TravelStream™ news feed for member sauso on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sauso en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 12 May 2008 17:33:50 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1182802980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1182802980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1182802980/tpod.html Mon, 12 May 2008 17:33:50 -0400 She`ll be right tour

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

This section covers some of the people we met and the reason we had such a hilarious time.

The first person i should mention is Graham, someone i have met before but lindsay had only heard the rumours. A ruthless dictator who instructs everyone, even his best friends (especially his best friends), telling them what to do at what time according to a prewritten and widely distributed itinerary planned years in advance. I'm sure you can see the difference in his idea and my idea of a good holiday and the dangers my life was threatened with when linz was introduced to him after running over 2 minutes late for our tour and when we almost had to call 'everyone off the bus' after Linz almost missed it cause he was too busy patting a dog.

The next is the Cook. The cook is an ignoramous. It was embarrasing and degrading to be sitting at the same table as him when he yelled (almost blew a temple) at the Spanish speaking waiter in English for getting an order wrong when obviously it was his own stupid fault for entering a country without speaking the language. We later overheard him saying how impossible it was for anyone over here to make it anywhere in life without learning English...tell that to the other 300million people who speak spanish ya dickhead. It was also funny to hear him completely misinterpret the tourguide's information and try and tell everyone we were looking at the first ever Catholic church (yeah thats right, older than the vatican, built 2000 years ago by Jesus himself...dickhead). 

Lastly is the tour guide... or whatever she was (certainly not a dentist). She starts the $70 Aus per person tour by saying 'i am not a tour guide, but i'll tell you what i know'.  Her job basically consisted of helping us on and off the buses and trains. Money well spent, a rare mistake by the fascist leader of the pack.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196252280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196252280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196252280/tpod.html Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:12:41 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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London, United Kingdom

There is nothing better than finishing your 6 month adventure around South america on a high. Reflecting on the good times, laughing about bad. Celebrating your growth as a person, looking forward to the new future. Yes, ending an experience like this on a high is one of the best feelings you can get. Well that's what i would imagine anyway, cause the shit i had to put up with to get outta there makes me understand why airports are the targets of so many bombs. In order for you to be able to relate i ask you this; Have you ever had constipation? cause I can imagine my exit of the continent could be very likened to that.

We arrive to the airport full of pride at the list of acheivements we managed to attain whilst on this trip. This included, but is not limited to, the following:-
- making the trip without ever actually having a handle on the language
- spending 6 months over here without once buying a roll of toilet paper
- speding a total of 480 hours on buses and not once doing a bus poo
- Actually leaving this place with funds remaining
- surviving
We walk inside and the first thing we see is a big sign saying flight 6464 is delayed. To much dismay we check our tickets to find that yes, the flight is ours. oh well we say, at least our reservations aren't cancelled.

"Sorry Sir, but your reservations have been cancelled". This came as a bit of a kick in the teeth. Especially considering we called the airlines a few days prior to the flight to confirm there were no problems and even received confirmation numbers for our time. On asking for an explanaition we find that we booked through Lan, but are flying Iberia. Lan thinks we're ready to go, while iberia thinks we are cancelled. And the whole time we are being told by both companies that the flight is full and there is nothing either of them can do but talk to the other company about it. So as the finger pointing and blame game continued my blood pressure began to rise to the point my eyes were getting bloodshot. We'd talk to someone who couldn't help us and then be directed to someone else who couldn't help us, and then be directed to someone else before being redirected back to the first person who couldn't help us. I was about to crack, but managed to keep a grip on the temper. Although i still demanded that the fat airline assistant waddle over to the other airline and sort it out herself and come retrieve me when i was rebooked on the plane. This might not seem to drastic an action of an angry man but a demand from me is pretty rare. Sometimes I persuade, other times I insist, and I think once I may have stipulated, but demand? Never. I will also take the time here to note that the airline lady wasn't fat at all, she was mid sized at most, its just that my rage is managing to seeth into my writing.

Anyway, we wait around for awhile until eventually old fatty toddles back and tells us that we are now booked onto the flight.
"So we're booked on the flight we were originally booked on?"
"Yes, that's correct sir."
"The same flight that you told me was completely booked out about 20 minutes ago"
"It would appear that way, Sir"
"how surprising..."

