Shortly after my last entry I set off the Jamiroquai concert with Aviv, an Israeli guy, and Sandor from Holland. I was still feeling a bit rotten from the night before when about a dozen of us had gone to a nightclub until the early hours. Strangely, Wednesday is one of the biggest nights here and the place was packed.
The journey to the concert got off to a good start when our taxi driver worked out where we were going and put the band´s latest album on his state-of-the-art stereo - which must have been worth more than his beat-up yellow taxi. He even had disco lights in the windows which caught his gold teeth as he grinned at us.
He dropped us off at a certain point in the north of the city where a fleet of buses were taking people to the venue - a nutty park about an hour from the city. It was built by a man named Jaime Duque, who famously had more money than sense. Among the attractions is a life-sized replica of the Taj Mahal, constructed from breeze blocks and clad in white bathroom tiles. The overall effect is little short of blasphemous.
The bus journey there was quite jolly as a very cute girl took the seat next to me and after chatting for a few minutes gave me her mobile number and told me to give her a ring - "perhaps we could go to the theatre?" she said. She was very sweet. At one point she told me that she made her own clothes. With a winning smile she unbuttoned her top and flashed me her chest, which was barely covered by a tight one-shouldered vest. "Goodness me, how nice," was all I could manage.
Getting into the park was quite an experience. There were several cordons of security overseen by armed police, who despite their fearsome appearance were very friendly. It was with a warm smile that they confiscated all my cigarettes and lighter telling me they were forbidden inside the stadium. Only when I got inside did I realise that they were being sold at hugely inflated prices. Aviv found this particularly funny as he had managed to get through with a clean sweep of forbidden items: cigarettes, a lighter, a large umbrella, a drink and a camera.
The concert itself was a disappointment as it was impossible to hear anything. We had standard tickets, as opposed to VIP, so we were fenced off in the rear half of the stadium. However, I don´t think even the very important people got good volume as there seemed to be only two speakers on the stage. JK himself, the lead singer, was nothing but a tiny speck prancing about with feathers in his hair.
In hindsight I don´t mind too much as the terrible sound quality led to a conversation with a lovely young lady lawyer who was standing next to me. Again, after a brief conversation she gave me her number, and with Aviv and Sandor, and two of her friends, we´re planning to meet tonight.
The journey back was interesting. First we had to find our bus amongst miles of chaotic roads filled with cars, taxis and coaches all blocking each other and honking their horns. It took a while, but more by luck than design we found our transport. After a short while the bus arrived at the distant outskirts of the city and stopped. The driver stood up and addressed his passengers, telling them this was as far as he was going. A howl of "noooo!" went up and fifty voices started to berate the driver, who stood in the aisle batting the air in defiance like a pantomime baddy. I honestly expected Bonny Langford to enter the bus wearing green tights and prod him in the bottom with a sword while we all shouted "he´s behind you!" Eventually, with a colossal huff, the driver relented and took us on to the right place.
I have to go now to give Paula, the commercial lawyer, a call to arrange tonight´s meeting. I realised today that I´ve not written much about Colombia, or Bogota, as a place, I´ll try to do that tomorrow along with a report on tonight´s meeting, if it goes ahead.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Jamiroquai
Not much to report really, still enjoying the very English weather of Bogota and lazing about at the Platypus. In a minute I´m off to see Jamiroquai in concert, which should be a blast. Tomorrow is the opening of an alternative theatre festival here, and I´ve already been offered free tickets to a performance of Ethiopian Israeli dance. Not sure about that one. I´ve also got tickets for a party in a salt mine on Saturday night, which should be a novel experience. So, a short message today, but I should have plenty to write about soon.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Rainy days
(ignore the underlined words, no idea what happened)
It´s been raining steadily for a few days here, which has given me the ideal excuse for just hanging around in the hostel chatting, playing cards, losing at chess and drinking the free coffee.
This place is quite notorious for trapping people for weeks or months at a time. In the visitors´ book there are entries from people who came here for a couple of days but ended up staying for six months.
There are some interesting people here. I think I have already mentioned the Chech bloke called Andre. He was a strange sort, and, it seems, a thief without scruples. I´d found him quite amusing company, because of his endless monologues about chasing women in South America. His tales were made more interesting, to me at least, because he had tiuret´s syndrome and said "hrumph, hrumph" all the time. One typical story ended thus: "It was hrumph, hrumph, like making love to Kojak. And then she hrumph, hrumph, started vomiting hairballs, like a hrumph, hrumph, cat." Most of his tales involved the various ways he´d met women across the continent, usually involving the payment of cash. One story that bears repeating involved him in pursuit of a girl for more noble ends. He said that he´d met a Chech couple in Mexico who were searching the continent for their daughter, who had gone missing in Bolivia six years before. Apparently she´d just got off the bus to have a wee and was never seen again. Andre said that he travelled to Bolivia and found her in a village brothel where she´d been kept as a drug-addicted sex slave and baby factory. Apparently it´s a well-known case. He didn´t mention how long he spent with her at the brothel before he alerted her parents. . .
Andre left unexpectedly in the middle of the night on Friday, without paying his bill here. A few hours later a guest discovered that his locker had been forced open and $800 dollars stolen. The real shame is that the guest is a really sweet Ethiopian bloke who came here to meet the Eritreans (who left, strangely, shortly after he arrived). The cash represents his total funds, and is not insured. On top of this his visa runs our tomorrow and he´s got no money to replace it. I think the hostel owner, a very decent bloke, is helping him out.
Another entertaining chap is Aiden, who works as a master stonemason on Hereford Cathedral. He tells me that somewhere on the tower, about half way up and not visible from the ground, is a gigantic sandstone cock and balls that was installed by one of his colleagues six months ago. I wonder what the bishop would think?
It´s been raining steadily for a few days here, which has given me the ideal excuse for just hanging around in the hostel chatting, playing cards, losing at chess and drinking the free coffee.
This place is quite notorious for trapping people for weeks or months at a time. In the visitors´ book there are entries from people who came here for a couple of days but ended up staying for six months.
There are some interesting people here. I think I have already mentioned the Chech bloke called Andre. He was a strange sort, and, it seems, a thief without scruples. I´d found him quite amusing company, because of his endless monologues about chasing women in South America. His tales were made more interesting, to me at least, because he had tiuret´s syndrome and said "hrumph, hrumph" all the time. One typical story ended thus: "It was hrumph, hrumph, like making love to Kojak. And then she hrumph, hrumph, started vomiting hairballs, like a hrumph, hrumph, cat." Most of his tales involved the various ways he´d met women across the continent, usually involving the payment of cash. One story that bears repeating involved him in pursuit of a girl for more noble ends. He said that he´d met a Chech couple in Mexico who were searching the continent for their daughter, who had gone missing in Bolivia six years before. Apparently she´d just got off the bus to have a wee and was never seen again. Andre said that he travelled to Bolivia and found her in a village brothel where she´d been kept as a drug-addicted sex slave and baby factory. Apparently it´s a well-known case. He didn´t mention how long he spent with her at the brothel before he alerted her parents. . .
Andre left unexpectedly in the middle of the night on Friday, without paying his bill here. A few hours later a guest discovered that his locker had been forced open and $800 dollars stolen. The real shame is that the guest is a really sweet Ethiopian bloke who came here to meet the Eritreans (who left, strangely, shortly after he arrived). The cash represents his total funds, and is not insured. On top of this his visa runs our tomorrow and he´s got no money to replace it. I think the hostel owner, a very decent bloke, is helping him out.
