an unusually windy day the locals told me. Tomorrow is a visit to a large glacier known as the Marino Glacier that has bits falling off it all the time, so it should be quite a show with a trk involved. Not long after this is another trek up a volcano, so I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, I'm told it's harder than Torres Del Paine, so ummm yeah looking forward to more paine the next day, but the views are worth it :-) Then soon it'll be back into Chile when we arrive in Santiago. Hope, all is well in sunny Brisbane, I'll have to make this a quick on for today, but I'll be back in touch before y'all know it. Mum, thanks for the info, but I wouldn't consider me much of a bushie considering some of the nutcases I'm with :-) Sam, how's it all coming along with you, hope Steve and Bobbie are well. Tam, hope you, Martin and Madeleine are well, thinking of you lots. Dad, how's tricks, it's all go go go, but depending on time, I'll give a call in the next 3 to 4 days. Also, Rob, Kris or anyone, do you know of a site on the net that resizes your pictures as a free service, mine are too big to send around. Any help is much appreciated. Kris, the pose was for you mate :-) Frame them, put them in a locked cabinet for excactly 1 year, and look at them again... they will change your life!!! Brie, it sounds like you've got a bit on AS ALWAYS! :-) But being busy is better than doing nothing at all, well sometimes. I hope you have a fun time up in Rocky, I know it's been a few years since I was up that way. Mike, that TAFE course is the way to go mate, cos I think travel is for those way too ambitious for my liking and sitting around really is the way to get things done :-) How's work with Liz? How was the going away party? Looking forward to seeing some pics mate. Irasema, love those pics, when were they taken? It's been a few years since I was at the Whitsundays and it's a top spot. So, where's the next destination? Muddler, how's it going with lifes little challenges? Got those Ny plane tickets booked? I've got a personal tour organised with some folks I'm travelling with now and a few other activities lined up, I know that week in September will be one to remember mate, how bout some tickets to Dave Letterman! Take it easy guys, Adios! Adam

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Ushuaia - the end of the world

2006-03-24T12:10:00.000+10:00

Today has been an unpredicatable, yet one of the most fulfilling and amazing days where I managed to climb Cerro Guanaco, which as it turns out is a 'Hard' hike on the rating scale and takes 4 hours to reach the summit. I've never before now known my true physical limits to up and back in 5.5hours, but apparently that's great time and I was feeling 80% well (still). The hike is so diverse that it has so many extremes it can be hard to comprehend at first. Not all of this was clear at first, and as I was climbing I started to think if I'd perhaps bitten off more than I can chew, as I can have a habbit of doing. The extremes are absolutely polar out here where you start the hike (me and 2 others) walking beside a beach at the base of a mountian valley (I though was the Andes, but apparently they haven't started yet and it's some other range) with green and crystal blue rivers and lakes, before you hike past waterfalls with ice cold water through the forest and enter clearing to get one of the best view you'll ever see in your life! Then it turns into broken angle territory with a jungle of twisted trees like Fangorn forrest from LOTR - Two Towers, then a savanahh with mud pits (not boiling) when you can easily put your foot in almost knee deep mud (fun), then all the way up this intensely cold and windy baron rock face for a couple of kilometeres, which some parts almost leaving you on all fours as it gets that steep, until you reach the summit that has patches of snow up there, and I had a play, as I'd never seen or touched snow before. The top was the best view taht money can't buy, postcard stuff and there's lots of photos, but with 1.3mb jpeg files I have to find a way of scaling the pics down via an internet site perhaps, so stay tuned. In other news, we camped out in the Patagonian desert the other night, with some of my travel mates playing football (soccer) with the locals, and the old local spanish fossil man showing me his ancient axe and spearhead and artifact collection and wanaco (liek a llama) skins, so something interesting there, but I don't think he understood my Spanish very well as I barely do. The next night we were in Chile and found this great little hotel which was like out of a movie of a haunted house or could even maybe pass for the Rocky Horror house, but it was cool, with creaking hallways and heatinrs in the lounge rooms, it was one of the best places I stayed all trip so far, and all for $12USD and to escape the freezing Chillean wind, it was a wise move. Greets go out to all and hope things are well. Mike, I hear you're making trhe move to Liz, so it only Leaves you Stu as the original man on the block in the department. Hope you guys at DET are all doing well. Mike, I think I added her email to my list, thanks for the email though. Irasema, how's uni going? Miguel, been keeping out of trouble still mate? :-) Hasta luego todo! Adam

Argentina - Buenos Aires

2006-03-15T09:47:00.000+10:00

After two huge travel days, from around 10 to 12 hours on a truck, I've finally arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday arfternoon, and it suprised me to find that it's very reminiscent of the Big Apple, so I like to call it Latin New York. Last night was a big steak dinner, complete with Tango show, drinks and champagne afterwards all for around 70pesos, which is near $25 AUD, not bad at all. Afterwards I went for a walk to 9th of July Avenue which is supposed to be the worldst widest street, and at 16 lanes across (8 each way) it outta be, and I'd be doing well to cross it all in one go. Also, Argentinians sleep early in the evening (like a siesta) and get going very late, so the nightlife gets going at around 1 or 2am, so it's fair to say that I may not be getting any sleep tonight, as I also have to board a ferry to Colonia in Uraguay for the day. But Argentina is an interesting place with many contrasts and of course the land of Maradona, come god here who literally has his own church named the House of Diego Maradona. The Spanish seems to be improving and I'm noticing that I'm learning a few near words every day, so todays lesson is the sign in this internet place says 'Probido FUMAR' translation 'Smoking prohibited', pretty easy really, and it helps when you're conversations with the locals last that much longer past brief introductions, particularly in Paraguay. It's a place that gets a earry feel to it once 6pm hits and everyone goes inside and locks their doors, and shop owners stand outside what it is they do from computer stores to service stations with shotguns and give you funny stares. But, very cheap, and a night out that pleased all, cost in the realm of $60,000 Guarani's which is 5800 to $1 USD, so good value there. So, a few more days in not the cheapest city in the world (they wanted $600 USD for an iPod Nano for example), then off down to Patagonia and eventually hitting Ushuaia throught the next week, so I'm soaking up the warm weather before it gets damn cold. Mike, did you call? I got a message from you, how's tricks with DET and stuff mate? Word on the street is Sheffield is where it's at, so after 3 months in London, I'm thinkin of some time in Manchester, Leads or Sheffield, for the explore Europe cause. Adios! Adam

Paraguay delays

2006-03-09T00:35:00.000+10:00

I should be on the bus right now to Paraguay and almost crossing over the border, but it seems that the border is closed today due to a drug bust, funy that... drugs in South America? So, there´s excess time now for internet and burning photos and videos to cd. Last night was basically trying to find a cash machine, one of the hardest things to do in Latin America is find an ATM that will accept your card and be working and full of cash. This was the case in Rio, Parati and here in Foz, where after asking a couple of people (which is generally not the best thing to do as they sometimes like to follow you) we found a good place that would take our cards, and just in time. Unfortunately I used a HSBC bank in Rio which I´ve just discovered, had a credit card scam operating in the machines and people have had their accounts cleaned out, but after checking mine last night, as is well... for now. Otherwise, it´s cruising around town where you follow your nose and it usually gets you home, and you see a few funny things along the way. Down the street from where I´m staying, there´s a little local bar, which is essentially a few peices of chipboard stapled together to resemble walls and a roof, with a big board hanging up with BAR scribbled on it, in someones backyard with a few picnic benches dug into the ground, and that´s it, they sit there and drink all night and watch the passers by. They do things a little different here, where you can drink on the street or in the supermarket if you want, and no one will bust you, but you can just buy the cop a beer and he´ll sit and chat with you, like the Argentinian border guard yesterday. Irasema, How´s uni going for you now? Are you finding it hard to get back into the swing of things and slow down on all that partying? Sonja will be lost without you. Miguel, get better mate and get back out there to woo the ladies with the smooth latin moves, as you say, being a little different from the locals isn´t such a bad thing :-) Agnes, hope life gets less dreary by the time I hit London in late September, what´s plans till then? Mike, how´s those reports going, they´re kinda takin a while mate. Hope all at DET are doign well. Take it easy Adam

Foz Do Iguacu

2006-03-08T08:50:00.000+10:00

Hey all, It´s been a busy day, I went over the border from Brazil to Argentina for the day to see the Argentinian side of the falls, which are simply spectacular and then got very wet in a boat ride which takes you all the way to the mouth of the falls, so it was a good chance to cool off from the hot sun which burns relentlessly here in South America, and just as bad as in Brisbane. Yesterday was the Brazillian side of the falls which rock as well, and a visit to a bird park with Tucans, fire pheasants, Macaws, even Kayman and Monyets Johan! :-) The Tucans are fearless and whizz right by your head to make so amazing photo ops. Last night was dinner at a steakhouse with multiple dance acts from all over South America, even these guys who swing the flaming ballsa round their heads (nuts!) and the crazy Brazillians who always amp up the crowd. I asked some of the waiters where the Lambada clubs were Monica, no one knew, so I´m having some withdrawals. Prior to that was an all yacht cruise through the islands which pepper around the coast of Parati, which consisted on sunning, and island hopping and jumping off the boat to sim up to deserted beaches, so not a bad way to spend the day? Parati is an awesome little coastal town with cobbled streets that get washed by the tide every night and had a very Medditeranean feel to it that gave so many good photos and memories. After this was camping at a water park were stray dogs roamed through the campside, tipped over bins, barked for hours and hours, growled and chased some of my fellow campers, certainly not boring! So, tomorrow, it´s Paraguay for a few days, providing the visas get approved in the morning (fingers crossed), otherwise it´s into Argetina for a few days before I catch up with some of the other crew and we´ll make our way to Buenos Aires to do a few essential things like washing, phonecalls and the like. Hope all is well in sunny Brisbane, when a PC in Latin America has a CD drive, I´ll through up some pictures. Adam