We start for the plane but are stopped and asked to pay the airport tax. We give the guy a 20 expecting change and he tells us its $40 each! Immediately my shock and frustration became emanant as the red shots of blood re-entered eyes and i ask what the hell i'm paying for with this $40 fee, and ya know what? Not one person could tell me. "It's just the fee" they would say. "But you don't pay fees unless you're getting a service in return. What service am i getting?" i would respond. "It's just the fee" they's repeat.

So 40 bucks later we get to customs and we get stopped so the guy can manually search through our stuff. Normally i wouldn't care but this is the 100th time i've been stopped by police to have my bags searched. I was just about to start my spiel that i don't carry drugs around and he isn't getting a bribe from me and that we're in a hurry and that he has a big nose, but all of a sudden he pulls a fork out of our bag and stares at us with raised eyebrows... Whoops.

Eventually we get on the plane and of course they seated us about 10 rows apart. The movies were crap, the seats were uncomfortable and the staff were so rude I actually had to resort to stealing wine from the back because no one would serve it to me.

We touch down and now only have about 25 mins to get to our next plane, which was a coincidentally inconveniant number considering the fact that the sign which directs us to the gate we depart from tells us it'll take 26 minutes to reach the gate. It was also inconveniant considering Linz insisted I wait around for him while he does a poo, which ended up eating away another valuable 10 minutes. The inconveniance grew as well after we had to stop and run back to search for the ticket that Linz managed to drop somewhere along the line.

So we arrive to our gate 20 minutes after the plane was meant to leave and breath a sigh of relief to see it still standing there. Although we payed the price through the amount of evil eyes burning holes through me from the passengers waiting on board. Again we were seated about 10 rows apart, but this time there must have been at least 50 spare seats, so we knew for sure old mate fatty boomstix booked us apart on purpose.

We try to relax and calm our panting after all the running through the airport. I start feeling good that we made the plane and we'll be touching down in london until the intercom in the plane starts to speak. "Sorry about the delays. we are currently looking for the luggage of 2 of the passengers aboard this aircraft and will be taking off soon". Well i'll give you one bloody guess who the 2 unlucky passengers are. Then we just take off with out any suggestion that maybe the luggage was found so i spend the entire trip stressing that i'm gonna be trapped in london wearing a singlet and thin jacket, pants and a pair of thongs and have nothing else to wear and no credit card to buy something. My stride toward breaking point was further increased when they started serving lunch cause i was soooooo hungry and started building myself up for a feed before crashing back down after realising i had to pay for it. An international flight with no free food! unheard of. Especially since it was a connecting flight which gave us no no time to get out any euros or pounds or get our own food. But i soon solved this problem by taking small nibbles out of my own arm.

It was at about this point when i remember realising that i was about to die. Everything imaginable has gone wrong. EVERYTHING. And you know what else falls under the category of everything... plane crashes. I realise that all this happened in a bizarre attempt by fate to warn me of my inevitable doom. Every bit of trouble, each mishap, a clue to alert me to the fact that if i step onto this plane my adventures would be ending one way or another. I should have been able to piece the clues together but alas i wasn't quick enough. The cancellation. The fork. It was all so obvious... but I really should have been tipped off by the fact that the person sitting next to me was wearing a black robe and holding a scythe.

Surely enough we touch down in london (it certainly was too cold to be hell), find that our packs arrived too, get straight through customs without all the searching bullshit and then spend our entire savings in the attempt to afford a train ticket.

So thats it for adventure number one I suppose. I'll be sure to let you know when adventure number 2 starts.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195939740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195939740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195939740/tpod.html Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:10:11 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Bogota, Colombia

One could argue that Bogota, Colombia's capital city, is a big, beautiful happening place. Well i'm not much in the mood for arguing you see, as I am currently on day 2 of my 2 day hangover and am right now looking at a cord hanging from the ceiling and wondering what it'd look like around my neck. I'm having trouble finding the strength to put pen to paper and somehow my heart seems to be beating in time with the throbbing in my head so if someone told me how good Bogota is i'd say "yeah...sure", but to be honest, I really couldn't tell ya, cause I haven't left the bloody house. But lets start from the beginning shall we...