Another entertaining chap is Aiden, who works as a master stonemason on Hereford Cathedral. He tells me that somewhere on the tower, about half way up and not visible from the ground, is a gigantic sandstone cock and balls that was installed by one of his colleagues six months ago. I wonder what the bishop would think?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Botero
I´ve had a really cultural day today, and all for free - this city is really growing on me.
First was the Museum of Money, which sounds quite dry but was actually incredibly interesting. It managed to explain the entire history of the nation by means of its currency. Everything was covered, from pre-conquest trade routes to the effect of World War Two on Colombia´s economy. There were also rooms full of old pressing machines and elaborate safes. It was nice to see just how many of them were made in Birmingham. Not only was the museum free, but on the way out I was given a specially-minted coin as a souvenir.
Next door was an art gallery (again free) filled with paintings donated by Fernando Botero, Colombia´s most famous artist, who is still alive and working today. His style is very much like Beryl Cook, that woman from Plymouth who draws fat ladies. I never really knew much about Botero before I came here, but I´m bowled over by him - it´s impossible not to smile at his work.
He´s obviously done well for himself, judging by the private art collection that he has also given to the people of Colombia. This gallery included work by, wait for it, Picasso, Dali, Chagall, Ernst, Toulous-Lautrec, Renoir, Pissarro, Matisse, Leger, Degas, Klimt, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. Just about every artist I´d ever heard of and loads more.
There were also rooms of the most fantastic Colombian art, right from early times to the present day. My favourite part was a gallery of pictures of dead nuns. Apparently here it used to be the tradition to paint their portraits after they´d died. I suppose their modesty wouldn´t allow it otherwise.
Perhaps the most stunning item was a giant altarpiece, perhaps the most valuable thing I´ve ever stood in a room with. It´s made up of 1,485 emeralds (all big and flawless), dozens of giant diamonds, rubies and saphires and more than ten pounds of top-quality gold. It was shaped like the sun on a stick, rather than a cross, in order to impress the local Indians who worshipped the sun.
After hours looking at these treasures I went to the gallery restaurant for lunch, along with a Chech bloke called Andre. This was an incredibly posh place of the sort that would be out of the question at London prices. But a two-course meal with two glasses of wine cost about three pounds - which represents my entire spending for today.
This really is a great city - it´s going to be so difficult to leave, even after I´ve seen everything I want to. Tomorrow, for example, I´m planning to visit a cathedral carved out of salt.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Bogota
I think this must be one of the most unfairly maligned places in the world - it´s actually quite a pleasant city, in a sprawling modern sort of way.
There´s plenty to do here. As well as the museum of gold, which was excellent, I´ve also been to the national museum - also great value at less than a dollar. It´s housed in the city´s old prison, so a lot of the exhibition space is in converted cells. The pre-conquest stuff was most interesting, but the rooms of oil paintings of Colombian national heroes were good fun - their nation´s history is written in facial hair. The founding fathers of the state were content with little caterpillar-like moustaches, sometimes teamed with modest sideburns. As the years rolled on these were joined by little goatees and connected with the side whiskers, which by now were prodigious. Eventually, towards the end of the 19th Century, the nation´s leaders become hard to tell apart. All the paintings show nothing more than pairs of beady little eyes glaring out from behind large thickets of hair and whiskers.
I´ve also been to the city´s main flea market, as well as to loads of smaller ones that fill all the little squares here. The mixture of stuff was fascinating, and included everything from English hunting prints to bakelite radios. I was walking round with a girl from Belgium and at one point she spotted a 1970s training shoe that she wanted to buy. "Where is the other?" she asked.
The stallholder looked a little sheepish. "There is only one, how much will you give me for it?" I had to admire the tenacity of the man - I really hope that one day he manages to find a left-footed amputee with a taste for vintage sportswear.
The full extent of the city only came home to me when I went up the 50-storey Colpatria Tower, which towers over the city at nearly 650ft. To the south, east and west the city stretches out to the horizon, while to the north it is hemmed in by steep green mountains.
Staying in the hostel, which is right in the centre, has been a lot of fun. As I mentioned before, every night somebody volunteers to cook a meal for everyone. Last night the Eritrean lads took their turn. Strange to see them here. They´re travelling around South America while one of their number waits for an operation in Cuba, they tell me. The food they cooked was fantastic and took me back to my time in Ethiopia. I don´t know what grub will be on offer tonight, but it could be Argentinian, Israeli, German, Swiss, French, Panamanian or even English.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
The Platypus
Such is the name of the backpacker hostel where I´m writing this. Finding it was a struggle, as it´s down a bit of a back street and has no sign above the door, just a little picture of one of the creatures next to a discrete buzzer.
I was given the name of the place by the tourist information bloke at the airport, and the number of the bus I needed to get to the right neighbourhood. That part went well, but when I started to ask people on the street where - exactly - the hostel was, the difficulties began. I encountered the pointing problem. I noticed in Central America that many people don´t really understand the idea of indicating distant objects or directions with one´s hands. Particularly in Honduras I often dealt with people who, when asked directions, waved their hands in a circular motion above their heads saying: "It´s that way." I even even encountered a shopkeeper to whom pointing was revelation. I was trying to point at a pineapple, and rather than looking at the indicated fruit he just stared at the tip of my finger, as though I was showing it to him. Eventually I had to walk across the shop and prod the particular pineapple I had my eye on. Then he understood.
I did find the hostel eventually, but half an hour after it had started to rain and I was feeling a bit peaky due to the altitude here - Bogota is at more than 8,500ft.
The place is such a complete change for me. Over the past month or so I´ve spent much of my time in the company of ladies, but now I find myself in an overwhelmingly masculine environment. Elaborate stews are conceived and concocted, bottles of rum passed abount prodigiously and toilet seats splashed with abandon. The tales of the road here are grittier than I´ve heard so far. People talk of safe passages through guerilla-controlled regions or of which bus companies are bribing the FARC fighters to get safe passage. Perhaps it´s because there´s a much stronger English and Irish contingent here and they always like to get competitive. But the bottom line, that everyone agrees on, is that Colombia is nowhere near so dangerous as people make out. Perhaps because everyone who lives or visits here always keeps half an eye over their shoulders.
Bogota itself is actually quite a pleasant city - in the daylight at least. There are wide pedestrianised streets with shops that are modern without being dominated by chainstores. Today there are little flea markets in every square and jolly crowds of people out enjoying a weekend shop.
One of the main attractions here is the Museo del Oro, the museum of gold, which I visited today. It really was an impressive collection - apparently the greatest in the world. After all, the legendary El Dorado was supposed to be in Colombia. The legend was inspired by a sacred lake, I can´t remember the name, which the ancient tribes poured untold riches into. Apparently, although there´s no doubt the thing is full of gold, very little has been recovered. What was on show at the museum was just a tiny fraction of the wealth that had brought Europe crashing down on the Americas all those years ago.
Even outside the museum this treasure of the New World is still in transit. There are streets and streets of jewellery shops and entire arcades devoted to the emerald trade. These jewels are offered to you by old men in the street who present them on a white hanky like a little pile of cough sweets.
I´ll need to sign off now, because from the sound of it the lads in the kitchen are finally satisfied with their pork stew and mash potato.
