Last night of a (have to say it) epic 6 month trip. Finished off in style by going to an audience with the dalai lama; the only guy who ever ended a speech by saying "i have no idea" and giggling. Now for some fine mendoza wine and a good meal. flights were changed and nobody told us, but we called and sorted it all out. no probs. Short stop in brazil, another in germany then into my mums car.

The journey has been incredible, but i am at saturation point, as will happen on a long one. Looking forward to moving ahead with various plans.

Spanish has improved a great deal, which will help no end for moving to Barcelona in Sep and also with learning Catalan.

Skating not improved too much, as it was hard as hell to get a session going! BA has been cool though, and had a nice skate on a beachside mini ramp yesterday.

Tan is non existent, although i will probably reverse that opinion when I see the pastry-faced scots.

best buy: my bolivian chess set. Worst buy: my swimming shorts that i didnt try on first and reveal more than I am will(y)ing.

Best meal: just about to have it. worst meal: christmas time in ecuador with the squirts.

best skate: a small curb and a long flat marble stretch in Nazca, Peru. Worst skate: Quito suburbs, including bits of twisted metal sticking out of bits of the park and an attempted robbery on the way home..."my board is bigger than your knife" i heard myself say.

Best place; you kidding? so hard to say. Valparaiso? Machu Pichu?
worst place : Quevedo in Ecuador, or the mariscal district (a succesful robbery this time) in Quito.

Best horse..according to Frida; the brown one. 2nd best horse: the other brown one.

best dog: The one on the isle of chiloe with the 2 tone eyes and the sweetest personality in the world. See photos on the spaces site.
worst dog: That shit in ambato that stopped me from getting a drink in the shop...got a stone hurled at him for his trouble. viscious!

best accomodation; our flat in Baños. Worst; gay porno palace (otherwise known as the hotel "crystal" in Oaxaca mexico)

enough.

home in 2 days, and hope to say hi to some you thereaferwardswise.

los dos

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the trip is drawingn to a close, with the usual mixed emotions. On one hand, being here in this impassioned city (buenos aires) is really lighting my candle. Am kehrseite der medaille, (which is a phrase i learned in high school german meaning ón the other side of the coin´and german people laughed at me for using it), i am seriously looking forward to seeing my family again; this wee lass above in particular (sorry to the rest of you, dinny be jealous)...

At the moment, just finishing the gift shopping, and am off now to buy tickets to see the dalai lama. he´s been eluding me for a while, but i´ve nailed him down to sunday.

Skateparks here are amazing, especially after so long scraping the barrel for a decent curb.

So, it´s almost summer all over again. PLans? in no particular order...
-Get a nice wee surfboard and a wetsuit.
-Hopefully get this position of Director of Studies at an Edinburgh language school thats being dangled in front of me!
- Get a left hand drive maroon red VW Beetle.
- DJ as much as possible.
- Raise cash for my dad.
- finish this article on the swedish school fiasco for the magazine
- spend lots of time with my family and get to know wee bailie
- save cash for the move to barcelona in september
- catch up with friends
- see my brother get married, and embarass him in my best man speech
- many others!

so, will be home 2nd may, and will be asleep until the 4th, so perhaps see some of you thereafter.

che che che ciao

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Arrived here in horrendous weather last night, and thankfully found a cheap hostel. In Ancud, on the north of the island. Chiloe is very dinstinctly seperate from mainland chile. Yes, I know its an island, but i mean in terms of culture. The island is abound with myths and folklore, including my favourite, TRAUCO...

He lures people into the forest, and is held accountable for numerous ill deeds. It is with the laydeez, however, that he shows his prowess. If the father of a child isnt known, it´s Trauco. You stick to that story hen...

Darwin claimed that these people had no contact with the Inca civilisation, and that 10-12 species of potato grew in genetic isolation here on acount of that. This evidence is behind a current process in international courts to patent the origin of these potatoes and register them to chiloe, which is greatly vexing the Peruvians and bolivians. In an age where genetic patenting has a growing economic viability, this is more contentious than it sounds. I am boring you..

