The Adventures of Tron

Finally looking indian, dishevelled and like a backpacking hobo has payed off. We arrived on the Galapagous Islands, backpacks in tow, with no tours booked, at 10am. By 2pm, I had negotiated a sweet deal for an 8 day cruise of the islands, on a catamaran named The Galapagous Vision, with a cheerful chef, and a hilarious tour guide named John, who did some wonderful impressions of the mating rituals of the blue footed boobies.

Despite the mandatory sea sickness, fuelled by the smell of the Vision´s diesel engine, nothing could really detract from the wonders of the Galapagous. It is a place where animals, with no experience of predators, are completely unfazed by tourists and their cameras, allowing everyone to achieve unparalled close encounters with wildlife. On the land there were sea lions, blue footed boobies, frigate birds inflating their red baloon throats, darwin´s finches, feeding iguanas and beautiful red, black and golden beaches. After snorkelling everyday with sea lions, sting rays, eagle rays, sharks, turtles, sea snakes and huge schools of fish and even a manta ray, we realised the only real reason to do a dive on the Islands was to see the hammerhead sharks!

After a mandatory visit to the Charles Darwin Research centre to meet Lonesome George, the only surviving giant tortoise of his particular subspecies, we headed to North Seymour for a fantastic dive which featured a school of hammerhead sharks, white tipped and galapagous sharks, manta rays (x2), heaps of eagle rays and lots of fish.

All in all the Galapagous was the perfect chance to get in touch with our inner (and occasionally outer) nerdy selves. We now know the difference between seals and sea lions (its all in the flexible neck), we know that iguanas have 2 penises (because sometimes the females get angry...) and we have begun appreciating the differnces in the beak sizes of the darwin finches...

A direct continuation of our nerdy trajectory, saw us head to Mittal De Mundo, in Quito, Ecuador, for some ecuator straddling and fun experiments. Although we were shocked to learn that the toilet bowl flush thing is a myth (it all depends on the make of the toilet), we are happy to report that natural phenomenons such as hurricanes and tornados do swirl in different directions depending on the hemisphere. Also we were able to balance an egg on a nail on the ecuator (we have the certificates to prove it!).

Other highlights of our week in Quito included, getting breathless after 1 flight of stairs (thankyou elevation of 2800m asl), the Bram system (an infertile bus tram hybrid), christmas eve shopping crowds in the centro historico, a dude selling theraputic fat maggots on the street, eating at ¨Uncle Ho´s: I love Ho´s¨ (vietnamese restaurant), hummingbirds and a torrential downpour in Mindo cloud forest and the main Basillica in Quito, which had statues of turtles, iguanas and aardvarks instead of gargoyles!

Christmas eve and day, were heralded by a 4am miracle, in the form of a pair of Sydney-sider siblings who were part of our crew on the Galapagous Vision. They came to surprise us for christmas eve, but we only found them at 4am (when they returned from the local pub, very drunk and very loud). We then headed to Otavalo markets for some christmas hat shopping and that evening had a great christmas dinner/ dance at the hostel, which was abruptly put to an end when Eshana´s nut allergy got the better of her... (damn you christmas cake).

Boxing day was spent at 5100m, climing to the glacier of Cotopaxi Volcano (world´s highest active volcano, the summit being just under 6000m), and we got to experience snow fall as well... almost a white christmas!

Top 2 greatest thrills to date: #1 fresh laundry, # 2 seeing a school of hammerhead sharks
Eshana´s near death experiences to date (2 weeks in): #1 Angioodema secondary to walnuts #2 Sliding 20m down the volcano, nearly causing an avalanche
Favourite bus movie to date: A spanish dubbed jet-li film
Favourite wildlife moment: baby sea lion biting tail of lazy iguana

In a bid to catch up to some travel buddies after my brief foray into Cuba land, I had a few decent party nights on the Yucutan, and then flew from Cancun down to Guatemala City, stayed in Antigua for a memorable night out (did not pay for a single drink thanks to some friendly locals), got a bus to El Salvador, stayed on El Tunco beach for a day and listened to an awesome local band (set list included Jason Mraz and Sublime covers), then went to Honduras en route to Nicuragua, the actual destination.

