Sweet SA

My first impressions of South Africa might make me sound like a bit of an idiot, but so be it.

For some reason I really wasn't expecting the poverty, I guess I was thinking I was coming to a first world/developed nation, but the disparity in wealth seems to be on a par with Brazil or Colombia.

In India the poor people are really fucking poor, but the rich people don't appear that rich. In Brazil and Colombia and now South Africa (specifically Rio, Cartajena and Cape Town) what is shocking is the disparity between the rich and the poor, kids without shoes walking between BMWs and Mercedes.

Of course what I was expecting was racial disparity. I was wondering whether I would find mostly whites being served by mostly blacks. For the first couple of days that's what I got, but then Kai and I went to a comedy night. The audience was about 50/50 and the large majority of the comedy revolved around race, which really surprised me. The funny thing was (haha) that the most racial comedy came from a British woman.

People seem a lot more open and honest when it comes to race here, it always seems a bit of a taboo back in the UK. And "coloured" is an acceptable term to describe people of mixed race. Also Afrikaanas aren't all as bad as the films make out :)

There are a couple of really depressing things about South Africa: politics (and corruption) and HIV/AIDS. Corruption seems endemic at all levels, we were advised that the police are bribable with practically anything you might have with you, a create of Red Bull was a real life example given, and while we were over there there were two major corruption news stories in just three weeks. One was the case of Schabir Shaik, a close friend of president-to-be, Zuma's, who having been sentenced to 15 years on corruption charges mysteriously contracted terminal high blood pressure and has not spent a day in prison. The other major corruption news story was the disbanding of the corruption fighting police force, the Scorpions, apparently for being far too effective. There are a lot of people hoping that the ANC don't receive 66% of the vote at the approaching election as it would enable them to alter the constitution to prevent Zuma from being prosecuted. Politics and HIV/AIDS go hand in hand as Zuma's rape case unfortunately demonstrates. Zuma was acquitted of rape, but what went uncontested was that he knowingly had unprotected sexual intercourse with a women he knew to be HIV positive, saying that he showered afterwards to "cut the risk of contracting HIV". At the time he was the leader of the National AIDS Council. As for HIV/AIDS itself, the figures speak for themselves. Some townships have infection levels as high as 70%.

Since writing this it seems that the corruption charges against Zuma are being miraculously dropped.

Opodon't

I have never known a company as bad as Opodo, they don't even give you the option to opt out, they just tell you when you order to "please automatically subscribe through the unsubscribe link in our emails or email us at unsubscribe@opodo.com."

Hostels

I'm sure that most of you can imagine the squalor that I've been living for the last 10 months, but for those that can't I'll give you a taste. At the moment I am staying in a pretty average hostel. I am in a room that usually has at least one sleeping person in it so the blinds are always drawn. It's cold outside so the windows are always closed. These two facts make it musty and smelly. I have a single saggy bed. It gets made once a week. The sheets always look suscpiciously similar. The hot water often runs out. But at least there is hot water. Breakfast is bread and dulce de leche. If you're lucky and can get up before 10. I think I've had breakfast 3 times.

Funny Ha-Ha

I sent an email tonight to everyone who I have met travelling (obviously only those whose email address I have), ie, a lot of people, just to say "hi" and that my trip (or "adventure" as some like to call them) is coming to an end. Yvonne pointed out what a funny joke I had made, titling the email "The End Is Neigh". Hmmm

Lots of travellers end their journey with the treat of a stay at a luxury hotel. I had no such plans, but Thursday Jordi and I are off to Calafate, where the famous Moreno Glacier (lots of facts and figures here) ends in spectacular style. We shall be staying in spectacular style, at the four star Posadas Los Alamos. It will be the plushest hotel I have stayed in on this trip. Ok, ever. I am really looking forward to a big, non-saggy bed, with thick light duvet and hot showers at any time of day in the warm on-suit bathroom. So forgive me if you don't hear from me until I'm home on Thursday.

BJ's Cyber Cafe

This story hinges on a common feature of men's toilets that might need an explanation for all those girlies out there. You have urinals right? Troughs and individual urinals. More often than not the individuals are set too close together, at best making it awkward to pee next to somebody, at worse making it practically impossible to fit two bodies around two urinals, this usually occurs in a corner where two urinals will point at one person standing there. What are they expecting? Siamese twins? One urinal to break, leaving the backup? A man with two penises? Anyway...

