After our eye-opening stay at the pig farm we headed south towards NZ's capital, Wellington. On the way we stopped to take in some of the country's quirkier attractions. These included:
Fishing for prawns and having our fingers nibbled by their offspring at the Huka Prawn Park
Climbing a giant kiwi fruit
Visiting the road sign bearing the longest place name in the world
Marvelling at the giant corrugated iron sculptures in Tirau, the town of giant corrugated iron sculptures
Witnessing exploding mud, steaming pavements and crazily coloured rock pools around Rotorua
Enjoying a Big Mac inside the McDonalds aeroplane in Taupo
Taking a tour of the art deco neighbourhood in Napier and staying in the equally deco Masonic hotel
Sampling the wines made at The Mission Estate - a former seminary
Being disturbed by the macabre dioramas of singing and dancing stuffed possums at Opossum World.
One of the main aims of this trip was to seek out as many new experiences as possible, particularly any we'd be unlikely to stumble across in our lives back home and regardless of whether we were confident the experience in question would be a good one. In other words, if it was new and unusual we'd probably give it a go. It was for this reason that we found ourselves spending the best part of a month working for stay at Soggy Bottom Holding - a rare breeds farm with its own on-site butchery, looking after the animals and, well, butchering them.
Oddly, looking after the animals proved to be more of a challenge than turning them into foodstuffs. Every day we had to feed the pigs (Saddlebacks, Tamworths and Iron Age) who lived in various free range enclosures/amongst the trees/on impossibly steep hillsides around the farm. Their diet needed to be protein heavy so that they could grow quickly and healthily, and as we were slap bang in the middle of the Waikato, NZ's dairy producing heartland, the cheapest way to do this was to go to the dairy factory down the road, buy a shipping container full of out of date McDonalds cheese slices and feed them to the pigs in blocks of 160. (For those who might occasionally partake of the odd Big Mac, be grateful for the relative freshness of your cheese slices as when they go bad they develop a delightful mucusy coating that probably wouldn't do much for your appetite). Each pig would get 2-3 blocks of Ronald's slowly decomposing rejects each day, as well as the odd bucket of windfall apples, leftover ciabattas from the local farmers market and the occasional camembert (these were well fed pigs...). Getting all this food up and down the hills to the pigs required the assistance of a Polaris Ranger and, at least during our stay, the skills of a world class rally car driver. It was a rainy mid winter when we arrived, which had turned the entire farm into an extremely hilly quagmire. The Polaris was essentially a quad bike with a canopy and the tracks we had to drive on were slick, muddy ruts so deep that once the Polaris' wheels were in them the vehicle operated like a self-driven rollercoaster - the ruts dictated the direction of travel and the only control the driver had was over the speed at which we slid down the track or struggled up it. This would have been terrifying at the best of times but once you threw in the vertiginous drops that lined the tracks, inclines more suited to downhill skiing and my personal favourite "the corner of death" (a 90 degree corner at the bottom of a hill, the track only inches wider than the Polaris and a 3 foot deep pothole along one side), you had the makings of an particularly grisly episode of "999."
We probably wouldn't have been so worried about riding around under these conditions if our good hosts, Jono and Sarah, had shown any flicker of concern for our safety. Instead they reacted with thinly disguised disdain when, on our second day, we timidly suggested that perhaps we weren't quite experienced enough to be whizzing across their hillsides without killing ourselves or at least severely damaging their shiny new Polaris. In fact, the whole time we were there we got the distinct impression that anyone other than a fully fledged farmhand would be looked down upon whilst working on their farm, and as time went on I began to wonder if we were being filmed for some kind of hidden camera show. Examine, if you will, an extract from my journal:
14 July 2010.
Today I:
* Felt extremely redundant pruning puny larch trees with shears while Jono scooted up and down the hill pruning 5 big cypresses with his chainsaw for every half a dead twig-fest I managed. At one point I was actually snapping the branches off with my fingers. And I'm pretty sure he only left the larches for me to do out of sympathy. Also spent significant amount of time dodging falling branches being lopped by said chainsaw and trying not to fall down the hill. Not finest hour. * Collected 30 litres of fresh milk from Mike's dairy farm - more difficult than you'd think, decanting a 10 litre bucket of milk into several glass jars. Ended up with lots of milk on the floor and several further buckets of water needed to wash it to the drain. Then driving home without spilling milk all over back of car slight concern... Only casualty = cracked jar but miraculously no milk spilt. * Was so cold I took warmth from (1) the ham scented steam rising from an industrial bain marie, and (2) a hairdryer. * Tried to look compentent as I struggled across a marsh, jumped over a small stream, climbed a fence and clambered up a steep muddy hill to see a sow and 7 baby piglets (v. cute). All attempts undermined when on way back I sank my foot into the swamp and lost welly in it, which Jono came back and pulled out as I removed my mud covered sock and regained composure. * Narrowly avoided death (again) driving the Polaris (against my better judgment) up and down mud-logged narrow hillside tracks, at times sliding sideways in a rally-car stylee, at others inadvertently pressing the accelerator at key braking moments.Scooped the remnants of a cow carcass from a wheelie bin and burnt it in an old metal drum. This involved making a wood burning fire, trying to haul dead animal bits out of the bottom of the bin without falling in or smearing self in blood and guts from the side of said bin, avoiding leaping fat-fueled flames from the fire and hoping the acrid smoke plume floated obediently down the valley and not towards the unhappy neighbours' house... * Scrubbed blood from the wall of the butchery. * Felt like Cathy in Wuthering Heights climbing great big flipping hill in the wind and rain in order to feed cows. * Spent some time living out my worst nightmares and re-enacting the downside of Glastonbury by sliding around and getting stuck in mud while attempting to build a pig enclosure. Regretted offering to leave relative safety of the track to help build said enclosure when result was being asked to put up an electric fence running along the edge of v. muddy, v. steep hill. Felt quite proud after avoiding thorn covered tree trunks, thorn bushes and ankle breakage to actually erect said electric fence. * Discovered how loud and blood curdling the sound of pigs squealing is, whilst feeling traumatised by having to help put nose rings into a penfull of piglets.
In other news, our composting toilet has now reached crisis pyramid situation, and is starting to encroach up the toilet chute. Not good. Smell ripening. Apparently Jono needs to remedy with raking... It is still v. cold in our hut and the shower has now run out of hot water.
After this, the time we spent in the butchery hacking up pig carcasses and mincing their internal organs seemed like a holiday. In fact, it was also really interesting, and because Jono butchers his meat himself we were able to get stuck in and actually feel fairly useful. We learned how to butcher a whole pig (honing our cleaver skills on several spinal columns), made sausages from start (manhandling buckets full of cow and pig bits into a giant mincer) to finish (cutting the sausage links into singles, arranging on polystyrene trays and operating the vacuum packer), cured, sliced and packaged bacon and prosciutto. The highlights for me, however, were making black pudding and brawn. The black pudding is one of the top sellers at Jono's market stall, and making it was like stumbling into a slasher movie. Large buckets of congealed blood, livers, kidneys, hearts and other organs are tipped into the mincer which, when switched on, spurts blood across the room and continues to do so for much of the mincing process. The end result strongly resembles a murder scene. The brawn making was more of an experiment really - one which I won't be repeating in a hurry as it involved spending the first part of a morning pulling the boiled flesh from a pig's head, trotters and tongue before pressing it into a loaf tin and leaving it to set. I can tell you that there is a lot of fat on a pig's head...
After 3.5 weeks we had definitely had some new experiences, most of them good but some more suited to the "once but never again" pile. A definite high point was helping to man the Soggy Bottom stall at the nearby farmers' market. After feeding the animals, rounding them up and sending them off to the abbatoir, chopping up the carcasses and turning them into sausages, roasting joints and bacon, packaging and labelling them we were now able to sell the finished products direct to the public, and in doing so we realised how much we'd learnt about our food and where it comes from. All in all, then, an interesting and eye-opening few weeks.
Next stop on our grand adventure was a trip to visit friends Chris and Charlie (and their adorable groodle puppy Georgie) in Melbourne. After an excellent but hectic couple of weeks at home, it was lucky we had the nice long 26 hour journey to Australia to use to catch up on lost sleep. It was less lucky that I have a hard time sleeping on planes and so arrived in Australia 26 hours after we set off, met Chris at the airport, managed to stay awake long enough to drink a cup of tea before passing out for the next several hours. Somewhere amongst the confusion of times and dates we were struggling to get our bodyclocks used to it was Rich's birthday when we woke up, so Chris and Charlie took us out to the Northcote Social Club to celebrate. I took the opportunity to sample the Parma - Melbourne's version of the ubiquitous Parmo. Needless to say the Parmo reigns supreme...
For the next few days we were treated to a trip down the Great Ocean Road courtesy of our hosts extraordinnaire. We saw the sights of Melbourne (including a trip up the extremely tall Eureka Tower), dragged ourselves out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first England game of the World Cup (and to make sure our body clocks were completely bamboozled), visited the building site of Chris and Charlie's palatial new home, ate and drank like royalty and generally had an excellent time. After a few days of being looked after we were awake enough to be let out alone, so we bade farewell to Melbourne with a promise to return on our way home to help christen the new house.
