Early onset.... something

Ever thought you were going a little mad? I had my doubts!
When you realise you're misplacing stuff it worries you, especially when you know all of your worldly goods are being carried around in one big dusty bag. How the hell can you lose something in 2 cubic feet of pants and teeshirts? Well I manage this quite regularly but now realise it's nothing to worry about, it's only happened when stupidly tired or hungover... the former being quite a usual state for me to be in during south America. But I was worried for a bit...

First was my hat in Thailand, a bitter pill to swallow but one which I got over when I bought my next one (until I noticed even that was not in my bag last week!). Then came a shirt, tee-shirt and towel left drying outside of a dorm one hungover morning, again nothing crazy but annoying just the same.

Well I stepped it up a gear when travelling in Chile with Maria. We'd just finished a 18 hour bus trip and decided to book a tour and then our next bus ticket out of the place for 3 days time. It was a standing joke that we kept misplacing tickets etc and Maria decided to leave them in my capable hands! Well 2 days later when Maria asked 'so you still have the tickets, right?' I promptly put her mind at rest even after realising they were not in my wallet.... they were in my money belt in my rucksack, I was sure of it! That was soon to disolve as soon as I returned to the money belt and noticed a lack of tickets...bugger! At $30's a piece they were not a cheap ticket to go and lose!


"Er, Maria, I dont want to panic you but you have the tickets right?"."No" was the swift answer and I began the old panicing myself. I searched high and low for those tickets but to no avail they were just not in my bag, wallet or anywhere else on my person... they had vanished!
With my tail between my legs much like a thai lady boy, we walked to the bus station praying for a miracle! It didnt come. We couldn't remember the seat numbers and the lady behind the counter hadn't taken our names on purchase of the tickets so we were scuppered. Normally I would have coughed up the money and payed for the next night if it wasn't for the fact we were rushing to the next town to catch a famous Inca sun god festival, the Inti Raymi. We begged, well Maria begged for a solution and the only option was to return at 9pm that night when our bus was due to leave and if there were 2 spare seats (of course there will be they're ours!) we could buy some more tickets. So with it not looking too hopeful we headed home, with Maria rightfully speaking very little to me!

Anyway Maria chilled in a bar whilst I threw my belongings around the hostel in search of the tickets. I even went through the bins but still no luck! So there was nothing for it but to head off once more to the bus station and hope for the best. Though I was ready to shell out the cash I was still hoping for a miracle, after all I had done my good dead for the day and helped stop a llama injure itself in a rather shady petting zoo. I'm a beleiver in Karma and I was hoping that I had enough stored up for even a small amount of it to whizz it's way back to me in the form of some good luck.

Once again to the bus station and things looked sketchy as the bus was fully loaded and we were still standing at the side lines. When we begged for charity from the conductor we were getting nowhere. He stopped us short when the police pulled up and told us to wait for 2 minutes. When he returned he thrust 2 tickets into our hands and asked us to get on, not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth we shut up and bolted to our seats where we sat like little angels waiting for some sort of explaination. It came in the form of the conductor who explained that 3 days
ago we had left the tickets in the resturant and that when we hadn't come back for them they handed them into the police who amazingly came to the bus station to see if we arrived.

Now this does not normally happen in this world and I was suprised to see it happen in such a touristy place as San Pedro. The cafe could have just binned the tickets or the police could have had another cup of tea and not bothered showing up, but for some reason luck was on our side and these guys did the right thing! Good on them!


So there I am, shooting off on another tangent in my blog! The moral of the story kids is to help out a llama in distress and the world will be a better place.

Now, if only I could find some more distressed llamas I might be able to find my penknife, my fleece (which I left on a bus, one glove and 2 hats! Here llama, llama, llama.......

Early onset.... something

Ever thought you were going a little mad? I had my doubts!

When you realise you're misplacing stuff it worries you, especially when you know all of your worldly goods are being carried around in one big dusty bag. How the hell can you lose something in 2 cubic feet of pants and teeshirts? Well I manage this quite regularly but now realise it's nothing to worry about, it's only happened when stupidly tired or hungover... the former being quite a usual state for me to be in during south America. But I was worried for a bit...
First was my hat in Thailand, a bitter pill to swallow but one which I got over when I bought my next one (until I noticed even that was not in my bag last week!). Then came a shirt, tee-shirt and towel left drying outside of a dorm one hungover morning, again nothing crazy but annoying just the same.

