Chile Photos

The Night of the long snores

Hola, we´re in South America, aigh aigh aigh, arribbbaaa!

Before I get into once another insight to the wonderful worldly world with wagg I´m going to give you all a bit of advice, and I´m going to say it once so here goes. If you ever find yourself in a room, namely a 8 bedroom dorm with a collection of Australian and Brazlian twenty somethings and they seem to have some sort of disorder in which breathing at a volume less than that of a Airbus A380 taking off do not hesitate to suffocate them with a pillow. Infact, any soft object that will stop the insufferable and constant rumble eminating from their throat will do. Unfortunately this is something I didn´t realise till about 10a.m. this morning and I´m now facing a ten hour bus journey over night, with only a couple of hours of sleep in me. SNORING IS THE ROUTE OF ALL EVIL. Forget banning YouTube let´s start with the real issues here! Ok complaing over...

It´s was something of a funny feeling stepping off our 12 hour flight from Auckland but still managing to arrive 4 hours before we left, but hey, we were in South America and there was only a mere 8 hours left of the 40 hour 20th February we were tackling. I think my first regret of my trip hit home moments after the wheels screeched onto the tarmac and we were wandering through the arrival lounge suddenly realising, oh shit no one speaks English. Now just so you know it´s not like when you go to Greece, Spain or even America when it seems on the surface that no one can grasp our mother tongue because Chile is a whole different ball game. When I say no one I mean, no one (well maybe one or two but we´re talking needles in haystacks in fields here!)

I must say though we are starting to get to minor grips with this highly romtansised language they speak but saying that Pete did just get his sideburns abused in a hairdressers only about an hour ago. "Sideburnio...no problemo, adios." Thank god for hair re-growth (sorry Dad, Uncle Andrew, Phil P and anyone else who´s mop as a touch on the lighter side. Anyway I´m digressing here, the fact of the matter is I now know how it feels to be a foreigner in Britain. Take this for example the other day, we´re all looking for plug adaptors (adap-ta-dor in Spanish) when after about what seemed a day and a night (with snoring) we stumbled accross what seemed somewhere we might get what we wanted. Well it was but it turns out that it´s no only the English, when presented with someone who doesn´t speak their language, thinks the best way to communicate is to do one of two things. The first being repeating what they have just said but v e r y slowly and LOUDLY, and the second, the one we have found the most frequently here to just keep speaking just as fast but change what they have said. Now I know we can be thought of as quite an ignorant bunch when it comes to languages but if I ask someone for directions in really broken Spanish and the persons reply comes back at the accommpanied with a handful of sonic booms I´m going to struggle. But anyway it´s not all bad we did manage to get ourself instood, and possibly robbed yesterday, although we´re still not totally sure.

We´ve just spent the last couple of days in a nice little city called Valparaiso just north of the capital, Santiago, where we all are now after we returned here on the bus to catch a football game. Colo Colo v Ñubmense. One interesting thing about Valp though, the bus drivers of freakin´mental. It seems like they own their own buses, drive around faster than they speak and the one we met clearly took inspiration from Pimp my Ride when he decorated his cab.

We thought the best thing to do was to get to the football early, get our tickets from the office and then nip off for a couple of cheeky ones. Only thing is when we got to the ground there was no ticket office, instead about 40 Chilian teenagers bombarding us with questions with the word Boletto frequently being mentioned. Now from our recent bus journey we knew that this of course meant ticket but they didn´t want to sell, they were asking for us to buy. Thinking this was a touch odd we found some older chaps, who confirmed that you bought a ticket for the game today and was given another one for next weeks for free, take note Premiership Chairman! Now understanding why Gringo was the buzz word amongst our new adolescent friends and why we were also the most popular people at the ground we handed our tickets for next weeks game over to the highest bidder, or in my case whoever won a round of rock, paper, scissors (although at first when I suggested the game one of the kids thought I wanted them to fight for it!)

Thinking that was that, we headed of for quattro cervezas y capriña (for Claire) por favor only to be malled once agin by a younger set of Latinos. Thinking I had done my good deed for the day and I still had ambitions to go to today´s game I walked past the boy in question, mainly because I´m not quite at the level as being able to say, "Listen mate, I just gave my ticket to his over there, if you want it you´ll have to pester him instead" in search for the nearest bar. Thinking I would take one last glance at the carnage we had just left I found the same boy with a rock, not much smaller than that of a football lodged in his right arm, posing as he was about to lauch the f*****g thing in the direction which only could be described as ours. Not knowing quite what to do I remembered my last blog entry and swooped in with a bit of British charm and smiled at him to which he replied kindly to by dropping the stone, if only it had been on his foot!

