So I finally got on my
flight which left an hour late (an hour sat on the tarmac), and I was
sat next to some Russian prick who, even though he was no bigger than
myself, felt the urge to invade my space so that his arms and legs
were in constant contact with mine. I don't know whether he was
trying to queer me up or whether he was raised in a household of
twenty five kids, who literally had to jostle for space in which to
live, but that cunt ruined any chance of catching up on some much
needed sleep. So we get within an hour of Lima after 4 hours of
uneccessary touching in the air and the captain announces that there
has been a change in the weather, and consequently we have been
diverted to some other airport. Oh tidy I says. We landed at 11pm in
some place called Chiclaya and they kept us on the plane until
4.30am, literally just sat there with some fucking Russian touching
up my knee. When they let us into the “airport” we were greeted
by a herd of Peruvian pan pipe pricks who sat there trying to keep us
entertained. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? Cunts. I say “airport”,
this place had two “gates”. I say “gates”, it was two back
doors behind a “security checkpoint” I say “security
checkpoint”, it was one bloke with a peashooter that breathed in
your face and asked if you had a bomb as you walked past. What a
fucking dive. We weren't even allowed out of the part we had been
ushered into until 7am, so I had been without a burn for 15hrs and
the outside was a pane of glass away from me. When we were allowed to
go through immigration (just to go for a burn) a few of us went into
the “cafe” to get a cup of coffee and some food, as it had been a
long time since we had eaten or had any form of liquid (they were
dishing out glasses of coke, but they only had about 10 glasses to
re-use between a plane of 200 people, no thank you). I say “cafe”,
it was a woman who looked like she was milking her own teets to brew
the cups of “coffee”. I say “coffee”, I’m pretty sure it
was a mixture of this hags faeces and teet milk. When we tried to
order some food we were promptly told that the “airport” had run
out of food, good news as we had just been informed that our flight
would now be delayed until 7pm the next evening. Just the 20hr delay
with no food was'e. There was no point in even trying to sleep in
this hell hole. At around midday me and an eclectic band of brothers
made the decision to take a taxi into town to try and source some
food, which to be fair was pretty good. It transpired that there were
some interesting people sat around the table with me, including a 23
year old american guy who was training to become a priest in lima,
some haggered old english guy who worked for the worlds biggest
sewing machine manufacturer (could not have been less impressed) and
some old american who had been the vice president of the air alliance
during some infamous air traffic controllers strike during the 70s
(apparently he was actively advising the president). That was pretty
much the highlight of a journey that took over 60hrs door to door. My
hostel had arranged to pick me up from the airport, but when I got
there I was appauled to find that they had already left, I was only
20hrs late for god sake.
 |
| Supposedly a dinosaur - pretty sure it's just a bulldog |
So, what had been going
down previous to this. I have not written an entry for quite a while
so there is a bit to catch up on, starting with my trip to Utah, This
was a bit of a mixed bag. I had gone primarily to meet up with a girl
who I had spent a few hours drunk with on a tuesday afternoon some
weeks before. She initially seemed like a really nice girl. On my
first day we went to the natural history museum and had a walk around
salt lake city, before going for a few drinks in town.
The problems
began after this when she decided to drive home after we had drunk at
least five pints and a few shots each (the drive was around twenty
five minutes along a 4 lane freeway). I felt pretty wasted so I'm
pretty sure that she must have, but I kept quiet as the risk of my
safety was outweighed by the cost of a taxi. The next day we went
skiing which was awesome. The snow was amazing and we spent the
afternoon sat in a hot tub, followed by an evening of drinking in a
ski lodge – followed by a terrifying drunk drive back 45 minutes
down snowy mountains. At this point I did raise the whole drink
driving thing, which led to a massive argument and a particularly
awkward night. The next evening was when things got even more
awkward. I woke up with a bit of a dodgy stomach, probably brought on
by all of the drinking and driving. We were due to go to a proper
american house party, the prospect of which excited me, but my
stomach was in tatters. I asked her if she minded if I sat it out,
but from the reaction of her face alone, I knew that this was not
going to happen.
So we got there and the
place was packed. It was pretty much like you see it in the films.
There was one world class douche bag who was sat there all night with
a guitar strumming away and occasionally singing. He wasn't a bad
strummer, which just made him an even bigger douche bag. Now I have
always been someone who finds nothing funnier than seeing someone
fall over – it's just the best. I think I just like to see people
humiliated/degraded in the most public of forums. Obviously it is
sometimes inappropriate to laugh when people fall over, I for one
have always struggled to contain my laughter regardless of the
situation, but this time I guess karma caught up with me. The douche
bag stood up with his guitar and strolled heroically towards the keg,
forgetting about the step just in front of him. He hit the ground so
hard that his guitar flew about 5 feet, and whilst everyone else went
into shocked silence I laughed so loud that the entire room looked
round at me in disgust. What they were unaware of, due in large part
to my bad stomach, I had laughed so hard that I shat my pants. I
guess in that sense the joke was on them... I was at odds with what
to do, so I waddled to the toilet, removed the boxers and threw them
out of the bathroom window. I can only imagine what the owner of that
place thought when he found those pants the next day. That is all I
have to say about Utah.