Well I stepped it up a gear when traveling in Chile with Maria. We'd just finished a 18 hour bus trip and decided to book a tour and then our next bus ticket out of the place for 3 days time. It was a standing joke that we kept misplacing tickets etc and Maria decided to leave them in my capable hands! Well 2 days later when Maria asked 'so you still have the tickets, right?' I promptly put her mind at rest even after realising they were not in my wallet.... they were in my money belt in my rucksack, I was sure of it! That was soon to dissolve as soon as I returned to the money belt and noticed a lack of tickets...bugger! At $30's a piece they were not a cheap ticket to go and lose!
"Er, Maria, I don’t want to panic you but you have the tickets right?".
"No" was the swift answer and I began the old panicking myself. I searched high and low for those tickets but to no avail they were just not in my bag, wallet or anywhere else on my person... they had vanished!
With my tail between my legs much like a Thai lady boy, we walked to the bus station praying for a miracle! It didn’t come. We couldn't remember the seat numbers and the lady behind the counter hadn't taken our names on purchase of the tickets so we were scuppered. Normally I would have coughed up the money and paid for the next night if it wasn't for the fact we were rushing to the next town to catch a famous Inca sun god festival, the Inti Raymi. We begged, well Maria begged for a solution and the only option was to return at 9pm that night when our bus was due to leave and if there were 2 spare seats (of course there will be they're ours!) we could buy some more tickets. So with it not looking too hopeful we headed home, with Maria rightfully speaking very little to me!
Anyway Maria chilled in a bar whilst I threw my belongings around the hostel in search of the tickets. I even went through the bins but still no luck! So there was nothing for it but to head off once more to the bus station and hope for the best.
Though I was ready to shell out the cash I was still hoping for a miracle, after all I had done my good dead for the day and helped stop a llama injure itself in a rather shady petting zoo. I'm a believer in Karma and I was hoping that I had enough stored up for even a small amount of it to whiz it's way back to me in the form of some good luck.
Once again to the bus station and things looked sketchy as the bus was fully loaded and we were still standing at the side lines. When we begged for charity from the conductor we were getting nowhere. He stopped us short when the police pulled up and told us to wait for 2 minutes. When he returned he thrust 2 tickets into our hands and asked us to get on, not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth we shut up and bolted to our seats where we sat like little angels waiting for some sort of explanation. It came in the form of the conductor who explained that 3 days ago we had left the tickets in the restaurant and that when we hadn't come back for them they handed them into the police who amazingly came to the bus station to see if we arrived.
Now this does not normally happen in this world and I was surprised to see it happen in such a touristy place as San Pedro. The cafe could have just binned the tickets or the police could have had another cup of tea and not bothered showing up, but for some reason luck was on our side and these guys did the right thing! Good on them!
So there I am, shooting off on another tangent in my bog! The moral of the story kids is to help out a llama in distress and the world will be a better place.

Now, if only I could find some more distressed llamas I might be able to find my penknife, my fleece (which I left on a bus, one glove and 2 hats! Here llama, llama, llama.......

Hola Maria

Hot Springs
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade

As you know from past posts I shuffled my trip around to meet Maria, a friend from Cardiff, in Chile.

I only just managed to get to Santiago, Chile having messed up my dates from New Zealand missing my flight by a day. It was only by the grace of the gods and by flirting with a 60 yr old Kiwi woman did I manage to get on the next flight.

So there I was, Chile. I was peeing it down and I was soon to realise that a little more attention to the Spanish books may have paid off. I never spoke any Asian languages but it seemed that in Asia the waving of my hands was more easily understood. Still, I made it to the first hostel which was fun as it didn't have a sign outside and I hadn´t noted down the number of the street it was on!

I was in South America and it felt unusually exciting to be out of my depth again after Oz and NZ.

Next was my trip up to see Maria. She was a star and actually had arranged to meet me much further south than originally planned. I had a minor detour on the way but finally met her in La Serana in Chile before we headed up to see some geysers and deserts.

It was really nice seeing a familiar face after so long. Traveling on your own has its ups and downs and it´s nice to be able to catch up on stories from home and chew the fat with someone you don't have to ask the standard backpacker questions to.