I was given the name of the place by the tourist information bloke at the airport, and the number of the bus I needed to get to the right neighbourhood. That part went well, but when I started to ask people on the street where - exactly - the hostel was, the difficulties began. I encountered the pointing problem. I noticed in Central America that many people don´t really understand the idea of indicating distant objects or directions with one´s hands. Particularly in Honduras I often dealt with people who, when asked directions, waved their hands in a circular motion above their heads saying: "It´s that way." I even even encountered a shopkeeper to whom pointing was revelation. I was trying to point at a pineapple, and rather than looking at the indicated fruit he just stared at the tip of my finger, as though I was showing it to him. Eventually I had to walk across the shop and prod the particular pineapple I had my eye on. Then he understood.
I did find the hostel eventually, but half an hour after it had started to rain and I was feeling a bit peaky due to the altitude here - Bogota is at more than 8,500ft.
The place is such a complete change for me. Over the past month or so I´ve spent much of my time in the company of ladies, but now I find myself in an overwhelmingly masculine environment. Elaborate stews are conceived and concocted, bottles of rum passed abount prodigiously and toilet seats splashed with abandon. The tales of the road here are grittier than I´ve heard so far. People talk of safe passages through guerilla-controlled regions or of which bus companies are bribing the FARC fighters to get safe passage. Perhaps it´s because there´s a much stronger English and Irish contingent here and they always like to get competitive. But the bottom line, that everyone agrees on, is that Colombia is nowhere near so dangerous as people make out. Perhaps because everyone who lives or visits here always keeps half an eye over their shoulders.
Bogota itself is actually quite a pleasant city - in the daylight at least. There are wide pedestrianised streets with shops that are modern without being dominated by chainstores. Today there are little flea markets in every square and jolly crowds of people out enjoying a weekend shop.
One of the main attractions here is the Museo del Oro, the museum of gold, which I visited today. It really was an impressive collection - apparently the greatest in the world. After all, the legendary El Dorado was supposed to be in Colombia. The legend was inspired by a sacred lake, I can´t remember the name, which the ancient tribes poured untold riches into. Apparently, although there´s no doubt the thing is full of gold, very little has been recovered. What was on show at the museum was just a tiny fraction of the wealth that had brought Europe crashing down on the Americas all those years ago.
Even outside the museum this treasure of the New World is still in transit. There are streets and streets of jewellery shops and entire arcades devoted to the emerald trade. These jewels are offered to you by old men in the street who present them on a white hanky like a little pile of cough sweets.
I´ll need to sign off now, because from the sound of it the lads in the kitchen are finally satisfied with their pork stew and mash potato.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Columbia
I´m writing this in Bogota, the capital of Columbia, where I arrived a couple of hours ago. Outside thunder is rolling around the skies, which seems to fit with the city´s fearsome reputation. On first impressions it doesn´t seem as bad as I´ve heard it described, but it´s certainly a big ugly sort of place. There seem to be heavily-armed police on almost every corner - I even saw one guarding the municipal cemetery.
It´s seems a long time since I wrote my last report in San Jose, and since then I´ve been in and out of Panama and travelled to a new continent - Central America is now behind me and my South American adventure has begun.
After a more-or-less restful couple of days in San Jose I headed out alone to the Panamanian border. My first stop was a very touristy Caribbean town called Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. I had a quiet night there and then headed towards the border the next morning.
When I arrived I bumped into the intrepid Serbian grandmother again, with her shopping trolley suitcase and pink floral hat. She was giving a large group of tough-looking touts and conmen a good telling off, and they looked thoroughly ashamed of themselves as she stood in their shadows wagging her finger at them.
From the border it was off to a water taxi for Bocas de Toro, Panama´s rival to Puerto Viejo over the border. The ride was mainly along over-grown canals that were built to transport bananas, but a couple of times along the way the boat zipped out into the sea to crash through the roaring surf before returning to the still waters of the artificial channels.
From Bocas I got another water taxi to a little island called Bastimentos, which has a quiet village populated by the descendants of Jamaican slaves, who still speak the sort of English that was once used by pirates. Within an hour of arriving at a little hostel by the water I saw Lydia and Sarah approaching in another boat, smiling and waving as they came. It´s nice when a plan comes together. We spent the evening at the hostel talking to the owners, who were a strange pair. They told us that since they left Potsdam ten years ago they had never been back. Lydia asked if they had become part of the village community. "Oh no," said the wife. "They are all negros. You can´t trust them, they would steal from their own brothers." I wondered if the name they had chosen for their hostel had anything to do with the lack of trust - with a stupendous lack of tact they had named it Uncle Tom´s Cabin.
The other guests were an interesting bunch. There were a couple of young surfer dudes from Argentina who told us that their boards were like wives to them. When asked to elaborate on this frankly startling admission they said it was because they always get lost at airports and they need waxing to make them slippery. I was sharing a room with an Austrian bloke who makes a living photographing tropical frogs. We saw him a couple of times over the next day or so creeping around the undergrowth with a fierce concentration as local children pointed and giggled at him.
The following day we headed over the water to Bocas for Lydia to get tattoo. She said she´d always wanted one but had worried it would affect her acting career. I´d never thought of it, but it makes sense that you can´t play Juliet or Cinderella if you´ve got a skeleton riding a Harley Davidson up your arm. She opted for a small design on her back based on a seashell necklace she´d bought in Belize. It was fascinating to watch the process, but I did find it quite a squeamish experience.
After another night chatting to various guests at Uncle Tom´s we set off back to Costa Rica and Puerto Viejo. As this was to be the girl´s last on the Caribbean (and mine also as it turned out) we decided we should go out dancing. Soon after arriving we bumped into the Scottish-German girls, Katherine and Marion, and their friend Emmanuel. They recommended a place with live music, which was so awful it was almost good. A man with very strange teeth was playing guitar and forcing the audience to accompany him with maracas made out of rice-filled water bottles. After every song he provided his own echo effect by saying: "Gracias! Racias! Cias! Ias! As! As! As!".
Also brilliant in its very badness was a meal Lydia, Sarah and I had suffered earlier. It was a little Chinese restaurant with a staff of one bloke, who seemed to be stoned. He left us with the menu for half an hour before wandering out to take our order. "Beef please," said Sarah.
"No beef," he said.
"Pork chops?"
"No."
"Fish?"
"Not today."
"Do you only have chicken?"
"Yes . . . and calamare."
Lydia misheard him and thought he said camerones, which are shrimp-type things, I think. She was horrified when a plate arrived with rubbery old tentacles sticking up out of a tepid grey sauce. I thought I would be safe with fried chicken, but what arrived was a dried-up husk of pure carbon - perhaps fried on several occassions over the past month or so. Sarah´s dinner wasn´t too bad, as long as you didn´t look at it too closely or speculate on the strange gelatinous consistency of the sauce. The sublime awfullness of it was accentuated in the way the dishes came out one at a time, each one more repellant than the last.
The next morning was the last full day for the girls, so we headed off to a town near San Jose and the airport called Heredia, which promised to be a more laid-back option than the capital with plenty of bars serving the town´s substantial body of students. What we found was a sprawling ghost town where all the bars closed at seven. Instead we went to a supermarket and got a small bottle of rum and some coke and with my radio reproduced a bar in our hotel room.
