TravelStream™ news feed for member dazzla on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dazzla en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:07:13 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1230856500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1230856500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1230856500/tpod.html Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:07:13 -0500 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Darwin and Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

A few pics from our recent trip to Adelaide, Darwin and Kakadu National Park.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1160156460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1160156460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1160156460/tpod.html Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:43:09 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Iringa, Tanzania

It was a puke-tastic ferry crossing (fortunately not for me) back to the mainland after the disappointment of Zanzibar. After a night back in the tent on the beachfront camp site in Dar es Salaam it was time for our longest drive yet (about 11 hours) to southern Tanzania.

Seems like a good opportunity to introduce you to my fellow passengers:

Swiss Susy
The only passenger my age! Lives in Basel and works for the Red Cross so bit of a Bloody Do-Gooder. Five years ago she lived in the Sudan and Cameroon for 2 years so knows a bit about Africa. Good laugh and easy to wind up. Only going as far as Victoria Falls as has to go back to work and wait for some awful disaster to happen.

Dawn (Australia) aka Mamma Africa
Widowed grandma, former florist/farmer/sailor. Very interesting and obviously young at heart. Going all the way to Cape Town. Locals seem to sense her gentle kindness and call her Mamma Africa. Great negotiator with the throngs of sellers.

Ken & Lyn (Australia)
More retired Aussies. Ken is never afraid to take a video of anything. They like to wear matching silly wicker hats they got in China. Has a great bag filled with medical stuff which I've had cause to use already. Only going as far as Vic Falls but means only 3 weeks of listening to stories of when they broke down in the outback only for their car to be fixed by a blind man.

Bruce and Mary (Canada)
Retired Vancouverites who call each other 'Luvvie.' Never camped before so thought they'd start off gently with a 6 week trip through Africa. Bruce is the slowest walking person in the world. Everything he sees is described as wonderful: a lion stalking a zebra is wonderful. A shoeless, fly-ridden, dirt poor kid is also wonderful. We have to stop the truck every 2 hours because of his bladder. Not so wonderful.

KC and Eric (Canada)
The dullest couple in the world. Eric (38) works in IT but he is so dull they fired him. KC is 8 years older and treats him like a schoolkid. She's a teacher. Eric can't be trusted with money as he likes to buy everything. Hates to say no to people trying to sell him crap. He shaves his legs and is not allowed to drink. On a 6 month trip and hope to get married at the end. For his sake I hope he sees the light and pushes her off Table Mountain. If he doesn't I might.

Gayle the Loon (Australia)
Think you know enough about her already, but just wait till I tell you about what happens in Malawi!

Morgan (Guide & Chef) and Rino (Driver) (Zimbabwe)
Been working these tours for 5 years. Morgan is a bit of geezer. He knows everyone wherever we go. They both speak good English as well as about 5 tribal languages which is invaluable in some of the places we go. Morgie is a great cook and organiser, and they are both fun to hang out with after the oldies have gone to sleep (9.30) and talk about the troubles of Africa. Rino is a Chelsea fan. We don't talk much.

New Moon (The Truck) (Germany)
For all you petrolheads: it's big Mercedes with 4 wheels and 3 doors. Goes up to 95kph on the highway but I think prefers the unmade roads. Can carry 20 people with tents and food. Has a 1000 litre gas tank with 200 litre reserve. Also carries 2 spare wheels, sand tracks and shovels (for when we get bogged in the desert). Has a cooler for food but the ice melts after half an hour. Seats don't recline and there is no DVD player.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176465600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176465600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176465600/tpod.html Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:33:50 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Torres del Paine, Chile

The wind eventually abated and we disembarked the ferry about 1pm at Puerto Natales. I didn't have a place to stay so after pushing through the taxi and hostel touts I wandered the few blocks into town. Somebody somewhere had mentioned a decent hostel which I found a couple of blocks east of the Plaza de Armas. Some of the people from the boat had beaten me to it but I was lucky enough to get a bed. By complete coincidence my room mate was French Franck who I had shared a cabin with on the boat.

Puerto Natales is the main base for the hiking mecca of the Torres del Paine National Park. In season I imagine the town to be buzzing with people either setting out for or returning from the wildly popular three day trek to see the towers. This being low season it was much quieter. And wetter.