So after a bit of an internet sesh I needed a wee and made a trip to the toilet. There were two urinals in a corner, as explained above, and a man using one, so I decided to wait. But the man said "pase, pase", I'm not sure how to translate that*, but you get the idea. So I go in and decide, no, really, I cannot fit into that space, even skinny old me, so I tell him I'll wait. He finishes, goes to wash his hands and repeats "pase, pase" so I pase and start the serious business of peeing. He talks to me a bit, I don't really catch what he says, but I figure he's cursing the people who are thinking of the Siamese twins, so I nod and laugh in agreement. The guy comes back to the other urinal and starts unzipping himself. This is when I figure something is up. I was right, there's not enough room, he might as well use my urinal. He's looking over, I swear it. Not really that phased I finish and do my myself up. He goes for my groin. This is when I start saying "no". I wash my hands. He apologises, and explains that he likes to... and here he made a very explicit gesture with his hand and his mouth, now if he'd just said that from the start...

In other news my flight is a week Tuesday. I really don't want to leave Buenos Aires :'( My current fantasy is that I will find a company in the UK who will pay me half what I was getting in London but will let me work from here.

*Update: Jodi says that "pase" translates to "come in", I replied that you wouldn't say that in English, it would sound a bit weird, but then I suppose maybe it sounds weird in Spanish too, and warning bells should have been ringing from the start :)

UPDATE: Fail blog has a fine example of urinal architecture.

Drunk Tom

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a new guy in our hostel, it was around midday, I was just having breakfast, he was just having a couple of beers. I didn't think much of it, people do that sort of thing in hostels, though it's a little dangerous in Argentina as you often don't stop drinking until the next day. Later we met and he turned out to be a nice young American thinking about getting a flat in Buenos Aires. That evening I came back to find that he was still drinking, though holding it together quite well, just going a little slow, though later he lost the ability to string a sentence together, and later still made a female friend of mine a little uncomfortable.
The next day I went down for breakfast at about the same time to find the same scene, Tom drank a couple of beers while I was eating my breakfast. This is when I first started to suspect that there might be a problem. Things continued in this vein for a week until one day he came to our room saying that he had to leave as there were no spare beds, I went down to reception as I hadn't booked a bed in advance either. The receptionists gave me a bed on condition that I didn't tell Tom. Apparently Tom was being subtly chucked out of the hostel for breaking some stuff and attempting to punch someone, I'd only ever seen him as a peaceful drunk. After he'd gone I felt a bit guilty that I didn't try to offer him any help. But not that guilty, he returned to the bar one evening and I remembered how awkward things could get.
Skip ahead to yesterday evening, I and four friends were eating at a restaurant a couple of blocks from our hostel when Tom walks in. Slowly. He comes over to our table and attempts a conversation but we couldn't really make out what he wanted to say apart from "should I leave?" and "should I eat here?" We weren't really sure of the answers to these questions. Eventually he sat by himself at another table and the waiter came over to apologise, I told him not to worry, we knew him. During our meal Tom repeatedly tried to engage in conversation, in vein, once apologising, for what we weren't sure. After a while he started to pace a couple of times and the waiter came over and told me that he needed to go to the loo but couldn't make it on his own, the toilets being down a spiral staircase. I got up to help him, but as I got up I could see that I was too late and sat down again. Tom got up leaving his books and jacket and left the restaurant. The waiter wanted us to pay for his bottle of wine. We refused.
This morning I went to find Tom to tell him where his stuff was and offer him help. He didn't take me up on the help, though I'm not sure what I could do. He told me that it's happened a couple of times, he's been half way through a book and lost it. I wondered if he really thought the book had caused him to lose his temper. It took two people to explain to me that he meant he'd lost the book and not lost his temper.
So that's my (attempted) good dead for the day, now where are some kittens I can kill?

In other news Jordi is famous after appearing on TV at a competition to see who can do the most convincing rolly-polly. She appears at 1:25 here.