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Cocacabana beach and Christo at Corcovado

2006-03-02T06:01:00.000+10:00

Hi all, Another tough day catching a cab up to Corcovado in the morning to take in the views around the statue of Christ here in Rio, and then spent the afternoon at the beach among the absolute dumper waves, which are frickin dangerous as I saw a few unfortunates get tossed around like rag dolls. Where my Portugese fails and English is useless in this city, my Spanish gets me through, and I´ve met my fair share of lovely Brazillan ladies to date who are more than willing to practice a few new language skills with a friendly gringo like myself :-) I think they all got a kick out of how white I was on the beach and it seems to attract a fair bit of good attention, can´t complain ey! Hey Miguel, Ecenatardo, vamanos mi casa ahora ahora mi bonita chica! :-) hahaha What´s Irasemas email? Yo muddler, missin you bro, how´s tricks with those crack pots? :-) Last night was a Portugese BBQ restaurant (mental blank) where they bring out meat on swords and carve it up in front of you and it´s absolutely all you can eat, where myself, my roommate (another aussie bloke) and two kiwi girls left the restaurant and went for a stroll down at Cocacabana absolutely stuffed, all for around $40 real each or around $20US it´s good value! So, next we´re soon to move on to Paraguay, and it´s goodbye to Rio, which has been so fun, and not as bad as everyone says, but still there´s good reason to watch yourself and those around, just witihin moderation. On a side note, we know that the locals don´t mess around when it comes to dissagreements as after the two ladie boys on the street this morning asked my room mate ´we go for a f..k?´ this guy broke the end off a beer bottle and was running after another guy ready to glass him in front of the whole street, we were very glad it didn´t eventuate, so as with anywhere, sometimes you just have to let it go. Anyhow, it´s dinner time soon and a few cervajes in this golden city for our last night as part of the spectacular carnaval I think! Stu or Mike, have you got Liz´s email? Take it easy Adam

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Tough life in Rio

2006-03-02T05:58:00.000+10:00

Hey all, It´s a tough life out here, I´ve just been for a swim with the plastic down at Ipanema beach here, and it´s hot, hot, and hot some more. It´s a slice of heaven with the sights that Rio brings in G-string bikinis just like the movies, but with the good comes the bad, as the ´girly boys´ as I like to call them (who are simply guys with attachments and removals) seem to like the white gringos, and their stares are just plain freaky, but all up, the hype of crime in South America is crap, sure you have to watch yourself, but it´s all good and safe to walk around and see the sights. After arriving just yesterday after nearly 30 hours of flying, I drove into the city after finding some very frinedly Brazilian / American´s who helped me haggle the scary cabbies to get a ride for 30 Reals (pronnounced Reah) into the city past the favelas and begging gangs of kids doing juggling in front of screaming traffic to get to my hotel. This place is nuts and noone has the fear of cars they should have and seems to cross at will, I love it in a way. Anyhow big night tonight, off to Samba drome to see parade and more of Carnival, Keep you psoted with pics soon! Ciao! Adam

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Santa Fe, New Mexico

2005-09-30T12:18:00.000+10:00

Santa Fe is a nice place that's packed with plenty of preserved culture, to the extent that every building that goes up in Santa Fe must comply with the council regulations, which specify that the building must have a classic architectural style and therefore fit in with its surroundings, so even the local McDonalds has this brown tone to the outer and characteristics of the local architecture, although I couldn't help but notice that the Mc Donald's kept to the look and feel the least out of any of the buildings and it makes you wonder how much you can get away with if your wallet is big enough. But overall the buildings have a rough slightly uneven mud like brown rendered finish to their exteriors and wide archways as entrances, with the beams used for the roof continuing to stick out around 2 feet of the building all around, so it's quite a unique style and once you see it, it would be familiar to most people.

There's more stalls selling burrito's (so good!), enchilada's and taco's than you can poke a stick at and they all tout "Genuine" and "Classic" on their menu's, so it's a bit of a tourist trap, but a great spot to knock out the hunger pains. There's an abundance of market stalls here and lots of local artists selling work, as well as the typical jewellery, scented oils, rings etc. Not far away, the native American Indians are selling jewellery and they're quite nice and when I say nice, I mean not too pushy, just be careful who you make eye contact with, as with anywhere, they're gonna think they have a potential buyer and start hassling you. At this stage, my funds weren't what they were earlier on in the trip, and I spot this great necklace made out of polished bone and silver that would've been perfect for a gift, but after a quick enquiry and finding out the guy wanted $75, I was on my way. Two points of advice here is 1) If you're heading there, wait till you get to Monument Valley to buy jewellery off the Navaho Indians, it's really nice stuff, lots of selection, cheap as, and they also accept visa if you need to use it. 2) Secondly, this isn't Canal St in NYC, so DO NOT haggle! It is considered very offensive and disrespectful to do so, and sure these guys are gonna make a profit off you, but that's what business is about and I don't see these guys driving BMW's.

Up the street is Loretto Cathedral which is a huge church that features in a background scene of the 'Twins' movie as Arnie and Danny Devito are walking down the street in their new matching threads. The church itself is definitely one of the more interesting attractions in Santa Fe, as it wasn't obvious that there was a lot to do, but hey I stopped into the town for 2 hours, so I could hardly claim to have really experienced the town through and through. Loretto Cathedral is very nice inside and has black a fountain as you walk inside and people advising you not to use your flash when taking pictures. Although it was a pity about the dickhead behind me who must've been blind, deaf, dumb and illiterate (not that literacy will help much when your blind) or just chose to repeatedly ignore the lady that robotically chanted "PLEASE-DO-NOT-ENGAGE-IN-FLASH-PHOTOGRAPHY". Situation was that I made sure my flash was off and I took a picture of something and this dickheads flash goes off right behind me, she snaps her head at me, she glares with her glowing red eyes at me and loudly blurts:

Old lady: Excuse me Sir! You're not allowed to use your flash! Me: It wasn't me. Old lady: Now, now Sir, please refrain from using your flash in future and respect the rules. Me: I told you it wasn't me, it was that guy. Old lady: Now Sir! --- Stupid idiot takes another picture with flash --- Me: See? Old lady: Oh, I'm sorry Sir, I was mistaken. Me: Yeap, no sweat... see ya. Old lady: Excuse me Sir Sir please refrain from using your flash inside the church!

Afterwards I walking out and wondered, "Do you think they allow flash photography in there?". I got some great shots, sure the church is not in the same league as The Cathedral of St John the Devine on Columbus in NYC, but it's still nice and quaint. But after a quick walk around the outside, I noticed the car park across the street (we were on the edge of our seats at this stage) had the typical Mexican architecture, it was quite weird to see. Sure Mexican car parks are quite the tourist attraction, but I couldn't help notice how passionate the locals are off their town. This crazy lady was standing on "her" street corner, she must've bought it, I wonder how much it cost her? She was clearly very protective of it and guarded it with a baseball bat (no kidding!) and anyone who came near her got a wallop, I saw this crazy lady go after a few people with the bat swinging as hard as she could, it was just lucky that she was clearly too incoherent to actually connect with anyone, so after that interesting fiasco, I made a move and hopped back on the tour bus.

Memphis

2005-09-29T17:40:00.000+10:00

Memphis, Tennessee is an amazing place, and it had to be up there near New York as one of my favourite places, but of course New York tops the list no contest. Memphis is a lot smaller than New York and that goes without saying, but I found plenty to do at day and night. As Memphis is a substantial little hub, during the day there's a decent number of shops to poke your head into and from the amount of walking I did, by the late afternoon, I was the one giving directions to other travellers, even some Americans who were visiting. Memphis has trams that you can jump on and off around the place, and the city feels reasonably safe, I only had a couple of guys beg for cash or do the strange following act, but they give up when you're clearly walking with purpose and going from place to place, it becomes too much effort for them. After a little shopping and updating my music collection with some Nelly, 50 Cent and Lloyd Bank$ to play on my discman I scored for $30 USD at the convenience store up the street, I was all set.

The Peabody hotel was located right across from my Best Western, and every afternoon at 5pm they have the walking of the ducks and crowds gather to see this. The Peabody Hotel is a rich hotel that charges exorbitant prices and it's very nice inside. There's a big fountain in the lobby and there are 5 ducks which swim in there all day and at 5pm, a bellman comes and rings the bell, and the ducks respond (Pavlov's dog syndrome perhaps?). He walks to the elevator and the doors open and the ducks hop out of the fountain and walk down little red stairs leading to the floor and down a red carpet into the elevator to travel to the roof to sleep for the night and people gather around (I could hardly see anything) and take pictures, they love it simply. I stopped back at my room and had a few minutes chill time and put on Nelly, Da Derty Versions and to hear some good tunes after having nearly 3 weeks with nothing, I felt like a reformed smoking taking that puff once again.