I went for a walk in the cold rain reflecting on how much I enjoyed the boat trip. Now I had to decide whether I was to spend two or three days walking and camping in the park or to wuss out and take an organised day trip. Still undecided I returned to the hostel where I bumped into the Pakistani Californians, Dolly and Ernie, making dinner. They offered me some of their rice which I gladly accepted. Ernie began to tell me his denture-clicking story of London-1956-five-guineas-a-week-only-two-Indian-restaurants as Dolly tutted and smiled and I pretended he hadn't told me at least twice before.

He asked me about the cricket world cup so I jumped on the internet so get the news from the last few days and also to check the weather forecast for the park. I don't know what was worse: England's performance or the scheduled rain and wind. As I was reading in walked Lesbian Jo, last seen in Bariloche the week before. Another complete conincidence, she had just come back from a day trip to the park while she had seen nothing but rain and clouds while getting frozen. French Franck was still trying to convince me to join him in a three day hike but I decided to take a chance on tomorrow's weather and booked a one-day guided tour instead.

Crammed into a minibus with a few boat people - including Dolly and Ernie whose clicking dentures were telling the English people how he once lived in London in 1956-9 for only five guineas a week - we set off through the rain in the darkness. Two hours up the road and the guide pointed out mountains to the left we would have been able to see if not for the cloud. Marvellous. As we drove through the park the snow-capped jagged tower peaks came and went as the blustery wind played with the clouds - and quite impressive peaks they were too. In a way we got lucky as we saw so much more than Jo the previous day. Still, I was glad I wasn't walking for three days and getting frozen at night. Some people are nutters.

Back at Puerto Natales I decided there was no need to stay. The town had a hungover air about it following the busy summer season so the next day I took a bus with Jo a few hours north to the town of El Calafate across the border in Argentina. There were two things I want to do there: teach the locals how to play football without using their hands, and to go and see some big-ass glaciars.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176651240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176651240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1176651240/tpod.html Sun, 18 May 2008 18:58:08 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Argentina

It might be hard to imagine as you read this after being stuck in a tube train or traffic for two hours following an arduous day at work but this travelling lark can be quite stressful and exhausting at times. There have been several days when I've said to myself "What the hell am I doing?" (Day 5 at Adelaide, for example). Lately it's been "¿Donde esta el aeropuerto?" (yes, I'm even speaking to myself in Spanish it gets so bad). But then you meet some inspirational people, or bury yourself in a huge steak and a bottle of vino for the price of Maxim back home, or else you have a day where you see or experience so fascinating everything is good again.

On the face of it, watching ice melt doesn't sound like it would be that much fun and after the disappointment of Torres del Paine I wasn't expecting much at Argentina's Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. Maybe because my expectations were so low that it helped make it such a fantastic day. Ignoring the hard sell at the hostel for glacier tours I instead had been recommended an alternative tour run out of another hostel. Together with Jo and fellow Navimag boat person Helen who I'd bumped into on the bus north I signed up for the day trip to Perito Moreno Glacier.

The National Park is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field which feeds dozens of glaciers including Perito Moreno. This isn't the biggest - although at 20 miles long and covering almost 100 square miles it isn't a tiddler - but it is one of the most accessible. It is also one of the few glaciers in the world that isn't retreating. It also isn't growing but it does move forward about five feet a day which means an awful lot of ice falls off the front. Oh, and the terminus wall is on average 200 feet above the water and nearly 600 feet below.

The cracking and splintering of the ice goes off like gunshots in a thunderstorm and from a safe distance across an arm of Lago Argentino - 38 people have been killed by falling ice - I stared mesmerised looking for the next fall. The problem is, you hear the almighty booming crash seconds after the ice splits and crashes into the water so unless you're staring at the right place at the right time all you see is ice bobbing to the surface and the subsequent tidal wave. I was lucky enough to see a couple of big falls (or 'calving' to give it a technical name) plus a couple of smaller ones (perhaps what the Germans might call a calving klein? © Brummie Mike).

