JOURNALIA, JOURNO TRAVELOGICA

London Calling

2010-05-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

It’s hard writing this now, after being back for over 3 months. Mainly because I know how it all turns out, but partly because reflecting on it is surprisingly emotional. This story is now in my long-term memory. But it’s my duty to finish it, I owe it to myself.

I admit, my last entry was very boring. Probably the most boring blog post I’ve written. But when I got back, some people wanted to know why I came back and more to the point – why I came back so suddenly. As it's been a while - here's a re-cap: the truth is, it was time to come home. Time to get real and realise what I needed to do - take responsibility for my life, admit defeat and go back home. I wasn’t forced, it was a choice – my choice, a choice made because I didn’t want to swan off round the world on someone else’s cash. So I faced facts and made a decision. To put it mildly - decision making is something historically I’ve never been known for, but over the 10 months in South America I got used to trusting my gut instincts and making snap decisions.

Even the journey home can be an adventure in its self.

- I’m not just saying it, it’s true...

After booking my flight, I went straight to the souvenir market in Lima and went on a whirlwind tour picking up all the stuff I’d seen earlier that I’d half-planned to buy for the family.

Before I went to the airport, Fiorella and Mao (Mancora) took me for a farewell dinner. Neither of them liked to think of me leaving South America on an empty stomach and with bad feelings about Peru. I didn’t have bad feelings about Peru – but as you know enough was enough - so far 2010 had not been a good year.

I’d said goodbye to Victoria earlier that day, given her a big hug and waved as she took off in a taxi. Only a few hours later it was Fiorella’s turn to hug me goodbye and my turn to leave. The adventure was ending - badly. It ended in Lima – my least favourite place in South America. The only person that had the power to help me was my cousin, Bella. She offered me the opportunity to carry on and take the adventure to Mexico. Then, just like that, she took it away. Mainly because she suddenly had a boyfriend and in her usual selfish style couldn’t give a fuck about anyone else. But it turns out she's just one of many disappointing, fair-weather 'friends.'

Power Playlist

I got to the airport, checked in and did the usual airport stuff. Had a wander around duty free, bought myself some new headphones as I’d been using a pair bought in Buenos Aires airport on my way to Bolivia that ever since the day I got them, only 1 headphone worked.

I sat in the lounge and waited. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Pages and pages. I wanted to capture every moment, every feeling, whilst I was still there. I needed to record every memory before it became faded with time and travel. People were looking at me, wandering what the hell I was doing – what on earth was I frantically writing about, but I didn’t care. Then I sat back, composed myself and a playlist – a commemorative homecoming playlist.

I admit, I felt excited to be going home. I was up for it. I was ready. London didn’t seem like such a scary awful prospect compared to the soulless hustle and bustle of Lima that I’d been subjected to over the last two weeks. A place that I’d never liked but knew others that did. Things got messy in Mancora, but in Lima I was just numb and disappointed at my own failure to make Mancora fest happen and at having yet another disastrous relationship under my belt. I knew neither of those things were my fault - not this time – but I felt stupid for trying, I should’ve known better. Known better than to mix business with pleasure – South America should be pure pleasure, otherwise it just gets hard. I should’ve known better than to fall for a 19 year old Peruvian. But – we live and learn. What else can you do?

I wanted to listen to something that epitomised London at its best, it’s finest. I wanted to listen to The Clash, but it wasn’t ‘should I stay or should I go’ this time, this time it was ‘London Calling’. I felt a tingling throughout my entire body as I heard the instantaneously familiar high-pitched riff against the rumbling base guitar, and as the tinny drum intro kicked in it sent shivers down my spine. It was the first time in months I’d had a private musical moment all to myself and it was glorious. I suddenly felt a rare sense of patriotic pride: I’m from London. The ice age is coming. My heart pumped with excitement as Joe Strummer's anxt-filled vocals rang true in my ears. I was ready for the cold. I was ready to become the fatter, paler incarnation of myself once again.

Whether I like it or not, it’s in my blood. I was born there – in the West London hospital. I grew up there. I went to school there. I’ve worked there for years. I’ve lived there most of my life. And in my last year I was existing in the centre of it – W1 – old London.

I was two flights away but my heart felt like it was already back there. It was a good feeling and I wasn’t sad to be leaving Peru any more, the anxiety was over (“I just want it to stop”) and it was time – time to go home.

What a relief.

Proudest moments

Whilest waiting in the airport lounge, I had time to reflect and realise I had a lot of moments in the 10 months away that I can look back at with a sense of pride. When you’re away from home for any significant period of time, you can’t help but feel like you’ve progressed and achieved something.