Our destination was New Zealand, which was to be our home for the next 5 months. If all went to plan we hoped to buy a car, do some sightseeing, wwoof at a few of the more interesting farms we had found and earn some much needed cash working in Wellington. After just a couple of days we'd achieved the first item on the list, becoming the proud owners of a beautiful 1997 Mitsubishi Legnum with unnerving ease at one of the Auckland car markets where you can buy a car in much the same way as you'd buy a bag of carrots at a regular market. We named him Old Red (as he is a little old and very red), and after allaying our initial concerns about the functionality of the petrol gauge he was soon a trusty steed and part of the family.
After more than 12 months on the road, a couple of weeks back home for our friends' wedding sounded like an eminently relaxing way to break up the journey to Australia. It probably would have been too, had we just spent a couple of weeks at home and gone to the wedding. But travelling must have become more of a habit than we realised, as before we knew what we were doing we were traversing the country from London to Teesside, to Manchester, to Birmingham, to West Sussex, back to Teesside, then to Birmingham and down to London again just in time for our 26 hour journey to Melbourne.
Relaxing it may not always have been, but as the photos will attest it was a lot of fun. Whilst we didn't have time to catch up with everyone we would've liked to, we did manage to fit in some quality time with the family, day trips to Whitby (with the requisite fish and chips pit-stop), and York (with the requisite visit to the Yorvik Viking Centre), an introduction to Rich's new baby cousin, a quintessentially English BBQ in the rain (where we discovered the culinary delight that is barbecued jam donuts), my dad's birthday celebrations, a highly entertaining attempt at the fitness trail in Guisborough Woods, boozy shenanigans in the capital, an excellent wedding and a significant amount of reacquainting ourselves with such great British foodstuffs as the Sunday roast, the jaffa cake and the Greggs' cheese pasty. It's good to be home.
And so we came to the final stop in phase one of our Grand Adventure. From Iguassu we flew to Rio, where we planned to spend a few days before heading back to the UK. We checked into an amazing guesthouse run by a young Brazilian couple, Juliana and Wesley, arriving late on a Friday evening to find a lively barbeque in full swing. After dropping our bags in our room we joined the party and were soon up to our elbows in barbequed meat, the best caipirinhas I've ever tasted and another Brazilian specialty - galinha do coracao or chicken hearts. After a couple of the caipirinhas and much encouragement from our hosts and fellow guests I gave one a go and can report that they are both chewy and extremely tasty.
After this excellent introduction, Rio itself was not such a resounding success. We visited Copacabana and Ipanema, taking in both of the neighbourhoods' famous beaches, but were somewhat underwhelmed by both. We checked out the city centre, including the enormous (and rather dark) conical cathedral and the bustling market, but sadly the Cristo Redentor statue was un-visitable due to recent landslides. We did, however, manage to fit in a football match at the Maracana stadium (watching, not playing, obviously) complete with a performance by the resident brass band.
Unfortunately, the most memorable part of our stay in Rio was the part where we tried to leave. Good old volcano Eyjafjallajokull had been causing problems for weeks before we were due to fly home, but just the day before our flight the UK airports were back to normal and things were looking good across Europe. Except in parts of Portugal, where on the morning of our flight several airports were closed. Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem unless we were flying home via Portugal. Which, of course, we were. So began a delightful 12 hours of being on hold to the airline, queuing at Rio International airport, cancelled flights, rescheduled flights, never-really-cancelled-in-the-first-place flights, delayed flights and, happily, a transfer onto a direct British Airways flight preceded by a complimentary 3 course meal. We arrived at Heathrow 11 hours later tired but happy (and extremely relieved).
I've been lucky enough to visit a lot of amazing places on my travels, but Iguassu Falls on the Argentine/Brazilian border is easily the most breathtakingly amazing place I have ever been. Tucked away in the middle of sub-tropical rainforest, Iguassu Falls are in fact 275 waterfalls stretching some 1.5 miles - at one point your field of vision is completely filled by a 260 degree panorama of cascades. With a lush jungle backdrop, water thundering all around you, rainbows in the mist and clouds of colourful butterflies the scene is like something out of a fairytale. Even Rich, who'd had to endure weeks of me banging on about the incredibleness of Las Cataratasdel Iguazú, admitted that they more than lived up to the hype.
All of this makes me wonder why so few people know the falls even exist. (I certainly didn't until I first arrived in Argentina and was told I shouldn't leave the country until I'd seen them). It's a complete mystery to me, especially considering the celebrity of Niagra which I visited last year and which is as impressive as a bathroom shower by comparison. If I ruled the world I would make sure everyone got to visit Iguassu at least once in their lives. If you have any inclination to go anywhere near South America get yourself to the falls - if you don't like it I'll drive you to the optician's myself.
Other than a "classic" Homerism remembered by my Simpson's-obsessed boyfriend, I didn't know very much at all about Uruguay. To be honest, I can't be sure I didn't think it was somewhere in Africa... However, the lure of the new passport stamp meant we couldn't pass up a quick trip to the country, especially as it's only an hour long ferry trip away from Buenos Aires.
As it turns out, Uruguay is a really lovely place. First stop on our whistlestop tour was the UNESCO world heritage site of Colonia del Sacramento. It's picturesque cobbled streets, artsy shops and rustic seaside eateries made for an excellent place to while away a day after the hustle and bustle of BA. We then spent a couple of nights in the capital, Montevideo, home of the first ever football world cup and, it transpires, a promenade uncannily similar to the one in Redcar (see photos). We also experienced the monthly Day of the Gnocchi, on which it is customary to eat the small potato and flour dumplings and almost every restaurant in the country is clamouring to serve you them. This worked out well, as Rich and I are both big fans of the dish and they're cheap as chips. The trip ended with a relaxing ferry ride back to Argentina, marred only by Rich's annoyance at the fact that our arrival, and the abrupt switching off of the on-board entertainment, coincided with a penalty in the football match he had been watching. My observation that it was an achievement just to be watching live football on a ferry in South America did not have the desired consolatory effect...
I first visited Buenos Aires a few years ago and I've been looking forward to coming back ever since. Putting this entry's photo album together I was surprised that the pictures aren't more colourful and vibrant as that's how I've always remembered the city, but maybe seeing it as part of this longer trip has altered my perspective. Don't get me wrong, I still love BA - it's European elegance infused with the Latin American spirit and the seedy passion of the tango make it the most intriguing city I've ever visited. But looking at the place through more cycnical, travel hardened eyes, I realised with some disappointment that a fair bit of what I thought was the "Buenos Aires experience" is cleverly cultivated for the tourists. Yes, the Caminito is a riot of colour and spectacle with its multi-hued buildings and tango dancers on every corner, but it's also the Argentinian equivalent of the Tower of London - great for the tourists, but not really representative of the rest of the city...
But what am I being so negative for? Sure there are touristy elements to BA, but I for one loved the seedy glamour of the tango shows, being spooked by all the cats in the gloriously Gothic Recoleta cemetery and sipping lemon soda in Cafe Tortoni. And I got to see a bit of the other side of things as well, joining the crazy die-hard fans at a Boca Juniors game and sampling the finest steak I have ever tasted in the company of BA's business lunchers.
In fact, we got so caught up in all things Porteño that we ended up not only watching tango shows but learning a few steps ourselves. My plan before we got to BA was to impress Rich with the moves of some professional dancers before suggesting that maybe with a few lessons we too could be gliding across the floor looking all sultry and impressive. Unfortunately, the show I picked was something of a let down - the dancing was awful and at one stage the girls were prancing round a darkened stage clad in battery operated flashing feather bowers. Not the sexy, sophisticated look I was going for. Not to be deterred, I booked us into a show at El Viejo Almacen, where I fell in love with the tango during my first trip to the city and where I knew the dancers would be top notch. They didn't let me down, as you can see for yourself:
Suitably inspired, we found ourselves a milonga that also gave lessons to beginners and booked ourselves in. Unfortunately, it was only when the lesson began that we remembered we were in a Spanish speaking country and the milonga we had chosen was for locals rather than tourists. This made for an entertaining couple of hours as our flamboyant cliche of a Latin American tango instructor resorted to manhandling us into the right positions and gesturing wildly that our movements needed to "flow more." After the lesson we caught our breath and watched some couples who were slightly past their first lesson strut their stuff on the dancefloor. I reckon with a few more sessions (in English) we could get the hang of it, and it was a lot of fun. Rich has tentatively agreed to sign up for a course when we get back to the UK so watch this space...
We crossed into Argentina just a few days before my birthday, and what better way to celebrate the last birthday of your 20s than to get in some practice for being a sophisticated 30-something and touring a Mendozan vineyard. We set off bright and early with our tour guide and fellow wine-tasters, calling at Finca FlichmanLuigi Bosca and Catena Zapata wineries for an introduction to the art of winemaking, and local specialty Malbec, followed by the all-important tasting sessions. Half way through we stopped for an epic lunch (with more wine, of course), at Cava de Cano. Needless to say, by the end of the tour we were both slightly less ignorant about viticulture and slightly less sober... We also celebrated my cumpleaños with a delicious parrilla, another Argentinian specialty of barbequed steak, morcilla (blood sausage) and chorizo. And some more Malbec, of course.