The weather was gooorjus today, and a walk was had in search of some humboldt and maggalen penguins. Got a rural bus out to the middle of nowhere and trekked down to the beach, acompanied by a dog called Juano, who reminded me of my dads dog milo. We ate empanadas de mariscos in a lovely stilt-supported cafe on this windswept beach and then tried to talksome fishermen into taking us out. No dice. too rough, and the penguin colonies apparently left a matter of days ago. selfish ba*tardos! I only wanted a small one for a pair of original moccasins.

the day was incredible, not least thru the presence of three uncannily beautiful and kind dogs, who scorted us all the way back to the bus route. Rainbows, wild deer, rugged beauty. Two locals told us these dogs do this all the time, just for the crack. The decision has been taken to seek out one of identical nature and similar breeding in Barcelona.

Tomorrow to Castro to catch a boat to Curaco, where the oysters go for 10p a pop, and watch the sunset from a hammock (wrapped in furs.)

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apparently, according to the guidebook, "chiles most attractive city".

Not in this weather, i assure you. Bloody freezing. Summer is well and truly over this far south, and the tourists have deserted the place. We managed to bargain this lady down for a room in her hotel from 42000 pesos to 10000 pesos (9 quid) as there is nobody here!

The city was one of the last outposts of spanish colonial rule i the americas. They were defeated by none other than a scotsman...lord thomas cochrane. check out http://gosouthamerica.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=gosouthamerica&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.royalnavalmuseum.org%2Finfo_sheets_thomas_cochrane.htm for info on him...colourful guy!

The undeniable highlight, is hanging around the fishmarket watching the sealions come up and debase themselves for some scraps. Some of the fights get a bit unruly. The smells, noises and outpourings of male bravado to secure a morsel is not unlike ellios chippy at the glamis centre in glenrothes...check it out at 8.30 on a friday night and see what i mean.

They were so absorbing that we only just caught the bus! Sweaty but seated, we continued south. The chilan bus companies are extremely attentive to your comfort, and even come to wipe the condensation off the windows so you can see out better. Against the mist and rain, however, it was a losing battle.

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wow! What a place. Exploring the hillside barrios of this place is like stepping into the Isabel Allende book "daughter of fortune" (thanks heidi!). So full of colour and individual contrasts. The places range from parodies of the one in the original "psycho" film to more of a "home on the range" idea, but all jumbled together and each paint job trying to outdo the next. pinks, neons, pastels, and each framework with bundles of charm.

The worst building in town is also the biggest, and it was built at the order of that fanny (there is not better word for some people than a good scottish one) General Pinochet (or was it pistachio?). He decided to buuild a senate edifice on the site of his boyhood home (egoism knows no boundaries) and so legislators have to dash constantly between here and santiago. So many politicians and lawmakers are being stopped (and fined...chilean police are quite uncorruptable) for speeding on the 2hr journey that seerates these 2 distinctive cities.

What a great place though, although a wee bit chile

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check oot
http://swedishhighschool.blogspot.com/

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Breathtaking..really!

We just did one day as time is very short, so we didnt see the red lagoon or the flamingos.

started with a short visit to the "cemeterio del tren", where all the old industrial trains ended up. Felt like a wee boy again crawling and exploring. Great sepia flicks as well.

photos uploaded soon on the msn spaces site.

blasted from there in our 4 wheel drive across to the isla incahuasi, which was as sublime as it was surreal.

in the middle of a alt desert, where the tiny surface water reflects the sky in a disorientating way, you run into an island covered in cacti upto 12m tall and 1200 years old (they grow about 1mm pa)

back to uyuni after some fun photos, to be confronted the next day witha boneshaking 8 hour journey to Tupiza along a dry riverbed.

Very cheap night in tupiza, then 2 hours to the argentinian border. Change of bus, nice sunrise (bus was at 4am ) then further 8 hours to salta, Argentina.

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This was one of the best experiences of the trip. NOt in a happy, smiley way, but in a reality check way.

We were equipped with masks and head lights. We had signed a disclaimer saying we understand this is a real mine and we would not hold the operators responsible for accidents. 10 years ago,a team of european engineers gave the prinicpal tunels 5 years at most before cave in. Not the best statistic to learn when you are down there.