Me and linz were far from displeased to arrive in Bogota and come across a hostel that with it's own free internet cafe, ping pong, dvd room and free brownies (well technically the brownies weren't free, but you were charged based on an honesty policy so...yeah, free). The net was particularly appealing for two reasons; 1) we are both a litle homesick and starving for a bit of attention, and 2) because we leave for England in a couple of days and still have no jobs or accomodation. So a lot of our time was spent here, with constant ping pong breaks in between. We also think that maybe we're about ready to put our crazy (arguably stupid) adventures aside for awhile cause although there are definately things to do here we really felt quite content going to sleep knowing that we could have spent the day making a poo pyramid and it would have been more productive. So before we knew it we were up to our last night in Bogota and had only left the place to eat at restaurants, all within a few minutes walk of the place.

So we sat and thought for awhile (we had plenty of time to do this) and eventually came to the conclusion that for our last night in Bogota we were gonna go out and see the night life. We begin the festivities by playing a drinking game we invented that involved ping pong and a bottle of rum, where i learnt 2 things
1) I'm not very good at ping pong
2) Copius amounts of rum in a short period of time is hazardous for ones health
The next thing I remember is waking up in bed face-to-face with this little coaster sized puddle of spew that was as black as death, which made me think that maybe I coughed up a little bit of my soul the night before. Still quite drunk at this point I stumble over to the clock to check the time. After many failed attempts to read the bloody thing I give up and ask someone and almost pass out when I hear it's 2pm. Now usually i would be stoked to sleep in that late, maybe in feel a little sense of accomplishment, but this was devastating cause not only had we missed our bus, and thus our Saturday night plans, but I also missed my hone interview with a potential employer in England. Reaarrgghhh! So i spent the rest of the day trying to cry myself to sleep whilst nursing a trainwreck of a headache, the most sensitive of stomachs and all whilst secretly giggling at the ironic fact that my one attempt to see the city is a complete blank.

Oh yeah... and for those of you who are interested this is how the night panned out in a nutshell...apparantly. Went to a club, I became the best friend of a bunch of locals who could speak English almost as well as they could feed me booze, I simultaneously met, danced with and lost a really hot girl, everyone moved on to the next club but linz thought he should take me home, we got completely lost and it took us 4 cab rides to get home (one of which i spewed out the window).
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196171760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196171760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1196171760/tpod.html Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:09:35 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Quito, Ecuador

Well after the many perils of Bogota (our bus even got crashed into when trying to leave the damn place) we decided we were about over due for a lucky spree. Actually, after our many perils over the last 6 months I would say we were just about ready for a lucky spree, and finally it came.

We were a little worried about our transition from SA to London, mostly due to the fact that our clothes were inappropriate (i have one pair of pants to take to a place that is at least pants weather in the warmer months), not to mention we didn't have a place to live, nor a job. This all changed in this little patch of 2 days, hence we gave these 2 days the name "purple patch". We used our good fortune to find job interviews for the 28th, a place to crash at for free, some spare time for a gym session that i ended up getting for free, plenty of cheap toiletries, a book I really wanted, some more clothes for England and many many cheap feeds including our $1 lunches, of which we'd eat 2 a day, and our favourite all you can eat restaurant, which was amazing to see still standing after the amount of food we demolished last time.

I guess i'll also note that we had considered staying somewhere real nice for our last couple of nights on this wonderful continent but ended up opting for the cheapy (very unlike us I know) whereby we had to actually physically connect 2 wires if we wanted to turn the lights on. I wrote it off as a cultural experience (when's the next time I'll be in a country that has hotels with that kind of luxury?)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195513680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195513680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195513680/tpod.html Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:41:34 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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San Gil, Colombia

Its Splash time! San Gil offers many activities for the adventurer but we came for a good old fashioned white water raft. Its rainy season in Colombia at the moment and the rapids are meant to graded 4+ anyway, so we figured we'd be up for a pretty good time.