I won´t try and justify this method of travel, except to say that a nameless norwegian was intent on ticking off stepping on every central american country´s soil. So the Honduras part of our trip, included a completely unnecessary 10 hours on a bus watching a bad Brendan Fraser movie twice (Revenge of the Furries, dubbed in Spanish) & a nights stay in the unsavoury capital town of Tegucigalpa. Our choice of lonely planet ¨recommended hotels¨ included either one with a ´prison cell ambience´OR ´rooms have beds´OR ´there is no natural light.´ We went with prison cell ambience, because the gated location included security. But we made it out of there alive, and arrived fresh in Nicuragua.

Fresh off our 3rd placing in the Caye Caulker Trivia Night, Belize, our awesome foursome team (3 norwegians and an australian), entered the Leon trivia night. Much to their disgust, and my eurovision delight, our team was named Alexander and the Rybacks, and I believe it was the winning Ryback name which led us to a surprise victory, having correctly answered questions about Gloria Estefan, Che Guevara and La Paz! Two bottles of rum later (our prize), we got to know the locals (some better than others- Gunnar I am looking at you), and the 4am taco stand man. In Leon, a chance to get our adrenaline rush came in the form of volcano boarding, but I´m not sure whether the hour hike up for the 30 seconds down was completely worth the amount of gravel that was pouring from my facial orifices in the days to come...

Alexander (pictured left) and the Rybacks

Next stop was the picturesque town of Granada famed for its sunsets, silouhettes and perhaps kareoke. We spent a day relaxing by a volcanic crater lake, and the evening listening to live music and then kareoke... under normal circumstances perhaps we were committing social suicide by choosing Islands in the Stream (by Kenny Rogers feat Dolly Parton) to sing, but in Nicuragua it felt oh so right... !

After Ometepe, having had our fill of volcanoes, we headed for the beaches of Costa Rica. Two days on the pacific side saw us stay at a gorgeous resort style place, with american tourists, and tourist prices. The visibility for the diving wasn´t great, but we managed to see huge groups of sting rays which was awesome. Then we headed to the caribbean side, where we stayed at a funky hostel, where we got to add to the mosaics on the wall... under the influence of rum, I attempted to guide the construction of a koala but I think it ended up looking more like a sloth we had seen earlier that day! And with my lasting legacy on a cement pole at Rockin´J´s hostel, I said goodbye to Central America... (btw Panama is the only soil I didn´t step foot on!).

Ever since med revue Fidel Castro Boy, Castro's Cuba has been on my must see list... armed with my tourist cuban pesos (worth 25 times that of real local currency), I set of in search for salsa, cigars and a revolution...

Our first stop was the tobacco growing region of Vinales where Asha managed to get me on a horse (much to my disgust) for a tour of the area, a taste of the local coconut rum drink and obligatory smoking of a finely rolled cuban cigar. It wouldn´t have been so bad except for the fact that my horse had a large weak bladder and a thirst to be the leader of the pack, which did not go down well with the other black horse named Negro, who was ¨poco loco¨and constantly challenging my horse for first place. I vow once again never to ride a horse (before this, the last time was on year 7 camp).

Afterwards we rented out bikes for our own adventures, and found ourselves drinking rum with a bunch of locals who were riding in the back of a horse and cart. Despite the obvious language barrier we were invited back to their house, for a once in a year event! It was pig ration day (families get given a whole pig once or twice a year by the government), and we were invited for the prepration, slaughtering and the feast... mostly this involved standing around drinking rum whilst more and more family members arrived at the household for the feast...

It was also in Vinales that I was adopted by a local who offered to teach me Cuban Salsa. Dirty dancing doesn´t quite describe what I was being taught... but when I questioned the guy on his dance style, he said that he would even dance that way with his sister... I didn´t believe him at the time, but after seeing the dancing in Havana a few nights later, I realised he was probably telling the truth...