I travelled with Maria for about a month and during that time saw some of the most fantastic scenery to date and had some of the biggest laughs of the trip so far. It was great to have a travel partner.

Thanks for the trip mate, see you back in the grey.

Guess what I did.....

Guess what I did.....
Originally uploaded by Big_Ade

I went to New Zealand for 10 days! Flew down one end, drove to the other. 2,800km in 6 days killed me - good job I walked on a glacier and jumped out of a plane in the mean time to keep me awake!

More to come when the jet lag clears!

I suffered from wind....

... and too much cloud cover so I couldn't jump out of the plane yesterday! Oh well, another time.

I've hired a car with a pig farmer and we're heading up the west coast of NZ in a milk float to melt some glaciers.

Catch you all soon


PS. Will be jumping in the north island next week with any luck

Going loco down in...

..South America soon and good news.

A really top friend of mine from Cardiff, Maria, has been travelling in South America since Feb this year. Since she was due to come home mid June then our paths wouldn't cross. This was a shame since she was one of the main people who inspired me to give up the job and head off. Well good new this last week or two -  it's turned out she's got the travel bug and has managed to extend her trip for a few months. We're now working on getting our routes to cross so we can travel around for a bit. I'll keep you posted.


Adios

(that was from page 4 of the spanish book I've been trying to read this last 6 months. Mmmm it's not going so well, I've made it to page 15 and I haven't even worked out how to ask for a beer yet!)

Oh bugger!

I'm a 6'8" dude who's afraid of heights; it's bitter irony.

Then tell me why the hell have I agreed to jump out of a plane in Queenstown New Zealand tomorrow!?

Bugger!

No gold star this week, Grade F

Excuse the quality of the last few posts, all inspiration seems to be slowly oozing from my pores. I'm going to jump out of plane tomorrow in the South of New Zealand so hopefully that'll kick start me into writing some new posts - like the one about the redneck camp I visited in the north of Brisbane or crab racing in Sydney!

'All Blacks' and Blue!

Well my arrival in New Zealand meant I could catch up with Sharon, a friend of Lorna's I knew from Cardiff and Carl who I went to University with. It was nice to have a few drinks in Auckland and have a bit of a break before heading off to Queenstown for some Adrenaline.

What was also nice was watching New Zealand beat France in their first test.

What was not so nice was watching Wales taking an absolute trouncing against Oz. Ouch, that hurt! The only softner was that the Kiwi's support the Oz team in the same way the welsh support the English team! I like these Kiwi's!

Goon-ers!

I never thought I'd suffer a culture shock in Australia but the 'traveller' scene's left me wanting to flee the country as soon as possible (ish).

It's a whole different ball game compared to my 5 months round Asia and to be honest it's not one which I came travelling to experience. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Australia or the Australians, I think the country and people are gorgeous but a large percentage who've been visiting it need a good kick up the arse and a poke in the eye with a pointy stick. For god's sake you're not at home, this is not just a long pub crawl; don't waste your chance to explore the world by spending every night drinking cheap shit wine. You lovingly name it 'goon' and then complain you haven't the money to explore the country properly. You spend all your money on beer then get a crap job for 2 months in the same place just to buy more goon. You only move on every few months because you stay in $30 hostels, eating $10 meals where that same $40 would last you 5 days in Laos and you would have your eyes opened to so much more.

You sit in a dirty hostel kitchen surrounded by condescending signs telling you 'your mother's not here to wash up after you...' and the 'kitchen fairy doesn't call here any more' and then nick your neighbour's milk because you cant be arsed to walk 2 minutes to the nearest shop. Does this not tell you that you need to get out of that place and wake yourselves up? When you get shouted at late at night in the street for being 'f*cking noisy backpacker scum' that perhaps your not actually experiencing a culture but instead alienating it? This may seem like a way to extend university life but for the rich kids and mummies boys out there come on, this is not the 'University of Life' you collectively convince yourself it is. If you want to piss your money up the wall do what I did, do it in the UK for as long as you can and then when you're ready for something new get off and do something more interesting, you'll never regret it.

Now don't get me wrong, I've spent a dozen nights in hostels and several of them pissed out of my head but where's that gotten me? I've spent far too much money and haven't seen as much as I could have done. Any longer and I'd end up getting a crap job to save up for my next bus ticket! Nah, I'm taking what I have and getting off to South America as soon as I can.