Linz was the first to go. We'd been in the boat for about 10mins and had pretty much hit our first set of rapids and he popped straight out of the top of the boat. The rest of the river proved to be quite the battle too but i was locked in so good i may as well have been chained to the thing. Except for the points where we were able to jump in the river and go for a little float down some rapids that weren't big enough to enjoy on the boat.

The reason i named this the grinch is because rafting always pulls out the bastard in me. It happened in NZ and it happened again here. It all starts because the front of the boat is clearly the best. Its similar to the reason people like getting the front seat in the rollercoaster, but more so cause you feel the impacts more, get splashed more and generally there's a better chance of getting thrown out of the boat. So despite the fact that i know everyone wants to get up the front, i always run down to the boat and jump in quick smart to assure my spot. Also, while everyone else is swapping positions so everyone can have a turn up the front, i sit there and ignore it to keep my prime position. What a prick ay. I also hate seeing people that can't row and do these girly little strokes, so I tend to do particularly big strokes in order to crash into their paddle and hopefully get their attention long enough to show them how to row like A MAN! Lastly, when going down the river you occasionally see some really big rapids that you realise the guide is trying to tip toe around by making us row in away from them. For some reason i decide that i know better than the guide and that i wanna go down them, so i secretly paddle in the wrong direction in a direct attempt to sabotage the boat and make us hit these big boys that are probably being avoided for our own safety. So yes, i know i'm a bastard, but i'll stick by decisions, and i'll probably do the same again next time.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195322280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195322280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195322280/tpod.html Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:49:32 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Taganga, Colombia

Who could resist just a few more days relaxing on the coast of the carribean. We came with the intention of scuba diving cause we heard it was really cheap here, but then we found 'the shack'. We were doing the general accomodation search and everywhere seemed 'decent' at best. So far the best option was a creepy french guy who suspiciously invited me to share a place with him and his girlfriend for free (how do you spell menage a twà). Then we randomly met some lady who asked us if we needed a place to stay. She started hiking us up this massive hill and led us to this little wooden shack with panoramic views of the village, beach and cove. We took it immediately (both because it was lovely and because we couldn't be stuffed lugging all our stuff back down the hill) and spent the next couple of days just sittin on the balcony and sucking up the atmosphere, as well as a rum or two.

Unfortunately we had to leave the shack every now and again because apparantly food is necessary for survival and we'd use these outings to visit the beach, enjoy the local catch of the day and catch a bit of sun (figure it would be nice to have a bit of colour before we visit england and get a healthy british tan). We also met a bunch of other travellers who we would always invite up to the shack for a rum and who would invite us around to theirs with the intention that we'd say "oh no, come visit our place".

The only form of activity we did here was one big night out where every traveller we'd met so far went out to this 'club' which was basically someone's backyard with a patio that was used as a dancefloor. But that closed pretty soon so we went to some house party, then the persons who house that was fell asleep so we went to the roof of someone else's house. Before we knew it the sun had been up for a good hour and we're all still having shots. I don't know what it is about this continent but every bloody night out only seems to end when people realise "oh crap the suns up, i should probably get some sleep". Serves for some good nights though.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195160760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195160760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1195160760/tpod.html Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:03:18 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Tayrona, Colombia

Tayrona National Park is gorgeous. Lying in hammocks under straw huts, watching the deep blue of the carribean splashing against the pure white of the perfectly smooth rocks which lie next to the palm lined beaches at the base of rain-foerested hills. If this place had good surf i'd never leave. And althought the scenery is a paradisical dream, Tayrona also managed to hit me (quite literally as you'll soon find out) with a bit of a reality check. It was here i learnt that all situations in my life have three possible outcomes:- the one that i seem to eagerly expect, the one a regular person could anticipate, and then the one that actually happens. Allow me to demonstrate

Situation:- After walking through rainforest for almost an hour with all our stuff plus shopping bags we see a horse.