Climbing Sugarloaf was and still is one of the best things I’ve ever done. Leaving Paraty and heading for Rio to try my luck and succeeding – at least for a while; getting to Bolivia on my own; not getting robbed, raped, lost or murdered - generally not dying. Picking the right people to talk to every time – when I say ‘right’ I mean the good people, honest people, interesting people – not the ‘cool’ people. But the really fucking cool people that I now know and love and will hopefully never forget or lose touch with.

Even singing karaoke for the first (and last) time in Cordoba, in front of a room full of people I’d just met, I can strangely look back at with pride –my ‘self’ in London would never have let me do that.

I’m also pretty proud of having the strength to walk away from the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever come in contact with, twice. But I was due for one more proud moment before touching down in Heathrow...

Sitting on the plane, waiting for take-off, I nodded off. A few hours later, I woke up on the runway. The runway at Lima airport. Nice. An announcement told us that they couldn’t take off that night because of poor weather conditions on the west coast of America. So we all got off the plane and were taken to the Sheraton hotel in Lima for a couple of hour’s sleep, before being shuttled back to the airport to do it all over again in the morning. Seemed pretty pointless to me, but the Winter Olympics were just about to start in Canada and I was flying with one of their official sponsors – Air Canada – so I cynically assumed they were avoiding any inopportune bad PR.

The Sheraton was nice enough, as corporate hotels go. Big, bland and over-priced. Luckily it was free. The breakfast was pretty good – I do like a buffet. We were rounded up and sent off in a bus back to the airport. I was sitting in-front of a particularly ignorant middle-aged Canadian man and a woman that I assumed was his wife. The lucky lady (and my good self) got a running commentary on everything that was going on out of the bus window: “look at that girl there, running, I wander what she’s doing. Look at these people, what are they doing. Oh it’s so busy; I wonder where all these people are going. ”- Erm – work maybe? It was like he’d never been in a city before. Lima is pretty generic as cityscapes go and it was 9 o’clock in the morning.

Take 2

We got to the airport and there was considerable Canadian confusion as people tried to go through check-in with yesterdays boarding pass. Eventually we were back on the plane and ready to do it all over again. This time we took off. A good start.

The journey itself was fine, I was exhausted but I only slept some of the way. When we arrived at Toronto we had to wait in line. Because of the previous delay, our next flight had to be changed. Which meant yet another hotel stay. As the Canadians were home, the remaining passengers in-transit were downgraded to a Holiday Inn, me included. I got to the front of the line and waited patiently. I was watching the people in front of me at the desk and it became apparent that this large collection of Peruvians couldn’t speak English and the Air Canada bloke couldn’t speak Spanish.

Aaahh - I think I can help out here.

I went over and asked the guy what the situation was. Then I explained what he’d told me to the Peruvians in Spanish. We needed to collect our hotel vouchers, plus some dinner vouchers, go and eat dinner in the airport on the 3rd floor, then get the shuttle bus to the Holiday Inn Express. This seemed fairly complicated, especially for 2 families, 2 young guys and another young guy on his own, when it’s their first time in an English speaking country without any grasp of the English language.

I knew the feeling well. When I was on the way from London to Brazil I was in a similar situation: I’d been told at Heathrow that I needed to change terminal when I got to Sao Paolo in order to make my connecting flight to Rio, which meant I had to collect my bags and check back in. It seemed odd, but at Heathrow - excited to be off on the trip of a lifetime, with no idea how it was going to turn out, where I’d end up and how long for – I didn’t question it. When I arrived at Sao Paolo airport and failed to find the baggage reclaim, I attempted to communicate with the airport staff.

As we know, I arrived in Brazil with ‘obrigada’ and left with ‘obrigada’. It was stressful. No one could understand me or help me. So eventually, I cried. Then a Brazilian woman, who was on her way home from learning English in London, came over and helped me.

I’d shown my e-ticket to the airport man and she explained that there were 2 airports in Sao Paolo and I needed to change airport. Long tings. This would have been a bus ride away and by that point, I may not have made the flight. So she negotiated me onto her flight to Rio from the airport we were standing in and arranged for my luggage to be transferred with me. I was so grateful that someone had helped me out. It served me right for a) buying the cheapest flight to Brazil and b) not reading the ticket properly at any point.

The Peruvians however were all heading to Tokyo and through no fault of their own, were stranded in Toronto with 5 children and A LOT of luggage. I felt compelled to help them. From the moment I got there, South America had shown me immense love and kindness; I’d experienced the kind of hospitality and selfless gestures you rarely get on home-turf.

So I took the now group of 10 up to the 3rd floor and helped them redeem their meal tickets. It turned out the Asian man with an English accent that worked behind the counter at one of the food restaurants in Toronto could speak Spanish, randomly – maybe he should have been behind the air Canada desk instead of Roy who’d thanked me profusely for helping out Air Canada. Erm, not quite mate – but yeah whatever.