This great trip also included an hour on a boat which took us past huge blue icebergs and up closer to the splintering face. The sheer size, power and natural beauty was stunning. It was definitely a day I didn't think about airports; in fact it made me wonder why Mr Anderson at high school made me learn about the creation of bloody ox-bow lakes in geography instead of glaciers.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1205418600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1205418600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1205418600/tpod.html Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:22:02 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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The Basin Reserve, Wellington, New Zealand

G'day! Oh.. I mean hello there. It's been a while since my last update but for those of you who don't know I moved down to Brisbane at the end of last year. I've been trying to get the necessary work visa sorted out but strewth it's been harder than keeping an Abo off the grog. As such I had to leave the country for a few days to renew my tourist permit. (OK, I only needed one day to do that but it just so happened that England were playing cricket across the ditch in New Zealand....)

So off I popped to windy Wellington for the second Test in the three match series. We had been humiliated in the first one so it was obviously crucial that we draw level at the Basin Reserve. Several thousand England fans had descended upon the capital city completely bamboozling the foreign tourists who were wondering why they couldn't find a hotel room and why the bars were full of drunk, sunburnt Englishmen and women (when they are usually only half-full of drunk, sunburnt Englishmen and women).

There were two changes to the team from the first game. It wasn't a shock to learn that Steve Harmison was dropped but also Matthew Hoggard, usually the one of the first names on the teamsheet. So when I saw Hoggy in the supermarket carrying two big bottles of water on the eve of the match I didn't have the guts to ask him if he was practicing for his duties the next day.

Of course, the Barmy Army contingent were there singing stupid songs such as this one, or this one - and much like the singing itself I could go on and on and on.... but this one was quite amusing. All this good-spirited nonsense generally causes the old-timers to tut disapprovingly and shake heads over their cucumber sandwiches but I spent a couple of sessions on the grass bank enjoying the atmosphere and banter with the locals. Eventually though the inanity and repetitiveness of the chanting forced me and my cucumber sandwiches into the relatively quiet and sober stand where I could watch the action on the field without being distracted by a middle-aged man dressed as the Queen singing the national anthem.

It wasn't a totally convincing England performance but fortunately New Zealand aren't that good and we managed to secure the victory on the morning of the fifth day. The serendipitous timing meant the gloriously sunny Monday afternoon was spent celebrating with a few pints of St. Patrick's special thirst quencher in and around Cuba Street. It was England's first overseas victory since Mumbai almost exactly two years earlier thus improving my rather pathetic record of witnessing two victories in ten matches on tour.

Too bad I won't be able to make that three in eleven up in Napier for this weekend's deciding game but I have to take my new visa back to Brissie and go hide some Easter eggs!

--------------------------------

Postscript: Despite a typically dodgy start in the third and final Test in Napier England prevailed, winning the series 2-1.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1187028000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1187028000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1187028000/tpod.html Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:52:01 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, United Kingdom

After a wonderfully um, picturesque drive up the New Jersey Turnpike and over a rather shaky George Washington Bridge - or was it my imagination? - I spent a couple of days in the leafy 'burbs of West Hartford in Connecticut. At Chateau Dickinson I got drowned in bubblewrap, had some lovely Persian chicken, hung a few pictures pilfered from Surrey antique shops, put up a toilet-roll holder and visited a giant grocery store that appeared to be run by Willy Wonka (complete with dancing pigs and singing milk cartons).

It was then back down to New Jersey to meet up with Geoff and Danielle and to drop off the shit-hot convertible. My flight home was from JFK so together with my trusty sidekick Backpack we took the train into the city and on the subway we wedged ourselves between a couple of Borats - complete with what I'm sure were clucking suitcases - out to the airport. For the 5:30pm flight we had got there in plenty of time so imagine my disappointment when the plane was delayed by six hours as it was stuck in Bermuda. At check-in Backpack went to join his mates being cavity-searched by the baggage handlers and I got a $15 non-booze voucher and a profound apology. Several hours and about 50 apologies later - giving a non-booze voucher/apology ratio of 30 cents per apology - we eventually took off, with a few more ever-devaluing apologies thrown in.