Our guide was witty and kept us laughing, as an antidote to the very oppresive feeling of crawling on your belly through dark tunnels thick with dust, seeing 8 year old kids trotting past you, and feeling some serious heat.

we saw the refineries beforehand, which was enlightening, and the day before we had seen the casa de la moneda, the place where the spaniards minted the coins before shipping them off. Recently, 400 million pounds worth of sunken spanish dubloons were found, the overwhelming majority of which goes to the divers.

It’s so poor, it makes you want to weep,” says Bolivian historian Valentin Abecia. He’s not exaggerating. A visit to Potosi, which helped to maintain the splendour of Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries, is today a spine-chilling experience.
Around two billion ounces of silver were extracted from the city’s Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) during the Spanish colonial era. Cerro Rico silver paved Potosi’s streets, fuelled the European Renaissance and helped fund the “Invincible Armada”, the Spanish fleet that sailed against Elizabethan England in 1588.
But today Potosi is dying. “When a mine closes, all that’s left is a ghost town,” says the city’s mayor, René Joaquino. Something of Potosi ebbs away whenever a seam of metal is exhausted or world mineral prices drop. Most of the mines closed down after a crisis in 1985 and many people left for good. Two years later, when the Bolivian government introduced new incentives to mining, unemployed miners began to trickle back and set up 50 co-operatives.

Most of the city’s population of around 120,000 are Quechua Indians, who live by scratching at what is left in the old mines. They have no access to modern technology and no social security protection. There is practically no middle class in Potosi.

In 1572, in colonial times, Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo created a system of forced labour called “la mita”. Every seven years, for a period of four months, all males between 18 and 50 were ordered to work in the mines. They were paid a pittance and rarely saw the light of day. Eighty per cent of the male population of the 16 provinces of the viceroyalty of Peru died in these conditions. “Every peso coin minted in Potosi has cost the life of 10 Indians who have died in the depths of the mines,” wrote Fray Antonio de la Calancha in 1638.

Mining methods have changed little over the years. The miners still toil from dawn till dusk. Generators pump air into the tunnels so they can breathe. Children still wriggle into tiny places where adults cannot go. Working sometimes for 10 hours or more a day in extreme temperatures, the miners keep going by chewing coca leaves. Two-thirds of the population have respiratory ailments.
“Barely 20 per cent of the mine-workers are actually members of the co-operatives,” says Joaquino. “The other 80 per cent are casual labourers who earn next to nothing. They are peasant migrants from the north, the poorest part of the department of which Potosi is the capital.”
The historic centre of Potosi, where the Spanish settlers once lived, is today home to a small middle class. It is ringed by a poverty belt inhabited by miners who work in the co-operatives. Both these areas are surrounded by a wider poverty belt filled with those who have fled the hunger of the countryside to hire themselves out as unskilled labourers in the mines.

Peasant women from the north come to the city to beg. They sleep on the ground in the markets, numb with cold, cradling in their arms the babies they have brought with them. Bernardina Soles has had 10 children. Five of them have died–a grim reminder of an infant mortality rate of 135 per 1,000. Her dream is to take some of her children away from her home village, where they could only have two years of primary schooling. The illiteracy rate in the department of Potosi is 30.8 per cent.

It was saddening, to think that the city dwellers (highest city in the world by the way) are faced with that red giant from every angle....a constant reminder of how much wealth has been exploited from their territory, and from which they have hardly benefitted. 92.3% work there for lack of other options...a curse, if you ask me.

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versus

"How much is the night bus to Sucre?" I asked the brown-shirted desk clerk; a young guy with an anxiously honest air about him.

"30 bolivianos, señor.....how much is a flight to your country?"

Momentarily taken aback in an i´m-asking-the-questions kind of way, I then replied; playing down the price to make it seem a bit more attainable.

"$800, return ticket." He still seemed speechless.

Of course, in a country where almost two thirds live below the UN poverty line, such options are out of reach.

Bolivia's 2002 gross domestic product (GDP) totaled USD $7.9 billion. Not a large amount by any stretch of the imagination.