I met Agnes and Anne downstairs and we went to dinner to this awesome Rib restaurant with was tucked down an alley just next to the Best Western, and man it was loads nicer than the crappy TGI Friday's the made us eat at the night before, I had people claim they saw the chef serve up a steak he's dropped on the floor. This ribs place served up so much meat I thought I was going to overdose, Agnes seemed to like it, but I don't think Anne was terribly keen on the quantity of meat, so she just had a salad, but the beer just kept comin, in fact I think we got a pitcher free somewhere in the mix. All was done for dinner and it was time to go and hit Beale St with the crew who we ran into on the way there.

Beale St is the party street of Memphis and it's a stretch of street where everything fun to do is located. They've got BB Kings bar there which I didn't go into, and down the street there's a Wet Willy's (just like in Savannah) and a Hard Rock Café, amongst a tonne of other places. I was still a little shy after my harrowing but fun experience from New Orleans's and was taking the drink slowly, I wasn't planning on revisiting my previous drunken nightmares so soon. Wet Willy's is a daiquiri Karaoke bar and the daiquiris they serve are lethal that creep up on you, and best taken slowly. As I walked into the Memphis Wet Willy's, they were playing 'Work it' by Missy Elliot until I looked up and saw that it was some lady singing it on karaoke and she was phenomenal, I've never since heard someone sing so close to the original artist before. As we hung around, these American's came up and asked all the boys to join in on their song 'Cowboy' by Kidrock and these guys were having a great time.

As we left Wet Willy's we saw some live Blue's playing in a park and it was awesome just to sit there and feel the mood of such a great crowd, the beats were happening and getting us in the mood to really enjoy the night, thus these guys had no trouble getting a few bucks out of me when they passed the bucket around. Agnes, Anne and I then made out way up the street and this guy stops me and says with the girls waiting "Hey, hey mane (in a thick accent). You've got two girlfriends brother, how how, how much for one of em gals?" He acted like the ladies were a commodity to him, and I couldn't believe this guy was serious! He could never afford one of the ladies for what I charged! :-) But, really I think my face gave him the answer and he took a sudden step back, put his hands up in a sorry motion and says "Oh, oh mane, I'm sorry mane." and walks off, only in America ey, or should I say Memphis? Up the street and across from BB King's bar is a fantastic little place called the Blues City Café, and I like blues music, but I'm not a fan of it, but I walked out of this place a fan. I've never before or since heard live music of such a high quality, and played with such passion. The room was hot and we were sweatin and these guys on stage were glistening all night, but they just kept playing on and on, needless to say I tipped the band generously as a reflection of their performance. I've heard and seen some quality live music acts in my quick stay in New Orleans (although I didn't manage to check out Preservation Hall), but Beale St just left it for dead that night, if you're ever there, hit the Blues City Café and you won't regret it.

Texas Tea - Don't take photos

2005-09-29T13:11:00.000+10:00

Whenever you travel, everyone always says "Now be careful of New Orlean's, they have 200 murders a year there." and "Now, be careful of New York, there's pick pockets about and it's a big place and easy to get lost there". All I can say to these particular claims, is "Crap!". How about not repeating like a parrot what you hear on the news, cos the media twists and distorts everything! Those places were fine, I mean New Orlean's is a little full on and New York is in your face, but no onesaid anything about Dallas, Texas!

Holy crap, I was walking around this place guarding my every move, I'm waiting for the next mugger to jump out at me and this was during broad baylight. Calmly walking back from the JFK museum and I have cars slowing right down to my walking pace right next to me! These gangsters had Snoop pumping in their pimp mobile and they were seeing if I was worth the hassle of mugging. I kept walking and taking pictures of some cool skyscrapers around the place and I've come to the Bank of America headquarters and I'm snapping away only to hear this voice speak out over the loudspeaker at the entrance saying "If you continue to take pictures of the building, we will call the police and you will be arrested!". Ok, so they're camera shy I thought, and went up to the intercom and said "Oh, sorry" and kept moving only to think how paranoid America really is. Then I see this huge bug tall black guy down the street and I've just taken some more pics of a few other sights and this guy raises his arms and yells out to me "Oi!" and starts running in my direction. I can only guess that he's seen my shiny camera and wants a go, or maybe he wanted to run to give me directions, not likely. So I picked up the pace and flat out bolted around the streets of Dallas, Texas and finally found Elm St, this was familiar to me and I knew my hotel was somewhere nearby, so I'm still running and I see the entrance like the holy grail and swiftly went inside to avoid getting mugged, bashed or killed by the scary huge black guy.

Flight - Auckland Airport

2005-03-29T00:09:00.000+10:00

After a 3 hour flight to New Zealand, it was raining and approaching late afternoon, the plane docked at around 5pm in the afternoon. Everyone got up and left their seats, I started to walk through the airport which was quite small, nothinglike Brisbane airport, I noticed a stand where they sold batteries as I realised my MP3 player was out of power. Walking along, I was still on a rush of being 'on my own in another country' and checking out the place to see how New Zealand was different to Australia. To really guage this, being in the airport isn't going to tell you much at all other then the fact that Kiwi's seemed to think it's ok to charge $50 for a DVD title if no particular significance like "The Rock" which lead me to actually pick up the movie to see if there was any difference to the one I already owned about bought brand new for about $10. To charge that much. I actually thought there'd be a 3rd and 4th disc included along with "The Rock - The Sequel" that I never heard was even made, any rason in my head to believe it was ok to charge that much money for a ordinary run-of-the-mill movie like that. After getting lost in there and checking with the airport to see if my luggage will be transported to my LA flight and having them tell me "...it's all taken care of", I spotted a Lego shop. I remembered this as I used to play with it when I was a kid. I went in thinking gee I wonder what New Zealand Lego is like? 1minute later I walked out now knowing "gee, there's is the same as ours, is anything different here?" Well I was suprised, I saw some dodgy New Idea type magazine, but only it wasn't called that, and it featured the latest "New Zealand Idol" winner, and he was some guy I'd never even heard of and can't even remember for the life of me! I chose just to stick to the Lord of the Rings fascinatino with New Zealand, cos I know if I had marked the place on my itenary, I'd go and see that kind of stuff, maybe next time, or 2012 or something. Of course the evident thing that you first notice around Auckland International Airport is the flood of Lord of the Rings merchandise absolutely everywhere, I'm sure you could even get the toilet paper with frodo printed on it if you looked hard enough. I mean the plane we parked next to had one huge lord of the rings promo pasted on the side of it for fucks sake. But I suppose if I ran the country and some nerd grew up with a lot of ca$h and decided to spend it in my beloved country making an incredibley successful trilogy all of the world adores, then I'd milk it for all it's worth too, ahhh tourism! I hear they even found the remains of hobbits recently, but wasn't that Indonesia, oh well Indonnesia - New Zealand... well they vaguely sound the same, who cares! :-) After calling my credit card company to check the balance and all was good, I grabbed something to eat, which was the first thing I used on my brand spanking new credit card! After eating up all of my Chicken sandwich and orange juice and gazing across at other people in the cafeteria and wondering where their next stop was, I grabbed my batteries from the electronics store and went to sat in the waiting lounge. Do you ever think that you often sit near or pointing in the direction of the person you're most attracted to in the room? I mean even if you've been married for 40 years and are turly content, I 'suspect' that most people have an inbuilt urge to notice that attractive woman sitting over there and you may have no intention of talking to her, but she is sitting all alone afterall and appears to be reading all by herself and I think that plays a part in where you sit and whether your facing them or not, almost like a subtle perving opportunity, I could be wrong, but I've seenit happen all the time when I used to catch public transport. The best place to describe the waiting lounge at Auckland International Airport is RED, and more red as far as they eye can see, well almost, it's just these full on red leather chairs everywhere. After enough waiting and walking up and down and in and out of every shop in the joint my plane called to say it was boarding and I was on my way to LA, after around 12 hours of flying first...sigh!