My hopeful expectation:- I approach the horse, offer it some food and try and make it follow me while we put our luggage on its back
Reasonable Expectation:- I approach the horse, offer it some food and it either ignores me or just eats all my food without pay off.
What actually happens:- I approach the horse and i only need to come within a few meters of it before it smells the food and it's crazy eyes stare at me like i'm a massive carrot. All of a sudden it turns and charges at me, chasing me the whole way down the beach and trying to bite my arm

Situation:- We see a massive papaya that must have weighed at least a good 3-4kgs (we named it papa papaya)

My hopeful expectation:- I buy it and take it with me to Tayrona where it not only provides me with sustenance for the next few days but i also help solve the worlds hunger problems
Reasonable expectaion:- I buy it and take it with me to Tayrona and realise there is nothing there to store it in and thus have to throw almost the whole thing away
What actually happens:- I buy it and take it to Tayrona with me and realise there is nothing to store it in and thus think to myself i have no option but to finish it in one sitting. Within minutes i'm passed out on the beach with papaya poisoning

Situation:- I'm swimming around to the ocean side of a big set of rocks attempting to find a way to climb to the top of them.

My hopeful expectation:- I wait for a largish surge, one just big enough to be able to sit me on top of the rock where i can then look down on the rest of the world like WORMS!
Reasonable expectation:- I wait for a largish surge but because there hasn't been anythin even slighly big enough to get me to the top of this thing i either swim back into shore or drown waiting
What actually happens:- A ridiculously big surge comes screaming out of nowhere and sends we right the way over the top of the rock and sees me land a bunch of other rocks on the other side, leaving me with a number of incisions all over my body

Situation:- Me and linz are lying on the beach when linz asks "what could make life better than this"
"A coconut" i reply.
"Agreed" he says and thus begins our search for a coconut. We start by 'borrowing' a machete from the backyard of a nearby shop then start looking for a ripe old coconut hangin from a tree. At first we try climbing a tree. Bad idea. We then try throwing rocks up into the tree which seemed to be doing well until linz almost hit the girl sunbaking nearby. We start strolling the beach, racking our brains for ideas, when we come across a low hanging tree and next to it, a 2.5metre, 15cm thick log...

My hopeful expectation:- I put linz on my shoulders, stand under the tree, he has a swing at the coconuts and one drops off, lands directly on the machete, slices evenly in two and miraculously lands on a plate ready for eatin
Realistic Expectation:- I put linz on my shoulders, stand under the tree, he has a swing at the coconuts and one drops off and lands square on my head
What actually happens:- I put linz on my shoulders, stand under the tree, he has a swing at the coconuts and drops the 2.5m, 15cm thick log on my head. And not only that, after collecting me on the way through it then continued to ricochet between the the ground and my torso until i was left bruised and battered and still trying to support linz who is sittin on my shoulders. We got the coconut though, so it was worth it.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194987000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194987000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194987000/tpod.html Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:42:08 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Cartagena, Colombia

We came to Cartagena knowing that on the 11th there was a Miss Colombia beauty pageant held in honour of some independance day or something. We din't know, however, just how much dazzle that could razzle up. It led to 7 particular events that made this weekend a goodie.

The Blue Parade
We arrived on a Thursday and pretty much walked straight into a big street party. We rush to a hostel to drop our stuff off at and run straight back out again. It didn't take long for a parade to come samba-ing its way down the streets, filling them with music, dancing, screaming and good vibes. The best part of the parade, for mine, was seeing all the Miss Colombia contestants coming past on floats, wiggling away and wearing, well, not a lot. Despite all these women there though, i would say that i was arguably the guest of honour. The old ladies loved that i was there so they could stop me and stare at my 'freakish' blue eyes, then stop me again to show their friends, then stop me again to get photos with me. The pick pockets eyes lit up when they saw me struttin down the streets as i felt about 100 swift hands brushing past and sifting through my pockets (Suckers, i didn't have a thing on me, which is fortunate cause we even met a girl who had a plastic bag with tampons stolen from her). The younger girls were glad i could make the party as there was another 100 not-so-swift hands grabbin at my arse continuosly. The dancers in the parade were honoured i could attend this ceremony, so much in fact that they singled me out of the crowd (i'm sure i was hard to spot) and pulled me into the parade. I'm sure i'd have been a real crowd pleaser, attempting not only to salsa, but to do it in time with a bunch of professionals, but i'd say the embarrassment was worth having a handful of girls shaking their big fake cans in my face...wouldn't you? And even the hooligans here were happy to see me. There was tonnes of people throwing flour, blue paint, foam, water bungers and who knows what else. I got so targeted i arrived home looking like braveheart while linz got home looking like a smurf.