This brings me
seamlessly into my first Christmas and new years away from home.
Christmas day was kind of weird. At 10am I woke up and cleaned the
kitchen and bathrooms for four hours which got me right into the
festive spirit. After that we all went onto the roof of the hostel to
smoke a Christmas pipe or two, before returning back downstairs to
play Fifa 12. I was feeling a bit under the weather so one of the
American staff gave me one of her attention deficit disorder
prescription drugs, ateril or something. I was not really sure what
it did, but it kept me awake until 9am on boxing day morning. It is
basically legal speed that they give to school kids to keep them more
attentive. It definitely works. All of the staff went over to the
assistant managers house in the evening for christmas dinner at
around 6pm, and I spent the next 2 hours trying to build a house of
cards. I literally could not pull myself away from this task, it was
ridiculous. It was a great night in the end, everyone got boozy and
we did not actually eat Christmas dinner until 1.30am – it is
certainly a Christmas that I will always remember.
 |
| Christmas morning in cali |
New years eve was a
blast. There has been such a good group at the hostel for the last 6
weeks that it would have been impossible not to have a good night. We
had two semi-professional rugby players staying for a month and they
were sick. One of them was a semi pro rugger bugger and a farmer –
lethal combination. I went out drinking with him straight after work
and we finished up at 9am the next morning. I was due to start work
at ten, but after several minutes of shaking me the manager gave up
and assigned my shift to some other poor fool. The hostel got
absolutely trashed, and my manager said that every time he saw me I
was wearing something new that I had found on the floor. Apparently
at one point I was wearing nothing but a turban. Speaking of naked, I
may have become a bit of a porn star during my time in America. Yep,
I modelled for my first naked calendar. We did a secret santa, and
for the gay guy behind reception one of the lads made this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi__rEdxRDM&feature=youtu.be Look out for Mr June... I have to warn you, it
makes for fairly uncomfortable viewing – and dad, the hardcopy of
the calendar is likely to arrive through your letterbox at any time,
but don't worry, these things happen on the road...
The calendar really
brought the group of us close together, there is nothing to seal a
bond quite like getting naked together. I have made some amazing
friends working at that hostel, and it is a time of my life that I
will always remember with great fondness. I think I loved that place
so much because it reminded me so much of being in the first year of
university halls, but in California, the greatest place in the world.
As an area it is as good as it gets. I can sunbathe on stunning
beaches and within an hour be skiing in the mountains. Beautiful
women flock there instinctively like the wild salmon of Capistrano
and the attitude is so laid back that instead of being horizontal,
most people are actually walking around on their hands. I simply love
the place. My last couple of nights were absolute belters. The first
one is pretty hazy, but the manager of the hostel found me asleep in
the laundry bin shortly before I was due to begin work at 10am.
 |
| Me teaching the laundry a thing or two about being folded |
But alas, all good
things must come to an end. As I am writing this I am sipping on a a
pisco sour (which I have just noticed that they put a raw egg into)
and contemplating the journey that is going to take me from hectic
Lima to Bogota, Columbia. I am heading up north to meet my German
mate Florian, who me and Nick met on the Gili islands way back in
May. The journey is going to be traumatic and involves several
notorious border crossings. I have around five days to travel 90
hours via bus, so it is going to be a little cracker of a journey.
Hopefully the raw egg I have just digested will give me some
explosive diohrea to keep me company on those lonely nights. The
first leg of the journey takes 17hrs and takes me to northern peru,
where I catch a 9hr bus across some dodgy border crossing into
Equador. Another 17hr bus takes me to the capital Quito, where I will
hopefully spend the night, before catching a 15hr bus over the fun
Columbia border, followed by a 25hr bus to the capital of Bogotá.
Fun times await but from what I hear of Columbia, it will be worth
it. I hope you will all club together to pay the ransom fee, and when
the video of me being decapitated is posted on the net after you are
unable to raise the £25 ransom, then please do not let it get back
to my big brave bulldog, ararararrarararra.
I have a feeling that
my entries onto this blog are going to increase ten fold in the
future, because from my very limited experience of travelling south
america thus far, it is going to be an utter hassle combined with a
ball ache. The language barrier alone is enough to make me cry. This
afternoon in a supermarket some spanish woman started speaking to me,
and even thought I told her in spanish that I can not understand her,
she spoke to me for 5 minutes, during which time she spat on my food
at least four times. I am making a concerted effort to improve my
spanish because it is going to be an absolute neccessity, but it
ain't easy going. It is definitely times like these that it would be
beneficial to be travelling with someone else, because you do feel
pretty isolated at times. Even the people in my hostel are all south
americans who are travelling south america – and none of them
really speak english very well – but in a way this is good, as it
gives me the impetus to learn. So you will probably not hear from me
for a few days whilst I am on the road, but I am quite sure that
there will be plenty to discuss when I eventually arrive in Bogota...
If you do not hear from me in a week then text 'kidnapped' to 88111
and just hope for the best! Whilst I am slightly nervous about what
lays in wait for me over the next few days I am quite sure that it
will be fine, in the words of our own William Shakespear “Cowards
die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but
once”. And in my words, catch you on the other side gaylords x