The plan was to get to London early Monday morning, drop my bags at a friend's house and then hop over to the Oval to see the fifth and final day's play of England vs India. Because of the delay I wasn't due to land until noon and I wasn't sure if Backpack would be allowed in to the ground, but Marcus was already inside and chances were England would collapse and it would be an exciting finish. So Backpack and I squeezed through the turnstile where my small bag was practically emptied by the diligent security guard who then failed to notice Backpack clamped on my shoulders looking suspiciously like an extremely big bomb.

I found Marcus just after the lunch interval and aided by a few pints to combat the jet lag we settled down and watched another brilliant innings by Kevin Pietersen. The game ended in a tame draw but unfortunately we had lost the series 1-0 to the jubilant Indians. Speaking of Indians, back at Mel and Marcus's - and my first meal back in Blighty - we had the best curry I've had in months, followed by a great fry-up in the morning. All I needed was Bovril on toast and I would have been in heaven.

I had told my parents to pick me up from Gatwick Airport on Wednesday but after having travelled so far it seemed a bit lame to get picked up at the airport so my cunning plan was to take the train home Tuesday and to surprise them without giving them a heart-attack. It just about worked although there was a moment there when they did go a bit wobbly.

It just remains for me to thank those of you who let myself and Backpack crash at your homes the last couple of months, particularly Lynda and Marshall, the Hawleys and the Hollands - whose kids I'd like to apologise to for constantly changing the channel from Nickelodeon to CNN, or the Children's News Network as they think it means.

So that's it: 13 countries, several planes, a few boats, waaaay too many buses and lots of uncomfortable beds and I'm back home to reality. I hope you've enjoyed following along, and if you haven't then at least I won't be clogging up your inbox anymore (but then you won't know that as you won't be reading this).

Travel on,

Darren
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1185996360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1185996360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1185996360/tpod.html Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:14:54 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Washington DC, Baltimore and the other O.C., United States

It's strange being back in civilisation, especially one where most people speak a language  I sort of understand and everything you could possibly want - and a lot more you don't - is available 24/7. Having spent several years living here I knew what to expect but it still comes as a little bit of a shock: buy this, buy that, buy both, buy more. Eat this, eat that, eat both, eat more. Then buy something and eat more on your way home. One fast food company is running an ad campaign called Fourth Meal for those times when you get hungry between dinner and breakfast because you know portions are so small here. For example, I had a pizza the other day and it barely fit on the passenger seat (but then it was only a piddly Volkswagen Passat - an otherwise perfectly suitable, fuel-efficient car). That's probably why so many people here drive honking big gas-guzzling trucks and 4x4s: it's the only way to get their take-aways/groceries/stomachs home. Even commercial versions of a ridiculous army vehicle originally meant to invade evil-doers are now routinely used to invade the nation's drive-throughs and Wal*Marts.

[Insert oil/Iraq War/Bush rant here.]

Dodging said trucks I went into a 24-hour Wal*Mart the size of Liverpool with Diana (we left Gordon's jeep at home). Whilst there I thought I'd get some French Vanilla coffee creamer as I need my coffee in the morning before they put me to work. Here are the flavours I was was confronted with: Amaretto, Blueberry Cobbler, Chocolate Raspberry, Cinnamon Vanilla Crème Fat Free, Coconut Crème, Coconut Creme, Crème Brulée, Fat Free French Vanilla, French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Irish Crème, Original, Original Fat Free, Original Low Fat, Pralines & Crème, Soy French Vanilla, Soy Original, Sugar Free French Vanilla, Sugar Free Hazelnut, Sugar Free Vanilla Caramel, Toffee Nut, Vanilla Caramel, and Vanilla Chai Spice. Overwhelmed I left with some razors instead.