"Bolivia’s current lackluster economic situation can be linked to several factors from the past two decades. The first major blow to the Bolivian economy came with a dramatic fall in silver prices during the early 1980’s which impacted one of Bolivia’s main sources of income and one of its major mining industries. The second major economic blow came from the end of the Cold War in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s as economic aid was withdrawn by western countries who had previously tried to keep a “democratic” regime in power through financial support. The third economic blow came from the U.S. sponsored eradication of the Bolivian coca crop which was used in 80% of the worlds’ cocaine production at its peak. Along with the reduction in the coca crop came a huge loss of income to the Bolivian economy, particularly the peasant classes."

source: wikepedia

In short, the chances of most of the populace escaping across the Atlantic are negligible.

On this journey, I have had this conversation countless times:

Juan doe: How much did your skateboard cost in Scotland?
me: about $240
Juan doe: but how can you afford that?
me: Our average wage is about $32,000 p.a
Juan doe: so you´re really really rich!
me: well....sure, we have a higher standard of living, in the way we measure such things, but, for example, a loaf of bread costs $2.
Juan doe: What, but surely you can´t afford that!
me: but.... (a bit exasparated by now)

I give in consistently. I have tried to convey the fact that we still have disturbing rates of violence in Scotland, alongside homelessness, poverty, drug addiction and all the rest. I find it a stiff challenge, however, to modify peoples unwavering and iconic faith in the promised lands of the USA and Europe.

I tell them about the prowling packs of rangey kids on the streets of Edinburgh, pulling knives on you for no reason, other than to vent repressed issues as mindless malevolence on the weakest prey they can find. I tell them about our alcohol problems, bad weather, unemployment, naive racism; in short, all the badness i can conjure up. I´m trying to soften things. I know that there´s not much chance these guys will ever see Europe anyway, and that I should leave them with a dream unscathed, but the fear that they don´t understand the truth is more compelling.

It cuts no ice in any case. Apart from the weather, Bolivia has all these problems with bells on. This is not a lever i can use to balance perspective.

Memories come to my aid.

A truck in La Paz whipping past...gorged to the gunnels with smiling familes; their cheeks bulging with coca leaves...
being able to bargain with shop assistants in a large chain supermarket, of all places, and striking a nice price for my milk, fruit and beer...
wild unlicensed parties that break out all over city streets with no complaints and no apparent reason...
kids playing jump-over-the-sheep in the gathering darkness on the road to copacobana...not an adult in sight...their smiles still visible in the rolling mist of the altiplano...
everything for sale, everywhere, people on the streets trading all night...want to be a taxci driver today? just buy a taxi sticker from a guy at the traffic lights...no driving license? ...get one from the police for a minimal fee...

The government here can´t`play big brother, as it lacks the social infrastructure, and perhaps the inclination too; there are priorities.

Compare this to Sweden, for example, where the Systembolaget system dictates where and when you can buy alcohol, sell it to you in faceless state-owned outlets at highly uncompetitive prices (where´s the incentive to do otherwise?), then plough you with leaflets at the checkout extholing the virtues of sobriety.

I don´t believe the government should be in our lives any more than is strictly necessary. "Man is free, but everywhere in chains" right enough.

It´s not just the greater distance from interventionist laws the people enjoy here, there´s more.

The smile, laugh and dance with greater abandon. They do not exist through and are not defined by gadgets and routines to the extent of the western european. Life is hard here, but the people are so profoundly aware of the proximity of death and decay that they hold on tighter. They appreciate what they have so much more, in my opinion.

HOw many times have i bumped into a friend from high school in my home town, enquired as to how things are going, and been met with one or both of these replies:

"daeín (doing) away, daeín away" or "workin away, workin away"[b]

Away to what? Death? Killing time before it kills you? What kind of way is that to justify the one-in-a-billion chance that you exist at all? Bolivians have nothing compared to us in materialistic terms, but they do maintain a sense of tradion and connection with life that makes me glad indeed to witness.

A taxi driver in Cochabamba even claimes that they lost their coastline to Chile, an event lodged deeply in the bolivian psyche, because they were partying too hard. The Chilean force sneaked in admist the festivities and secured the port.All this celebrating in a year with the worst drought on record in the countrys ostensibly miserable history!