A First Time For Everything

I've never been too quick in certain situations, so when I noticed Jordi shrinking away from two guys walking towards us I didn't think much of it. I began to think more of it when they started asking for money, but I still attempted the ostrich defence thinking that they were probably just begging and walked between them, Jordi was less sure. When one started to hold her jacket I kind of pulled her on in an attempt to get her to keep walking, I managed a "que pasa?" (as Jordi pointed out recently, my favourite Spanish phrase. Actually my only Spanish phrase) she got out her purse and gave them some notes (about 20 pesos, £3) and they ran off. I wonder what would have become of me if Jordi had taken her bus and not walked me home. I might have lost all the money that would have gone to the tattooist if my skin had healed better and he'd been able to finish my tattoo.

Smooth Operator

There seems to be something about the Argentinean phone system which is conducive to wrong numbers (there is some weirdness with mobile numbers changing depending on where you are in the country and whether you want to call or text, it is a big country, but then the population isn't that high), I've even been told that people keep chatting to wrong numbers on occasion in the hope of securing a date. So I wasn't that surprised to get a text a day or so after getting my own mobile asking after Gaby. What is surprising is that these text messages haven't stopped. (It has occurred to me that this might be one of Jordi's friends, but it seems a little long winded for a practical joke.)

Thursday

HOW'S IT GOING GABY?

I'm not Gaby, I'm Jamie.

I HAVE THIS NUMBER AS GABY'S

(In English) Stop shouting, Gaby is not here!

Wednesday

Hello Skinny-Girl! How are you? I need a favour...
(Flaco/Flaca is a nickname for a skinny boy/girl)

I am not Skinny-Girl, I am Skinny-Boy.

Sorry, you know what? I would like to communicate with gabriela, you don't know her?

Is she pretty?

You don't know the number? I am a girl? I don't know...

Thursday

HOW'S IT GOING GABY?

Saturday

HOW ARE YOU GABY? I REALLY LIKE YOU A LOT!!

(The term "te quiero" is quite difficult to translate, it kinda means "I love you", but it's quite loose and means different things when you say it to a friend, a family member or a (potential) boyfriend/girlfriend, "Te quiero pero no te amo", "I love you but I don't love you" is famous.)

Thanks, but I am not Gaby

SO WHO ARE YOU?

I am Jamie.

TBC

Does He Take Sugar?

Now don't get me wrong, my Spanish is pretty bad, but after a month in fucked-up-Portuguese speaking Brazil having to struggle through the simplest restaurant request, I'd forgotten how much Spanish I actually knew. Yesterday I went to get my hair cut, it was the first date I've ever been on at a hairdressers, but anyway, I couldn't really get much of what he (the hairdresser, not my date, who was female :P ) was saying, though he still complimented me on my Spanish, and then later that evening I was chatting to a guy on a bus and really got everything that he said, I was pretty pleased with myself, I think I am beginning to see why people like learning languages.

Back In BA. Again.

At the risk of sounding like a pretentious knobber, comng back to Buenos Aires really felt like coming home. Mexico was my favourite holidaying place (sorry Sonia, Colombia comes a close second) but Argentina is the place that I'd emigrate to. They just know how to do things right, from the buses, food and wine, to the food and wine on the buses. The mosquitoes really know how to bite. My hand and wrist have swollen due to a couple of nasty ones. It's strange as it's so cold here, and I wasn't bothered this much even in the Colombian jungle.

Last night as I was walking home I witnessed a tramp having a wank in a large, glass fronted, very well lit ATM cubical.

Review 2007

I watched City of God the other night. I can assure you that that is not the Rio that I saw. The Rio I saw seemed like Brighton compared to the Rio of the film. Just with lots of high rises, and the beach was a little bigger and better. But I suppose even Brighton has its Whitehawk.

I read Memoirs Of A Geisha the other night. What a confusing book, on the cover it says it's a novel, and then before it starts it has a note from the translator saying how it was dictated to him by the Geisha herself, and then at the end, in the acknowledgments it says it's a complete work of fiction. Anyway, I'm sure it's all very clever, but I really don't want my book to seem like it's been written by an amateur. At the age of six she was told she was a clever girl for saying that her dad's head looked like an egg. She seems to have taken this to heart and has made sure she uses at least six clever metaphors (ok, allegories, whatever) per page.

Tips For Travellers II

4. (Correction) Of course Swiss follow the type of their language. Germans are nice, I like them. French are strange. Always. Italians have that food complex.
   