For the past couple of weeks I've been all over the place: North East, Baltimore, DC and the beach at Ocean City. Amongst other things over the past few weeks I've been to a graduation party (Hollywood completed his doctorate); I've gate-crashed a one-year old's pool party where I saw my first real-life piñata (I had to explain to disbelieving on-lookers that we don't have Mexicans in England); I went to a Baltimore Orioles baseball game but only saw two pitches as I found myself in a bar in the Camden Yards Warehouse; I've been laughing at the Beckham retirement soccerball circus over there in LALA-land; I've tried to teach my god-daughter some Cockney rhyming slang using a book written by my first cousin Ray; I've been on an 18-mile bike ride along the Potomac in Washington DC with the unlikliest triathlete you're likely to meet (Zak for those of you that know him from SMC); I've met up with a number of friends and former colleagues which of course led to a number of hangovers; I've seen my home-town of Leigh-on-Sea on the 60 Minutes TV show (Dame Helen Mirren lived there as a kid); I've been locked out of a house in 35+ degrees before Gordon jimmied the lock with his credit card just like in the movies; I've been reflecting on my journey over the past 10 months whilst conveniently forgetting the bad bits (Ashes? What Ashes?); I've been thinking about getting home next week and seeing my family and friends again; I've been looking forward to getting back on the cricket field for the last part of the season and helping the boys avoid relegation. Oh, and then there's the issue of a job and somewhere to live....

But my immediate problem is: what do I have tonight for my Fourth Meal?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1183678680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1183678680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1183678680/tpod.html Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:04:16 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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North East 21901, Maryland, United States

Two weeks spent on buses between cold and grotty hostels in South America seem as interminable and painful as a press conference by the semi-retired soccerball star David Beckham. By contrast two weeks spent on a Caribbean island goes by in a luxurious flash - even when there's no electricity. So a huge thank you once again to Lynda and Marshall for their kindness and generosity in letting us stay. If you ever need more kittens house-trained please give us a call!

All too quickly it was time to pack up the bags once again and head off to the airport. I was headed to the Baltimore area to stay with some friends whereas Wendy was going back to Argentina before returning to work in Brisbane. Storms up the east coast delayed my flight but I eventually met my college roommate Gordon at the airport. After the obligatory stop at Taco Bell (hmmm.... chalupas) we eventually made it home at about 1am.

It's been about 15 months since I was last here and Gordon and Diana's daughter Cailyn is now three and her brother Gavin ten months. (Little-known Dazzla name fact: I was very nearly called Gavin but mum vetoed that one with the compromise that dad could give me two middle names because he thought three initials before the surname looked good on the old BBC cricket scorecards. Alas, 'DEJ Hawkins not out 216 vs Australia' will never appear on the wall at Lords.)

July 4th was spent doing something you don't see in Africa: watching a guy eat his own puke in a nationally televised hotdog eating competition. The eventual winner scoffed down 66 dogs in 12 minutes - and people make fun of me here on Independence Day. Because I am a non-resident alien - and therefore free labour - Gordon put me to work in the garden pulling up paving stones, levelling a path and putting up a fence. He did give me five minutes off every three hours so I can't complain too much.

After one such day - I think he had me painting something - I was rewarded with a trip to a softball game. Gordon was a nasty baseball pitcher in college but now he's a nasty short-stop in softball (in cricket terms think of Paul Collingwood at backward point). I only came to watch but wouldn't you know it: they were a man short. Ever since I put on that ridiculous glove when I played my first game on the Mall in Washington DC I have dreamed of one day making it to the big leagues - or at least a league where girls didn't have to play. I even played on and coached a team in London but here was my chance to play in my first competitive game of American sport. Crikey!

I was hardly prepared to play. I had on dress shorts and a Nelson Mandela T-shirt who most of my teammates thought was Samuel L Jackson. At least I was wearing trainers and so after a few creaky warm-up throws with Gordon I was sent out to right field (if Collingwood would be at short-stop then Monty Panesar would be at right field).

Now if you've played competitive sport then the chances are that your team has shown up to a game a man short so you either play a man down or put in some poor guy who doesn't really know what's going on. It's happened when I've played cricket and as sure as eggs is eggs that guy will then drop a crucial catch and generally field like a five-year-old before getting out for a duck.

Tonight I was that guy.

At least I have a general idea what was goes on in softball but it's the subtle nuances that you wouldn't know without growing up playing. So I was out there praying the ball wouldn't come my way as the sweat dripped off my brow making my steamed-up glasses slip down my nose. Fortunately the oppo - and the majority of my teammates - didn't realise that I was hopeless, blind and English and I got out of the first couple of innings without being humiliated.