Finally I know this is a bit of an Ade rant but I have to repeat I've loved my time in Australia and when I've had the best times it's been with Australians and not backpackers. I'm having a pop at East coast backpackers and I know this is a cheeky generalisation to make but the stars I've met have not shone in the numbers they have in the last few months and that's for sure. Perhaps if I was travelling up the coast in a van, taking my time as so many do then I would meet loads of interesting souls. Perhaps is a word being used a little late here as I'm actually writing this from New Zealand!

Perhaps next time I come I'll just stick with the Australians; it is after all their country that I came to visit.

Name that tune in....

For over 2 weeks now my Ipod has ben staring back at me with a blank screen, getting no further than showing a mocking apple logo on the screen every now and again. I was about to pack it away last night for its long winter sleep when, on dropping it on the floor from 3 inches it sprang to life. I ran up to the charger and bingo, this morning it's fully charged!

Bring it on, I have some tunes again!

Sydney by night

Well I’ve arrived in Sydney ad have met up with Craig who I used to work with in Edinburgh 8 years ago. He‘s still a bloody animal and we had an excellent day on the sauce catching up.

What’s even better is he’s currently managing a backpacker hostel which is an ideal job for the dude and a nice place for me to crash for a few days.
I have a feeling there may be some more stories coming out of this week though I’m not sure how many will be able to go in here!!

Surf’s up

I tried surfing in Byron Bay and Surfer‘s Paradise, it was loads of fun but bloody hell I’m too old for this shit! Maybe those Swedes were right after all!

Skydiving in New Zealand next… I’ll show ‘em!

Sheep, sheep, sheep

Try saying ‘sheep sheep’ without showing your teeth, that's all. That's just one of the bizarre drinking games which surfaced when camping on Fraser Island but it led to us gumming ‘sheep sheep’ to random strangers for the next few days.

I turned up in Hervey Bay and before I knew it I’d signed up for a self drive tour over on the island starting at 6am the next morning. Fraser Island’s a few hours north of Brisbane and is a popular destination because of its ridiculously long beeches, fresh water lakes and the fact you can only get around in 4x4 jeeps.

Well I wanted to go camping and this was ideal. We were given the truck, the camping gear and pointed in the right direction to find the food and beers.
A short ferry ride later and we were bouncing along sand dunes and soaking up the views. In the evenings we BBQ’d on the beech and drank under the stars before falling into the tents for the next day of throwing ourselves down giant sandbanks into crystal clear lakes.

Traveling on my own I was really lucky with the group I found myself in. There were 10 of us including a bunch of English lads, a German couple and a pair of Swedish girls. It turned out I was the oldest which caused a bit of amusement considering I was acting like a bloody 18 yr old bouncing in the sand and water. What didn't amuse me too much was when the 22 yr old Swedish girls promptly told that I was a bit too old for them! Too old! For what? Grrrrr!

A kangaroo’s stolen my bloody memory Bruce

Well it’s been 3 weeks in Oz and despite having this bloody laptop I still haven’t managed to keep on top of this blog! Well who cares, I was doing some catching up of my own and it’s been fun.

I’ve been visiting my cousins who emigrated to Brisbane with my uncle around 20 years ago, which was also around the last time I spoke to them!

Someone asked me if it would be weird staying with these guys as they would be like total strangers and up until that point I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I frantically tried to recall all of the snippets of information my mum had told me about them over the years. 2 Cousins, Chris and Matt, I remembered that! There were some children thrown in the mix and a marriage or two somewhere down the line…. Much more than that and I struggled!

When I got picked up from the airport by Chris, the older cousin, he told me how the kitchen was stocked up with Strongbow and Cheese and I knew everything was going to be just fine. Over the days we stuffed our faces, listened to tunes and reminisced about our childhood. I had a great time staying with Chris, Kirsty and their brand spanking new baby boy Joshua and I was so happy we got on so well.
It turned out that we all had a similar sense of humour and had many shared interests and attitudes - I wonder how much of our behaviour is genetic?

One thing that’s clear is that blood is thicker than water and I’m going to make more of an effort to keep in touch from now on.

Chris, Matt, Kirsty and Amanda thanks so much for the hospitality, you’re all really lovely people and I’m so glad I got over to see you. I know Hugh must have been so proud of you guys and I’m only sorry this trip didn’t happen earlier.

Until the next time we meet!