5. Don't be a knobber. No one likes knobbers. No one cares how many countries you've been to, or how long you've been travelling. And you're just going to get knocked out of the water by that quiet guy in the corner who's just waiting for you to ask the tired and tested traveller questions that everyone else got bored with years ago. And no, two weeks is not long enough to "do" India.
   

6. Don't get complacent. After a week in Rio, several of which were spent on the beach (taking, as advised, the absolute minimum), I was feeling pretty relaxed, but that's just when they strike! I left Tatiane on the beach to go and get my book. While at the hostel I decided to pick up my mp3 player and some water too. Little did I know that a crime wave was about to hit Rio! I returned to the beach. It took me a while to notice that something was missing. Tatiane was still there, as was the sarong that she was lying on. But my nearly empty bottle of suncream! Where was it? Gone! The swine! I bought some more and kept a careful eye on that, and my mp3 player.
   

7. Don't (necessarily) trust the locals. Arriving at my latest port of call, I asked the guy sitting next to me about getting the ferry to my next port of call, Ilha Grande. He told me I would have to get another bus for about 4 hours and then change again. I wondered how the hell the Lying Planet could have got it so wrong. It hadn't, he had confused islands.
   

8. Buy stuff. Most of my regrets of this trip arise from not buying things. From the freakiest winking Jesus pictures in Ipiales (if you go there, please buy me one) and the second armadillo that was all of £5 to the stolen pair of classic Ray Bans, the only sunglasses I have ever liked, I wish I'd bought them all.
   

9. If the weather seems consistently bad try getting up earlier. It may be really beautiful, intensely sunny beach weather in the mornings and then always get cloudy around 1pm, just as you're getting up. (See Rio)
   

10. Don't show me your photo milliseconds after you've taken it. I know what it looks like, I can still see it, right in front of me. And I don't care how good your camera is on paper or what genius artistic skill you might have, that 3" LCD screen really can't add anything to the incredible panorama before me.
    

Famous Last Words

It's pissing it down. Until Friday apparently. I wish I'd wasted my time on the beach yesterday instead of using it wisely.

At The Copa, Copacabana

I know I'm not supposed to brag about how amazing stuff is, and being the stereotypical reserved Englishman that I am, it's usually not difficult. But Rio is great. I'm not much of a beach person, but I had a lovely day at the beach today. I managed to stay in the sea longer than three seconds and even did some body surfing. And have been leaking water from my nose since. In fact as I bought a sandwich a stream of water escaped from my nose and landed on the counter. The proprietor look suitably disgusted. Then at dinner I just managed to avoid spraying two of my fellow eating companions with nostril water.

Brazilian men are so unsubtle at staring at women. I end up watching the men watching the women, it's so entertaining. Mind you, there is, ahem, a lot to look at :)

Tips For Travellers

1. Avoid taxis. The trouble is, sometimes you don't know where you are, and you don't know where you're going. You're vulnerable, and want a nice safe warm taxi. But taking a taxi will make it worse, you won't learn anything by taking a taxi. Apart from maybe the wisdom of my words. And they will rip you off, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly. In Cholula Christian and I asked about the bar district and were advised to take a taxi. The taxi went around the houses and the fare seemed fair (sorry). Our taxi back only needed to drive about four blocks. Really, we could have walked thanks. If we'd only known the direction. And so it was that I arrived in Rio and headed for the bus stop, despite the Lying Planet's dire warnings about how dodgy the area was. And did I get mugged? No, I got onto the waiting bus, followed the journey on my map, learnt the layout of the city and saved myself about $15 in the process.*
   
   

2. An observation rather than a tip, hotels and hostels always have pros and cons. Even the cheapo shit ones have good points (usually the price) and even the expensive hotels have bad points (usually the price). For example, I may be staying at one of the plushest places I've stayed at so far. I have a six bed dorm to myself, an on-suite bathroom and, get this, an on-suite kitchen! And by Brazilian standards it's cheap. But the trouble is, there's no one here. So I am hanging out at the more expensive and crappy, but popular, place down the road and sleeping and eating my breakfasts here in solitary luxury.
   