Havana, with it´s ancient american cars and beautiful architecture, lived up to all my expectations... our casa (hotel) owner was an ICU doctor, who was earning more as a hotelier than as a doctor (owing to tourist tips), propaganda adorned buildings, Fidel, Che & Hemingway images everywhere, salsa and music at every corner, pineapple taxis and dirty old men and women with hip young Cubans... proof that sex is the only thing that Fidel has not been able to ration! We also learned of the doctors for oil program- an exchange program for doctors in Cuba, where they are being sent to Venuezvela in exchange for barrels of oil...

Number of animals I have seen slaughtered this holiday: 3
Scams to date: 1
(2 cuban prostitutes took Asha and I out for a drink, made us pay in Tourist pesos (approx 24 USD for 4 drinks), even though we were pretty sure it was supposed to be 24 CUBAN PESOS!)
Best non scam: whole lobster for 10 tourist pesos
Oldest car: 1949 (painted bright green)
Favourite cuban rumour: Although no longer in power, Castro still hand picks Miss Cuba for the Miss Universe competition every year
Least favourite rumour: That the food in Cuba is so bad that tourists should take canned food from Mexcio with them (thanks to the idiot who wrote this on the lonely planet thorntree, I had such low expectations of the food situation, I ended up loving it... lobster three nights in a row...).

Ok firstly this whole blog entry would be a billion times cooler if you could imagine it read in a caribbean accent (think hermes from Futurama or any of the dudes from cool runnings). Practising the fake accent was pretty much the way I conducted myself for the entire sailing trip... such an appropriate thing for a foreigner to do!

First stop after the jungle ruins was Tikal, some more impressive jungle ruins in Guatemala, near the small lake town of Flores. The highlight of the bus trip from Mexico to Guatemala (besides extremely lax border security) was of course reducing my degrees of separation from last years eurovision winner, Alexander Ryback, to 3, thanks to some norwegian doctors.

The Tikal ruins were probably the best I´ve seen to date, with extensive jungle surrounds featuring rabies infested mammals (such as the coate and agouti) and toucans and perverts (spanish for woodpecker haha), swooping at tourists taking their pictures. Also managed to get a golden photo opportunity with a large spiky tarantuala... not sure what possessed me to do it... but being australian you can´t really get away with being afraid of spiders...

Next stop was Cayo Belize, a cave/ archaeological ruin town filled with fat american tourists on short breaks. That being said, I managed to get a decent few hours of spleunking (caving i think) done... where we had to swim through a fish/ lobster filled freshwater caving system and then came up in a huge cave filled with artifacts, including deformed skeletons...

From there I went directly to Caye Caulker off the east coast, for some sand, sailing and trivia night. At the local trivia we upset local expat teams, by coming in third, and I disgustingly did not answer the indian OR australian question correctly as per usual (where does cobra beer come from... we said Thailand, because in all my travels in India I have NEVER come across this). Next stop was diving the blue hole, down to a steep 42 meters, with a cool underground caving system. Despite not seeing any sharks, highlights did include abandoning my scuba buddy within the first 15 minutes, whilst he swam around above completely narced.

Next stop was the Ragamuffin tour sailing on the ´Ragga King´ from Caye Caulker to Palencia in Southern Belize. We had 3 days of perfect weather, sun, sun, snorkelling on the barrier reef, attempts at spear fishing, and normal fishing (which only yeilded one barracuda!)... Our rasta crew of Kevin, Midnight Shaggy and Leon, provided much entertainment, their smooth caribbean accents providing a perfect backdrop for the suntanning, constant reggae music and unlimited rum haze that was on the boat. We camped overnight on a tiny island (which only took a minute to walk around) called Rendevous Caye and then another larger island Tobacco Caye, where the local chief George exchanged riddles for rum and coke (3 parts rum, 1 part coke), for example .... long and lanky, deaf and dumb, has no feet but still can run... (answer to follow). Whilse I constantly mocked the carribean accent, I was constantly mocked for being indian (there just aren´t enough indian backpackers around to make fun of)... and so it set the tone for a hilarious 3 days... I think the fact that on the second morning one of the Norwegians woke up to find his all white shirt had become a shade of rum red pretty much sums up the entire trip...