After spending a leisurely few days in Mendoza we set off for Rosario - a city some 500 miles, or 10 hours away. Carrying on the birthday celebrations for as long as possible we decided to treat ourselves to the luxury version of bus travel - the Royal Suite. For the princely sum of thirty English pounds, we were provided with pre-dinner drinks and snacks, a three course hot meal complete with wine, an after dinner glass of bubbly, a film played on our own personal plasma screen TV and the pièce de résistance: a fully reclining leather armchair and footrest that combined to create a surprisingly comfortable full length bed. We slept for a whole 8 hours before being woken the next morning just in time to be served out hot breakfast before arriving in Rosario. The only downside to the experience is that I may never be able to bring myself to take a non-luxury nightbus again...
I had a brilliant time in Central America, but I have to admit arriving in Santiago, Chile, was a breath of fresh air. It was like stepping into a Latin American version of Europe - suddenly we could buy red wine and pesto in the supermarket, tram and bus networks ran through the streets according to timetables and for the first time in months it felt like we were in a vibrant, fully fledged city. This was particularly impressive given that Santiago had suffered a massive earthquake just weeks earlier - the only evidence of it was the occasional dramatic crack in the facade of a building and otherwise everything seemed to be business as usual.
Compounding my happiness was the abundance of amazing empanadas, the ubiquitous South American pastie. The grandfather of all empanadas, the pino, is a steaming pastry pocket of mince, olive and hard boiled egg. Yum. Less successful were my samplings of the local beverages "Bilz" and "Pap." You can gauge my reaction to these appropriately named delicacies in the photo album.
We spent several happy days exploring the city, sipping lattes in sidewalk cafes, mooching around art galleries and funky boutiques and eating candy floss in our local park. A particular highlight was Cerro Santa Lucia - a leafy, landscaped hill adorned with Italian-esque fountains and curving staircases that sits in the heart of Santiago and offers excellent views across the city to the looming Andes mountain range beyond. We also went along to a Copa Libertadores game, which apparently is the South American version of the Champions League. Happily, both the football and the singing from the fans was infinitely more entertaining than in Guatemala.
Next stop was the faded seaside glamour of the port town Valparaiso. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, "Valpo" is a unique city, but one that divides opinion. It's been described as down at heel and rough around the edges, but for me that only adds to its roguish Bohemian charm. Away from the naval port and the bustling commercial centre, funicular elevators creak up into the city's hills, where steep labyrinthine streets are lined with brightly coloured houses and even more brightly coloured murals. The original murals, painted by students from the Art Institute of the University of Valparaiso in the late 1960s, are collectively known as the Museo a Cielo Abierto - the "open sky museum." Today there are murals all over the city - so many in fact that after the first hour of excited photo snapping Rich admitted defeat and went for a coffee while I finished my architectural photoshoot. He soon cheered up when we sat down to sample Valparaiso's speciality, Chorillana, a veritable mountain of french fries smothered in fried onions, pork, egg and cheese. You can catch a glimpse of this culinary monster in the photo album, and yes, we did eat it all.
Sadly we were struggling for time in Chile and it wasn''t long before we needed to head for Argentina. We spent our last night admiring the fleet of tall ships with their masts lit up like Christmas trees that were lined up along the docks as part of Chile's bicentennial celebrations. Chile, we'll be back.
To be honest, there wasn't much pandemonium in Panama, I just liked the title. There was, however, plenty of r'n'r following our jungle trials. Rich, myself and Christina (a fellow escapee from the farm) headed for the hills and the refreshingly cool mountain town of Boquete. Here we spent several happy days taking in the scenery, patronising the local ice cream parlour and playing table football. We also participated in the local Easter festivities which, being in a Latin American country, were not on a small scale. We followed a nocturnal parade that must have involved every single inhabitant of the town and its nearby villages, saw locals putting together elaborate Stations of the Cross outside various shops and houses along the town-wide route, and I went the extra mile by sitting through a 2 hour Good Friday service given entirely in Spanish. (Had I known about the 2 hour part I may have reconsidered...)
After bidding a fond farewell to Christina as she set off for home and the backwoods of California, Rich and I boarded a bus for the capital - Panama City. Panama is not your typical Central American city. The new part is like a cross between Miami and Dubai - full of shiny new (and not-so-shiny still-being-built) waterfront skyscrapers, funky coffee shops, restaurants offering cuisine from all corners of the globe and even a strip of uber-trendy nightclubs that wouldn't be out of place in LA. A few blocks away, however, is Casco Viejo, the old part of town. Here whole streets of beautiful colonial buildings were left to crumble when the city's elite moved out to other neighbourhoods, and until recently the city's entire historic heart was a rapidly declining slum. A few years ago, the gentrification fairy found Casco Viejo and by the time we visited she had started to work her magic. Dotted amongst the tumbledown houses you can now find a sprinkling of boutique hotels, gourmet restaurants and trendy cafe bars. But to get to them you still need to traverse the menacing slum that surrounds the old city, and even then the regeneration is still in its infancy. It was a fascinating time to visit, and it will be interesting to see just how far, and how well, the transformation goes.
Now it's well known around the world that when visiting Panama there's one thing that everyone has to see. That's right, a Guns n' Roses concert. In fact, Guns n' Roses, despite having a huge following throughout Central America, had never played in Panama before the week that Richard and I happened to be in town, so we decided it would be rude not to go along and lend our support. After getting our hands on a pair of tickets in the usual way (queuing up in the Panamanian equivalent of Boots and buying them at the till) we trooped along thinking we'd catch a bit of the support act before the main event. 4 hours later, still no sign of Axel & co. Still, we had had the pleasure of listening to Sebastian Bach (of "Skid Row" fame) for 2 hours and a nice bit of space on the floor to sit on for the hour or so after that, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.
Just after midnight Guns n' Roses finally deigned to grace us with their presence. Or rather an ageing Mickey Rourke look-a-like, several session musicians and a teenager in a Slash costume appeared and launched into Welcome to the Jungle. The crowd were elated. For about 30 seconds, until Axl took exception to a plastic cup that landed somewhere near him, stopped the song and gave us all a good telling off. The poor man was so distracted by the whole thing he completely forgot to apologise for keeping us waiting so long. S'alright Axl, we forgive you...
Luckily for Mr Rose, Gn'R have some fairly excellent tunes in their arsenal and getting to thrash around to Sweet Child O' Mine, November Rain and Paradise City (possibly the biggest missed lyric change opportunity in history) as performed by almost the band that created them was a definite joy generator. Less enjoyable was hearing Axl screech his way through Gn'R's latest material and watching an obviously talented young guitarist posturing like a trained monkey with a top hat and drooping cigarette in the hopes that noone in Panama had heard Slash had declined to join the tour. Still, it was an early morning to remember and at 2am we headed home happy.
Final port of call was the Panama Canal. I went along with fairly low expectations, and was duly delighted to find that not only can you watch enormous ships go through the equally enormous locks right in front of your strategically positioned multi-level viewing platform, you can also go round a museum and pretend to pilot the boats yourself in a groovy simulator type-thingy. Much fun was had by all. Next day we struck out for the airport and our flight to South America. After almost 3 months in Central America this stage of our trip was drawing to a close, and we both agreed Panama had been an excellent way to round things off. Next stop Chile!
Whilst in Costa Rica we decided to spend a few weeks wwoofing at a farm in the Valle de El General - the country's lush tropical coffee and sugar cane heartland. We found a place run by two aging hippies called Mario and Rosie - or Glowingfeather and Honihawke to give them their "Rainbow Names." Always up for something a little different we overlooked the slightly kooky job description (featuring such reassuring nuggets as "the land will be your teacher," and invitations to participate in "heart song life dance playshops"), hopped on a bus from San Jose and sallied forth into the middle of nowhere.
Earth Rose Farm, our new home and workplace, is very beautiful (see pictures here) - 45 acres of green fields sloping down towards the river El General. Previously a coffee farm, mangoes, starfruit, pineapples, bananas, oranges, coconuts, avocados, guanabana and cacao all grow in abundance on the property and a few cattle graze in the upper pastures. Early in the morning mist rolls down the valley as the sun rises - a view best appreciated from the rancho some previous wwoofers had built at the highest point on the farm.
The farm is also extremely isolated. It sits at the top of several impossibly steep hills, and is accessible by vehicle only when it isn't raining. Costa Rican road planning does not adhere to the generally accepted methodology of winding around hills, preferring to go up and over them in as straight a line as possible. In addition, the roads around Earth Rose Farm are not roads in the traditional sense, consisting simply of tracks etched out of the earth by diggers and left to turn into steep, slippery mud slides at the slightest hint of precipitation. Add to this the fact that a small river has to be forded just to get onto the main access road to the farm, and you're in a pretty transport-unfriendly environment.