The Mud Monster
If i told you that i scaled to the top of a volcano and jumped in the crater you probably wouildn't believe me would ya. Well its true. Although in this case the volcano is 15m high and it's crater is filled with mud (still technically a volcano though!). The experience was soo much fun though. It was really weird cause it seemed like you should sink to the bottom but it had this kind of zero-g thing going for it. You would just kinda float to the point where you could just lie on top of it while guys pushed you around and moored you like you were a boat or something. These guys would also give you a mud massage for a donation (i paid about 50c, best value massage yet!. After enjoying the soak you got taken down to a lagoon where a lady would wash all the mud off ya, scrubbin ya from head to toe and really getting stuck into the ears. I thought is was hilarious when the woman so casually said "alright, take off your cossies". When in Rome hey, so i took them off while she washed them and then gave my backside a good scrub. So i ran over to the group of people we went there with:
"Hey guys, how funny is it how you take your pants off while she scrubs your bum!"
"...What are you talking about"
"Umm....Nothing..."

Stop! Thief!
You'd think that a policeman's main duty is to catch criminals. Well not here it's not. It's to catch gringo's with drugs and to, consequently, accept their bribes. We already met one guy who was caught in possession of an ounce of pot and was absolutely packin it until the coppa says "alright...that'll be $75 to avoid prison". The guy, thinking $75 is a pretty good price for freedom, was more than happy to pay. He handed the money over to the coppa, who counted it before headin out the door.
"Don't you want this too?" said the gringo holding out the contraban.
"Nah i don't need any, do what you want with it", was the reply.
So that's basically the colombian style, so you can imagine thoughts of having drugs planted on me crossed my mind when i was walking down the streets alone at night at a policeman stopped me for no reason. I didn't plan on showing the coppa any fear so i just did what i did best and started up a merry old chin wag with him. As i continued to chat away a saw his devilish smirk change into a dumbsruck aw until he eventually asked me "you know who i am right?". "Yeah, police. Right?", before casually continuing my casual conversation, with the utmost of casualness. After that i think his drug raid ambitions ended so he just relaxed and enjoyed my company. Now, i reckon if i had drugs he would probably help me out of a pickle. 3kgs of cocaine please!

An Old Friend
I've been craving a familiar face for almost 6 months now so i'm sure you can understand my disappointment when i tell you the first person we see is kate. She was so nervous about seeing linz she decided to have a bottle of champagne for brekky, which put her rambling and squealing at an all time high. She wanted time alone with linz and thus brought a friend for me, who ended up being about as entertaining as noodle soup, thereby improving my ability to feign interest in conversation by dropping the occasional "oh yeah" at the opportune moments. And lastly, she called me a scrawny, shaggy, smelly backpacker (which realistically is spot on, but she didn't have to be so blunt).
But there were pro's to seeing her again. She is the only person we have met who has been impressed with our spanish...and...what else...um...she brought lindsay a hat?

Getting involved in the drug underworld
If there is one thing my mum has ever taught me it's "don't start fights between drug dealers". Well i've done it now, and by george, i'm doing it again.
One way i find it easy to pass a drug dealer off (at least until later) is to tell them you'll seek them out later, thereby laving the convo quickly and on a friendly basis. Well clearly i told that to one too many dealers, and as i was telling Mr One Too many, another one who i must have told was "my man" saw me, vigourously approached, told the other guy to piss off and, on refusal of the offer, started flailing him limbs like a crazy man. This combination of verbal abuse and limb tossing went on so long i actually had to sit down to a meal in a nearby restaurant to see how it all ended, and from what i can gather i think the bald guy earnt my business.

He's done it again
I must say, Linz is good at what he does, and what he does is attract the prossy's. One hunt for girls in this town came to a prompt hault due to every girl we met being a pro and every girl we didn't meet at least looking like one. We even had a girl offer linz a shag for only $15 and even said she'd let me join in for an extra $5 (god bless her).