Flight - Auckland to Los Angeles (Sleepless flight)

2005-03-24T00:33:00.000+10:00

I'm not sure what it is about flying but it is one of the most uncertain things I've done to date. Sitting there in my seat all I cold think from time to time was what if the plane loses altitude? Does that guy look shifty, he looks slightly middle eastern, would they have checked him for box cutters, or is it that guy, you wouldn't expect an average white guy would you? So my mind is turning over and over. I'd look out the window as I'm sitting next to the wing and I can see the wing move up and down slightly and then BANG! The wing tears off, smoke and fire are bellowing out of the aircraft, with debris streaming out. Then I blink and come back to reality and the wing is still there moving just as it did before, all is fine and nothing is going to happen, the only thing to fear is fear itself, and my overactive imagination. This would vary as sometimes the engine would fall off or the tail of the air craft would fly off in front of us as if the fuselage had snapped in half. So after imagining these scenarios one after the, I soon learnt to let go and completely place all trust in the pilots hands. They get paid a bit of money, and they're very well trained, so the odds are on your side, but if something is going to happen it will, and you can't control it, I guess your number is up! Sitting in the seats it's so confined and I was search for some little sense of privacy from the person next to me and the closest I found was to fold my head rest up on both sides creating like a little enclosed box or U shape for my head to rest in, plus this helps when you sleep so that your head doesn't end up on your neighbours shoulder. After dinner was served, Shrek 2 came on and I watched everyone from kids to grandparents watching, smiling and filling with laughter throughout the movie. The noise and humm of the aircraft was still very apparent even though it goes to the back of your mind after a little while. When the aircraft first leaves the airport they line up one after the other to take off, when it's your turn to go the engines fire up to what seems like full power and the ground and scenery rushes past at a phenomenal speed and what seems to be getting faster. You feel your stomach hit the ground as the aircraft gains lift and you can suddenly see the car park, airport and everything else get smaller very quickly. But you think the noise from the engines will calm once you're in the air, but it doesn't ever get better, it's just constant the whole way, this quiet loud HUUUUMMMMMMM, it becomes quite hypnotic. Now I've never found it hard to sleep anywhere really and have always considered myself to be a heavy sleeper, but I COULD NOT SLEEP on the airplane. The lights soon go out and one or two people have their night lights on as they read or talk to one another. You might find yourself lucky to get half an hour or even two hours of quality sleep, but it's never enough. It's not the kind of deep sleep that you wake up from feeling recharged. I found I got 4 hours at one point and I woke to see a very strange sight. I wanted to keep moving as to avoid deep vein thrombosis where blood clots can form on your legs from the altitude and not moving enough to keep the circulation in your body going. These clots can quickly move to your organs like your heart and KILL YOU! So as I got up from my seat for a toilet break I noticed everyone was asleep, it was like a colony of hibernating people, almost from a movie. I couldn't believe my eyes, as I'd never really seen so many people all sleeping at the one time, I will never forget it. What's more is that I'll never forget the pure feeling of envy for them I held. I who always considered myself able to sleep through anything, could barely grab a wink and wished I could sleep as well as they were. It would take me to put on my blindfold (which makes me feel very on guard cos then I can't look around and keep watch - psychological thing with me I guess) and putting ear plugs to get to sleep. Even then I'd be drifting off and the engines would change over, they do something and that loud HUMMMMMM I was talking about before just stops flat! About 1 second passes and it's back on just like a second ago, and sometimes they do it twice in a few minutes as they cycle the engines. Originally I thought it was me and as I was fading in and out of sleep, it was my brain doing it, but I had others comment on the noise that just stops and I knew it was from outside (my head at least). The other thing that would wake me would be turbulence but only when it got particularly bad over the Atlantic Ocean for example. I was sleeping and in your sleep you can vaguely feel the turbulence but your body and mind adjust and learn to cope with it until... BANG! THUMP THUMP BANG! BANG! and then I'm shitting myself and you hear the BING! of the seatbelt light come one and the crew move to their stations fast but not too fast hat they scare you cos you think something is wrong. The captain may even turn the lights on and page in to say "Ladies and Gentlemen, we're just experiencing some moderate turbulence at the moment, we're just trying to find some smooth air and we should be moving out of it shortly, thanks for your patience." and I'm there all along thinking "Thanks buddy, but can you step on it and get me the hell outta the 'plane is going to crash' air! now!!". I can be a bit of a panicker in those situations and not the coolest cat that I'd like to be, then I look to my left and the guy from San Diego and his wife are out cold, not even worried in the slightest, I think "I wish I could do that!". So as the night just keeps going and going, I woke up after what must've been 5 hours that I was out, I got some quality winks and am feeling good, but it's still dark as and I could get a few more. So I notice this red glow coming from all the windows and curiously open up the blind next to me to see if I can see why it's red outside and I'm blinded by the intense white like never before, the whole cabin light up! We must've been flying inside a thunder storm cloud and the sun was shining directly into it, it was all white and nothing else, it was quite a surprise. After a couple of hours we flew out of the cloud and you could see the ocean all the way down below, well just blue. I often thought of Cast Away with Tom Hanks and if that could ever happen these days and if it did how would you survive, what a trip for that to happen to you! I have quite an over active imagination as people can tell. So the pilot sticks on the video "Welcome to America" and tells us to fill out our immigration forms and "do not make any mistakes!" so I'm crapping myself now fearing that I will make a mistake, as the pilot has termed US customs being like "a really tough english teacher". So after that was done I look out the window to see land approaching and its US soil, it was amazing to see! The contours of the mountains and hills, small tiny tiny little dots are moving around won below and I can see a boat race happening and what looks like a little tiny model aircraft flying above the boats way way down below until I realise it's another plane, a Sesna! It's just that we're so unbelievably high that it looks that small, it was a trip to see! As we fly into LA, there are highways like spaghetti and pasta, running all over the place, my camera is working overtime and I can see the California Aqua duct that supplies the water to LA. There are words like "Crenshaw Christian Center Home of the Faith Dome" written down below in a car park. Then houses and houses and houses as far as the eye can see, with industrial areas on other parts. Smog was covering the hills but I could still see them, but just barely, and then I noticed Downtown LA with all of the skyscrapers, I'd seen them in the movies but always wondered how tall they'd be, they were certainly taller than anything Brisbane had to offer, but not as tall as I'd expected, and I knew New York could out do Los Angeles in that department. Finally we touched down and I was in Los Angeles, I was here already! I had the nice couple from San Diego say goodbye and we moved off the plane in single file, everyone stretching and glad to be leaving the small confines of the airplane to get some fresh air and walk off any thrombosis you may be suffering :-)

Day xx, New Orlean's - Hurricane Adam

2005-03-20T22:13:00.000+10:00

New Orlean's is the party city of the tour. It's the place where if something's going to happen, then it's going to happen here. The group had just finished dinner and I'd stashed my brand new Bubba Gump golf ball that I'd won in dinner, into my pocket and started the journey to Bourbon St. After watching many Girls Gone Wild vidoes and the odd bit of Bourbon St coverage from TV and movies, it was a lot different than I expected. It was different in the sense that it was grittier, smellier and smaller than the party street of a city, but it does have it's charm as you walk through and see the Cat's meow and the legs swinging in and out of the window (If you go there you'll know exactly what I mean). Y'vonne bought me a Margartia which was the first of many for the night. She refused to pay the gratuity on our joint dinner bill, and she "didn't think the service warranted a tip" but I explained to her "listen, we have a joint bill and they make you pay gratuity whether you think the service is good or not, it's just the way it is, I don't wanna argue cos I wanna go party, so you'll fuckin pay it or buy me a drink or something to compensate me for paying part of your bill". She did the right thing in the end and we got on and had a great night. Asuka was a lovely Japanese girl who was travelling with me and she was enjoying the margarita's too, I remember she was bringing me a lot of my drinks that night. So we left the place we were at, which I never even got the name of and went to a new joint called Kazoo. Kazoo was bangin to say the least. This place was goin off with the latest from Lloyd Bank$, 50 cent, even the classics like Ghetto Superstar and Notorious BIG, we were all trully in our element. Now New Orlean's is a fan of 2 for 1 deals for drinks and I even heard of places doing 3 for 1, thank god I missed out on that otherwise I might not've made it back! But the killer for the night was still to come. The Hurricane! This drink was insane, it was made up of red cordial, vodka, ice, malibu white rum and I don't know waht else, but this drink was toxic! So we're all dancing around like fools, but fools who were having a good time, and I must've been on my 6th Hurrican at this point. I was remarking how "I can just keep drinking these and I don't even feel drunk, seriously!!!" Now I realise NOW that even when I was saying that, as a sober person, I would've come across smashed! Now I hadn't even started behaving drunk yet! As with alcohol, things can get messy and intimate quickly and it turned out to be quite the night for peple getting together. I had Trudy give me a big SLOPPY kiss and that was suprising and also the fuel for a lot of gossip and conversation over the next day or two. But, without doubt, the cream of the gossip crop was the incident of Laura and Paul's kiss in the club was fuel for conversation for the next week. Of course afterwards Laura hardly even talked to Paul and did the "Gone cold" act, denied all possibility of her liking the act and even termed it as a regret. But as I with most women, it's actions not words that counts, and Laura's drunken actions spoke the loudest rather than her sober claim that it was just a drunken fumble and "He came onto me" what was she so scared of? She's no oil painting and I saw no guys beating her room door down, so I think any action was good action for her. At the end of the day, Paul seemed very confused by her reaction to it afterwards, but my advice was to not sweat it cos if she likes him she'll come around, but that wasn't likely with all the other girls in her ear telling her all sorts of things I could only imagine to be negative publicity for Paul. It seemed the advice of others got to her over her own desires as her body language to him (that I noticed) gave hime the green light and didn't reflect her verbalisations to him. Remember guys, don't waste your time trying to rationalise a womans actions, they're illogical creatures that count backwards and see everything in grey.