Then it was time for me to bat and I strode up to the plate with my calm expression belied by flapping arse cheeks. I concentrated on the ball looping towards me and tried to block out the sound of the crowd in the bleachers ("Is that Laurence Fishburne on his shirt?"). Swinging on a pitch that was way above the strike zone I plonked it into left field for my first big league hit. Unfortunately I was left stranded on first base after the net out but my new buddies gave my lots of high fives, fist bumps and way-to-go-mans. Once again, humiliation averted.

It turned out to be a good game. I only had a couple of ground balls and once the ball went over my head as I completely mis-read the flight of the ball. I ended up hitting 4-5 i.e. made it on base four times in five attempts, or batting .800 in baseball parlance (even the steroid-fuelled pros do well to hit .350) and scored a couple of runs even though I really didn't know when to run. Other than my teammates high fiving as I went to fist bump and fist bump when I went to high five things went pretty well. In an amazing last inning we came from six runs down to somehow win by nine in a game that would have been forfeited if I hadn't played. So it was off to the bar for some well-earned celebratory beers and a game of shuffleboard.

It was great fun - if a little nerve-wracking at times. Let's see how Gordon does at cricket when he comes over to Engand.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1181826840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1181826840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1181826840/tpod.html Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:32:31 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Botany Bay, St Thomas, Virgin Islands US

The last six of my 170 hours on South American buses were spent crossing the snowy Andes back into Chile. Wendy and I were both flying from Santiago to the warmth of Florida but we were on different flights as I had got mine with frequent flyer miles. Wendy managed to get a direct flight but I had the pleasure of a lengthy layover in Atlanta and so 24 hours later I made it to Fort Lauderdale just in time for a magnificent thunder storm (but at least it was warm). The next morning we caught the 6:30 flight to St Thomas.

It has been over four years since I was last here and as you might expect the island has changed quite a bit, not least where Lynda lives. Her house has been finished a rental house up the hill has also been completed. Both houses are located in a 370 acre private estate on the western end of the island that for many years was owned by the Corning family who came here when they weren't messing around with glass up in New York.

It was such a relief to dump our bags at the house knowing that we would be in one place for two weeks: no buses, no dirty hostels and no cold bits in the middle of the night. The view from the bedroom wasn't bad either: a private beach split the Atlantic to the left and the Caribbean Sea to the right with a few deserted islands dotted on each.

Lynda and her husband Marshall had a new addition to the family in a two-week-old kitten called M who Marshall rescued the humane society just as the vet was filling a syringe with sleeping juice. Unfortunately the mother wasn't so lucky and so we had to bottle feed and potty train him as he meowed and climbed all over us. Fortunately Wendy is a cat lover!

It was while M was being bottled-fed on our third day that the ceiling fans stopped turning and the music stopped. Now power cuts aren't that uncommon in this part of the world but they're normally caused by storms or hurricanes but this particular problem was unique just to us. After many phone calls the power company blamed the contractors working in the estate and the contractors blamed the power company. The mossies were out in force in the still air and with the water pumps being electric we couldn't shower, wash the dishes or even flush the toilets. It was paradise with a very small pee!

By now Lynda and Marshall were getting pretty pissed off with the whole situation, not least because the renters in the house up the hill did a runner to a fancy hotel after Marshall had already booked them into and paid for one. So after two nights in one place we packed up a few things and threw M in his cage for a road trip to a motel for the night with the hope of everything being fixed the next day. But in true island style it didn't so after a day dodging waddling cruise ship passengers and their overtly conspicuous consumption in Charlotte Amalie we had to check back into the motel that night.

Eventually the power came back and we went back to clean out the spoiled food in the fridges and to have some cocktails in the swimming pool as the sun set. It wasn't to last though as we lost power again a couple more times during the week, and the whole island was knocked out during a spectacular electrical storm one night. It seemed like we were bringing bad luck!

Despite the disruption Wendy and I were having a great time but Lynda and Marshall were getting a bit stressed so they had booked a sailing trip for us all over to the British Virgin Islands. So next stop was back to Blighty..... sort of.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1182366720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1182366720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dazzla/bigtrip_2003-04/1182366720/tpod.html Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:55:31 -0400 It is said that when one is tired of London one is tired of life - and I was beginning to yawn...

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Island Hopping, Virgin Islands British

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