We ate our cheap burgers and headed for the shuttle bus terminal to wait for our bus. The Holiday Inn bus arrived after a fairly long wait outside in Canada, in February, at -8 degrees – IN FLIPFLOPS. But it turns out it was not meant to be. We needed the Holiday Inn Express bus and we couldn’t possibly take the Holiday Inn bus. I tried to bargain with the bus driver, but she wasn’t buying it. It was my first taste of nonsense western capitalist system bullshit in a while; it’s definitely more frustrating than bizarre Bolivian bus nonsense that exists because of a LACK of system.

After a few false starts, me and the boys insisted that the women and children wait inside in the relatively warm, while we looked out for the Holiday Inn Express bus. We waited and waited and waited. Every time a bus came into view we thought ‘this is it’, and then it wasn’t. I ran back inside few times to speak to the help desk woman Carol, who was actually really helpful. Carol and I called the Holiday Inn Express a few times and every time they insisted that the shuttle bus would be around any time soon.

Two and a half hours later the Holiday Inn Express bus arrived at Toronto airport. Needless to say, my toes were freezing, but I hadn’t died of hypothermia. I win. We boarded the bus, shivering. I couldn’t wait to get to the Holiday Inn (Express) and get into a nice warm, comfy bed. En-route two of the boys gave me a scarf from Peru. It’s black and made from Alpaca wool. They’d bought a load to take to Japan and sell when they got there. One of the others gave me a carved wooden key ring. It was a sweet moment, I was touched.

We got to the hotel and I checked myself in. The manager was expecting us because I’d spoken to him on the phone whilst waiting for the bus at the airport. I explained the situation to him. He couldn’t speak Spanish either, so he asked me if I could help him check everyone in. I was knackered. My eyes had almost stopped working so I was wearing my glasses for the first time in nearly a year to give them some sort of chance of focussing, I was greasy, disgusting and in serious need of a hot shower.

We checked them in, got their wake-up calls sorted and determined who had their boarding passes for their flight to Tokyo the next morning and who did not. Once that was sorted it was time for bed, but first – the goodbyes. One of the mums asked me why I wasn’t coming to the airport with them in the morning – I explained that I was on an earlier flight to London and they’d be alright. Bless her. After a barrage of byes, thank yous, and good lucks, I finally got to my room, cleaned myself, got into bed and turned on the TV and watched the only thing on at 2am - ice hockey.

I fell asleep with a good feeling and one thought: I can speak Spanish. Sort of.

***

I’m going to let you into a secret. Well, it’s not much of a secret – it’s pretty obvious if you think about it. Since meeting Gwilly in Paraty I was on a mission. Pretty much all along I was looking for a Latino. I wanted to settle down with a nice South American man so I could live there forever and never have to leave. I wanted to fall in love and never have to come back to my life in London. Never have to go back to the rat race. Just be free forever. But it didn’t turn out like that.

Instead I learned a lot. Made a lot of good friends. Had some unforgettable experiences and had an amazing adventure.

So I’ll leave you with the words that I thought of as I flew away from the most incredible time of my life.

In the words of Jagger & Richards: You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need.

©

Fight or flight

2010-03-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

When I left Mancora I didn’t have any more fight in me to deal with Mario and the exciting new ways he’d come up with to cause me anxiety every day. I was thinking of going back because he was coming to Lima, potentially for two months. That would buy me two months in Mancora to earn some money, relatively stress free. After the lift to Mancora not happening I decided it was a sign from the universe telling me I shouldn’t go back there. Luckily I’d had the foresight to take all my belongings with me so I didn’t HAVE to go back for anything.

I did have some money of Lorena’s that I needed to give back to her, but I could wire it to her somehow at a later date.

Lima – the city that style forgot
Peru had started to really do my head in - the retardedness of everything in Lima was getting to me - for example people’s inability to walk properly. I don’t mean disabled people. I mean people stopping suddenly in the middle of the pavement, walking all over the place, bumping in to you on purpose. Then there’s the traffic that doesn’t stop for anyone, you have to watch out or it will run you down – it’s not as bad as La Paz where they’ll actually speed up if they see a gringo crossing the road – but La Paz has redeeming features, Lima doesn’t. It’s just a polluted lump of buildings, cars and people by the sea. Void of character, soul and charm.

It was boring; the almost two weeks I spent there were mostly rubbish. But I needed to get my head straight and it worked. It reminded me of everything that I hate about cities. I hated it more than I hated London. Lima also reminded me of the good things about cities… shopping. Yes I know, it’s consumerism, I know it’s the big capitalist machine sucking me in making me buy things I probably don’t really need. But when Victoria and I had gone shopping when she first arrived and I got to the Clinique counter at Falabella, a department store in Miraflores – I spent some of my birthday money on products. Well needed skincare products. For some reason - possibly the combination of cheap make-up, dirty water, dust, poor diet, dehydration and stress - Peru was incredibly bad for my skin. This was the first time I’d seen a Clinique counter since July (when I was browsing around Buenos Aires airport for half a day) and it felt good.