   

3. Caipirinhas are strong! I went to my first Brazilian party last night. It was much like other parties in other parts of the world, except that as the night wore on more and more of the men started to take their T-shirts off in order to exhibit their breast like pecs to the women. The funny thing was though that it ended up being extremely gay as the women thinned out and the guys began hanging round in groups admiring and preening each other. Anyway, I only had about four caipirinhas and I think I am still drunk. 12 hours later.
   
   

4. The Swiss are nice. I think they are my second favourite nationality after the Germans. And it seems really easy to dislike your own countrymen, but maybe that's just because I am British ;)
   

* Although of course there was the time with Maddy when our bus skirted the outskirts, we got off way too late, got another bus back into town and still had to get a taxi to where we were going. We could have saved money by just taking a taxi in the first place.

Sorry What?

Man, Portuguese is one fucked up language. It sounds like a mixture of Spanish/German/Norwegian. All spoken with an egg in the mouth. Actually I know why it is, they nasalate loads of their vowels. "No" is "náo", which sounds like our "now" said mostly through the nose. But it's not just that, get this, they number their days, "Saturday" and "Sunday" are the same as in Spanish, but then they have "Second-Day", "Third-Day"... you get the picture. And "hello" is our "oi". I just cannot bring myself to greet people with "oi". Although I was just helped to face my phobia when the receptionist got me to shout after someone leaving. "Oi" I shouted, "oi, oi!" And they say their "d"s as we say our "g"s. And their "r"s are our "h"s, which does make talking about Batman's side kick quite amusing. "But why are you, a Brazilian, referencing an old English children's TV character who is a horse?"

Brutal Bureaucracy

Throughout my travels I have stumbled across monumental bureaucracy. Usually it doesn't affect me too much, what do I mind if they have to fill in and stamp three bus tickets three times for our 30 minute journey? And if it avoids corruption then I guess it's a good thing. But occasionally it frustrates one to screaming point. This might end up being a very long boring story.

So in Oaxaca I posted three things, two large envelopes at 300g each and a wooden armadillo for my dad, which I packed in a box, wrote his name address on and took to the post office. The only trouble I had was with the cost, a total of about £30, over double the total cost of the presents I was sending (the usual ratio), and since they only had small value stamps I had to cover half of each parcel and letter with stamps and my saliva. Now we get to Puebla, a couple of hours away from Oaxaca, I have two boxes to send. It was difficult enough packing them, it made me realise how helpful everyone had been in Oaxaca. So I get to the post office and the guy tells me the boxes need to be wrapped in manila and tied up with string. WTF? So I go across the road to the papelaria for the third time and ask the moody old woman who wouldn't give me any boxes, and ignored me so much the second time that I nearly walked out without paying for the two sheets of paper, but she tells me that I need to get the post office to check them before wrapping them, I try to explain that they just sent me over, but she wouldn't have it so I return to the post office, they send me straight out again, I guess because I practically packed the parcels in front of them and they didn't see any hint of drugs or arms. So the moody old woman wraps my parcels and asks me to address them. After I've addressed the first one she tells me that I need to put my return address on it. Now I haven't left enough space and I can't really see the point, it's not like I have an address in Mexico, and if they can't find one address in Steyning how are they going to find mine? So I tell her that the address is my address. She huffs and puffs. Eventually she finishes both packages and I return to the post office. The guy is finally satisfied and weighs up the two parcels at 400g and 800g, which for some reason only costs £10, less than the presents cost!

So if you do get something from me, be very grateful, and if you don't then it's either been eaten up by customs, or I just lost the will to live before I finished posting it.

Odds And Ends

Well Maddy got off ok, and has arrived safely home. I'm glad to say that in the last few days in Mexico she really managed to begin living the Mexican life, with such choice quotes as:

"Is that a cockroach, or is there an elephant stuck to the ceiling?"

"Jamie that man just full-on groped my arse."

Of course I went looking for said man, to show him how western democratic justice works, but unfortunately he'd managed to escape me after I wondered slowly in the wrong direction, shaking with fear at the thought of finding him.

If you've been checking my photos recently you may have noticed that a strange Machu Picchu-like structure has cropped up in the middle on Mexico City. Well actually no it hasn't, I just uploaded Diego's photos from the Inca Trail. So that's that mystery solved, now we just have to work out how they got all those stones up there and so perfectly shaped without the use of wheels, metal tools or animals.