Sadly for us, getting on and off the farm was by far the smallest challenge we faced over the next few weeks. Peruse, if you will, these pictures of our rustic accommodation. On our introductory tour of the farm we were proudly introduced to the outdoor solar shower. This was actually pretty good (if you got there before the hot water ran out or before it got dark and the frogs came in to join you) and it was quite a zen experience showering under a blue sky in the shade of a palm tree and some bougainvillea. The toilet, however, was not so pleasant. I say toilet - it was in fact a small wooden platform screened by palm branches, inside which was a rudimentary wooden frame suspending a toilet seat over a plastic bucket, and a second bucket full of sawdust. When the first bucket was full, one of us would need to lift it gingerly out of the hut and carry it to the nearby pile of hay half-heartedly contained by a square structure made out of sticks. The bucket was then hoisted up over the stick enclosure and emptied out, before its not-even-slightly-composted-yet former contents were covered over with more hay. Given that 5 or 6 wwoofers were sharing this toilet, it needed emptying pretty frequently and the sights and smells and splashes which accompanied this process can only be described as nauseating.
Our sleeping quarters were another wwoofer construction - a 6 bed dorm room with a concrete base topped by a wooden frame and tin roof. The whole thing was encased in a fine metal mesh which we were assured did a great job of keeping all the creepy crawlies out. It soon transpired that the creepy crawlies were not in fact kept out by the mesh or indeed by anything else, and we received nightly visits from colossal spiders, giant scorpions, huge barb-tailed grasshoppers and all manner of creatures inbetween. Those who are not faint of heart can see a small selection of our non-human roommates here. You can also admire one of them in this little video:
At least, we thought, we could look forward to getting stuck into all the farm work that was going on (pictures here). Unfortunately, by the end of our first day it had become clear that our hosts at Earth Rose Farm were far from farmers, and in fact to call it Earth Rose "Farm" at all was something of a misnomer. For starters, Rosie and Maji (first names and surnames being far too parochial for ole' Glowingfeather he hopped over to Hawaii and changed his name to plain old "Maji") were a couple of retired Americans from Florida who, having no experience of farming or animal husbandry whatsoever, decided to buy a farm in Costa Rica on the basis of a vision Maji had when he "died" during heart surgery. Unfortunately, according to Maji said heart surgery had rendered him totally incapable of anything more strenous than lifting a cup of tea, and Rosie's only ventures outside of the farm house were to pick the odd carrot from the vegetable garden or get into the car and drive into town. Undeterred by lack of experience and physical ability they took over their land from an aging farmer who, in keeping with the best use of the land, had previously grown coffee and raised cattle. Maji and Rosie didn't like the sound of raising cattle to be killed and coffee cultivation was far too much effort, so they decided to, well, to be honest, after 5 years it still wasn't entirely clear what they were doing. Rosie, very sweet in her own way, had no interest in the farm whatsoever beyond her occasional jaunts to plant a few seeds, feed the chickens that lived behind the house or admire her small crop of cabbages.
Maji was slightly more interested, ostensibly in turning the farm into some kind of collective where other couples and families moved in, built themselves houses and presumably did some actual work around the place. After 4 years his dream had failed to become reality, something that could possibly be attributed to his laziness and inability to plan or manage anything on the farm. We were asked to start work on numerous ill-conceived projects during our stay, but perhaps the best example was the grand kitchen project. One day Maji announced that he wanted to build a new kitchen at the wwoofer dorm. The next morning, the perfectly serviceable shelter we had been using was torn down, leaving piles of jagged, rusty corrugated tin roofing sheets, wooden posts and 6ft deep holes strewn around outside our bedroom and making any attempt to enter or leave after it got dark around 6pm something of a risky undertaking. Only once half our accommodation block had been replaced by the obstacle course of death did it occur to our esteemed leader that he didn't know how to build a kitchen. Nor did he have any materials or access to diggers, cement mixers, anyone with construction experience of in fact any of the things you might want to get your hands on before you start demolishing things. In an effort to redeem himself, he instructed the wwoofers to chop down a few trees with a chainsaw and drag them up the hill to the kitchen site using the two knackered old horses he had and a bit of old rope. After nearly killing both horses and several wwoofers with our efforts, we presented the decimated tree trunks to Maji for inspection, only for him to decide they were probably too heavy for us to lift into place and calling a halt to the entire project.
Of course, another reason Maji was finding it difficult to recruit people for his Costa Rican eco-paradise could be the fact he is an irritating egomaniac with a penchant for spouting horrendous freeform poetry or new agey pseudo-science at anyone within earshot. These character defects could possibly be forgiven if he genuinely believed he was nurturing the spirit of the earth and helping to save the planet, but in reality his hippiness takes 6 months off each year when he and Rosie pack up their tie-dyed t-shirts, fly home to their bungalow in Venice Beach and go back to steak dinners, driving an SUV and watching the Boston Red Sox on their wide-screen telly. But worse than this, during the time they were in Costa Rica they made no allowances for the fact they were in another country and a completely different culture. They employed a local worker named Carlos, a brilliant guy who we all loved working with, but they couldn't communicate with him because they had decided they were incapable of learning Spanish. Instead, they relied on the wwoofers' translation skills and the age old tactic of saying everything slowly, loudly and adding an "o" to the end of their words. Instead of making friends with their neighbours and fellow farmers (who we met anyway and who would have been happy to help Rosie and Maji given their years of experience) they patronised them, made fun of their "Costa Rican ways" and spent all their time either on the internet, watching DVDs or lording it up in town with other US ex-pats.
Thankfully, it wasn't all bad news down at the farm. Every day we picked, squeezed and drank the juice of the most incredible oranges I have ever tasted, and there was no shortage of equally amazing tropical fruit for the taking. Because it rarely got below 30 degrees in the middle of the day, work started at day break when the farm was at its most magical, and every afternoon afforded plenty of time for lazing in hammocks drinking smoothies in the shade of the banana trees. We also met some fantastic people who you can see here: Christina the intrepid back-country ranger, Brian the sculptor and chainsaw-master, Sarah, all round ray of sunshine and up-and-coming farmer, Darien, horse-rider extraordinaire, Juaqin the brave escapee and Kimberly, the creator of the best banana and chocolate smoothie I have ever tasted. Somehow we managed to have a pretty excellent time in spite of everything and Rich and I left Earth Rose Farm happy to be going but glad we came.
Every now and again when we told someone about our trip we'd be greeted with a scornful "so you're going on a 2 year holiday then?" I think the time has come to set the record straight. Travelling is amazing, fun, exciting, sometimes relaxing, but it is definitely not a holiday. For one thing, we're spending quite a bit of time working pretty hard on various farms, but that aside there are still many aspects of our trip that would have most people, myself included, thinking fondly of their office desk and place in suburbia from time to time. Imagine you're several thousand miles away from home, in a country where noone around you except your travel companion speaks English. You're going to be that far away from home for the best part of 2 years, and for 99% of that time the only person you'll see who isn't a complete stranger will be said companion. Now imagine you have to carry everything you need for 12 months in a large bag on your back and that you no longer have a bedroom of your own, let alone a house. As a result, deciding where to sleep every night becomes a more difficult decision than what to wear each day. If you want to get through the trip without going bankrupt you'll need to do a fair bit of cooking, but to use a kitchen you'll need to squeeze in between a dozen other backpackers and their assorted pans and chopping boards. (Assuming, that is, your hostel has a kitchen and also assuming you can find anything recognisable to eat - I never thought I'd see the day I was pining for mushrooms...) A quiet night in front of the TV, once an entertainment option taken for granted, becomes an impossibility unless you want to share a sofa with 6 other people and watch reruns of Friends or the Simpsons all night. In Spanish. Of course, there are all the amazing places you've come travelling to see but let's not forget that to get to them you need to spend, on average, 5-10 hours every 3-4 days crammed onto various coaches, minivans and boats navigating mile after mile of the worst roads you can imagine or cowering in a speedboat piloted by a 12 year old praying his failure to crash headlong into other boats and riverbanks is due to his incredible skill and not an excessive dose of good luck. I could continue, but you get the picture.
The reason for this little tirade is that by the time we arrived in Costa Rica we were both starting to feel a little sorry for ourselves. Not that we weren't having a great time, but after a solid 3 months on the road in Mexico and Central America without any of the home comforts of the USA, Canada or in fact home, nerves were a little frayed. Things hit an all time low when we arrived in the frankly horrible town of Puntarenas after a long and sweaty bus journey and sat down to plan where we wanted to go next. We consulted the Lonely Planet and realised our options were (a) going to the beach, (b) going to the rainforest or (c) going to look at more volcanoes. Having just come from a rainforest covered volcanic island we were beginning to get a bit of a sense of deja vu and were definitely thinking of the old adage "too much of a good thing" with a new-found appreciation. The beach option was another day and 3 modes of transport away, so we hedged our bets between the rainforest and the volcano and set off for Monteverde.
After the distinctly developing world ambience of the past several weeks, arriving in Monteverde was something of a culture shock. The bus ride we took to get there was predictable enough - long, hot, dusty and involving our coach negotiating mountain passes that would be difficult for an alpine goat and stopping in the middle of nowhere at regular intervals to drop off aged passengers and their sacks of assorted vegetables. When we pulled into the village, however, it was as though we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in Switzerland. Suddenly there were streets with pavements lined with shops that had glass windows and automatic doors. There were Western outdoor stores selling hiking gear where previously there had been only Central American hardware stores and greengrocers'. Most bizarrely of all, there were other Westerners - and lots of them. Apart from the strange Twilight-Zone-esque contingent of Americans on one street in Granada and the Spanish School student population of Antigua, we had scarcely seen another person of non-Latin origin for several months. We spent our first evening bemoaning the commercialisaition of Costa Rica while secretly delighting in the availability of pizza and the English language.