Day xx, New Orlean's - Huka Bar

2005-03-20T18:37:00.000+10:00

It'd been a longe day, and I'd jus made it back to the hotel with a total time of about 5minutes for me to shower and get ready for dinner, I'd mastered this buy now. We'd been been to dinner and our tour guide and some others had found out there was a Huka bar where you can go to smoke flavoured tobacco's. First though we went to the Coyote Ugly bar, but it was not the real one like in the Meat Packing district in New York City. This seemed to be purely for tourist value but it had the bra's and underwear stuck to the ceiling and walls, I was told that Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Madonna had shed their gear hear to be hung from the lights, I took that with a grain of salt let's say. There's this woman up one the bar dancing around and generally giving appeal and eye candy to the place and we're simply sitting around soakjing up the atmosphere and having a few Bud's and the bar girl decides to spice things up and pours vodka of something along the bar and lights it up (as you do!) whenever people order a round. So then she downs a mouthful of something titlts her head back and puts a lighter to her mouth and blows out this HUGE firball out of her mouth, it was fantastic. All the while one of the other barmaids jumps up and does a body shot with someguy where he lies back and she holds a testtube of alcohol in her mouth and lets it ooze out of her mouth into his then slapping his chest and he sits back with all around screaming YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! All I could think was, Yummy! Bargirl mouth germs! CAn I have herpies simplex A with that or Hepititus if you've got it! So we're partying away and the usual wild girls Courtney, Chelsea, Sarah and Monique are soaking it up in the bar and Courtney was dared up to the bar where they put her on her knees and with every sexual connatation imaginable get het to do a shot from a someone's croth, classy! but funny :-) All in all it was not a bad bar, but it was just the first stop of what was to be a very long night!

From there we went to the Huka bar and ordered 3 flavoured tobaccos, Banana Milk, Pina Colada and Lemon Marang. Simply put, you smoke it by using the personal plastic mouthpeice they give you to place over the tip of this insulated hose which stems out of this extravagant brass multichambered bong, and it tastes excactly like it but your inhaling the taste, it's quite phenomenal to say the least. The smoking device looks Arabian almost and is a bit more than the breaka bottle with a peice of hose jammed in it. So I'm ordering cocktails as we're doing this and by now I'm on my second which wsa called the Pimp gangsta cocktail if I recall correctly and it's got about 7 different types of rum in it, pimp juice and god knows what else. OVerall the cocktails didn't feel like they were having much impact, but I wsa feeling very light headed from the flavoured tobacoo, almost spaced out and calm. After an hour or so of having fun blowing out this intensly thick smoke and eventually getting over the concept that the smoke had a distinctive taste, we decided to make a move to Bourbon St.

So my tour guide is hailing down a cab and this Indian guy is driving... how cleche! This guy is ordering us to all get in and there's like 8 or 9 of us by this stage, he claims that he can seriously get 10 people in his cab regardless if it's against the law or not, I'm sure he could speak the cop$ language to get the to buzz off for that inspection of that cab ride. He saying to us in this thick Indian accent "Hey, hey! C'mon guys I can get 10 in here look 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, c'mon $5 per head that's all!" This guy was an entrepenaur I could tell, but not very successful one if he's driving cabs. We ended up splitting the cabs and about 6 of us jump in the cab and I'm sitting somewhere in the middle with some girl on my lap. So, we get to Bourbon St and everyone piles out and by this stage I'm really feeling the coktails have kicked in along with the flavoured tobacco and this cabbie is screaming at us "Hey where's my money, who the fuck is going to pay me!" and Graham leans in and says "That ride was only worth 15 bucks mate, take it or leave it, we ain't paying $5 bucks a head" and he throws him a couple of bucks and I walk past his open window and throw him $2 and let out a sly "Thanks maaaaate" and Peter a doctor from Bendigo is panicking all this time cos the cabbie with his little religious white buddah cap is yelling out "You fucking Australian tourists, I will call the police if you don't pay me or I will fucking shoot you myself!" I've looked at the guy and laughed and Pete is scrambling through ca$h and we eventually get rid of the guy and I pat Pete on the back and say "Don't sweat it mate, lets go do some drinking and fix you up with a local" Somewhere around here is where it becomes very hazy for me and I remember becoming smashed on the Hurricane's whilst dancing to Lloyd Bank$ - On Fire, Notorious BIG - Mo Money, Mo Problems and nearly landing myself in a fist fight buy sleazing onto some guys girl, but I became great friends with the guy in the bathroom who hands out the mints, as I have a photo with him and the club DJ. One thing I realised through looking at my camera video footage is I once again becoime very familiar and friendly to the shooters girls, hey I couldn't say no to that little Russian girl :-) But I still have no recolectino of how I got home that night, but however it wsa, God was with me that night and I woke the next morning at 9am to my tour guide drumming on my door saying"Adam, let's go, we leave in 5 mins, bus is leavin dude". I still sometimes wonder how on earth I got home, it could've involved the police, but I can't be sure. When I ran out of my room to the bus in such a hurry, thus leaving my camera battery and charger behind in the hotel room, I ws horrified at the sight in the bathroom and flashbacks of my midnight torture in the shower after another hard night drinking came flooding back. In my mind the shower curtain suddenly appeared and the water was running, I was grabbing the wall hard and paying severly for my night of craziness. As I walked on the bus, everyone knew what was up as I did the walk of shame down the aisle, all were looking, but cheering, clapping and laughing as I stumbled in the same clothes that I wore the night before. Poor Andrea who sat next to me for the whole of the next days bus trip to Memphis. I must've smelt like an absolute brewery with the alcohol escaping out of the pores of my skin. I remember seeing her shiver when I hoped up to go to the toilet, I knew what was coming and so did she, I'm lucky and so was everyone else, that the toilet was vacant and I made it. I knelt down and all I had to do to start 'the healing' of my poor bruised and battered drinking soul, was stick my head in the bowl and close my eyes and my body knew it was ok now to do exactly what it had to do. Sometimes people who go out realise what they were like on the drink when they were 18, 21, 24 etc etc and you sit back and think, wow I'm growing up, y'know I really am maturing as a person, I used to be so crazy when drinking. But then that night comes along to put you back to 18 and you realise that you just broke your 'sensible' streak and you're not as adult as you once thought. Well, this was that night for me. New Orlean's was undoubtably the provider of the drunkest night I've ever had in my 26 years on this planet, and leaviheng me with a hell of a hangover that would infact take me 2 days to get over!!

Day xx, New Orlean's - Dinner on the Mississippi

2005-03-20T18:34:00.000+10:00

After a big day of shopping around New Orlean's, I barely made it back for the bus which was leaving to take us out to our dinner akboad a paddle steamer as it travels down the Mississippi. As we arrived, I noticed PAt our driver taking some shots through his SLR which operated on film and not digital like so many of them these days. Pat obviously had a deep passion for photgraphy and was lining up a great shot of the clouds and the setting sun realesed a pink glow which reflected over the Mississippi river, it was quite a shot, but I don't think the Nikon Coolpix captured it quite the same as his SLR complete with Fish's eye lens. AS we board the steamer we all take our seats to dine on a 3 course dinner complete with steak, salad, chicken, and all the standards. The meals served throughout the different polaces I visted certainly did vary, so the meals in New Orlean's were nice but nothing to write home about, thus why my description is quite bleak. After dinner we all move to the outer and upper decks of the steamer to watch the scenery pass us. There was everything from the City lights of New Orlean's, to wharves, refineries, cargo docks, kyou name it. The Mississipi was once one of the most heavily trafficed rivers in the world however these days a lot of the transportation is accomplished by road and rail. Photo flashes are illuminating the river banks as we pass, people line up against th rails of the steam to have their picture taken with the lights of New Orlean's in the background as the steam makes its approach on the way back.

About this time with dinner and dessert settling in our stomachs we get talking and one of the Australian's starts talking about how she isn't that close to her family and going into some medium detail about how she doesn't talk to her parents or siblings, not that she doesn't want to, but she doesn't particularly like them (which in my eyes is not likeing them!) and that her parents are particularly close to her. Now she's telling us this for what reason I was still to discover but she's doing a fair job at justify her blatant dislike for her immediate family and everyone of thr group listening to this conversation (about 5 or 6) is in utter amazement thinking exactly what is about to be said by John the South African traveller, 20, wmhen he blurts out "Jesus Christ! That is really fucked up!" and I've never heard such a silence break the air before. For this woman basically opened up her head full of horrors on the steamer for all to hear about, and this is our response, but honestly, I have no idea how else to sum it up. Anyone who wants sympathy from expressing their blatant disregard for others is a dreamer and best go back to sleep. So the conversation between me, Paul from Essex and John takes a turn to fidelity in relationships and how the tour would react if anything happened between a single member of the tour and one of the couples. John then goes to explain how he would ordinarily (apart from the tour - ofcourse!) have no guilt or hesitation whatsoever in maing a move on a taken woman and going all the way. I asked him "So John, you wouldn't be implicated in any way by the whole fact that she has a boyfriend who got there before you?" he laugh it off by saying "I wouldn't even hesitate for a second, I tell you!". I gotta say by this stage myself and Paul look at each other and are suprised. I went on to ask "How about if she's married?" and this is where it gets good. John sways back rolling his eyes almost in ecstasy "Oh I tell you, if she's married is even more tempting. I tell you, to fuck a woman in her husbands bed, there is no other feeling like it in the world!" Now at this stage, we're picking our jaws up off the floor, cos I can't believe what we're hearing. It was interesting to hear someone from another culture express their thoughts on fidelity, glad I don't share that point of view. Now following this stemmed the whole issue of respect to women. I mentioned how back in Brisbane I had an angry fat woman in a pub get a little fiesty in conversation which resulted in her slapping me, very lightly of course, but none the less insulting. No after I've explained this to John, with Paul smirking, his smirk soon turned to shock as John said