The good: sleeping in hammocks, cheap beers, chicken buses, the cool belizian accent and relaxed attitudes (eg. being constantly told to slow down on the street), being mistaken for a local in EVERY country I have travelled to (until I open my mouth), reggae, eagle rays, making fun of dutch people and their love for swaffling, happy hours

The not so good: sandflies (still itchy and scarred after 10 days), not being able to speak spanish still, dirty reggaeton, relocating seahorses, seeing khaki and batik combo ´beach wear´

So there I was, alone, 14kg backpack in tow, in Mexico City. According to the lonely planet, in 2006 Mexico City had 44 kidnappings and over 70 robberies per day. Excellent.

So of course within my first 5 days in Mexico City I attempted to do all the things that the Lonely Planet told me not to do; walk around late at night, get lost in the streets, excess mezcal/ tequila, leave my wallet in a taxi (which the taxi driver returned contents in situ- an event that would probably not even occur in Melbourne). Still alive. Check. Also managed to get tonsillitis and gastro within my first week as well. Still alive. Check.

The language barrier also proved to be quite a challenge given that my spanish is limited to no entiendo (I don't understand) and disculpe (excuse me), although these two words seem to be enough to get around successfully. Also if you listen hard enough you know more spanish than you think. My first conversation with a taxi driver went something like this:
M: Hola
T: Hola. Blah Blah Blah (spanish).
M: No entiendo
T: Oh (sad face)... muchos traffic...
M: Yes muchos traffic.
T: Muchos bikes.
M: Yes. Muchos bikes.
T: Muchos women. haha.

Then I looked at what he was pointing at. It was the red light district in Mexico City, a street lined with bikes shops and women (ratio 1 bike shop per woman), where you could choose what you wanted to ride, for a price. I have since had this sighting confirmed by other travellers, so I'm pretty sure there was no communication misunderstanding.

In terms of travelling alone... well I haven't actually had any days alone, since discovering that any hostel with the word "amigos" in the title is a great place to meet fellow backpackers. The celebrations got started early with a Halloween party in Mexico City, featuring a lucha libre masked barman pouring free tequila directly into the mouths of eager travellers, and a dangerously timed pinata competition (post multiple tequila shots). We were also taken to the lucha libre wrestling to watch midgets being used as weapons, and distastefully dressed women competing in this "sport." It was in Mexico City that I also discovered that Mexican mezcal burns deep, and the only thing to get rid of THAT awful taste is a tequila chaser.

On a cultural front, the Dia de los Muertos festival (the Day of Dead), was an incredible time to be in Mexico. We saw the pre-celebrations in the heavily decorated Zocalo town centre of Mexico City, and then followed this up with cemetery celebrations in traditional Oaxaca City, where graveyards had been decorated with flowers, skeleton figurines, pumpkins, candles overlaying the original backdrop of catholic images (mary, jesus and angels). It was truly surreal, although the bus loads of American tourists with their tripods and giant flashes seemed very out of place during this oddly joyous occasion. After midnight the scene changed, with heaps of locals dressed in haloween/ day of the dead costumes came around with bottles of mezcal for their cemetery after parties.

Other highlights have including climbing the world's 3rd highest pyramid near Mexico City (also impressive when considering the elevation above sea level), seeing the jungle ruins of Palenque, watching 2 chickens being sacrificed at the San Juan church to heal the sick, followed by ritualistic drinking of Coke OR Pepsi (depending on whether you are a Britney or X-tina fan) to burp out evil spirits and watching Pat the Australian sacrifice his marketing textbook in order to get the bonfire going in freezing San Christobel.

TRAVEL COUNTER
People I met with names more ridiculous than mine: 4 (Mr Christmas, Beast from the East, Travel Bear, Ole)
Insane Germans: 2
Celebrity sightings: Rosario Dawson spotted riding bike on Venice Beach, LA Bronx (band) on Qantas ECONOMY class flight from Melb to LA
Number of DFAT warnings in my inbox regarding places I am visiting on this trip: 4 (including USA)