Locked in a cupboard inside my own head
That Thursday night after the lift to Mancora fell through; I was offered a job at Kokopelli. But Victoria reminded me that I hate Lima, so why on earth would I want to work in a hostel there? She had a point. And she was leaving Lima the next day, what would I do without her? I didn’t know what to do, so I drank. Normally a happy drunk, I thought this would be a great idea.

I asked Victoria if I could see the photos from my birthday. As I skipped through the pictures on her camera I was horrified. Everyone looked happy, we were all having fun. But I looked emaciated. My shoulders were smaller than my arms and you could see the bones in my chest through my skin. I’d never seen myself like that before and it was a real wake-up call to how ridiculous things had become. During the aforementioned shopping trip I’d bought some shorts because all my clothes were too big for me. They were the smallest ones I could find – 26 inch waist – and they were baggy. I knew I’d lost a lot of weight, but that was disgusting.

Fiorella showed up at one point, as did Micaela but I consumed half a bottle of rum on my own, talked to Fiorella about Mancora, cried then passed out in a hostel bed. Nice.

Four and a half hours later I was awoken by a man. And not in a good way. This douche who obviously worked in the hostel had woken me up because he thought I might be Lydia who needed her 7:30am wake up call. I wasn’t Lydia and I didn’t need a 7:30am wake up call. Then he proceeded to wake up each girl in the room to check if they were Lydia. Now – beds in hostels have numbers and when you check in, you are assigned a specific bed. Surely he could have just checked which bed number Lydia was in, gone to her bed and JUST woken her up? Clearly not.

I was awake but tired. I couldn’t go back to sleep because the guy in the top bunk next to mine was snoring. Lucky him. Not only was he snoring but he was snoring weirdly. It was gross and kind of disturbing. Then he stopped. Then he started again. So I sat up, leaned over and whacked him round the head with my pillow and told him to shut up. See – I told you I was losing the plot. Luckily, he just looked confused and went straight back to sleep.

I got up, got my lap top and went to the empty roof bar and went online. Steph had written on my wall: where in the world is Charlotte Braoadribb. She’d spelt my last name wrong. My first response was: nowhere. My second response was: Locked in a cupboard inside my own head. Which pretty much summed it up. A location one cannot pinpoint on Google maps.

I spoke to some friends online and yet again I was offered money by a dear friend of mine in the UK. They didn’t like the idea of me being in a random country on my own with no money. I spoke to Kelly (The Team) on Skype and Victoria appeared online too. I told her to come up and speak to Kelly with me. It was nice to see her and talk but the connection was shit.

After that Victoria and I headed out for some breakfast. As I was walking down the road I walked off. When the hostel douchebag had woken me up earlier, I was having a dream about my mum. All morning I had an incredible urge to call her. So I went to a locutorio and tried to dial the number. It didn’t work. I freaked out a bit then went to find Victoria.

I went over to her table where she was sitting with 3:59 and went off on one: I can’t even speak to my own mother and no one will help me. I don’t know how to make a call I asked the guy in the locutorio and he was fucking useless. I know its ‘developing’ country, but for fucks sake.

An American lady on the next table overheard and said if I need to speak to my mother the guy she was with would let me borrow his phone to make the call. I said thanks but it was ok. Then she insisted. I went up to this guys office that was next door to the café. Discovered you have to put 00 before the 44 when dialling England (not just the one 0) and dialled.

She didn’t answer. I tried again. She answered. “Hello mum, it’s me.”
We talked for 45 minutes. After contacting The Mothership I was visibly calmer and happier.

Souvenirs
Victoria had some shopping to do. She was a month away from going home and she had to add to her suitcase full of souvenirs that she’d bought for most of the people she knew back home, so we went to a market. We’d tried to go for a tarot reading first to work out what I needed to do, but the place was closed – a sign from the universe? Or did I know what I needed to do already?

As we were walking around the huge market that sells all things genuinely Peruvian, plus a few ‘’Made in China’ imports, I was looking around at all the nice things – I’d get that for dad, that for mum… I didn’t buy anything, but I knew I was going home.

My adventure all along had been fun and exciting, I had some interesting cultural experiences and some challenges, but I learnt my most valuable lessons in the last two months. The universe made me stay in Peru and teach me about life and money. It was when I first got to Brazil that I realised how much capitalism and consumerism in the western world – particularly in the UK & US – is out of control and out of proportion.