We couldn´t get too silly as we had to be up before five to get to the airport. When we arrived I saw that there was a flight leaving for Bogota that morning and . . . well, here I am.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
San Jose
San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, where I am writing this entry, is a strange place that leads what can only be described as a double life. During the day you could almost be in a European city, with pleasant parks, pedestrianised streets and international brands in every shop. But when night falls, and the shutters come down on the chain stores, there's no doubt you are in a far-off land. Then the streets fill with drug addicts, prostitutes and other lost souls. Surprisingly, many of the street hookers here are transvestites - I hadn't expected that in Central America. From a distance they can look quite convincing, but when you get closer you realise that they're about seven-foot tall in their heels with prominent Adam's apples and big hands. I've also been told that they're as hard as nails and have been known to beat up and rob tourists. The drug addicts are a pitiful bunch - at night they hang around at traffic lights with plastic cups to beg for pennies to buy their next fix. When I first saw them crowding around a car on a street corner moaning their pleas with sunken eyes, collapsed faces and filthy clothes I thought I had strayed into a zombie movie.
I've not been up to much here, just spending a few days recovering from the hectic pace of the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow I'm planning to cross the border into Panama. It's a tough decision to move on so soon - Costa Rica is famously beautiful and has so many amazing things to see. But it's expensive. Also it has one of those awful currencies where a dollar is five hundred Colones. This means that you are constantly paying for everything, no matter how trifling, with one, two or five thousand notes. All too soon these amounts rack up to fifty thousand, which is one hundred dollars - an unthinkable sum in the other countries I've visited.
The only cultural thing I've done so far is to visit a museum of insects with Lewis, the Hull DJ who is killing a few days before going off to look after turtles on the coast for a month. We were told that the museum was in a basement at the city university, so off we went. When we arrived we found ourselves in the middle of some sort of political protest. Huge banners were hanging on the campus buildings deploring the country's ruling party (sweetly known as TLC) and CAFTA - the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which hits all the right buttons for scholastic socialist spleen venting. But unlike British students they didn't express their anger by occupying the dean's office or chanting slogans and waving placards - no, they booked a band and had a party in the afternoon sun. Despite everything we were still asking students where the insect museum was and then, simultaneously, had the same awful feeling. There we were, with fantastic music playing, in the sunshine, surrounded on all sides by tanned beauties jigging about in tight jeans asking where we could find a cellar full of dead moths. By way of compensation, as if to prove to ourselves that we weren't irredemably square, we went for a couple of beers. Having taken the proverbial pens out of our metaphorical top pockets we felt able to actually visit the museum. It was interesting, as far as it went, but had seen better days. Many of the specimens were being eaten by mites, and the explanatory notes, all in Spanish, were yellowed with age. Some of the insects were quite amazing, particularly the goliath beetles, which were about the size of a page boy's shoe.
I did a very silly thing last night - at about the time I usually go to bed (about ten) I decided to go for a wander around the town. I went to a couple of bars and had a few beers to add to those I'd had with Lewis earlier. At each place I was immediately pounced upon by plump prostitutes, who were quite charming after I told them that I was travelling on a budget of ten dollars a day and was staying in a dormitory hostel, and so wasn't much of client for them. They were from all over Central and South America and come here because there are so many rich American tourists, they said. Now for the silly thing - on the way back to the hostel I stopped to take in the midnight ambience of a little park in the centre of town. It was a remarkably pleasant evening - even the moaning cries of the drug addicts seemed atmospheric . . . and I fell asleep on a park bench in what I now know to be one of the most dangerous places in Costa Rica. Apparently you're meant to avoid it at night. Luckily no harm came to me - perhaps the local low-lifes thought I was an off-duty transvestite.
I've not been up to much here, just spending a few days recovering from the hectic pace of the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow I'm planning to cross the border into Panama. It's a tough decision to move on so soon - Costa Rica is famously beautiful and has so many amazing things to see. But it's expensive. Also it has one of those awful currencies where a dollar is five hundred Colones. This means that you are constantly paying for everything, no matter how trifling, with one, two or five thousand notes. All too soon these amounts rack up to fifty thousand, which is one hundred dollars - an unthinkable sum in the other countries I've visited.
The only cultural thing I've done so far is to visit a museum of insects with Lewis, the Hull DJ who is killing a few days before going off to look after turtles on the coast for a month. We were told that the museum was in a basement at the city university, so off we went. When we arrived we found ourselves in the middle of some sort of political protest. Huge banners were hanging on the campus buildings deploring the country's ruling party (sweetly known as TLC) and CAFTA - the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which hits all the right buttons for scholastic socialist spleen venting. But unlike British students they didn't express their anger by occupying the dean's office or chanting slogans and waving placards - no, they booked a band and had a party in the afternoon sun. Despite everything we were still asking students where the insect museum was and then, simultaneously, had the same awful feeling. There we were, with fantastic music playing, in the sunshine, surrounded on all sides by tanned beauties jigging about in tight jeans asking where we could find a cellar full of dead moths. By way of compensation, as if to prove to ourselves that we weren't irredemably square, we went for a couple of beers. Having taken the proverbial pens out of our metaphorical top pockets we felt able to actually visit the museum. It was interesting, as far as it went, but had seen better days. Many of the specimens were being eaten by mites, and the explanatory notes, all in Spanish, were yellowed with age. Some of the insects were quite amazing, particularly the goliath beetles, which were about the size of a page boy's shoe.
I did a very silly thing last night - at about the time I usually go to bed (about ten) I decided to go for a wander around the town. I went to a couple of bars and had a few beers to add to those I'd had with Lewis earlier. At each place I was immediately pounced upon by plump prostitutes, who were quite charming after I told them that I was travelling on a budget of ten dollars a day and was staying in a dormitory hostel, and so wasn't much of client for them. They were from all over Central and South America and come here because there are so many rich American tourists, they said. Now for the silly thing - on the way back to the hostel I stopped to take in the midnight ambience of a little park in the centre of town. It was a remarkably pleasant evening - even the moaning cries of the drug addicts seemed atmospheric . . . and I fell asleep on a park bench in what I now know to be one of the most dangerous places in Costa Rica. Apparently you're meant to avoid it at night. Luckily no harm came to me - perhaps the local low-lifes thought I was an off-duty transvestite.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Picture Special
I've built up quite a back-log of pictures, so as this hostel has free internet and I'm having a quiet day, here are a few of them.
First is the view of Ometepe from the boat on
Lago de Nicaragua. The island is made up of two volcanoes and the larva that has solidified between them - so it's shaped a little like a bowtie. The one we climbed is on the right. It's about the same size as the one on the left (Concepcion) but further away.
One of the best things about Ometepe was watching the ever-changing cloud cover on the volcanoes. It was like a lady in a hat shop. This cloud on Concepcion was particularly dramatic.
This is Lydia and Sarah looking surprisingly cheerful during our climb up the volcano, despite the mud and rocks. When we got back from the hike we read in the guide book that it was essential to take a rope for the climb. Our guide didn't have one.
At the crater on the summit Sarah very kindly volunteered to give me a massage. I know I'm wearing a knotted handkercheif on my head, but that, surely, is still no excuse for looking quite so much like Benny Hill.
This is the crater lake, in the few minutes we had when the mist cleared and you could see the other side. For that short moment it was quite a magical place.
Ometepe is a remarkably picturesque place, that somehow is all the more beautiful because of the intensive agriculture that the rich volcanic soil has made possible. 
This is the quay where we waited for the boat down to the Costa Rican border. You can't really see the bananas piled up in the background, but you can make out Volcan Concepcion quite clearly.