Next morning, bright and early, we set out to explore the Monteverde cloud forest - home (we were reliably informed) to colourful tree frogs, howler monkeys, tarantulas and toucans. We were also reliably informed that the chances of actually seeing any of these creatures was slim to none unless you camped out for several days so we weren't too disappointed when the closest we got was hearing howler monkeys from across the jungle. It was still a pretty amazing place though, faithfully recreating the green, dripping vine covered landscape everyone had to draw at some point in their primary school education. We did see some funky giant beetles and a cute little coati and the soundtrack to the day was an excellently eerie mix of crazy birdcalls and howling monkeys. My biggest disappointment was not seeing any of the eponymous tree frogs, so to rectify this we paid a visit to the ranarium (frog zoo) next to our hostel. It turned out to be quite impressive. We went at dusk as many of the most exciting frogs were nocturnal, and spent a couple of happy hours spotting tiny multicoloured amphibians by torchlight.
Next stop was the town of La Fortuna and its imposing sentry Volcan Arenal. Still very much an active volcano, Arenal looms in the background everywhere you go in La Fortuna, ominously belching smoke and occasionally rumbling. Emboldened by our survival of the Pacaya ascent, we decided to take a night tour to see the famous volcanic eruptions. Unfortunately, the postcards that littered the windows of every shop in town depicting dramatic natural pyrotechnics proved to be either digitally altered, out of date or both. We did see a couple of showers of sparks spitting forth from the crater, as well as some narrow ribbons of orange light where the molten rocks bounced down the volcano's side, but it wasn't quite the awe-inspiring spectacle my camera and I had hoped for. The fact that I was disappointed that the volcano I was standing underneath wasn't violently erupting made me realise that perhaps my recent over-exposure to all things volcanic had tricked me into forgetting that they are, after all, fairly dangerous.
There are times when you go travelling when you really have to, well, travel. The day we left Guatemala was one of those days. It began at 6am with an unscheduled backpack-laden sprint to Livingstone harbour thanks to an insufficiently insistent alarm clock. Catching the commuter motorboat just in time we squeezed in between our fellow passengers and were whisked across the bay in a cloud of freezing sea spray. We were greeted at the dock by Raoul, whom we were reliably informed could get us to the Honduran border cheaper than any taxi. Joining forces with fellow backpacker Nathan we jumped into a minivan and were soon speeding towards the frontier. Following some scepticism at Raoul's suggestion that we pay a friend of his to drive us on to our final destination, some complicated Spanish negotiations, hasty exchange rate calculations and a heated misunderstanding at the point of payment we found ourselves sharing the back seat of an American Honduran man's SUV en route to the nearest major bus station. Unable to find said bus station, our American Honduran friend dropped us in the town square where we found a taxi to take us the rest of the way and he tootled off to finish his shopping. Moments later we were reclining comfortably on a surprisingly luxurious luxury coach bound for Tegulcigalpa, the Honduran capital, and I was happily munching on complimentary chocolate biscuits and sniffling at "A Walk to Remember" as we sped across Honduras. One more taxi ride and a total of 12 hours later we found a hotel room and collapsed for a while.
Tegucigalpa is a typical Central American capital city - scruffy, dirty and a bit on the sketchy side so the plan was to spend a night recovering from our epic voyage and psyching ourselves up for the 9 hour bus trip into Nicaragua the next morning. Part of this recovery was a trip to the city centre to reassure ourselves the Lonely Planet wasn't duping us into missing anything. We weren't - it took us an hour in a taxi to travel the 2km from our hotel to the main square and most of that time was spent sitting in streets crammed with fume-belching cars and lorries, piles of rubbish and kamikaze motorcyclists with our boy racer driver's Honduran Christian rock cd as an unexpected soundtrack. After a cursory inspection of the city centre we spied a Burger King and, in need of a quick fix tea before it got too late, we headed over. As we got to the front of the queue we noticed that something called a "family feast" meal was slightly cheaper than the 2 regular combo meals we were about to order. Following the backpacker instinct to save money at every opportunity we automatically ordered that instead and were duly presented with 4 burgers, 4 portions of fries and 4 drinks. Realising with embarrassment that our impromptu thriftiness was taking the stereotype of greedy Westerners to dizzying new heights we spent the rest of the meal skulking in a corner pretending the rest of our family had just nipped to the loo and avoiding the sidelong glances of everyone who passed our table...
After a frantic early morning sprint around all of Tegucigalpa's banks in search of an ATM that accepted our cards we made it onto the bus and settled in for the trip to Nicaragua's capital, Managua. From there we buddied up with an elderly Israeli gent to charter a taxi to Granada, saving ourselves a couple of cordobas and a tortuous journey in a dangerously overcrowded, dangerously overspeeding minibus. Granada was a pretty place - a bit like Antigua at first glance with old colonial buildings, a very yellow catherdral and a peaceful leafy main square. Unfortunately it was also overrun with gangs of American teenagers on some sort of synchronised field trip and the main street looked inexplicably like it had been teleported in from the Canary Islands, complete with hordes of middle aged Westerners and tour groups. However, Granada did introduce me to the joys of vigorón - a local specialty consisting of pickled cabbage, boiled yucca root and pork scratchings all served up on a banana leaf. Surprisingly tasty.
The much anticipated highlight of our Nicaraguan adventure was the island of Ometepe. Formed over several hundred years, the island grew from the gradual accumulation of solidified lava and ash from two active volcanoes that rise out of Lake Nicaragua. Still mercifully untouched by developers and package tours, Ometepe is a backpacker's paradise and as our early morning ferry chugged across the lake it emerged from the mist like something out of a fairytale. We checked into a hostel room surrounded by banana trees and hammocks in the shadow of the imposing Volcan Concepción and just metres from the lake shore. Here we spent a blissful 4 days swimming in the lake, dining al fresco at the hostel's restaurant, watching spider monkeys lazing around in the tree tops and admiring the sunsets. If we had more time we could easily have stayed for weeks, but Costa Rica and our next Wwoofing assignment beckoned and soon we were on the road again.
After enjoying 3 weeks of Guatemalan home cooking from our host family (lots of previously undiscovered vegetables, refried beans and unexpectedly, hot dogs) we were on the road again, shoehorned into a minibus for the 5 hour journey to the town of Coban. Except that due to a teachers' strike which inexplicably involved a series of road blocks around Guatemala City, a flat tyre and some road works we didn't arrive for a delightful 11 hours, by which time we were ready for a long and rejuvenating sleep. Unfortunately Mother Earth had other ideas and we were rudely awakened at 5am by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake rattling our hotel room. Not the most relaxing day of the trip...
We spent the next few days getting back to nature - squinting at the world's tiniest orchids (and plenty of beautiful regular sized ones), touring a coffee plantation and soaking in the amazing turquoise pools of the paradisical Semuc Champey. This enchanting jungle gem is well worth the bone rattling drive up and down twisting mountain roads it takes to get there. At Semuc Champey the Cahabon River runs underneath a 300m limestone bridge topped with terraces of startlingly blue and green pools where intrepid backpackers such as ourselves can spend happy hours swimming and generally lounging. Prolonging the outdoorsy vibe, we spent that night in what can only be described as a shack in the jungle - otherwise known as the Jam Bamboo hostel. Luckily they did pretty good pizza, and the only insect life we encountered (despite the lorry sized gaps between the planks of our bedroom walls) was a humongous mantis-type creature next to the bathroom sink. It's amazing what you can get used to.
Next stop and one of Rich's trip-makers was the jungle-clad Mayan ruins of Tikal. We arrived at sunrise, when the birds and howler monkeys are at their most active and the tour buses have yet to descend en masse. Getting up at 4am paid off - we were among the first in the park and had a whole pyramid top to ourselves for long enough to eat breakfast.
Final calling point was the unusual town of Livingston. Hyped by the Lonely Planet as a fascinating example of a Garifuna town (the Garifuna people, a mixture of native Indians and shipwrecked African slaves, originated on the island of St Vincent and later migrated to the Caribbean coast of Central America), we were impressed by its laid back vibe, abundance of choco-bananas and banana cake and the excellent boat journey along the Rio Dulce river to get there. We were less enthused about the general seediness, disappointing local speciality "tapado" (less coconutty seafood stew, more watery bowl of fishmonger's leftovers) and distinct lack of things to do. Still, worth the trip for the choco-bananas :)
Having survived the volcano climb of death we spent our last week in Antigua enjoying some of the city's more relaxing attractions. Not content with proximity to one volcano Antigua is surrounded by three others, one of which has a habit of rumbling ominously and belching out dark clouds of smoke. We admired all 3 from the relative safety of a hilltop viewpoint several miles away. Continuing the theme of admiring dangerous things from a distance we took a trip to the local bus station where we marvelled at the brightly painted former schoolbuses and the number of people they managed to cram into each seat.