Peru had taught me that there are people in the world, working every day of the week, every day of the year, even on Christmas day trying to earn as much money as possible to make a better life for themselves, their families and their future.

Talking to Fiorella and Luciano made me realise that no matter how I feel about ‘the system’ it’s there, this is how the world works, and at the moment there’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well use it to my advantage.

Flight
Even though everyone at home was telling me to keep travelling, don’t come back to cold, miserable England I realised I needed to take responsibility for myself and my financial situation. Despite the economic crisis, London should still be the best place for me to earn money – good money – and sort myself out. Suddenly the idea of going home, eating good food three times a day and earning some good old fashioned Pounds Sterling didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

When we got back to Miraflores after our shopping trip, I went online again – I’d received an email from my Dad that clearly stated he’d lend me money for my flight home, but he wouldn’t lend me money to fly anywhere else – such as Rio – which I had mentioned to my mother earlier on the phone.

I looked on Expedia.com and found a cheap flight from Lima to London that flew out that night. It was only 900 and something dollars which is about £632. Nice. I decided I should take it. Once I’ve made a decision, its best that I act on it immediately, otherwise there’s room for faffing around- and there’s no time like the present. So I called my Dad and asked him to book it for me – he did.

©

In Limbo in Lima (Part 2)

2010-03-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

After the birthday fun, the next day I came back down to earth. And everything was shit again. AND I was tired and hung-over.

Mario called me on Eric’s phone when I was eating lunch. He said he’s been trying to call me on my birthday but couldn’t get through. We had a chat but I couldn’t really hear him properly because there was a lot of noise in the street, he was speaking Spanish and I was feeling grumpy. He said he’d be online later to chat.

Later that day we spoke online. He was asking me loads of stupid questions. I wasn’t in the mood. I’d explained my situation and how I was feeling to him as clearly as possible and he wasn’t getting it. He was also accusing me of fucking all the boys in Lima. I was so far from wanting to go anywhere near a man at the time it was ridiculous: I felt disgusting, I was still hurting from leaving Mario and the only man I was thinking about was him.

So I got pissed off with him and told him I never wanted to see him again. He didn’t respond well to this, not well at all. He went offline. I called him, he hung up. I called him again, he hung up. I called him one more time, he hung up. Three times is enough thought so I called Luciano up, crying, and he told me to meet him at his house.
We met up, we went for a drive, we sat on a rock and had a chat. He asked me who I am. “Who is Charlotte?” I know who I am, but when I put it in to words, it sounded lame: I’m a person that always tries to learn from everything I do and every situation I come across because I constantly strive to improve myself and be a better person.....?

When you’re travelling alone, other travellers not travelling alone sometimes assume that you’re running away from something or you’re trying to find yourself. The truth is, once I’d made the decision to go travelling it was because I was ready. I’d been thinking about it for years, putting it off, waiting for Fiona or someone else to be ready to go with me. When I was ready to go, I was ready to go it alone because I knew Tamsin was in Brazil, Bella was in Mexico and I had drawn up a list of other friends that I knew in different countries around the world. But more so because I felt I had found myself already and I didn’t want to go travelling because I was running away from something, I wanted to leave England because I was emotionally and mentally equipped to do it, I was happy and ready to see the world.

I told Luciano about my career in London – the career I’d left behind, the career in Advertising and Marketing I worked so hard for, achieved, and then walked away from. But my sad little love of marketing hadn’t died. Luciano knew this better than most people I’d met since I left England – because he was my client.

That night I called Mario. I felt bad about saying I never wanted to see him again. I knew how sensitive he was and I knew that I’d hurt him. When I called he handed the phone straight to Lorena. We talked and she told me to come back to Mancora. Then I spoke to Mario and he told me to come back to Minorca. So I decided to come back to Mancora. Eric was going back the next day (Thursday) and I could get a lift with him.
Thursday arrived and the lift fell through. The car was broken. Mañana.

What was the universe trying to tell me?

A few days before, on my birthday, in an attempt to sort my life out, I decided to take my cousin up on her offer of helping me out of Peru and continuing my Latin adventure elsewhere. I’d contacted Bella and told her I’d made a decision – I would like to come to Mexico and if she could lend me the money for my flight and I’d pay her back when I could. She responded by saying she was just waiting for some money to come through and she’d buy my ticket as soon as it did. Now – I know what Mexico’s like, mainly because she’s told me – and she can wait months to get paid for something. I didn’t have months. My decision had been taken away from me.

That week I’d spoken to some people back home and once they knew my situation (skint and skinny) they started to offer me their money. Although an incredibly kind and generous offer, and a solution to my problem and a way out – it didn’t feel right. My adventure had made me realise what is most important to me: freedom and independence. I always knew these things were important to me, but I didn’t realise they were my top priorities in life. Continuing my adventure – poncing around South America now on someone else’s money - was not conducive to freedom or independence. I had to get real and weigh up my options.