John: "I fucking tell you, if any woman ever so much as laid a hand on me, I would hit her so hard that she wouldn't get up in a hurry" Me: You're kidding me right"? John: "No, absolutely not, I would teach her a lesson that she would not forget" Me: "Well the bouncers in Brisbane ain't gonna let that happen." John: "How?" Me: "They'll cart you out of the place mate, you'll be gone, or if they really don't like you, they'll bash you out the back and tell the cops you got hit by a passing car." John: "I tell you, if that happened, I would come back with a gun so big, I would blow that fucking bouncers head off and he wouldn't be fighting so hard then! hahah!" Me: "Umm the cops would kill you if you did that" John: "You kidding me right?" Me: "No...if youhad a gun they'd point there's at you and tell you to "Drop the weapon!" and if you didn't they'd drop you then and there, it's happened before but they prefer not to do it as it's a lot of paper work afterwards, haha!" John: "You kidding me right? Would they absolutely do that?" Me: "Yeap it's no joke, the whole guns thing in Austrlaia" with a slight pause he says John: "Oooh well in that case, I'd get her to come outside with me" Me: "Well if she's drunk or stupid enough to come outside with a guy who has a gun then maybe she deserves a hit cos that could snap her out of it! haha"

The conversation about this, basically hit a brick wall at this point, but it really showed me the mentality to me about how SOME South African's seem to have little to no value for human life, but John was a nice guy and after all the bullshit talk, I'd honestly be suprised to see a young bloke like him to the things that he said he'd do to people, but then again, I'll mention later that when in Memphis and interesting situation arose and he was lucky to escape given the way he handled it.

Day 1, New York - Rainy walk down Broadway

2005-03-17T20:13:00.000+10:00

I stepped out of the hotel and the first thing I hear is BANG! BANG! BANG! I thought I was dead! Some work going on right outside my hotel with a jackhammer is the culprit. With my camera clutched so tightly in my hadn that my it's becoming slightly clammy, I strutted down Broadway looking at the sights. I see buildings 50m taller than anything in Brisbane, left, right, in front and behind. My original excitement of seeing huge tall, glass, steel and stone buildings becomes fulfilled as I realised I am utterly engulfed by them. Soon though, my fascination with the huge behemoths is just as intense as before, but I've begun to notice the classic Art Deco and Gothic buildings everywhere around me. Green copper roofs and decorations of building which were once as brown as a penny are now green from oxidisation to the elements. These buildings with their intricate designs, gargoyles and moments in time captured within the architecture begin to fascinate me uncontrollably, my first memory card is nearly full. It's raining in New York and car headlights and taillights form a magical array of colours that bounce off the road and spread their reflection to almost make the street look like the night. The rain is pounding down and there's no place to hide, I've got to get something to eat, I'm sooo hungry. I think I'm walking downtown, but no Im walking uptown and there it is! The first place of many that I wanted to find in New York, it's Zabar's. Zabar's is a delicatesan supermarket, if you can imagine a place with ilse's for things like olives, cheeses, hams, smoke salmon, this place specialises in a huge variety of deli food and lots of it to go around. Meg Ryan's character in "You've got Mail", Kathleen Kelly runs into Tom Hank's character, Joe Fox in this very store. She enters the ca$h only line and realises that she only has a Visa card, the checkout lady gets snappy and Joe Fox comes over to save the day with his unmistakable wit and charm (which she can't stand) but it inveitably plays a part in sewing her heart that little bit more into eventually falling for him, balh blah blah...how hollywood...anyway! So I'm standing in the store recognising parts of the store used in the movie and generally getting a bit of a kick out of it and I notice the store next door, "Zabar's to Go!" which is like a hardcore Deli version of Subway, complete with crushed mango fruit drinks, lichi drinks, pure apple drinks, whatever you want really, but no iced coffee! So as I grab my Pastrami, Swiss cheese, olive, sundried tomato on a turkish bread roll and find there's no where to sit cos everyone's sheltering from the rain, I head out the door. Now as I do this I see this sneaky black guy ride past on his bicycle, he spots me insde and jumps off his bike and opens the door for me with no intention to come inside. Now a lot of naive people would think "What a nice man!", but this is New York, things have improved since Guiliani's reign and 9/11, but the attitude of everything comes for a dollar, nothing for free is still the same, let's face it, it's part of the charm of the place! So his intentions are "Hey muthafucka, how bout some change cos I dropped everything to open this door for you", but he just smiles and bows, I nodd and smile back and hot foot it outta there and I can feel his eyes burning into me. My thoughts were, "Hey buddy, it's raining and I don't wanna flash my wads of ca$h on the street to give you $2 for a door I could've opened myself". So, as I'm walking down broadway, I'm the only one to actually wait at a pedestrian stop light cos I'm still figuring how to judge the traffic when it's driving on the wrong side of the road. Holy shit! That cab just went through a red light and nearly hit me as I crossed the road and missed that lady by 6 inches I could've sworn. This is were I learnt the lesson to look both ways as you get taught as a kid, because New York cabs are crazy and stop for nothing, that included red lights as I found out. The rain keeps coming down hard and this crazy guy is walking towards me and snarling at people around him and he gives me a real good eyeballing, he's ready for it, but I ain't cos I know he's possibly packing heat and I'm wet, hungry and have no place to eat this sandwhich. this is about the time that I realise that New York isn't abundant with placing sidewalk seats everywhere like Brisbane. I eventually found an overhang outside a building and stood next to the ATM outside the place. At that point with the occasional person wondering why I was standing there, I think they figured out I was new and just wanted somewhere dry to eat my lunch. So there I stood nibbling away like a squirrel and god it was good, I could feel it's warmth heat up my hands. Nearly 40 odd hours of straight travelling from Brisbane to my NY hotel room and being in the same clothes all that time, eating my lunch outside an ATM in one of the only dry spots in the New York rain was utter bliss. I watched the cabs go by one after the other, it never stopped, and I found it so surreal to realise I was actually there and living it. This was the kick of travelling others had hinted at but never told me about, right then and there is when I realised why I was doing this. Because I was alone in another country, no help, no friends, no nothing, it was just me in the place that I'd always wanted to visit and now I had to get myself around, I was seriously getting off on this really daunting almost scaring and perhaps masochistic feeling of being so free to explore this place. All I needed in the world right then and there, was to walk, it didn't matter where, I'd found out where I was soon enough, every new place that I stopped at was potentially the next place of a great new story.

Day 1, New York - Must stay awake

2005-03-17T20:10:00.000+10:00

As I'm walking down Broadway, I notice that up ahead stands the Rockafella centre, it's the third tallest building in Manhattan, and man it is huge and coated in Limestone. I've never seen a building this tall before and I stood to admire it. It's part of a complex of buildings which make up the Rockafella plaza, and inside it houses NBC studios and Radio City Music Hall. Both are available to tour, so I thought I'll see NBC studios, home of Tom Brokov, I remember his news reports when they'd come on when I was home during the day as a TAFE student at around 19 - 20 years old. So inside is this magnificent grand marble in the foyer of the building, it oozes money, all of it is saying "We're loaded and we know it, so bout time you recognised it too." I went and purchased a tour ricket and hung around the candy store there. You're up a story or two and you can look down on the street of 5th avenue and it's amazing to watch the traffic go by from about 3 stories up, you can see St Stephen's church across the street. I notice a plastic cabinet which contains lots of candy and on the outside there are carved designs of New York icons, like the Empire State building, Met-life building (previously Panam building) and the Twin Towers, so it became very apparent (this was the first time) that New Yorkers were still very attached to the towers and did not want to let the memory of them go, as I travelled on I began to notice this more and more through posters and bus and truck signs etc. So the tour began and they took us through the studios, so I'm feeling very jetlagged right now and my tiredness is really starting to set in. But I shall resist! I know that if I give in and to to sleep now which is about 1:30pm, I'll sleep through to 3am or so and it will screw up my entire sleeping pattern, never give in to the jet lag, let that be a warning for all! As they walk us through, we go into a studio which is dark, and my brain now thinks "Hmmm, time to go to sleep...Zzz" and then, I wakeup still standing, out of a micro sleep! I knew I had to work really hard to fight this. So our guide is cute, I'm feeling delerious, she has a nice rack and has got my attention and I'm thought process right now is something like me thinking whilst looking at her "Hey cutie, I'm in New York for the next few days if you wanna swing by room number....oi! just concentrate on the tour!" So cutie marches her tight little butt into the elevator and takes us up to level 5 and shows us the memorial to "Those lost in the field" and there's everything there from boom microphones, clothes, camera's heaps of stuff that was used or owned by journalists and NBC staff killed on the job and a photo of what happened next to the item. People were lost in Thailand all the way through to 9/11 where they lost 3 people if I remember right. I found that pretty confronting but I was glad to have seen it. Then she moves us onto the "History of NBC" and I'm like oh no here we go, I'm gonna die in here, get the blankets cutie, cos you and I are having a snuggle. Sure enough she puts on the TV which talks about how NBC has it's roots in radio and then moved into the new media which was TV and they cleverly correlate this over to how the new move is the internet, suitably wooing us, and here I am nodding off. I woke up looking at my tour sheet just as thelights came back on and I was ready to go. Then she moves us into this theatre which is the only projection theatre in the world which projects onto a spherical surface and wraps about 160 degrees around you, with this mammoth sound system. I sat there and slept through most of it but enjoyed the gimmick of the sound and the whole "Emmerse yourself in real news!" theme they were promoting. We also had a photo taken of us behind the news desk as all tours tend to offer something the adds a personal element to what you are visiting (just imagine your roaring face on King Kong climbing up the Empire State building when you're visiting the Empire State building - get me?), but for $40USD, I didn't see much value in it. All in all it was a good tour, I just wish I was a bit more awake to enjoy it and thus not so synical at the time, as one can get after hardly any sleep.