Either way I don´t hold any grudges, apart from with anyone from stayed in our dorm room last night and wasn´t English and in hinsight a broken foot may have been a touch harsh, especially as Colo Colo, the team who he supported lost 4-1. We still don´t know if we were swindled though!

We´re off to Pucon tomorrow though, leaving the big city to what seems to be the Queenstown of Chile, although like I said we´ve got to sit on a bus for ten hours to get there! Oh how travelling the world is so tiresome. One last thing before I go, Pete and I are thinking about hitch hiking to Kosovo for charity later this year and would like to get as many teams of two together as possible so if your interested drop me a line.

Keep it real children of the Empire!

Tim

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New Zealand 2

Dunedin Bridge in falling down, falling down, falling down.

Well, ever since I have started to write this blog I told myself three key things (i) keep it interesting (ii) don't just tell people what I have been doing and (iii) don't, well ermm...list things. Now it seems I have already gone against one of my cardinal sins already so I might as well break another. And the story starts not a long, long time ago, not ever a week but just the other day...(picture dreamy music coming in and the screen to go all blurry as you're transformed back in time and 12,000 miles south east of where you are sitting right now...

Arriving in Dunedin we knew that we weren't going to experience the culture of the sort Cpt. Cook did when he set upon the sunny banks of Botany Bay (although if we were talking about the one just off the M61 near Preston maybe it was going to be quite similar) but walking around the mighty city, the largest one in New Zealand, and fourth largest city in the world (look it up!) we did think that something was missing.

Not qutie sure what we spotted a karting track in the far distance, so Pete and I dragged Claire away with us to what turned out to be an abandoned warehouse with a grotequsely (and decpetively) large sign on the side of it saying "Indoor Karting Here!" Any who, as you can all imagine we now found ourselves, not only in the most British city outside of Britain (and in many cases more British, think Oldham, Bradford, Luton...) but also in the midst of an industrial estate.

After a moment of panic about how we were wasting our time away in yet another city we managed to meander back to the train station, which was is, may I add, not only the most photographed building in the whole of this bi-islanded country (I'm not even sure if that's even a word?!) but also led our escape route back to civilisation via a 104 year old bridge. Crossing the quite mudane structure we passed an Asian girl who was holding an video camera. Something which I turned to Pete and said, "You don't want to be going over there with that!" Obviously discussing about our previous thirty or so moments being lodged in a world of concrete, metal and industry, hmm reminds be slightly of the Crystal Maze. Either way, my words did turn out to mean slighty more just seconds after we stepped of the last rung on the bridge when we heard an "almighty crash" (you'll understand why in a moment why I have quoted myself).

Turning round we were first had witnesses to something that even the British Rail network would manage to avoid. A freight train had somehow managed to career into the side of the 100 year old Dunedin landmark and a girl, the very same girl who I have so cleverly said to Pete only seconds before not to cross the bridge was on the floor. Now I can only be so smug about this for two main reasons (and yes I am going to list again) 1. I am not, and have never thought myself able to predict anything, apart from the odd football score and 2. The girl was fine apart from a bruise and a ripped pair of jeans which was a relief to us all.

Instingvely I thought it was imperitive that the local rag was informed, so I carted myself and my journalistic nature up the road to the Otago Daily Times which we had passed earlier that afternoon. I kidnly broke the story for them, to which they sent down no less that 2 (two) journalists and a camera man. Maybe this was to be by big break. I could see it...BOY, 22, FROM ENGLAND WINS DUNEDIN JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR or something of the sort. Well nothing quite like that but after chatting to one of the journlists who had rushed down the the scene of the world's biggest 'F**K up' excusing maybe the Diana inquest and the American elections since 2000 I squeezed may way in the column inches and I can now say that the "almighty crash" I mentioned before has been quoted in New Zealands first daily! I thank you.

But we left Dunedin and obviously decided that it offered too much excitement which is why we are now in a quite inoffensive place called Lake Tekapo. Not that I can really complain about it, nice hostel, lovely scenary, bascially everything you want it you intend on spending your children's inheritance before they leave university but as I don't have any gremlins of my own quite yet and the hostel in question, the very one I am writing this blog in happened to also double up last night as the home of a very, no wait, extremely annoying American man with a guitar who felt it was his job to teach us all the back catalogue of 'Greatest Hits of the 60s and beyond'. It didn't take me too long to get into bed last night. Not that it mattered as he obviously decided that I still wanted to hear his wretchered voice and kindly up the decibals and couple of notches, for which I can only be indebted to him as I think (I hope) he has now left the hostel.