©

Groundhog Day

2010-03-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

Picture the scene: It’s a little after midnight, I've just turned 28, I'm sitting in an almost derelict, empty house in Lima, on my own, on my make-shift bed of some old sofa cushions; with a yellow plastic coat hanger and my laptop for company - watching an animated birthday eCard my brother made me over and over again just because it makes me laugh; laugh at my own pitiful circumstances. As they say if you don’t laugh – you cry, and I’d had enough of doing that.

Fortunately a few days before I’d got talking to the doorman of the hotel opposite and blagged their wi-fi password off him so I could get free internet access for a few days. If it wasn’t for this, I would have been completely alone, offline.

Mario was due to arrive on 2nd February – my birthday. I didn’t want to see him. I’d started the healing process and I didn’t want to go in to reverse. I didn’t have the energy to go through it all over again. The distance from him had done me SOME good, I was mentally stronger in some ways – I knew what I needed.

The day before my birthday, I had started to freak out. The time had come: it was getting to me: I was losing the plot. I decided I didn’t want my birthday. I wasn’t ready for it. No – I wasn’t being all weird about turning 28, I couldn’t give a shit about that. I just didn’t want to have my birthday in a city I hated. I wanted to wait until I was somewhere I liked. However Victoria, Fiorella and Sofia between them decided that I WOULD have a good birthday and they would make sure of it.

At 8 o’clock that night, I felt like did want to see Mario after all and tried to get in touch with him via our friends. So Fiorella called him. Mario hadn’t left Mancora yet and wouldn’t be due to arrive in Lima for a few more days; he wasn’t sure when he was going to get there because he was going with his boss. He was caught up in a typical South American ‘manana’ situation. I have been on the receiving end of many of those. I understood. I was relived as well. The decision was made for me.

He’d actually been trying to call me all weekend on Luciano’s number, but I hadn’t been with him and when I got the messages from Luciano, I was reluctant to call him back. I didn’t know how I felt; I didn’t know why he was calling me. But as it turns out he was calling me to tell me he wouldn’t be in Lima for my birthday.

The girls, Eric and I starting drinking at Kokopelli hostel on the roof bar. Later on, Sofia had got us all on the free guest list of a swanky club in Miraflores. It played a suitable amount of reggaeton and other popular choons. We were all having fun.
I cut my foot and went to the bathroom to wash it, then we bumped in to some girls (skanks) we know from Mancora that live in Lima. Had a dance with them and then went back to find the others. But the other had left! So Fio and I went to find a phone. Spoke to Victoria and she thought we’d gone so they left. It didn’t matter though, the night didn’t end there.

Fio and I headed to another nearby club where we met up with some of her friends. We raved out a bit, then went back to their rather nice apartment in Lima where the well-needed debauchery continued until the early hours. Birthday done = ‘tick’.

These days the phrase "Groundhog Day" has come to represent going through a phenomenon over and over until one spiritually transcends it. The 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day takes place on this day. The protagonist continues to wake up on February 2nd and is forced to re-live the same day until he can learn to give up his selfishness and become a better person. After indulging in hedonism and numerous suicide attempts to escape from this, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities. Once he has truly changed, the woman he wants wants him too and he wakes up on 3rd February. Life continues, but he has left his old self behind and he has become a good man, a happier man.

However, originally Groundhog Day is a weird holiday celebrated on February 2 in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If on the other hand, if it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks.

Even though I was in the southern hemisphere, close to the equator, in the summer – my birthday was not a sunny day. It was overcast. Unusual for Lima at that time of year. Was this a sign that the bleakness was about to end?

©

In Limbo in Lima (part 1)

2010-03-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

When I arrived, I had to wait for Luciano for a couple of hours. I’d slept all the way so this gave me the opportunity to reflect for the first time out side of Mancora, whilst awake. I felt positive. I felt like the adventure had recommenced. I felt good because I’d got all the way to Lima on my own, without crying.

The last two months had been mentally and emotionally draining. I felt like I’d made a bad decision: stay in Mancora instead of going back to Argentina. I know, I know – chicks before dicks, bro’s before ho’s. But in all seriousness when you’ve got a gorgeous new boyfriend who wants you to stick around – what else are you going to do but try to make it work?

I always told Mario that I wasn’t staying in Mancora for him; it was because I loved Mancora, I was done with travelling around for a while and I was running out of money. And I believed it the first time I said it, but I knew I was playing it cool. I didn’t think Mario believed me – I’d assumed he’d think I was only staying for him, I assumed he was arrogant. I was wrong, he believed me. Maybe I made him feel insecure?