Easter is a big deal in Latin America, and nowhere more so than in Antigua where people travel from around the world to join in the Holy Week celebrations. Being in the city a whole 6 weeks before the Easter weekend we didn't expect to see any of these festivities, but we had clearly underestimated the Antiguan dedication to all things paschal. On the first day of lent several local churches rolled out some of the city's Easter showpieces: alfombras - brightly coloured "carpets" made of dyed sawdust, flowers, seeds and pine needles and surrounded by elaborate arrangements of fruit and vegetables. During Holy Week itself hundreds of these carpets are created along the city's cobbled streets, and along them walk processions of purple-robed devotees carrying 7,000lb floats or "andas" topped with enormous statues of Jesus and Mary. A solemn soundtrack is provided by a large brass band playing funeral marches. We were treated to an only slightly smaller scale version on our last weekend in Antigua - the streets were packed and we later learned that the procession participants were processing for 12 hours straight. Pretty impressive.
Just outside of Antigua is Volcan Pacaya - a rather large, rather active volcano. One of the world's most active in fact. After being dormant for a century it erupted violently in 1965 and has been erupting continuously since then - in 1987 eruptions destroyed 63 homes and 3,000 people were evacuated, multiple lava flows up to 400m long regularly run down its slopes and lava fountains seen on the volcano over the past few years have reached heights of 800m. Apparently, such latent danger constitutes a tourist attraction in Guatemala and no self respecting backpacker is able to leave Antigua without undertaking a climb to the top of said volcano and having a bit of a play amongst the lava flows. (I know this, for I tried).
Having failed to convince Rich of the potential risks involved in climbing up a volatile exploding mountain I found myself on a bus heading towards the looming behemoth. Upon arrival we were greeted by our cheery tour guide (who presumably has some telepathic link with the goddess Pele which prevents us from meeting a fiery end on his tour). Stage one of volcano climbing involves the relatively mundane hike up to the lava field, the expanse of solidified lava flow that emanates from the crater. However, said hike is 3 kilometers straight up, so any feeling of relief at not yet being within spitting distance of the crater were obliterated by feelings of pain and an inability to breathe.
After 2 hours of climbing, followed closely the whole way by a local woman leading a horse and regularly gesticulating towards it asking "taxi"? we reached the lava field. If you're wondering what a lava field looks like, think of Mordor from Lord of the Rings. It looks like that, only mercifully without the lava in the sky on the day we visited. I'd heard that you have to be extremely careful when walking on lava fields, as the lava rock is razor sharp. I decided to test the extent of this sharpness by stumbling slightly at one point and brushing my knee against it. As the disproportionately large gash on my knee and tear in my trousers will attest, yes it is very sharp.
Moments later, we were presented with the reward for our labours - our first glimpse of a river of flowing molten lava. It's difficult to describe what it feels like to stand next to flowing lava. This is largely because whilst doing so I was distracted by thoughts such as "are my shoes melting" "is that man cooking sausages?" and "should I really be standing on this see-sawing piece of rock with a glowing orange crack in it?" Melting shoes is a genuine problem - we were told in no uncertain terms to wear sturdy hiking shoes because the crust of hardened lava you're walking on often has molten rock just underneath, causing many adventurers to take misshapen-soled shoes home as a souvenir. Even if your shoes manage to survive, its still impossible to stand still for more than a minute near the lava flows unless you want to simulate the opening moments of being burnt at the stake.
After some time contemplating the resemblance of your surroundings to your mental image of hell and watching people disregarding all common sense and personal safety to get the perfect lava photograph, we were told it was time to start the hike down. As relieved as I was to be moving away from the hot, unstable razor rocks this relief was tempered by the fact that while we were transfixed by the pyrotechnics the sun had set and we were now climbing down the volcano in darkness. By the time we finally got to the bus I was thoroughly convinced I deserved a medal. All in all, it was a once in a lifetime experience.
And so we arrived in Guatemala, first stop on our journey through Central America. Getting in was interesting - most borders I've crossed in the past were (as you'd expect) fairly regimented and had checkpoints, barriers and that sort of thing. Cross overland from Mexico to Guatemala at La Mesilla and you'll find yourself traversing a bustling street market with a large "Welcome to Mexico" sign at one end and a "Welcome to Guatemala" version at the other. In between there's a small office partially obscured by stalls selling Bob Esponga beach towels where you're supposed to go to get your passport stamped, but from the activity going on outside it was clear that most people were skipping merrily between the countries as and when they fancied a Mexican tamale or a Guatemalan cup of coffee.
After leaving the mayhem behind we arrived at one of Guatemala's gems - Lago de Atitlan, a huge lake ringed by volcanoes, beaches and jungle villages only accessible by boat. We spent a night with our new friend Mike in the tourist mecca of Panajachel sampling our first Guatemalan beer and trying the excellent street food (sausages, chicken & chorizo cooked over a charcoal grill and served up with fresh guacamole and endless tortillas). Next morning we squeezed in between the locals and luggage already crammed onto one of the lanchas that zoom around the lake and set sail for San Marcos la Laguna.
San Marcos is an odd place. On one hand it's a beautiful tropical paradise, filled with banana, avocado and coconut trees, coffee plants, exotic flowers and hummingbirds, but on the other it's a perfect example of tourism gone wrong. The town itself is small, unremarkable and totally removed from the strange pseudo-village that's grown up along the lake shore. In the latter, backpackers rub shoulders with wealthy new age practitioners who come to find themselves and study astral projection at expensive meditation centers. Unfortunately, the only contact we had with those of the new age persuasion was being woken up by drunken primal screaming at 3am and later learning from the locals that said screaming and general drunken nuisance is common behaviour from their new neighbours. I'm sure this is in no way reflective of the new age movement generally, but what it does seem to typify is a disturbing trend we saw repeated across Central America - wealthy "gringos" who decide to buy a slice of cut-price paradise, set up home there, set up all the things they miss from their old home (places to buy cappuccino, etc) without giving any thought to the impact this will have on the places they've decided to colonise or the people who were living there first. We certainly enjoyed sipping fresh mint lemonade surrounded by orchids and butterflies, but we felt less comfortable about it once we'd explored beyond our (beautiful) eco-hostel's cafe garden.
Before we left, San Marcos gave us our first taste of tropical wildlife - a scorpion in our bedroom. In fact, this turned out to be less of a health hazard than the pesky hummingbirds that insisted on flying very fast very close to our heads whenever we were foolish enough to sit next to anything with flowers. After several near death experiences while trying to photograph the little buggers they'd definitely lost a lot of their charm.
Next stop was the old colonial city of Antigua where we'd decided to base ourselves for a few weeks and attempt to learn some more Spanish at one of the highly recommended and highly cheap language schools there. This was to involve one-on-one tuition from 8am - 1pm 5 days a week, with optional afternoon activities conducted entirely in Spanish. Things started off well - after a few days the Spanish I picked up years ago in Mexico started to come back and suddenly I was able to hold mini conversations where previously I'd thrown a few words at people and hoped they got the gist. However, after 4 hours a day of talking to the same person you start to run out of topics of conversation, even in your own language. To try and keep things interesting my teacher steered the conversations into more and more complicated areas, which resulted in me having to explain the British electoral system and my thoughts on the UK's involvement in Iraq to her. In Spanish. It wasn't pretty. Also, many of the conversations my teacher instigated ended in a comparison between Guatemala and the UK and when you're talking about crime, unemployment, war and politics Guatemala invariably comes off worst. Unfortunately, after one week of Spanish lessons my vocabulary was only developed enough to offer the less than profound opinion in each case that the situation "is bad" and "a problem."
The afternoon activities were a bit less of a brain-fry, as despite best intentions most of the other students were happy to lapse into English in order to actually communicate with each other. On our first day we took one of Guatemala's famous chicken buses to a macadamia farm where we were given a guided tour. For those unfamiliar with Central American transport, a chicken bus is so named because it will carry anything from people to large sacks of potatoes to, well, chickens. The buses themselves are former US schoolbuses that get driven south when they're past their prime, overhauled, painted in a variety of bright colours and handed over to, in some cases, anyone who'd like a go at driving them. (Technically the drivers should have licenses, but according to locals whenever there's an accident - which there frequently are on the overloaded, badly driven buses and terrible roads - drivers often run away rather than hanging around to answer questions about paperwork). Saying that it's not easy being a Guatemalan bus driver - 170 drivers were murdered in Guatemala City last year for failing to pay gangs protection money.
We also paid a visit to a second division Guatemalan football match (I know very little about football, but I know this was not a good game) and the local insect house and reptilarium where I held a snake and Rich got up close and personal with a tarantula. The most unsettling moment of that excursion came later, however, when during a tour of the snake house we came face to face with a glass case containing a large boa constrictor and a fluffy, hoppy bunny rabbit. It took quite a while for us to accept that yes, we were understanding our guide's Spanish properly and yes, the rabbit was the snake's lunch...
Speaking of food, Rich and I had been looking forward to treating ourselves to a nice dinner on Valentine's Day. Sadly, several days beforehand we both came down with a stomach bug that was doing the rounds at school and when the big day came the only restaurant with food familiar enough to be trusted in our digestive systems was good ole' Maccie D's. Who says romance is dead?
When you go backpacking for any length of time you expect to encounter the odd cockroach infested bedroom, death-defying bus journey or bout of digestive unwellness, all of which are considered part of the adventure. What you don't expect is to encounter all of these things within the space of 24 hours, and if you do you are fully entitled to be extremely unhappy about it, as was I the day we left Oaxaca.