This is how we made ourselves comfortable on the boat for the ten-hour over-night journey.
Two pictures from the riverboat trip down the Rio San Juan to El Castillo . . .
We had a great night in El Castillo, perhaps helped by the fact that nobody had any money and we had to cook for ourselves and eek out a small bottle of rum between us all. From the left, enjoying silly songs on the balcony, are Birgid, Lewis, Sarah, Lydia and Thomas.
El Castillo was gorgeous. Here's three pictures. . .
First is the view of Ometepe from the boat on
Lago de Nicaragua. The island is made up of two volcanoes and the larva that has solidified between them - so it's shaped a little like a bowtie. The one we climbed is on the right. It's about the same size as the one on the left (Concepcion) but further away.
One of the best things about Ometepe was watching the ever-changing cloud cover on the volcanoes. It was like a lady in a hat shop. This cloud on Concepcion was particularly dramatic.
This is Lydia and Sarah looking surprisingly cheerful during our climb up the volcano, despite the mud and rocks. When we got back from the hike we read in the guide book that it was essential to take a rope for the climb. Our guide didn't have one.
At the crater on the summit Sarah very kindly volunteered to give me a massage. I know I'm wearing a knotted handkercheif on my head, but that, surely, is still no excuse for looking quite so much like Benny Hill.
This is the crater lake, in the few minutes we had when the mist cleared and you could see the other side. For that short moment it was quite a magical place.
Ometepe is a remarkably picturesque place, that somehow is all the more beautiful because of the intensive agriculture that the rich volcanic soil has made possible. 
This is the quay where we waited for the boat down to the Costa Rican border. You can't really see the bananas piled up in the background, but you can make out Volcan Concepcion quite clearly.
This is how we made ourselves comfortable on the boat for the ten-hour over-night journey.
Two pictures from the riverboat trip down the Rio San Juan to El Castillo . . .
We had a great night in El Castillo, perhaps helped by the fact that nobody had any money and we had to cook for ourselves and eek out a small bottle of rum between us all. From the left, enjoying silly songs on the balcony, are Birgid, Lewis, Sarah, Lydia and Thomas.
El Castillo was gorgeous. Here's three pictures. . .
Costa Rica
I'm writing this in a hostel in the heart of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, where I arrived yesterday. I've just said a fond "hasta luego" to Lydia and Sarah, who are hurrying down to Panama city before heading back here in a week's time for their flight home. All being well we'll meet up somewhere in the middle for one last night together next week.
When I wrote the last entry my body still hadn't come to terms will the full extent of the depredations visited upon it by the climb up and down the volcano. For the next two days I was as stiff as a well-beaten meringue and twice as frail. Surprisingly, my feet weren't too bad underneath, but one of my toes (the little piggy who stayed at home) was badly swollen due to a collision with a rock. We had a day of rest at the hostel on Sunday and then on Monday we headed out early to catch a ferry down the lake to the Costa Rican border.
When we arrived at the island's port town I realised that I had run out of money and that there were no banks, but thankfully the girls helped me out with funds. The boat left at about seven o'clock in the evening, about an hour after night had fallen with a thud. Waiting on the quay among huge piles of bananas with the volcano looming in the background was quite atmospheric - particularly when there was a power cut and we realised that we were surrounded by fire flies.
We hooked up with an English bloke we had met - Lewis, a DJ from Hull, and two Canadians who are cycling through Central America. The boat was a little ferry with a first class section upstairs and a second class room on the lower deck, which bore more than a passing resemblance to a slave galley. Although we had only paid for second class we found a compromise in the shape of an empty section on deck at the top, where dozens of people had slung hammocks in all directions, sometimes overlapping each other. The journey, which was due to take ten hours, got off to a bad start when a huge wave crashed over the deck and soaked everyone's sleeping bags and ground mats. As we stood around shivering we all wondered how we were going to manage standing up on the listing ship until five the next morning. Luckily the lake (which looks and behaves like an ocean - did I mention that it contains 12-foot freshwaterbull sharks? calmed down and we were able to get comfortable - if lying on a damp metal deck can be described as such.
The most incredible thing about the journey was the flock of gigantic bats that followed us for miles off the land, swooping and diving behind the boat. I guess they were catching the insects being blown off the piles of fruit. I was watching them in the first light of dawn and then I went to the front of the boat to watch the sun rise. After a short time I returned to the rear of the boat and, as if by magic, they had been turned into a flock of seagulls, diving and swooping in just the same way.
Shortly after dawn we arrived in a shambolic little border town called San Carlos, quite an unpleasant place that's plagued by swarms of insects that look like giant greenfly. Fortunately we only had an hour to wait until a river boat left for a town in the jungle called El Castillo, where we had decided to have a rest for the night before heading on.
Along with an Austrian couple, Lewis, an Italian girl and a pair of Americans, we were the only tourists on the boat as we chugged our way for three hours through pristine jungle, swarming with birds of every size, shape and colour. Every now and then we would pull up on the bank and people would appear out of nowhere to jump on. Occasionally we passed people in dug-out canoes fishing in the river, the San Juan, which leads to the Caribbean and is the conduit for those sharks to make their way to the lake.
El Castillo is gorgeous - a cluster of brightly-coloured wooden houses built on stilts over the river. It owes its name to the Spanish fortress in the middle of the town, which was built to stop pirates using the river to gain access to the fabulous wealth of Grenada, which is on the far side of the lake, beyond Ometepe. All of us gringos ended up in the same boarding house, a lovely little family home with a wide veranda hanging over the river. Lewis, a keen fisherman, got his rod out and started trying to catch one of the giant tarpons (a notoriously difficult-to-catch fish) that were jumping out the river with flashes of silver in every direction. The rest of us just sat around in a tired daze soaking up the wonderful atmosphere of the place. In the evening we all chipped in to cook a huge pot of spaghetti and the Austrian chap, Thomas, got out his miniature guitar and we sat around singing silly songs.
The American couple, who had a banjo and violin between them, didn't join in, as they were terribly serious sorts. Earlier in the day they had made a point of informing us that they had found a restaurant that served fantastic vegetarian food because, of course, they didn't eat meat. To emphasise this point the chap, who was ginger, was wearing a T-shirt with a grinning carrot on it, something that the girls found very amusing. It seems that mocking ginger people is a universal pastime. They had made me laugh earlier in the day when we had met the girl in town and she asked if we had seen her friend - she'd lost him several hours ago, she said. When we got back to the hostel I heard a faint tapping coming from one of the rooms and a weak trembling voice calling: "Susan, Susan, where are you? Susan, let me out, Susan. I'm thirsty." I wondered how long it would be before I could poke rashers of bacon under the door and hear him fall upon them and eat ravenously.
It was hard to tear ourselves away from the evening but we had to get to bed early because our boat back to San Carlos, and then the border, left at five in the morning. Although we were all tired this trip was wonderful, but you'll have to imagine it for yourselves - the feeling of putt-putt-putting through the jungle with the sun rising, the birds singing and the howler monkeys roaring on every side is well beyond my powers of description.
Back at San Carlos I went along to the bank to get some cash to pay back the girls and have enough for the border crossing. It seemed a modern-enough establishment, but they couldn't take cards, cash travellers' cheques or change pounds. They said they could only change dollars or euros. I went back to the girls and they lent me 20 euros, which I presented at the bank. Fine, they said, but we can't change it until ten o'clock, when we get our daily phone call from head office telling us what today's exchange rate is. It was very frustrating, and for once I was glad to see a scum-bag moneychanger at the quay.