When do the scots celebrate our common heritage? What traditions are truly alive in the main flow of society? Why are the pubs a hundred times fuller on St Patricks day than St Andrews? It is a sad state of affairs that people only get passionate about shared history when we play England at football. sad indeed.

The streets of my home town are dead at night. Only the pubs show a spark of life. People no longer seem to lean over fences and chat, like they did in my childhood. We add more bricks to our divisions, face the TV instead of each other more and more commonly, and invest time and money in objects of silicon and plastic, which slowly waste to leave only a subtle sense of something lacking.

Each feather in our nest makes us more comfortable, but higher from the ground; further from the realities of life, which connect us all...or so we would like to thing...you need not read Lord of The Flies to understand how thin a veneer surrounds us. I wrote a poem about this during a hangover day at Uni:

"what remains of c´est la vie?
A trite and tested a-b-c
whose ethos rests upon a ledge
held up by ignorances pledge"(extract)

"So don´t you like Bolivia?" I asked him straight as he printed my bus ticket.

Looking apologetically at his colleague, he shrugged and smiled.
"yes...sort of, but I would be so much happier in Europe"

I wouldn´t bet on it, I thought. On the other side of the fence as we are, we are rapidly forgetting just how green the grass is.

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Journey included getting off the bus an watching it get punted accross the lake in a raft by a small guy with a big wooden pole. quite nerve racking when everything you have is strapped to the roof. we crossed by smaller boat and rejoined on the other side.

the drive was incredible. Not for the first time in this part of the world, i felt really emotional at the sheer scale of the scenery. everything was deathly still, yet a riot of colour sprayed the hillsides, and i found it hard to close my eyes and not watch, tired as i was.

La Paz is 3621m, making it the highest capital city in the world. It certainly feels like it. i threw away my coca leaves, so as not to give the bolivian border guards a reason to hassle me (even though its perfectly legal in this form, non toxic and helps a great deal with altitude sickness). Need to get some more.

Hotel is an old colonial mansion, but the centre of town feels VERY dodgy! Got a taxi back last night ater a nice soiree in "cafe la paz", which was a former hangout for escaped nazis (that´ll help your case Parviz); bratwurst is still on the menu. Now it´s old men in grey suits discussing politics through the blue haze of foreign ciggies.

Taxi basically took us back to where we had started, charged us Bs6 (ok, only about 40p) and shortchanged us without us noticing (i had a nosebleed!!). I was fuming! I can´t stand being ripped off, no matter the amount. He did, however, give me a tissue for my nose. bless him

This morning saw a trip to Parque la Florida, the home of the La Paz skatepark. It was actually the best park i have seen on this trip (thats not saying much!!). It was smooth, with a funbox-a-la-leven, driveway a-la-kirriemuir, flat banks, quarters etc and really smooth.

trouble was, the altitude. Have been in the mountains for quite some time, even lived at 2000m for 3 months, but the difference a 1000 metres makes. Breathless. Teased by the smoothness and couldn´t get anything done! had to leave with my tail between my legs, but plan to buy some hoja de coca and some altitude pills and try tomorrow!

Just bought an overnight bus cama (bed bus) ticket to cochabamba for about 2.25 (pounds) it´s anice old colnial city to break the journey. arrive at 7am, leave the bags somewhere, see the town then back on another overnight journey to Sucre. It´s the former capital and doubles handily as our proposed meeting place for the now rucksackless jeremy.

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bloody hell, this was an unforgettable experience. A group of islands just of the shore of lake titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world as you should remember from high school...but you were too busy laughing when the teacher said "titi") that are constructed of reeds which grow in the shallows; hence the alias "the floating islands". The islanders lives are inextricably linked with these reeds. The houses, boats (like viking longboats with serpent heads), sails, fences etc etc is made from them. The kids scamper around barefoot, and the adults bow to the increasing commercail attraction and pressure you to buy the, admittedly pretty, craftwork. A couple of words of Aymara (the other islands speak quechua) got me some big smiles though. Saw a lonely dog who had his own island and a wee reed wigwam to sleep in. The place is incredible, and we met and chatted to a greatbunch of genuine people. They live almost exactly as they always have for hundreds of years...although they first constructed these islands to escape the dominating inca culture spreading through the area; a concept negated by the influx of tourism. Its a quiet, rainy, bollock freezing time of year here though, so it was tranquil (and rather springy) on the islands.

tomorrow sees an onward leg to Bolivia (La Paz)once the most secure route (but not too pricey of course!) is figured out.