The key to staying awake when suffering bad jet lag is to keep moving. Make no mistake about this! Sitting, kneeling, laying down, standing on your head or anything that stops you moving will send you off to sleep when you are this tired. So the goal was to keep moving and that's exactly what I did. On I went past radio city and I hit Avenue of the America's otherwise known as 6th avenue and this place is amazing! There are 4 buildings in a row which look like mini world trade centres along this street with American flags flying off buildings all around you, it's hard to believe how much patriotism is about. One building is the headquarters of Time Magazine, another is that of Fox, it's a mind fuck to be standing there and seeing everything happening around you and then to look back and see a truck getting checked for bombs and it goes to enter the Rockafella centre. I kept walking, hardly stopping except to take pictures, god knows how many I've taken by now. Then I hit Times Square. This place one of the amazing places you'll ever see. You look around and electronic signboards cover the front the skyscrapers here, ever seen a 5 storey animated add for Coke? How about a 20 storey ad for Rueters. The Nasdaq is scrolling the latest share prices and Toys R Us has the outside of the building constantly changing colour and designs. There's a 50 foot TV broadcasting the latest news about some guy who's shot someone. It's glam, glittery, loud, bright, in your face in every possible way, because it's Times Square in New York City. There's a beat boxer on the street corner wearing a huge top hat rapping away "Yo I'm from Detroit, cos that's my hometown homeboooiiiiiii!". There are people everywhere shuffling by to get to the place they need to be, but they're not rude and bash past you like Brisbane. They apologise when they so much as touch you, I was noticing that New Yorkers are the most accommodating and considerate people I've met. Over the street is a news stand with magazines of all types jammed into each and every shelf with tabloids plastered across the front talking about the latest scandle involving Britney Spears, Michael Jackson or Nicole Kidman, but this had it all. I stumbled across a picture shop which sold all sorts of shots and paintings of New York, and there I found a fantastic drawing of the city and all of it's buildings both past and present, cso I like that stuff. This is were I learnt the age old travel lesson. if you see something and you like it, buy it! Buy it then and there! Because if you do what I did and think "I'll come back for it" you NEVER will. I've always been an advocate for learning from your mistakes and treating it as a lesson, thus having no regrets in life, but that is one of the few regrets I have (aside from not getting the number of that Canadian Chiropracter at Alan's going away that Friday night, so hot right now!) because once you leave, there is NO GOING BACK, well for a while anyhow. This also goes for post cards, I didn't get ANY in New York and dammit I should've, but hey, it's something for me to come back for!

Day 1, New York - Who's at the door?

2005-03-17T00:07:00.000+10:00

So after a huge day in NY walking from around 80th St to Wall St and everything in betweem to catch glimpses of those famouse places you see so much on TV, like Madison Square Garden, Grand Central Station, Park Avenue, the park near Madison Square Garden where baseball was invented but people walk their dogs their now, all of these amazing places. I've been fighting the will to sleep until now, so being a relatively organised guy I've got the thought pounding through my head saying "I know you want to sleep but get your shit sorted for the morning seeing you've got the tour departing at 7am" so I'm sorting my clothes in dirty and clean bags and stashed my New York and US books in the dresser beside my bed, you'll find out later why this was a mistake and you shouldn't use hotel drawers, but keep everything in your suitcase, believe me! So everything's done, and I'm sitting on the bed taking in some cable tv and it's around 11pm and I'm that tired that I actually had trouble gettting to sleep, so as I started to relax I heard the lift go "Bing!" and the footsteps get closer and closer to my room, until I can hear them right outside my door and I'm thinking it must be my neighbour, I hear the door know jiggle and my heart starts racing! Oh this is great! My first New York moment where I get to beg for my life. As far as I know I've got this room to myself for the next 4 nights. Well apparently not, in comes in the tall lanking guy, looks aussie and says "Hey G'day! I'm Ryan, I'm your roomate!". Not only am I shocked by this time, but totally pissed off! At no point in time did the that Selina at Flightcentre EVER say ANYTHING about me sharing a room with someone on a Contiki tour, I was fuming! But it clicked to me that the accommodation was pretty cheap and I'd say this is how they keep it so cheap, but even after reading all of the brochures and guides they sent to me, at no point did it mention "If you're travelling alone, you will be sharing your room with a TOTAL STRANGER which we match up through your personality profiles." So after the initial shock and as fast as it happened, I built a bridge and got over it, he started chatting and telling me his story. Ryan was a welder for Mitsubishi in South Australia and had just done the Rocky tour of Canada and showed me the photos of the friends he'd made, parties they'd had, and women he'd laid on the tour. All of a sudden my ignorance of beliving Selina at Flight centre faded. I flashed back to when I asked her about Contiki being a pissup tour like I'd heard, then she replied "Ummm, no, not these days, they've really moved away from that reputation now and are all about the travel, the experinence and meeting new people". The "Ummm" said it all, which was her womanese for "They're gonna teach you how to drink pal!". So here this guy is, smiling and laughing about "This cunt was a fuckin classic mate...oh and these cunts were such fuckin animals...and man check out these fuckin chicks...I scored with her on the last night in Vancouver...oh yeah they got lakes, man this one was fuckin crystal clear, like lookin into a fuckin mirror fuck ya!" The stories just poured out of this guys mouth. I started to wonder what stories would be pouring out of my mouth by the time I got home. So, I love a drink like the next guy, but this guy was the first of many "root rats' that I was to meet on the tour. A root rat was my interpretation of the typical guy on the tour who was all about the next root he could find and who it was gonna be with, it wasn't the quality, it was just all about the numbers and the root rat would probably even beg for it. He seemed to be your typical loudmouth yobbo at a football game with sauce from the hotdog still on his shirt collar to add to the wet spots from micro spills of bourbon as he shook his cup from yelling at the ref, "FUCKIN WANKA!!! THAT LAST PASS WAS BULLSHIT!". I knew I wasn't going to fit in with him and the type of crew I could see him hanging with, which was a blatant judgement I'll admit. After an hour or so of chatting, I gave the signal and I was off to sleep for the night, click!