Getting the departure stamps involved walking round a labyrinthine shed overhanging the river. It was quite surreal, particularly as everything was painted in a particularly startling shade of blue. As I waited at the window to get my exit stamp I became aware of a seedy little chap (who looked very much like
Charles Bronson) pushing up behind me holding a denim jacket up to his face. He was so shifty it was obvious he was up to no good, and before too long I noticed his hand snaking its way towards my pocket - containing the cash I had gone through so much to get my hands on. I pushed him back and prodded his belly with my finger and he scurried off down the street. I told one of the customs people, a bloke who had taken a particular shine to Lydia, and he went and got a policeman. They wanted a description and I did my best, with help from Sarah. When I told the copper that the suspect looked like Charles Bronson (como el actor de las peliculas se llama Die Hard), a glimmer of recognition came into his eyes, and without further questions he went off, premumably to give the would-be thief a thorough beating.
Getting to the Costa Rican frontier, on the other side of the river, involved another hour on a river boat, and even more howler monkeys, birds and turtles. Arriving here it was immediately obvious that we were in another country - everything was much cleaner and better organised. Even though it was a tiny little town there was even a cashpoint machine in its centre, which, being Costa Rica, was a football pitch rather than a plaza.
Because the girls are on such a tight budget, ten euros each per day, we decided to hitch to San Jose rather than take the five-hour bus journey for four dollars. I'm glad we did; there was a bit of waiting and an hour on a bus at the end (for one dollar), but we got to ride in comfort, asking our drivers lots of questions about the country. Besides which, we weren't much slower than the bus.
The landscape here is remarkably diverse. At one point, surrounded by fields of fruit and vegetables, you can imagine yourself in Kent. Then, turning a corner, you find yourself in the mountains of Switzerland or in the Amazonian jungle.
I'm having a restful day today, mainly to catch up on sleep but also because the toes of my right foot are a bloody battered mess. Since realising that I'd knackered the little piggy who stayed at home I've been banging it on everything - on kerbs, the sides of boats, on doors, on waste-paper baskets, on rucksacks and, most recently, on the wheel of a hotdog wagon.
When I wrote the last entry my body still hadn't come to terms will the full extent of the depredations visited upon it by the climb up and down the volcano. For the next two days I was as stiff as a well-beaten meringue and twice as frail. Surprisingly, my feet weren't too bad underneath, but one of my toes (the little piggy who stayed at home) was badly swollen due to a collision with a rock. We had a day of rest at the hostel on Sunday and then on Monday we headed out early to catch a ferry down the lake to the Costa Rican border.
When we arrived at the island's port town I realised that I had run out of money and that there were no banks, but thankfully the girls helped me out with funds. The boat left at about seven o'clock in the evening, about an hour after night had fallen with a thud. Waiting on the quay among huge piles of bananas with the volcano looming in the background was quite atmospheric - particularly when there was a power cut and we realised that we were surrounded by fire flies.
We hooked up with an English bloke we had met - Lewis, a DJ from Hull, and two Canadians who are cycling through Central America. The boat was a little ferry with a first class section upstairs and a second class room on the lower deck, which bore more than a passing resemblance to a slave galley. Although we had only paid for second class we found a compromise in the shape of an empty section on deck at the top, where dozens of people had slung hammocks in all directions, sometimes overlapping each other. The journey, which was due to take ten hours, got off to a bad start when a huge wave crashed over the deck and soaked everyone's sleeping bags and ground mats. As we stood around shivering we all wondered how we were going to manage standing up on the listing ship until five the next morning. Luckily the lake (which looks and behaves like an ocean - did I mention that it contains 12-foot freshwaterbull sharks? calmed down and we were able to get comfortable - if lying on a damp metal deck can be described as such.
The most incredible thing about the journey was the flock of gigantic bats that followed us for miles off the land, swooping and diving behind the boat. I guess they were catching the insects being blown off the piles of fruit. I was watching them in the first light of dawn and then I went to the front of the boat to watch the sun rise. After a short time I returned to the rear of the boat and, as if by magic, they had been turned into a flock of seagulls, diving and swooping in just the same way.
Shortly after dawn we arrived in a shambolic little border town called San Carlos, quite an unpleasant place that's plagued by swarms of insects that look like giant greenfly. Fortunately we only had an hour to wait until a river boat left for a town in the jungle called El Castillo, where we had decided to have a rest for the night before heading on.
Along with an Austrian couple, Lewis, an Italian girl and a pair of Americans, we were the only tourists on the boat as we chugged our way for three hours through pristine jungle, swarming with birds of every size, shape and colour. Every now and then we would pull up on the bank and people would appear out of nowhere to jump on. Occasionally we passed people in dug-out canoes fishing in the river, the San Juan, which leads to the Caribbean and is the conduit for those sharks to make their way to the lake.
El Castillo is gorgeous - a cluster of brightly-coloured wooden houses built on stilts over the river. It owes its name to the Spanish fortress in the middle of the town, which was built to stop pirates using the river to gain access to the fabulous wealth of Grenada, which is on the far side of the lake, beyond Ometepe. All of us gringos ended up in the same boarding house, a lovely little family home with a wide veranda hanging over the river. Lewis, a keen fisherman, got his rod out and started trying to catch one of the giant tarpons (a notoriously difficult-to-catch fish) that were jumping out the river with flashes of silver in every direction. The rest of us just sat around in a tired daze soaking up the wonderful atmosphere of the place. In the evening we all chipped in to cook a huge pot of spaghetti and the Austrian chap, Thomas, got out his miniature guitar and we sat around singing silly songs.
The American couple, who had a banjo and violin between them, didn't join in, as they were terribly serious sorts. Earlier in the day they had made a point of informing us that they had found a restaurant that served fantastic vegetarian food because, of course, they didn't eat meat. To emphasise this point the chap, who was ginger, was wearing a T-shirt with a grinning carrot on it, something that the girls found very amusing. It seems that mocking ginger people is a universal pastime. They had made me laugh earlier in the day when we had met the girl in town and she asked if we had seen her friend - she'd lost him several hours ago, she said. When we got back to the hostel I heard a faint tapping coming from one of the rooms and a weak trembling voice calling: "Susan, Susan, where are you? Susan, let me out, Susan. I'm thirsty." I wondered how long it would be before I could poke rashers of bacon under the door and hear him fall upon them and eat ravenously.
It was hard to tear ourselves away from the evening but we had to get to bed early because our boat back to San Carlos, and then the border, left at five in the morning. Although we were all tired this trip was wonderful, but you'll have to imagine it for yourselves - the feeling of putt-putt-putting through the jungle with the sun rising, the birds singing and the howler monkeys roaring on every side is well beyond my powers of description.
Back at San Carlos I went along to the bank to get some cash to pay back the girls and have enough for the border crossing. It seemed a modern-enough establishment, but they couldn't take cards, cash travellers' cheques or change pounds. They said they could only change dollars or euros. I went back to the girls and they lent me 20 euros, which I presented at the bank. Fine, they said, but we can't change it until ten o'clock, when we get our daily phone call from head office telling us what today's exchange rate is. It was very frustrating, and for once I was glad to see a scum-bag moneychanger at the quay.