The odds were against us from the beginning: the age gap, the language gap. At first none of this seemed to matter – you can bridge a gap: we were falling in love and I loved my life in Mancora. But can you use the same bridge for two gaps? No. It would seem not.

Eventually my instinct kicked in. I had that fight or flight moment - my mind and body came together to fight against my weakened heart and told me to get away from the situation. It wasn’t just Mario though; it was Mancora. The cracks began to show, the romance had gone, I’d started to see it for what it really was...

The place has a strange energy to it. You don’t notice it at first because you just think: I like this place. And it makes sense: sunshine, sea, surfers. It’s not the most beautiful place in the world, but it has a quirky rustic charm that draws you in and you THINK you never want to leave. But once you’re involved – either because you’ve been there long enough so everyone knows who you are, you’ve got a bloke there and everyone knows him so they know who you are, you live there, you have a job there, or like some people (ahem) all of the above – you still love it, but you notice that there’s something wrong...

It’s full of dodgy but interesting characters. The girls that stay there – according to the boys who are from there – are all crazy “why do all the crazy gringas stay in Mancora?” - I can see why they think that. But all the guys that live there are nuts themselves. Maybe all the crazy girls like Mancora because it makes them feel normal by comparison? Or maybe it’s because the men there drive them crazy.

Peruvian men or at least Mancorian men, have a quirky charm about them too. They’re different, they’re exotic and they’re a little bit loopy. Unlike the mulleted metrosexuals of Argentina, generally they’re not a mix of European blood – they’re a mix of Spanish and Inca blood. They’ll get in to a fight to protect your honour… or just to have a fight. When they drink they can’t handle it – it’s an indigenous thing. They’re very sensitive as well as being macho alpha males. They’re the embodiment of contradiction. At first it’s exciting, then after a while – it’s tiring. Why? Because there’s one rule for them and another for you. Once you realise this - whether you try to contest it or not - the trouble starts.

It turns out the jealousy and possessiveness isn’t exclusive to Mario. Once you start talking to other long-term local gringas with Mancorian boyfriends, you notice a pattern forming and you end up swapping stories of their bizarre behaviour.

Then there’s the rumours – I like to call these: bullshit. First you hear a rumour about your friend that’s not true. You know it’s not true, because at the time and place when it was supposed to have happened; you were with them somewhere else. These rumours aren’t even interesting – it’ll just be something like: yeah I saw (so and so) drunk last night, she was out all night and she passed out on the table.

Then Fiorella heard a rumour about me.

When Mario and I had broken up the first time apparently it was a good thing because according to Mario’s cousin, I go out every night and take coke. This is absolute bollocks. I couldn’t afford to go out and even if I wanted to I definitely couldn’t afford to buy that. The ‘ironic’ thing is it’s him who does loads of coke, and I don’t. So this rumour pissed me off. Fortunately it pissed Fiorella off too and she went off on one at the accuser and told him The Truth.

It was things like this that made me start to feel like Mancora didn’t deserve a festival and Mario didn’t deserve me. I was giving him everything – my heart and soul – on a daily basis and all I was getting in return was accusations and pain... and some sushi.

No tengo nada
Not only this, I was losing weight rapidly through not eating much. Mario was feeding me the aforementioned sushi every day, but this was all I’d eat. I couldn’t afford to buy food, especially after my bank reduced the black hole that was my overdraft by £500.

After the bank thing happened I worked my arse off, it had given me the push I needed to start making some money. But it scared the shit out of me. If they could take away £500 just like that – they could easily take the whole thing away if they wanted to.

I’d saved up some Soles (Peruvian money) to pay the rent. Instead I used this money to get to Lima.

Victoria
Just before I got on the bus Victoria slipped something in to my hand. When I got on the bus I realised it was S/200. She said she wanted to give it to me on my birthday, but I needed then so it was an early birthday present.

She’s not rich and she really couldn’t afford to do that, but a gift is a gift and it was too late to tell her it was too much.

I don’t know what I would have done without that girl - died probably. She’s an absolute diamond with true team spirit. Yes we all look after each other, we’re all girls travelling South America alone – but she always goes way beyond what you expect of a friend. Especially a friend you’ve only known for a couple of months.
Somehow, when you’re travelling you get closer to people more quickly. You spend more time together in a short space of time so you can make a judgement on whether you like someone or not, almost instantly and after a bit more time, you work out whether they’re decent, or not.

All the close female friends I made whilst travelling are strong, interesting, intelligent, kind, wonderful women that deserve a good life and a happy future. Victoria is certainly one of these girls.