Day 1, New York - Arriving at JFK Airport

2005-02-25T19:30:00.000+10:00

I stepped off the plane and into the airport, straight away I thought of the Seignfeld episodes that involve George, Elaine of Kramer picking up Jerry from the airport. It didn't really ring any bells visually, but as I walked through the airport I cjued up for my bags to come down the chute to be collected as the whizzed around the luggage carousel. So I'm waiting, then waiting, then waitin some more and I realise that my bags ain't comin, so off to the lost baggage office I go and I re-encountered the irate British Traveller once again, this time he was yelling at the counter staff with things like "This is completely unacceptable", "I'm never travelling with you ever again" and of course "How are you going to compensate me?" how cleche! We're told that our bags will be on the next flight which arrives at 6am. It was 5:30am and I had a while to wait, so I opted to wait out in the lounge until my bags arrived. As we walked out to the foyer of the airport from the gates, it's like I saw in LA and the movies, with limosouine and cab drivers waiting and holding signs bearing peoples last names, "Johnson", "Patricke" and "Hollary" were some of the names dotted throughout the crowd, funny though...where was mine? I must've been on it's way. I'm sitting in the lounge and there is this large black man, sitting at the table next to me minding his own business and sipping his cawfee (as he would say). An attractive young balck woman comes and joins him, she's smiling and he's glad to see her. After some small talk about the weekend, he saw his kids and she was out of town, they get down to business and her job is to go out and make good PR with a Chinese customer of the airport who's son was recently inconvenienced by a delay through the airports shuttle service. He's telling his to kiss this guys butt, "Do what it takes" and "This guys father is a powerful man who has contacts and could make business a bit rough for us down the line if we don't fix the situation now". She splits and he's left to reading the paper and still sipping his tall coffee as before she appeared. So I'm waiting for my bags and I start talking to this girl from Brooklyn, who must've been about 22, but she had a job nannying on the upper West side of Manhattan for a well to do family, Summer was her name I remember. She had a tatoo of a crab on her upper right shoulder, I'm guessing she was a Cancer as well, either that or she really liked crabs. So I'm standing there and she's asking me the usual questions about my accent and how she likes it and I'm waiting for my bags and it's 6am already. She keeps getting these calls from a private cab company, hers is waiting outside and she keeps telling him to wait 20 more minutes because her bags are just about to come down the chute. So it's now somewhere near 7am and our bags finally arrive and she's told the cab company to keep waiting for the fourth time. The amount of cash this woman must've spent on having the meter running by this time must've been considerable. It was time for me to find the shuttle bus and get to Manhattan and check into my hotel, it was raining outisde. New York is somewhere that you'd think would be buildings upon buildings everywhere you look, but out at the airport (one of three) there is open air and the occasional highrise, as with along the highways, and also worth mentioning is New york has a suprising amount of plant life around. Beside a lot of the expressways is a lot of foliage and trees. On the radio the announcers were discussing how the rat population of New York City has jumped 40% and other perculiar things that have happened around the city as of late. A woman was rollerblading and fell over to land on a superheated man hole cover which in turn branded her in the lower back with part of words of what was written on the man hole cover, I'd say it was Manhattan or something. Also, a man who was walking along the street happened to walk onto a live electrified subway grill cover, became electrocuted and dropped dead in the street. The shuttle bus must've taken 2 hours easily in the rain and in that time person after person got out and I was the last to leave the shuttle bus. The whole time I could see droplets landing on the bit of seat next to me as we drove along, the rain was coming in through the air conditioning of the van. As we cruised into Manhattan over the Brookly bridge I saw two obvious structures, the Empire State building and the Chrysler building, it was an awe inspiring moment for me. The rest of New Yorks skyline followed and before I knew it my neck was hurting from trying to look up at all the buildings as they rose either side of me. "Was that the Empire State building?" I thought, but no it was 4 Times Square which is almost as tall, has a similiar ariel and easily fools you. As we drove through Times Square, even in the rain everything was glittering just like on TV but even more so, there was a huge MacDonald's M, there's The Late Show theatre, there's Broadway running down the middle over there, it was all too much to take in. Finally I was dropped off at 75th and Broadway, which was the address of the Hotel Beacon, where I was staying. The driver got out and got my bags as I negotiated the deep puddles of the gritty part of Broadway. It came to $19 for the entire trip, I gave the guy a #20 and said he could keep the change. For those who don't know, tips are how New York and a large part of America works. New York was founded on capitalism and that's how people get by. It's all about who can make a buck. So if you don't tip anyone, you're gonna end up with a lot of bad service, missing bags, and things will go very slowly for you. If you genuinely think you had bad service to begin with, then don't tip them, but if they were courteous to you, and got you were you needed to go, if it was a taxi for example, $2 was a sufficient tip, and $5 is generous.

Day 3, New York - China town / Canal St

2005-02-24T20:06:00.000+10:00

Imagine a place where bootleg DVD's flow like water, shifty guys wait leaning beside a lamp post to offer you a fake Rolex, and little Asian women run down the street with a shopping trolley full of kcopied CD's and DVD's whilst being pursued by the police...this is Canal St in New York City.

I should note that on my way to Canal St as I was passing the US Federal Building, we came across a squad of police cars leaving the area complete with caution tape everywhere. So I'm wondering what the hell is going on, and I happen to see a van parked outside the Federal Building complete with a bomb squad, multiple teams of officers, police dogs, and all of them are literally tearing the van to peices in fear that it was a truck bomb. So with that in mind, remember guys, if you park in a 'No Parking' designated area in New York, you may very well come back to some hubcaps and a towbar on the ground. but this sort of thing is not a rarity in New York, as I'd frequently see security scanning the bottom of trucks and using mirrors to pick up bombs when vehicles entered underground parking garages, what a world we live in! Anyhow, back to Canal St.

It's gritty, it's grimey, it's everything you can think of if someone says the words "the wrong side of the tracks" this is no 5th avenue, and Tiffany's is shut today I'm afraid, well at least down this side of town. But don't be scared, because Canal St is as safe as New York City (nearly) is to walk around during the daytime. The best comparison I could make is imagine Chinatown in the Brisbane's Valley at it's peak time during the Chinese New Year celebrations, and this is the type of crowd you'll find in New Yorks Chinatown on an average day. The rule of thumb with Canal St, is to barter with the dealers, and keep pushing them , if you show any weakness, they'll know that you're nothing and harass you for more money, DO NOT GIVE IN TO THEM! So, I saw an asian lady selling pictures of the World Trade Center that looked very nice, I asked her how much? The conversation went something like this:

Chinese lady: You like picture nice man? Me: Yes, how much? Chinese lady: $25 for you (she smiles) Me: How bout $5? Chinese lady: No, it's $25 for this picture, just today Me: Nah, forget it, $5 or nothing Chinese lady: Ok $20 for you Me: $5 for me! (I'm smiling) Chinese lady: No, it's $20 (she's not smiling so much now) Me: $5 or I walk Chinese lady's husband: Ok $5 plus $15 hehe (chuckles, thinks he's funny) Me: $5 pal Chinese lady: Hey asshole, it's $20, you need fucking punch in the head! Me: Adios! (I politely smile and leave with a two fingered salute)

I walked around Canal St and China town for so long, I didn't think it was possible for my feet to get any sorer, but like the way your body finds a way to fight the pain and find more energy, I just kept walking into more and more shops, and seeing more and more things. The crazy part about all of this was that I was so exhausted that I mentally lost track of how long we'd been walking around and you can feel when your trip is soon coming to and end, ours was still anoth 4 hours off finishing, it was an unbelieveabley long day that I will never forget.

What's even crazier was I would go to the subway, catch a train to Times Square, then transfer to Uptown and dump off all my crap, and then head straight back out of the Beacon and back down to Canal St, I did this aabout 3 times that day. You see, Canal st isn't just like the corner store that you can visit anytime to get what you need. Canal St is one of the most vibrant multicultural places on the planet that should be savoured once one gets the opportunity. On one side of the street you have stalls with people selling I love NY t-shirts and NYC snow globes, the whol nine yards, and on the other side is a run down bunch of apartments, and I don't mean Britney Spear's although I did see her place, and I couldn't see that it was worth the $6m USD she was asking, no wonder Matthew Perry walked declined to buy it. Anyhow, there are the fire escapes up the sides of the buildings you see in the movies, because the movies film the real life place that it is. Down one alley I saw a bunch of very suspicious looking asian guys standing over the trunk of a car peering inside at god knows what, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out there was a shady deal doing down.

Introduction

2005-02-23T11:12:00.000+10:00

This is an account of my travels to date. So far I've been through the United States, which started from New York and lead me to Los Angeles. The time I had over there, was nothing short of unforgettable, so this is my way of letting in others as to what exactly I got up to over there (although no one will ever know ALL of it :-). I have many plans to travel to other countries in the near and distant future, so this will encompass experiences from all over the world eventually.

But for now, feel free to read about my trip to the United States in August of 2004 and what went down on the way there and then in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Raleigh, Savannah, Florida, Alabama, New Orlean's, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Las Vegas, the jewels of Los Angeles, from downtown LA to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Venice Beach, and then finally on the way back.

So, what's next? Well, I've been planning to head back to New York in 2006, followed by a trek across Canada, stopping in Chicago and then San Francisco on the way over the border to Mexico and spending a week or two there before I move on to Cuba to see the sights, Bay of Pigs and Guantanamo Bay, then to Central America, to see Guetamala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and then to I move on to South America to Brazil to see Rio de Janeiro, I'm brushing up on my Spanish as I write this. On the way back I'm considering a stop over in Cambodia to see if I can find any remaining members of the Kheml Rouge...well if I get time for that :-) Due to the times of year I may even bring this trip forward to end of 2005, I think I could handle Christmas and New Years in New York, not a bad way to ring in the New Year watching the crystal ball in Times Square fall. So here's to affording my next plane ticket!!

Seen so much

Boquete, Panama

El Valle, Panama

Life in Panama City

Lima, Peru - End of the road for South America

Inka Trail and Maccupichu

Puno, Peru

La Paz, Bolvia

Potosi, Bolivia - Havin a Blast!

Santiago, Chile

Conquering Volcanos Vertical Limit style in Pucon, Chile

Baliroche

El Calafate and Torres Del Paine

Ushuaia - the end of the world

Argentina - Buenos Aires

Paraguay delays

Foz Do Iguacu

Cocacabana beach and Christo at Corcovado

Tough life in Rio

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Memphis

Texas Tea - Don't take photos

Flight - Auckland Airport

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Flight - Auckland to Los Angeles (Sleepless flight)

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Day xx, New Orlean's - Hurricane Adam

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Day xx, New Orlean's - Huka Bar

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Day xx, New Orlean's - Dinner on the Mississippi

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Day 1, New York - Rainy walk down Broadway

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Day 1, New York - Must stay awake

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Day 1, New York - Who's at the door?

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Day 1, New York - Arriving at JFK Airport

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Day 3, New York - China town / Canal St

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Introduction