Getting the departure stamps involved walking round a labyrinthine shed overhanging the river. It was quite surreal, particularly as everything was painted in a particularly startling shade of blue. As I waited at the window to get my exit stamp I became aware of a seedy little chap (who looked very much like
Charles Bronson) pushing up behind me holding a denim jacket up to his face. He was so shifty it was obvious he was up to no good, and before too long I noticed his hand snaking its way towards my pocket - containing the cash I had gone through so much to get my hands on. I pushed him back and prodded his belly with my finger and he scurried off down the street. I told one of the customs people, a bloke who had taken a particular shine to Lydia, and he went and got a policeman. They wanted a description and I did my best, with help from Sarah. When I told the copper that the suspect looked like Charles Bronson (como el actor de las peliculas se llama Die Hard), a glimmer of recognition came into his eyes, and without further questions he went off, premumably to give the would-be thief a thorough beating.
Getting to the Costa Rican frontier, on the other side of the river, involved another hour on a river boat, and even more howler monkeys, birds and turtles. Arriving here it was immediately obvious that we were in another country - everything was much cleaner and better organised. Even though it was a tiny little town there was even a cashpoint machine in its centre, which, being Costa Rica, was a football pitch rather than a plaza.
Because the girls are on such a tight budget, ten euros each per day, we decided to hitch to San Jose rather than take the five-hour bus journey for four dollars. I'm glad we did; there was a bit of waiting and an hour on a bus at the end (for one dollar), but we got to ride in comfort, asking our drivers lots of questions about the country. Besides which, we weren't much slower than the bus.
The landscape here is remarkably diverse. At one point, surrounded by fields of fruit and vegetables, you can imagine yourself in Kent. Then, turning a corner, you find yourself in the mountains of Switzerland or in the Amazonian jungle.
I'm having a restful day today, mainly to catch up on sleep but also because the toes of my right foot are a bloody battered mess. Since realising that I'd knackered the little piggy who stayed at home I've been banging it on everything - on kerbs, the sides of boats, on doors, on waste-paper baskets, on rucksacks and, most recently, on the wheel of a hotdog wagon.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Mountain too high
Apologies for the gaps between reports recently, but I'm in a wild country; a mysterious forgotten world of dial-up modems and powercuts.
Now I've finally got onto the internet I've been greeted by some more bad news from home. An old school friend of mine, Andy Hindle, collapsed and died for no apparent reason on Thursday. He was a sporting chap, in every sense of the word, who loved life and was a devoted father to his two children. He had recently been made deputy head of a school in his native Worcestershire, and was he last person who could ever deserve such an early departure from this world. He was fit, healthy and had no particular vices. I'll never forget his amazing dry sense of humour - he had the rare gift of being able to cut like a knife without being cruel. He was always brilliant with kids and it's so sad to think that his own will miss out on growing up with such a great dad. Rest in peace, mate.
I also heard that my great friend James' mother has succumbed to the cancer that she has bourne with such bravery and dignity for the past few months. She was a lovely lady, and along with all of her family, the way she faced up to her terrible challenge was nothing short of inspirational.
I'm writing this entry on the island of Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua - and it is every bit as tropically exotic as it sounds. But back to where I left off in the Great Sultan, Grenada . . .
Sarah, Lydia and I decided that although it was a lovely picturesque city, we had had enough of colonial gems with Leon, so we headed off to San Juan de Sur on the Pacific coast. This is a lovely little seaside place (it reminded me of Cornwall a bit) with a wide sandy beach and pleasantly delapidated boarding houses. The only scar on the landscape was a cliff to the left of the town that was being scooped by a fleet of diggers. We were told that the Japanese were preparing a base for their drift-net fishermen, who plan to drag up everything living under the waves along this coast. At the moment it's famous for its marine diversity, so if our information was correct this represents a real global tragedy in the making.
We were told about these naughty Japs by a Canadian bloke we met and spent the evening with called Ralph. On the face of it he should be one of the coolest blokes alive - he owns ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains and uses helicopters to give people the ultimate off-piste experience. But, somehow, he wasn't at all cool - he seemed a bit lonely and lost, so we invited him to come along with us to our next port of call, a remote beachside village Majagual. This is a little traveller hang-out with a bar, dormitories and places to sling hammocks in front of pristine white sand. We had decided to go there on the advice of Jeremy and Alex (the Canadians from Leon) who told us we would see phosphorising algae.
We did, and it was quite amazing. After dark we had a moonlit swim, and as you disturbed the water it would glow and sparkle like stars all around you. But better was to come when we walked back along the beach and discovered our footprints were glowing brightly beneath us. We spent a happy couple of hours doing Tina Turner dances up and down the beach leaving a bright trail in our wake. Moonwalking didn't work so well, we discovered. As we were doing this an American lad came up and said "awesome", before informing us that they were much better in Thailand and then going off to listen to a half-witted compatriot with a bongo. It's strange with young North Americans - everything can be awesome, from scrambled eggs to painted fingernails, but when they actually see something capable of inspiring awe they don't seem to be very interested.
The next morning Sarah and I both woke up early and went for a walk around the bay. She told me that in the middle of the night Ralph had arrived steaming drunk at the hammocks and started shouting at us all to get up and join the party. I slept through it all even though, apparently, he was shaking me and shouting and shouting in my face: "C'mon, get up, you're missing the party man. Hic. It's - hic - awesome". I had no idea. The walk was lovely and we were lucky to see a family of howler monkeys at very close quarters. We could even make out how the male inflated his neck with hacking sounds before unleashing his hellish roars. There was also a couple of babies gingerly feeling their ways through the trees. Another lovely moment was finding a dozen or so tiny fish who had somehow got washed up on the beach. It felt nice to scoop them all up and return them to the sea - even though in their dazed state they would probably be easy game for bigger fish.
Despite being drunk Ralph had also managed to surface and was determined to come with us, but the girl's experience of the night before meant that they had no desire to have him along. Somehow, without words, they made this plain. The last time I saw Ralph he was standing on the side of the road looking all forlorn with his surfboard saying: "I'd've loved to have come along with you guys. But I guess I was a bit of a jerk last night. I just don't want to go to Ometepe by myself. I'm such a jerk." I felt sorry for him, but he was one of these ultra-competitive types who can't hear anything you say without trumping it with something from his own experience. Like the lad who'd seen better phosphorising algae in Thailand.
The journey to our destination in Ometepe involved four bus journeys, one taxi trip and a boat ride, but it all went very smoothly. We're staying in the Finca Magdalena - 'finca' being 'farm' and 'Magdalena' being the Son of God's bit on the side. It's a lovely spot, a working farm with big rambling buildings surrounded by well-kept gardens - complete with humming birds. It's also the starting point for trips up the Volcan Maderas, the lower of the two volcanoes at more than 4,573ft.
Foolishly, as it turned out, the girls and I decided to sign up for the next day.