Why it's a bad idea to drink with poms
We were walking through the streets one night trying to decide where to go out when linz spots a guy we met in Rio entering some nearby club. We figure it'd be great to meet up with all the english boys so we go to follow him in. In the time it took us to reach the club across the street the pom who just entered got thrown out the door like a sack of potatoes. Becasue we were standing right there we had first class tickets to see watch some chick storm out after him and wind up one of the biggest haymakers i've ever seen, releasing it into the guys confused and innocent looking face. After saying her bit she walks inside, meanwhile, old mate pom is too busy retreating up the street to realise the array of guys that the bouncers are holding back from him. Not lnog after the rest of the poms exit the the bar and we meet them out the front. We say a quick hello and then point them in the direction their friend fled. They were just about to take off after him when all of a sudden, who else but old mate himself comes trotting past us on a horse-drawn carriage, the confusion, still ever-present on his face, now slowly spreading to all of ours. We didn't know what to do apart from track him down the next day, cause he had a lot of questions to be answered. But, of course, he didn't remember a thing.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194646200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194646200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194646200/tpod.html Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:24:09 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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Medellin, Colombia

Although this city is quite pretty and also pretty big we really only stopped here to break up the trip. We arrive at the hostel we decided to stay at and asked a bunch of people what there was to do there. The unanimous response was drugs.
"But it's a tuesday night"
"Yeah, drugs"
"What about during the day?"
"Yeah, drugs"
And sure enough during theday i would have been surprised if i wasn't flying high as a kite due to the amount of passive smoke floating around the hostel. Most of it produced from a massive bag of skunk that must have been the size of a small community, that was quite comfortably just sitting on the table. And at night, even though it was tuesday and no one had any intentions of going out, the whole place was knocking back beers and racking up lines. I'm not usually the party pooper but me and linz were quite happy to sit back and enjoy our night watchin Rocky VI.

The next day, being a mirror image of the first, saw me and linz leavin the hostel for a bit of air and exercise. We found a reasonably well decked out outdoor gym and gave it a good go, even though it was pouring down. One fault with the gym was that every work station had a set weight on it, so everyone complained that you couldn't stack it up and lift more. I complained too, in order to sound tough, but secretly was stoked that i had a reason to lift small weights, apart from the obvious one, which is that any schoolgirl could outbench me now.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194472260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194472260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sauso/s_america-2007/1194472260/tpod.html Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:09:43 -0500 She`ll be right tour

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San Cristobal, Colombia

San Cristobal is not exactly the conventional day out. We arrive at the 'Train Station' because that is the only means by which you can enter the village. However, instead of catchin a train you pay a guy a few bucks to jump on a starange cart, which is basically the combination of a platform of wood on wheels attatched to a moped. We jump on and start flying down the rails until we start comin head on with another cart. I thought at this point that the ingenious idea to access the village was hugely flawed until the oncoming cart stopped and the guy driving it lifted it off the tracks while we went past. This made me consider just how securely these carts were attatched to the tracks, but then the driver floored it and i was too busy yelling "Woohee" to think about it.

The actual town is one sandy, rocky street with a bunch of wooden huts unevenly spread down it. And while it definately had the whole old, rustic, rickety village thing going for it, it also had one other thing. Tyres. Me linz and Andy (Aussie chick we met in Cali) all grabbed a big inflatable tyre and went roaring down the adjacent river. There were multiple occasions where you found yourself with no choice but to yell out "Sticks! STICKS!" before being plummeted by the currents into a massive bail of sticks and branches from an overhanging tree. The word sticks was also often replaced with the word 'rocks', 'logs' or 'linz'. There was one rock in particular tha made quite the impact, both on the day and on the spine. It stood on its own a couple of feet above its surrounding rocks but the current was still strong enough to send water over the top of it. So we line it up, linz hits it on an angle and is flipped like a pancake onto a pile of rocks, and i hit it dead on and somehow end up getting shipwrecked right on top and we needed a vine in the shape of a lassoo to get me down.
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