The day had not started well. After shoehorning ourselves into a minibus clearly designed for short Mexican people we began the 7 hour drive to Puerto Escondido. Not along 7 hours worth of nice straight highway though, no - this journey was almost entirely on narrow, windy mountain roads along one side of which ran a bottomless ravine. This would have been bad enough with a half-sane driver, but unfortunately ours was in something of a hurry and had clearly been taught that driving behind any other vehicle is highly illegal and must be prevented by immediate overtaking. At one point he overtook 2 cars, a coach and a motorbike while approaching the brow of a steep hill and talking on his mobile phone. Not the most fun experience to sit through if you were fairly recently involved in a car accident...
Matters did not improve upon arrival at our hostel. It had looked promising enough - close to the beach and with its own pool, cocktail bar and cheap private rooms. What the website didn't mention was the crazy Englishman who ran the place, or the large cockroaches that live in the rafters above the bed and come out at night to say hello. After that there was no point even getting upset about something trivial like no longer being able to digest food properly.
Fortunately, our next port of call was a small slice of heaven. Two hours down the coast is the hitherto largely undiscovered beach hamlet of San Agustinillo. In a few years it's guaranteed to be swamped by hotels and tourists, but for now all it has is a single road running along a beautiful beach, with just enough palapas, pizza restaurants and purveyors of cerveza to look after the handful of backpackers that have stumbled across its pristine shores. We checked into a beachfront B&B, donned our swimsuits and spent the next 3 days sunbathing, swinging in hammocks, drinking pineapple smoothies and playing in the waves. Much better.
Our last stop on our tour de Mexico was the lovely San Cristobal de las Casas. Perched in the lofty Chiapas highlands, the city is surrounded by numerous Mayan villages where ancient traditions and religious practices remain a part of everyday life. San Cristobal achieves a rare balance between catering to a healthy tourist industry without prostituting its unique cultural heritage. We visited one of the larger Mayan villages, San Juan Chamula, on horseback (which was an experience in itself given that the horses barely came up to our waists). In the village church, the ancient traditions are demonstrably alive and well. Although in theory a Catholic place of worship, the local priest only visits when invited by the villagers to perform christenings. For all other religious matters they have their own church elders, and their own customs. You wouldn't find many Catholic churches where chickens are routinely sacrificed in front of statues of saints, or worshippers drink bottles of coke in order to induce burping and thereby expel evil spirits.
From San Cristobal we continue the journey south and into Central America. Next stop, Guatemala...
Why is it that I can fall asleep within the opening minutes of a training conference, regardless of how much coffee I drink to try to stay awake, and yet I can't get to sleep at 4am on a sleeper bus? This was one of many questions I had plenty of time to contemplate as the hours dragged by on our nocturnal journey from Palenque to Oaxaca. Actually, the answer to that question was easy - I couldn't sleep because the man in front had reclined his seat so far back it was difficult to breathe, the bus driver kept stopping, switching on every light in the bus and allowing hordes of people to clamber noisily on and off, and every now and again armed soldiers would get on to look for drugs and fugitives. The joys of travel...
Fortunately, Oaxaca was a destination worth making the journey for. Known as the culinary capital of Mexico, Oaxaca is also a cultural hotbed of artists and local craftsfolk; a beautiful, vibrant colonial city and somewhere I'd been looking forward to coming back to for a long time. Top of the list of things to do was reaquaint myself with the amazing Oaxacan hot chocolate, served delicately flavoured with orange and cinnamon. Yum. Less appealing, but equally essential on any trip to the city, was a trip to the market to sample the local delicacy - chapulines. Or, as we would call them, toasted grasshoppers. Watch Rich's reaction to his first crunchy critter here:
And what better way to celebrate your first toasted grasshopper than with a nice bowl of cheese ice cream? Well, there are probably many it turns out - given the choice I think I'd rather have more of the grasshoppers...
After an excellent 8 months in the US and Canada it was time to begin the next phase of our travels in Mexico and Central America. First stop south of the border was the old colonial city of Merida, a quintessentially Mexican town where tourism seems to be mainly for other Mexicans, there's banda music blaring from every other window and the streets are a chaotic mass of pedestrians, street vendors and erratically driven vehicles. At its heart, however, is a peaceful leafy plaza surrounded by grand old buildings built from the remains of Mayan pyramids. We arrived just in time for the 6 January - an important feast day in Catholic Mexico and one which is particularly celebrated in Merida as it happens to coincide with the city's birthday. The Dia de los Reyes (day of the kings) as it is known is traditionlly marked by eating "rosca de reyes," a sweet bread encrusted with dried fruits, bits of jellied sweets and meringue. On the way to the supermarket on the eve of the festival we stumbled across an entire street cordened off and lined along both sides with tables, along the length of which ran three rows of the aforementioned cake, interspersed with intricately carved watermelons. An army of chefs in white hats patrolled the space inbetween the two rows of tables handing out large pieces of cake and cups of fizzy pop to anyone who presented them with a couple of pesos. Later the next evening we watched a dramatic reenactment of key moments in Mayan history in the main plaza, followed by a procession through the city led by women in elaborate dresses handing out roses, carrying candles, singing patriotic songs and flanked by balloon-bedecked horse drawn carriages, before several local mariachi bands took it in turns to sing songs about Merida on a stage back in the main plaza as a prelude to an impressive fireworks display launched over the heads of the audience from at least 4 different points around the square. I plan to propose similar annual festivities to Redcar council when I return to the UK.
After a relaxing week of roaming the city and trying to remember (i) my Spanish and (ii) not to put toilet paper down the toilet we moved on to the smaller but even prettier city of Campeche where I spent several days to fending off a particularly vicious cold. In between violent sneezing fits I noticed that almost every building on each street was painted a different colour, which made the whole place feel slightly like somewhere out of a fairytale. During our stay we also sampled some of the local delicacies, including pollo pibil (chicken marinated in sour orange juice, spices and sweet chili then cooked in banana leaves), pipian de pavo (turkey in a chocolatey pumpkin seed sauce) and cactus and pineapple yoghurt (self explanatory, but see video for tasting notes).
Finally, no trip to the Yucutan peninsula would be complete without admiring some Mayan ruins, and we liked the ones at Chichen Itza so much we decided to visit Palenque as well. What Chichen Itza lacked in atmosphere (unlike Palenque, where it still felt like you were wandering through the jungle, Chichen Itza's ruins have been cleared so drastically you can see more tourists than trees) it made up for in grizzliness, with carvings of warriors holding enemy heads and eagles tearing out human hearts. One temple was entirely covered with engraved images of human skulls. Nice.
From Sedona we made our way southwest towards San Diego, our destination for NYE and final port of call in the States. En route we encountered some prime examples of the oddities of roadside USA including a spaceship-themed diner, a cafe next to a date plantation that specialised in date and cactus milkshakes, numerous jumbo jet sized RVs and a classic Airstream silver retro caravan.
The highlight of the trip for me, however, was getting up close and personal with the saguaro cactus, ubiquitous symbol of the American south west (even though they only grow in a small area of Arizona - contrary to what Old El Paso would have you believe, there ain't no saguaro in Texas).
We arrived in San Diego just in time for a big parade, complete with giant inflatable hot dogs and dinosaurs. Then, to end the year in style we went for a quiet meal in a lovely Thai restaurant. We may also have had some happy hour cocktails. And the happy hours may have lasted from 6-11pm, after which time the price of the drinks became strangely irrelevant...
Unaccustomed as we were to such revelry, I can report that 1 January 2010 was largely spent in bed.
One of my favourite things about Christmas is that Christmas Day in my family is always and without fail exactly the same every year, right down to the time we crack open the M&S cocktail sausage rolls. There's something nice and reassuring about that, I think. (Plus it means I can always count on having a Cadbury's Treatsize Variety Bag is to accompany the Queen's speech). Unfortunately, this meant that my first Christmas away from home, let alone in a foreign country where they don't understand the concept of Christmas pudding, was something of a daunting prospect. In the preceding weeks homesickness reared its head with increasing regularity - the slightest whiff of a Christmas carol could reduce me to a snivvling mess and I think Rich fully expected me to have a meltdown when the day finally arrived.
Fortunately for all involved, Christmas turned out to be really rather excellent. We'd found a beautiful apartment/annex in the desert on the edge of Rimrock, a little town close to the famous red rocks of Sedona, Arizona, and on Christmas Eve we moved in and began the Christmasifying process. First up, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a tree. As the cost/benefit analysis wouldn't stretch to us buying a proper tree plus decorations, we fashioned our own out of our 2 backpacks balanced on top of each other, wrapped in a couple of fake pine tree garlands and twinkly lights and strategically hung with cheap candy canes and shiny baubles. It actually looked pretty convincing in the end, we think the Tate Modern might be interested...
Then, of course, there was the food. Neither of us had been let loose on the Christmas food shopping singlehanded before so it was all a bit of an adventure. We went for a traditional approach, but with an American twist to fill in the gaps. So no Christmas pudding or crackers, but instead the joy of egg nog and American football themed Santa hats. We even found a bag of "bagel dogs" to fill in for the traditional sausage rolls. Inspired.