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they will be accompanied by mp3 fles and phots very shortly

first stories published may 28th (?)

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what is there to say, really? This place is phenomenal, and all it is cracked up to be for sure. When we got there, it was covered in mist, and we only caught occasional glimpses of the ruins. we decided to go on a hike along the last 4 km of the inca trail. was tough going, as we were extremely tired, and reached the checkpoiunt to find that we weren´t circling back to the ruins, but in fact needed to double back and walk the same route again!

turned out fine as the sun began to clear the mist, and the way back proved spectacular. i was gobsmacked by the scenery, and of course, when the last corner was rounded, we were able to see machu picchu from way above; in all its glory.

what an incredible experience. I wished my family and friends were there to share it. so mindblowing. Llamas all over the place, as well as the most incredible butterflies. took a nap whil wild chinchillas scarpered around and just watched the sky changing over the sun temple summit.

if you haven´t been here, you have to make a point of it; well worth the sacrifices i guarantee it.

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"Two students told me that you had promised them to send your Nazi
comrades and thugs to smash me."is this for real? you bet.

They have since asked me (again) to be specific about what i am claiming for, despite the fact that i clearly told them in OCTOBER. I don´t hold much hop out. How do you stay calm and clear headed when people say things like this to you?-

"You really managed to conceal your Nazi sympathies and activities, but there are a couple of students who have started talking."

students are the future, and I am glad they are in safe hands.

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tomorrow is the moment i have been waiting forever to arrive: seeing the sunrise over macchu picchu.

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What a prime hassle that journey was. People spewing out of the window as the bus twisted its way through the last past; heralding the finale of our 14 hour bus ride.

The city is beautiful; that much is clear even with our mild altitude sickness and exhaustion after days on the road. It´s evident that money flows freely into the place, but serves instead to more clearly highlight the divide between have and have not. The distribution of wealth in this part of the world is staggeringly imbalanced; bolivia perhaps being worst of all. These countries have rich natural resources, but lack of infrastructure and staggering levels of corruption form a climate of political instability.

Looking into deals on the hike overland to the macchu picchu ruins. bit pricey, but when will the chance pop up again? Seeing a sunrise and a sunset over that magical place is not a fiscal issue.

strange to be surrounded by tourists after some much more remote spots.saw a ciggarette seller approach an american middle age tourist to hawk his wares, and was promptly pushed away in a physical and aggressive manner. I have been quite irate with people in the last few days, who try to take advantage, but this made me sink into a passive and pensive state, rather than telling him what I thought of his incredibly unjustified response. Some people are so cloaked in their own shrink-to-fit world, that they will never truly connect with life in a purer form...understanding that sad fact brings the realisation that the american tourist is in many ways, worse off than his reluctant sparing partner. I let it go.

Had a fantastic skate in Nazca last night. Loooong smooth marble path with a marbl block running alongside. I couldn´t believemy luck after all this time scraping a session togther from whatever happens by. The strange things was, that it gathered a crowd. Must have been 50 people watching, cheering when i made something (laughing when i didn´t). Two street dancers incorporated me into their show and hijacked my giggling audience. They didn´t, however, cross my palm with silver.

off to have a long snooze and try to make it to plaza san blas for some maté brewed from coca leaves tomorrow morning, which is good for altitude acclimatization. Rather not chew too many of the leaves though, saw some salivating oold locals chuckling at nothing in particular as they meandered through the crowds, and reckon i need to have a slightly firmer grip on reality at the mo.

entonces, cheery bye fur noo.

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18 hours to get here, but it is done. Tomorrow at 8am, a trip is sorted to view the Nazca lines (see above for one of many many examples).

The Nazca Lines are an engima. No one has proof who built them or why. Since their discovery, the Nazca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations from ancient gods, a landing strip for returning aliens, a celestial calendar created by the ancient Nazca civilization -- putting the creation of the lines between 200 BC and 600 AD, used for rituals probably related to astronomy, to confirm the ayllus or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution, or a map of underground water supplies.