I had expected a leisurely climb, with frequent stops to admire the abundant flora and fauna that abounds in the luxuriant rain forest. I imagined that upon surmounting the crest I would find myself looking down at an emerald blue lake full of cool water with shaded spots for a picnic. Well, there was a rainforest full of plants and creatures, and there was a crater with a lake - but there was also a silent guide who obviously wanted us up there and back as soon as possible so he could get home in time for lunch. Things weren't helped by the fact that the other people in our group were a pair of Swiss blokes determined to prove to the guide that when it came to running up mountains nobody could outdo the sons of the Alps. It was rather unpleasant at first, until, by unspoken rebellion, we started taking the climb at our own pace - leaving the guide and the cuckoo-clock-making-cheese-heads to stand around tutting as we caught up. Our rate of progress wasn't helped by the fact that the girls only had strappy sandals and I had no footwear at all - I didn't even try to use my flip-flops. This became a particular problem when we reached the level of cloud cover and the rough and rocky path became a quagmire of volcanic mud, which was about the colour and consistency of baby vomit. I don't want to relive the details - but it was a four-hour climb up and a four hour slip and slide back down. The lake itself was shrouded by mist, so you could only see the edge of the water. Because of the low temperature you could easily imagine yourself on the side of any Welsh river in the middle of March. Except at least there you would only be a gentle stroll away from a pub. And it's true what they say about walking downhill being more difficult than walking uphill. It's particularly true when you have cut and bruised feet and are trying to make your way down a 45-degree slope of baby vomit concealing sharp rocks and spikey twigs. The day was so arduous that when we made it back I cracked open the hipflask of Sloe Gin that I'd been saving for the Inca Trail and the three of us, all battered and bruised and aching, toasted our survival.
Now I've finally got onto the internet I've been greeted by some more bad news from home. An old school friend of mine, Andy Hindle, collapsed and died for no apparent reason on Thursday. He was a sporting chap, in every sense of the word, who loved life and was a devoted father to his two children. He had recently been made deputy head of a school in his native Worcestershire, and was he last person who could ever deserve such an early departure from this world. He was fit, healthy and had no particular vices. I'll never forget his amazing dry sense of humour - he had the rare gift of being able to cut like a knife without being cruel. He was always brilliant with kids and it's so sad to think that his own will miss out on growing up with such a great dad. Rest in peace, mate.
I also heard that my great friend James' mother has succumbed to the cancer that she has bourne with such bravery and dignity for the past few months. She was a lovely lady, and along with all of her family, the way she faced up to her terrible challenge was nothing short of inspirational.
I'm writing this entry on the island of Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua - and it is every bit as tropically exotic as it sounds. But back to where I left off in the Great Sultan, Grenada . . .
Sarah, Lydia and I decided that although it was a lovely picturesque city, we had had enough of colonial gems with Leon, so we headed off to San Juan de Sur on the Pacific coast. This is a lovely little seaside place (it reminded me of Cornwall a bit) with a wide sandy beach and pleasantly delapidated boarding houses. The only scar on the landscape was a cliff to the left of the town that was being scooped by a fleet of diggers. We were told that the Japanese were preparing a base for their drift-net fishermen, who plan to drag up everything living under the waves along this coast. At the moment it's famous for its marine diversity, so if our information was correct this represents a real global tragedy in the making.
We were told about these naughty Japs by a Canadian bloke we met and spent the evening with called Ralph. On the face of it he should be one of the coolest blokes alive - he owns ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains and uses helicopters to give people the ultimate off-piste experience. But, somehow, he wasn't at all cool - he seemed a bit lonely and lost, so we invited him to come along with us to our next port of call, a remote beachside village Majagual. This is a little traveller hang-out with a bar, dormitories and places to sling hammocks in front of pristine white sand. We had decided to go there on the advice of Jeremy and Alex (the Canadians from Leon) who told us we would see phosphorising algae.
We did, and it was quite amazing. After dark we had a moonlit swim, and as you disturbed the water it would glow and sparkle like stars all around you. But better was to come when we walked back along the beach and discovered our footprints were glowing brightly beneath us. We spent a happy couple of hours doing Tina Turner dances up and down the beach leaving a bright trail in our wake. Moonwalking didn't work so well, we discovered. As we were doing this an American lad came up and said "awesome", before informing us that they were much better in Thailand and then going off to listen to a half-witted compatriot with a bongo. It's strange with young North Americans - everything can be awesome, from scrambled eggs to painted fingernails, but when they actually see something capable of inspiring awe they don't seem to be very interested.
The next morning Sarah and I both woke up early and went for a walk around the bay. She told me that in the middle of the night Ralph had arrived steaming drunk at the hammocks and started shouting at us all to get up and join the party. I slept through it all even though, apparently, he was shaking me and shouting and shouting in my face: "C'mon, get up, you're missing the party man. Hic. It's - hic - awesome". I had no idea. The walk was lovely and we were lucky to see a family of howler monkeys at very close quarters. We could even make out how the male inflated his neck with hacking sounds before unleashing his hellish roars. There was also a couple of babies gingerly feeling their ways through the trees. Another lovely moment was finding a dozen or so tiny fish who had somehow got washed up on the beach. It felt nice to scoop them all up and return them to the sea - even though in their dazed state they would probably be easy game for bigger fish.
Despite being drunk Ralph had also managed to surface and was determined to come with us, but the girl's experience of the night before meant that they had no desire to have him along. Somehow, without words, they made this plain. The last time I saw Ralph he was standing on the side of the road looking all forlorn with his surfboard saying: "I'd've loved to have come along with you guys. But I guess I was a bit of a jerk last night. I just don't want to go to Ometepe by myself. I'm such a jerk." I felt sorry for him, but he was one of these ultra-competitive types who can't hear anything you say without trumping it with something from his own experience. Like the lad who'd seen better phosphorising algae in Thailand.
The journey to our destination in Ometepe involved four bus journeys, one taxi trip and a boat ride, but it all went very smoothly. We're staying in the Finca Magdalena - 'finca' being 'farm' and 'Magdalena' being the Son of God's bit on the side. It's a lovely spot, a working farm with big rambling buildings surrounded by well-kept gardens - complete with humming birds. It's also the starting point for trips up the Volcan Maderas, the lower of the two volcanoes at more than 4,573ft.
Foolishly, as it turned out, the girls and I decided to sign up for the next day.
I had expected a leisurely climb, with frequent stops to admire the abundant flora and fauna that abounds in the luxuriant rain forest. I imagined that upon surmounting the crest I would find myself looking down at an emerald blue lake full of cool water with shaded spots for a picnic. Well, there was a rainforest full of plants and creatures, and there was a crater with a lake - but there was also a silent guide who obviously wanted us up there and back as soon as possible so he could get home in time for lunch. Things weren't helped by the fact that the other people in our group were a pair of Swiss blokes determined to prove to the guide that when it came to running up mountains nobody could outdo the sons of the Alps. It was rather unpleasant at first, until, by unspoken rebellion, we started taking the climb at our own pace - leaving the guide and the cuckoo-clock-making-cheese-heads to stand around tutting as we caught up. Our rate of progress wasn't helped by the fact that the girls only had strappy sandals and I had no footwear at all - I didn't even try to use my flip-flops. This became a particular problem when we reached the level of cloud cover and the rough and rocky path became a quagmire of volcanic mud, which was about the colour and consistency of baby vomit. I don't want to relive the details - but it was a four-hour climb up and a four hour slip and slide back down. The lake itself was shrouded by mist, so you could only see the edge of the water. Because of the low temperature you could easily imagine yourself on the side of any Welsh river in the middle of March. Except at least there you would only be a gentle stroll away from a pub. And it's true what they say about walking downhill being more difficult than walking uphill. It's particularly true when you have cut and bruised feet and are trying to make your way down a 45-degree slope of baby vomit concealing sharp rocks and spikey twigs. The day was so arduous that when we made it back I cracked open the hipflask of Sloe Gin that I'd been saving for the Inca Trail and the three of us, all battered and bruised and aching, toasted our survival.
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