The rest of Christmas Eve was spent finding streaming Christmas songs online (you can't have Christmas without Slade or Fairytale of New York), decorating our own 99 cent stockings and drinking mulled wine. We found a nice church in Sedona to provide carols by candlelight and midnight mass before settling in to wait for Santa.
Christmas Day was similarly successful. First prize for making Christmas has to go to the wonderful Skype, which let me "be there" while my family opened their presents on Christmas morning. The wonders of technology, eh? My presents from home were particularly appreciated - a whole fridgeshelf full of Cadbury's finest confectionery. (Proper chocolate, not the pale imitation they brand as Cadburys in the States or, heaven forbid, Hersheys). After exchanging presents and enjoying a hearty breakfast of bucks fizz and eggs, ham & asparagus on toast we drove out to the red rocks for a Christmas Day perambulation. It was beautiful - see photos. Christmas Dinner also turned out perfectly, a feat which I attribute partly to our culinary expertise and partly to the steady supply of sparkling wine which accompanied the cooking process.
To round things off nicely we took another trip to the red rocks on Boxing Day, including a stop at the impressive and unusual Chapel of the Holy Cross. The chapel, originally conceived to take up an entire city block in Budapest, was eventually constructed in Sedona, built into the red rocks themselves and overlooking the valley 200ft below. The giant cross which forms the building's front can be seen for miles and complements the surrounding landscape surprisingly well.
Before leaving Arizona we ate more festive foodstuffs, watched Christmas movies and packed up the remaining chocolate for a visit to the Grand Canyon - quite a sight, especially in the snow. All in all, t'was a very merry Christmas.
Ah, Vegas. As a Disney-obsessed child who never quite grew out of her guilty love of all things glitzy, gimmicky and over the top, I had been looking forward to visiting ole' Sin City for quite some time. Fortunately, it didn't disappoint. As we were stopping by only a few days before Yuletide, mum and dad had booked Rich and I into a junior suite at the Signature - the new and tres swanky part of the MGM grand - as a Christmas present. After 7 months of sleeping in hostels, tents, campervans and bedsits you can imagine the joy with which we greeted our king- sized bed, his & hers sinks, private hot tub, flatscreen TV, kitchenette, living area and balcony overlooking The Strip. I could've just stayed in the suite for 4 days.
Soon, however, the call of $1 margaritas and slot machines drew us from our utopia and we set off to explore further afield. The first thing I noticed: the hotels are massive. It took us almost 20 minutes to walk from our suite to the front door of the MGM Grand, and that was without stopping at the in-house McDonalds, swimming pool and gym,"CSI Miami Experience," plethora of restaurants or the casino. It really did feel like walking through a giant adult's playground.
The next few days whirled by in a heady mix of late mornings and even later nights, cut-price cocktails, bad karaoke, victories on the slot machines and defeats at the blackjack tables. We lapped up the free shows - the Mirage's volcano, the Bellagio's fountains and the lions at the MGM Grand. We took in a Cirque de Soleil extravaganza, visited Old Vegas to admire Vegas Vic and Vegas Vicky, found our favourite slots (The Enchanted Unicorn and Hoot Loot) and strained our necks marvelling like Lillipudlians at the giant-sized Eiffel Tower, New York skyline, Caeser's Palace and other assorted edifices.
Continuing the festive theme of pushing the boat out, we also indulged in a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Wynn, currently held to be the best buffet in Vegas. In terms of choice alone it was a winner - we feasted on everything from Giant Alaskan Snow Crab legs to prime rib; pizza to potstickers. And then there were the desserts... As a fully paid up member of the Sweet Tooth Club I felt it only my duty to try as many of the sample sized delicacies on offer, and narrowing the field to only a final 7 was almost as tough a job as trying to eat them all. Needless to say the rest of that day was spent moving very, very slowly in the direction of our suite and a much needed place to lie down.
On our last night we wandered around some of the hotels we'd not explored yet and stumbled upon the newly opened CityCenter complex which includes the Aria casino resort and the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Although from the outside it looks unfortunately similar to something out of London's square mile, inside it is, well, pretty breathtaking. The photos don't do it justice, but every square foot of the place is like a shrine to the gods of chic and stylishness. I'm not usually impressed by minimalist decor and ultra modern architecture but this place is something else. If only I could afford to stay there...
Not to be overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of Vegas is mention of our trip to a place at the other end of the spectrum - the Gold Rush ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. The town began in 1905 as a mining camp which sprang up when gold was discovered in the surrounding hills. By 1907, Rhyolite had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange, along with a population of around 5,000. By the end of 1910, however, the mine was operating at a loss and in 1920 the town's population had dropped to almost zero. Today, all that remains are the ghostly ruins of once proud buildings, a house made almost entirely out of bottles and a surreally placed outdoor sculpture museum. As the museum's website states, should you drop by "you'll encounter a life-size, ghostly interpretation of the Last Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci; a 25-foot high pink woman made of cinder blocks; a 24-foot high steel prospector accompanied by a penguin; a blossoming tangle of gleaming chrome car parts; and an exquisitely carved winged woman reaching for the sun from high atop a wooden pillar."All this in the middle of the desert, next to a ghost town. Pretty trippy, I can tell you.
The next phase of our travels needed to put us in Las Vegas by December 21, and so several weeks previously we set about wondering how we might get there. When I say "wondering," what I of course mean is finding out which buses leave from San Francisco travelling in the general direction of Las Vegas, where we would need to make connections in order to eventually end up in Las Vegas, what time the various buses leave, how much each bus costs and which route is cheapest, how we would get to and from the relevant bus stations, how long each journey would take etc, etc. Then doing the same thing for trains. Then doing the same thing for flights. Then finding out how much it would cost to rent a car. Then doing it all over again, but this time with various bus/train/plane/car combinations until we eventually come up with a plan which we can afford, doesn't take 3 months and doesn't require us to paddle downstream in a canoe in order to make one of our connections.
And so it was that at 4.30am one morning we walked to the BART station to catch a train to the airport to catch a flight to Los Angeles to catch a bus to the rental car office to pick up a hire car to drive to Las Vegas. And so it also was that we ended up sitting bleary-eyed outside a cafe in Venice Beach at 8am that same day wondering where the ridiculously hot sunshine had come from and trying not to fall asleep into our breakfast veggie burgers. After realising that a trip to downtown LA or Universal Studios might be the end of us in our current state we decided instead to hover on the periphery of the city, taking in the view from Mulholland Drive, the pier at Santa Monica and the wonderful LA traffic. Thanks to some covert-carpark-wi-fi-purloining we then located the nearest, cheapest motel, checked in and managed to order in and eat a pizza before passing out.
Next day we struck out for the town of Lone Pine, en route to Death Valley and Vegas. As soon as we left LA we noticed how dramatically different the scenery was from anywhere we'd visited so far. Mile upon mile of desert highway and distant horizons flanked on all sides by barren tawny mountain ranges and punctuated only by the occasional cactus or telegraph pole oddly disguised as a tree. Not the sort of landscape I'm used to looking at in the run up to Christmas.
Somewhere along one of the aforementioned desert highways we turned off at a sign which simply said "Ghost Town." I'd heard of American ghost towns from the Gold Rush era which could, with the right degree of squinting, resemble the dilapidated sets of old Westerns, but this one was much more recent. Smashed up TV sets, sofas and suitcases littered a handful of gutted trailers and bungalows, and what used to be streets were scattered with rusting bed frames, splintered wood and broken glass. We couldn't find any reference to the settlement on the map, and in the absence of further signage we left the eerie scene non the wiser about its origins or its mysterious demise.
As evening closed in we stopped to check out a couple of likely looking sleeping establishments. Unfortunately they turned out to be deserted, surrounded by the bones of long dead animals and eerily reminiscent of the Bates motel. Moving swiftly on, we arrived at the infinitely more welcoming town of Lone Pine, and checked into the kitsch but comfy Trails Motel. We soon noticed that the town had a distinctly Wild West feel to it, largely, it transpired, due to the fact that the nearby Alabama Hills were the setting for over 300 Westerns and TV shows. Upon further exploration we discovered the Museum of Lone Pine Movie History and that everyone from Clint Eastwood to John Wayne to Erroll Flynn had filmed in "them thar hills." We spent a happy evening watching the Western B movie "Riders from Tuscon" in the museum's wild west theater before heading down Movie Road the next morning to see where all the action took place and to re-enact scenes from The Lone Ranger (see photos).
Later that day, many desert highway miles later, we arrived at the entrance to Death Valley. Fortunately for us, we were visiting at a time of year that didn't put us at risk of destroying the car's air conditioning and dying of heat exhaustion, but we still found ourselves surrounded by an impressively dry, hot and arid wilderness. We passed through desolate canyons which unexpectedly transformed into golden sand dunes before arriving at Badwater Basin - a salt flat 282 feet below sea level. As dusk fell the evening shadows gave the valley the appearance of a lunar landscape, with nothing but rocks and mountain ridges as far as the eye could see. We left Death Valley surprised by the bizarre variety of landscapes we'd encountered, impressed by the majestic unearthliness of the place and definitely glad we stopped by.