But either way I can't say I have much more to tell you about my adventures. We have been in Queenstown though and I somehow managed to not come up with any new ways of defying gravity, maybe Dunedin was trying to shock me?! Oh yeah and one more thing, if, which I'm sure you all could be one day be in Dunedin, do not...I really cannot stress this enough, do not go to India Village or whatever the restaurant I dined in the other night as they didn't know how to cook the chicken. Don't get my wrong the service was brilliant and upholding to what you would expect in any other Indian restaurant from Rusholme to Bombay but if I had ate any more of my Bhuna I was worried that the next day would've been spent similary to the way I would have if I have eaten an actually curry in India, you catch my drift.

For any of you who live in Macclesfield, please pop down to the Balti Kitched just oposite Whetherspoons and tell them I very much miss their curry's.

And with that I bid you fare well, not sure if I will catcj up with you all again before I leave the land of the Kiwi as this time in seven days and will not longer be ahead of you but behind, crossing the date line on my way to Chile. How I can fly for 12 hours and arrive 5 hours before I actually left does boggle the mind.

Aidos Ameigos, asta la vista baby, quatro cerveza por favor...that's all I'll be needing for the next 3 months!

Tim

New Zealand (so far)

The world through the eyes of a Blightonian

If you to learn just one thing from travelling around the globe it would have to be that, without question that the Brits are 'the' only nation in the world that actually have manners. It's hard not to be bitter about this but it's just, well...true. Take this for an example, Pete and I have just walked 18km up and over a hill to find that we were among the front runners to finish our mamouth journey. Quite a normal feat for young strapping lads like ourselves, ahem...all the same we formed an ordelry queue to get on our bus home. Brilliant.

Well in theory yes but of course we were about to encounter the World market and in essence every self important German, demanding Frenchie and 'I'm number one cause I'm from the greatest land on earth but I didn't even get off the bus in the first place because if I actually left the comfort of sitting down I might be subject to a terroist attack' American. And as if you couldn't guess this already, 5 minutes of pushing shooving and apolgies (from Pete and I only for some strange reason) we eventually got on the bus thus prooving eother that the british theory of waiting in line works or that our European and American neighbours are starting to respect our merry little island, hmmm.

Anyways, it acutally turns out that the Kiwi's are quite found of us Brit's so armed with this wonderful fact we thought that the best way to handle our impolite friends was to hold our stiff upper lip, have a cup of tea and put our best foot forward. And then after we were done with all the english cliches we could possbily think of we decided to jump out of a plane.

Ok, so we were strapped to an insutructor who was also strapped to a chute but the feeling of falling out of a plane is just, well, indescribable but I'm going to try anyway as I'm meant to have a degree in the art of wordsmithery and well, if I don't my blog's going to get rather short this week.

Now, I'm sure that wou've all had a dream when you fast asleep and for some reason you suddenly think you are abaout to fall and you wake yourself up to find half your body hoving on the edge of the bed and the rest of you desperatly clambering to the bedsheets in a bit to save yourself. Well the feeling of falling out of a plane is something like that, one minute you're sitting down and the next you're travelling at +200km/h and your fighting to keep your mouth closed and looking like one of those hounds which insist on sticking their head out of the window on the motorway leaving a trail of salavia on the read window.

On our jump we had a 45 second free fall, which I suppose seems long enough because hey, do you really want to be falling for much longer than that without a parachute. Infact just while we are on that note, the world record for a parachute jump stands at 103,800ft with a 5 minute free fall, I wonder what 103,801ft would feel like...? Back to the point, again the free fall is much like a dream because by the time you realise you are actually falling you manage to stop yourself and you are either back in bed, but in my case floating aimlessly back to earth with a giant piece of silk strapped to my back. I worked out that my daredevil expereince cost me nearly 30 quid a minute, some may say expensive, I would say worth every penny. I hear that they do it for cheaper in Argentina as well!

Without trying to make everyone reading this blog to fell like they want to kill me from jealously I really do have to say that this place is bloody fantastic. The scenary really is just something else, the people our friendlier than Santa Claus' smile (I mean we went to the comedy club in Wellinton the other night, the compiere couldn't even take the piss out of the English, come on the English, how can you not rip us?!), and the food out here, sublime.

I can't really explain why this humble country is so great. Maybe it has something to do with every Kiwi having the pick of around 10 sheep per person but they really do have it right.

We're off to Queenstown tomorrow in our pretty blingin' pimpin hire car. They're complaing out here at the moment having to pay 70p/litre, you see they even have a sense of humour out here! Best go now and try and sleep off my 5th ice cream in 5 days, they really are too hard to resist but I not only tackled the beast of a hill I told you about eariler but I went hiking on a glacier today. Infact it was fox's glacier, as in well...see for yourself. I thought it was kinda cool to be able to eat the famous mints whilst hiking through

death defying crevicies. I do make this trip sound rather dangerous don't I!

Keep it real friends,

And don't forget to keep on the board timwaggtravel!

Me

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