Afterwards, straight afterwards (!) it´s a trek to the highest sand dune on the earth (2087m). Thankfully, as it´s mid afternoon by then, the climbing will be done in dune buggys, and then we are going to sand-board down it. wooooohooo! will stick photos up on the putfile site asap.

UNfortunately, after that, we get on a bus at 2am for a 12 hour ride. The saving grace, is that the bus is bound for Cuzco and the famous Macchu Picchu.

island hop over lake titicaca into bolivia (wait till you see photos of that place!), meet jeremy for a while, then carry on with the plan below.

lima really sucked this morning, but it looks like they are making an effort to clean it up. Been a while since i saw slums like that in the pueblitos outside. Lured down from the mountains in droves by the advent of tv up there portraying a glitzy lifestyle, and they found out it´s just pure P.R when it was already too late. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking, however, and the people are ever happy and even more talkative than I am!

Really really nice people here. What are yo waiting for? Visit Peru...

NAZCA dune buggys, sand boarding, nazca lines remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Time is getting short, and can´t keep surfing forever! Money is very tight as well, so the new plan is to head from here to Lima tonight overnight, then straight on to Huachacayo and Cuzco. The total bus journey is about 36 hours over 3 days, so it will be exhausting. IN any case, after macchu picchu, plan to cross lake titicaca into bolivia, down through the salt plains and mountains and into the wine region of argentina. Travel down to Mendoza and cross the chilean border there to santiago and valparaiso.
Dwon to tierra fuego, including some of the most spectacular scenerey in the world, say hello to a few penguins and sea lions, then into argentina to the southermost city in the world. fly from there straight to buenas aires for a few days. Argentina is well cheap at the mo, and bolivia is incredibly good on the pocket. even cheaper than peru, and i just had a 3 course lunch for 60 pence!

anyhoo, will update

puss beso smooch

LA RUTA NUEVA remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It has been a long road to get here, but not at all bad. set off from the beautiful and tranquil villcabamba a few days ago, and back to colonial Loja for a night in with t´telly.

Early morning bus to Piura, Peru. Took about 9 hours via the craziness of the border post, where sweaty men send you from office to office from behind their communist-bloc typewriters.

nae bother.

Piura wasn´t a gem really, but we met some friendly people. Taxi drivers try to rip you off with a big smile, and when you tell them to get tae falkirk, they jovially agree to your (fair) price, and continue like nothing happened.

Nae botha...

Today was a 7hr bus journey with a rice-and-crabs stop in chiclayo. Now in Huanchaco, where these guys in the photo paddle their makeshift rafts out to beyond the breakers, fish, then surf back withtheir catch. They have been doing this for 100´s of years, so don´t tell me that those guys in California were the 1st surfers. as a skater, i am here to pay homage to these fishermen. what will be their reaction?

some days of surfing and seafood here, before the trials of lima. Plan to be there as short a time as possible, before the 30hour journey through the andes to Ayuachco and then Cuzco.

tired now after endless (well, seven) hours gazing at deserts, occasional shacks, the blue gray distance of the Cordillera (andes mountain range) and the thai-esque tuk-tuks weaving thru the traffic.

time for beans´n´rice

hasta la pasta amigos y amigas...

P-E-R-OOOOO! remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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¨During an interview with your son’s grade-school teacher, you’ll be relieved to learn how little you give a shit about how he is doing.¨¨

at least it fared better than my poor leo mum and brother.,..

¨You will soon discover that your home’s fire escape plan, although seemingly effective, fails to take fire into account.¨

or even my dad

¨You will be accidentally left behind by a tour group while visiting Mexico City next week, resulting in a harrowing and distressing afternoon of not being able to accurately identify which buildings are colonial. ¨

the list goes on.

anyway, cuenca was a beautiful city...justifiably nurtured in the warm bosom of UNESCO. The place has an undeniable charm and a great bunch of restaurants. After admitting that we were really not museum types, unless it was something special, we engaged in a bit of wandering instead, and were rewarded with decadence and fading splendour. It made me think of Paris in the 20´s without the bicycles, and a nice relaxing time was had.

today, we tried to embark for vilcabamba, on our way to the peruvian border. Unfortubately, all of the banks rejected our cards in the changeover point of Loja. It was a bit scary, but it finally worked and we settled in for the night here. It resembles cuenca in a way, and seems really easy going. not to bad all told.