A blast from the past of a different jungle trip came in the following form from a fellow Lost City trekker:

i find myself in a weird mood in this current circumstances, kind of summering up my trip and looking back at things in a nostalgic manner; from meeting up with jamie kitson i can say i learnt this short, yet very true line that i found myself thinking about over and over again - "if it`s worth doing, than it`s worth doing well".

It's odd what you leave people with, I don't even remember saying it to him, mostly I asked him what the army was like and tried to keep off the subject of politics. He's Israeli.

Something I meant to mention about Colombia and all of America in general is this road system. The block system. It might be logical and easy to navigate, but it isn't half boring! Colombia though, decided that it wasn't boring enough and numbered the roads. Calling the north-south roads "Races" for some reason. But then Bogota decided that this was too boring and decided to renumber a whole sector meaning that lots of buildings now have two addresses on them, one crossed out in red.

UPDATE - So the phrase "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well" was being applied to drinking, most of the guys were drinking warm rum with warm coke, and I couldn't stand it, I went out and bought a giant bag of ice and a giant bag of limes. If it's worth drinking, it's worth drinking well. And I hope I didn't cause any offence with the Israeli comment, I've liked every Israeli I've ever met.

Food And Drink. Minus The Drink.

Maddy and I went to an Italian restaurant last night. It reminded me how irritating Italians can be on the subject of food. They seem to think that they're God's gift to the human palate. Well no! You're not! Italian food is boring! The first mouthful may be the most delicious thing you've ever tasted in your life, but then every other mouthful is exactly the same. I want some variety here people! And if you try to explain this to them they smile at you in this condescending way and say "But darling, you've never had proper Italian food." That's right, I've never been anywhere near Italy. No wait. I have. Twice. And you know what? I can't even remember the food! That's how good it was. (Actually I do remember the pizza that was like a biscuit with some cheese on top. Great!) And the other thing they say to you is "But darling, you're English, you wouldn't know good food if it bit you on the tongue." That's right, you lived in Britain for twenty years and you never even found an Italian or Indian that you liked? "But darling, that's not British cooking." Right, every single dinner you ate in that twenty years was cooked by a foreign chef. And those aren't national dishes you're eating, those are British variations on a theme. My mum cooks great lasagna and spaghetti bolognese (fuck off Adam:), but the only thing that's even vaguely Italian is the pasta, and where was that produced? Italy?

So the good news is that after eating the whole bread basket and my so-so cannelloni I have decided that I have finally got my hunger back after a bit of a nasty illness. My previous worse ever illness was in Laos, when I awoke at 3am with a sudden onset of Explosive Bowel Syndrome and fell unconscious against the wash bowl (see Mum, I've learnt that one!) on my first visit to the loo. But it got better after that, and only lasted about 12 hours. Statistically this last bout was 2-4 times worse. By Thursday night I was visiting the toilet frequently and after exiting the toilet to wash my hands on one such venture I suddenly felt very weak and giddy and awoke to find myself unconscious on the floor of the shower room. I then had to sit down half way up the short flight of stairs and then collapsed again once in our room, and had to crawl into bed. Maddy asked me why I didn't wake her, I'd thought about asking her to pass the bin in case I was sick, but what else could she have done.

So today it was Maddy's turn, she started feeling a bit bad after her spaghetti bolognese (yes Adam, with meat). I only realised how bad she looked today after I'd marched her to the bus stop and we were already on our bus to Taxco. I said that we could stay in Cuernavaca, but stoic as ever she said she'd see how she felt after she'd eaten. She ate, and ate a little more at my prodding, about half a slice of toast in all, and then was sick all over her feet once we left the restaurant. we could make out little pieces of spaghetti. I knew it, not just boring but poisoned too! Maybe they heard me. Anyway, we came right back to Cuernavaca.

Food And Drink. Minus The Food.

Wondering why we were still drinking Coronas which we could be drinking anywhere in the world I decided that since we were in the state of Michoacan I'd order a Michelada, which turned out to be a Bloody Mary made with beer (Corona) and of course limes and chilies and had salt around the rim. I am now addicted to the stuff!

Maddy and I arrived at Mazunte on the Oaxaca coast last night, we checked in to our room over looking the beach while it was dark and were rewarded with a beautiful, paradyllic some might say, view when we awoke this morning.

No, we didn't feel any hint of the earthquake.