Off now for some veggie fare and another aimless stroll before returning to the dingy but aimiable Hostal londres.

Hasta la proxima pannas, un beso

Vamos vamos vamos a cuenca...y despues a loja! remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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swedish high school remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Very touristy place, and a different pace of life from baños. quite starnge to be here after three months in the mountains. took a long time to get here! 2 days heard slog, combined with some of the most breathtaking highland scenery, between latacunga and quevedo, that i have ever ever seen. rolling mists, horn-forked peaks, patches of wildly luminous grasses, llama herders and pigs blocking the bus routes.

we surfed all day yesterday. got burnt and a bit scraped. plan to head inland again to cuenca tomorrow we reckon as the sun is too strong, and we have another beach to hit in arica, chile.

will update soon.

Montañita remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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to my folks and amigos

just to let you know we´re leaving baños (in about 5 minutes!!) and we will be in a remote part of the coast for about 4 days, so you know if you dont have an email etc.

mr tea x

leaving baños remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Almost 3000 metres up in the Ecuadorian Highlands, a skater of around 13 or 14 was investing this dilapidated basketball court with a new sense of purpose.

His board, which, on first impression appeared better suited to removing spinach from dental cavities, nevertheless allowed a very individual bag of tricks to be performed on it. He was deterred not by the rain, nor the fact that the nose of his board was joined to the main body by a piece of connecting ply, or even that the resulting imbalance gave it the incline of a drag car.

Attempted double flip nosepick on a courtside rock....a kind of ollie with a delayed kick to the nose (producing a decidedly violent shuvit flip of sorts)....boneless 5-0 grind with one leg hopping adjacent like an old man who missed the last bus by a split-second. These tricks were idiosyncracy in its purest form. Calculated in their conecption, yet see-what-happens in their execution. In a word; different!

Why?

I started to think loosely on this juxtaposition between cultures, and reflected that skate culture was just another manifestation of a universal constant.

If we step back a little and think about this, it becomes a little clearer. Consider, for example, the Inca culture of the South American Andes. They constructed an advanced society and edifices to match. They did not, however, have a system of writing, and their society was markedly different from that of Ancient Greece, Byzantine or Ming China. They did not build upon these elements, as they did not know much of their existence. In the Eurasian arena, ideas were traded, religions fused and overlapped, and a fairly linear "progression" was entrenched .

This idea of linear advancement does not, for me, carry the admiration of what we have acheived so far, but rather a concern of what we have failed to achieve! What have we missed?

To scale down again, we just have to look at our skate culture in the ´developed´ world to see how the vast majority follow well-worn trails. The massive media influence we are subjected to, leaves us with little room for independent thought. I am so over-exposed to 360 flips that my skin glows in the dark. In this remote part of Ecuador, there are no skate magazines, skate shops pushing products or trick-trick-trick-homie pose handrail videos. Tricks and styles therefore expand and evolve in their own direction, sequestered from what we see as normal, or average. There´s not much inter-spot travel, and each town has it´s own style and set of tricks. I am serious!

Everyone in Baños (another highland town) is crazy about freestlye skateboarding, whilst the Riobabambans from the next town just can´t get enough of 50-50-jump of your board while it´s still grinding-back on-180 out. Nobody knows who Chad Muska is, and there is a distinct lack of assholes who bite your style because it´s not modern enough or because they see you as somehow inferior. The whole concept is patas arriba, and it reminds me of why I started skating.

Watching this kid, I reaffirmed my commitment there and then to keep travelling, keep growing and building and never taking anything for status quo just because it´s in Transworld Magazine. I wish more people would swap their nollie crooks for a plane ticket and see what they can discover.

I walked up to the skater and introduced myself as Paul Rodriguez and he didn´t bat an eye.

evolution remains copyright of the author mark92, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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