More lies
My first night in Lima I stayed at Inca Wasi, Fiorella’s brother’s hostel. It used to be their family home. It was her brother’s birthday and there was a small gathering going on – Jean, Mario’s boss, was there which took me by surprise. I said hello to him but not much more as I was catching up with Fiorella at the time, then he left before I had a chance to have a conversation with him.

After my initial but short lived positivity I plunged in to sadness on Tuesday afternoon. Mainly because I’d had time to think – and all I could think about was Mario. I even wrote a poem – a new personal low. And no, you can’t see it.

By Wednesday I was feeling a bit better, but I decided I needed to postpone the festival. I needed more time, so I moved it to June. I couldn’t quite admit to myself that I simply didn’t want to do it any more – I didn’t have the energy or the inclination. But I’d promised myself only a month before that I’d finish what I started and make it happen.

In the afternoon, I went on the internet. I’d received an email from Mario in reply to an email I’d sent him when I first arrived letting him know that I’d arrived OK. The email said that Jean (his boss) had told him that I’d said I was leaving Peru forever. Yet more bullshit. Mario asked if this was true. I was about to reply when I noticed he was on Facebook chat. I told him I didn’t say that and it wasn’t true – I didn’t know why Jean had said that. Mario said he believed me. He told me he missed me. We chatted for an hour before he had to go to work. It felt nice, I felt happier.

Later Luciano showed up. We went back to his house in Central Lima, hung out, smoked weed and talked shit.

To make matters a lil worse..
The next day – I got ill. My stomach was completely fucked. I could no longer digest food.

After only 24hours of being in Lima, I decided I definitely hated it. Luciano had made promises of me making money, getting Mancora Fest sorted and staying in his beautiful house in Asia (an area just outside Lima in the countryside). By Tuesday it became apparent that none of these things were possible for one reason or another. Instead I was haemorrhaging the very last of my money, I was ill, I was losing yet more weight due to said illness, I was exhausted and I was fucking miserable. A few days later it became apparent that being in Lima was worse than being in Mancora. Especially being in a big city without a mobile phone.

But there was hope, the reggae festival was coming up that weekend – the weekend before my birthday and I was looking forward to it. Andrea (Luciano’s wife) had contacts that would mean we could get in free and be VIP’s.

Thursday was the dullest day ever. Lucian, Andrea, Luciano’s uncle and my good self just drove around in a hot car all day, around a polluted dirty city in the middle of summer. I just intermittently passed out on the back seat.

Thank god for The Team
Luckily - Victoria and Liz showed up on Friday, it was to be Liz’s last night of her travels as she was flying back to England on Saturday. And she was dreading it. They were staying at Kokopelli Hostel in Miraflores, not far from Luciano’s house.

Victoria had arrived with a new man – Eric. After the last complete fuckwit Mancorian arsehole she’d convinced herself that she liked, I approved of Eric. He was older, from Lima and he seemed normal and nice. Good news for Victoria.

I spent most of the weekend really ill. Myself, Victoria, Liz, Emily, Sofia and 3:59 (don’t know her real name, but the girls call her 3:59 because all night she sits there trout-gobbed and miserable but at 3:59 the booze will kick in and she’ll get on the dance floor and go wild) hit the town. Sofia was Victoria and Liz’s friend that they met in Mancora, I didn’t know her (yet); she’s from Lima so she showed us around.

I really tried to stay out. I really did. It was Liz’s last night I couldn’t be lame. But my stomach beat me. I didn’t even drink – that’s how ill I was but eventually I puked up in the bathroom of a club and got sent home by the team. The shame.

Saturday was reggae festival day. Luciano had been busy all week – he hadn’t even stopped to eat or sleep and by Saturday he’d finished everything he needed to do, but he was too exhausted to go to the festival and I was very ill. So it didn’t happen. I was disappointed.

Liz had reluctantly gone home to England. I hung out with Victoria and Eric for the rest of the weekend, but couldn’t go out at night – I didn’t want a repeat of the Friday night vomiting extravaganza and it wasn’t worth it.

Victoria and I spoke a lot about what I should do and where I should go and everything that was going on in my head. She clarified everything for me: “The problem is you’re emotionally and financially fucked. You can handle one of those things but not both at the same time.”

She was almost 100% right.

Why ‘almost’?

Because politely, she’d missed out ‘physically fucked’.

So that was me in a nutshell. I’d gone from being a reasonably attractive, fairly successful, strong, confident woman – to a complete mess, in a month. My travels were going so well. But it couldn’t last. I wanted it too. Financially - it could only work in Mancora – and that would mean going back to everything I’d run away from: the bullshit, the lies and the emotional turmoil. But I could make money there, try to save up and carry on.

My cousin had offered me the option of going to Mexico – but that would be without any money and relying on someone else to look after me. Even though Bella's my cousin I didn’t feel completely comfortable with the idea, but it was an option that I was considering.

©

And then it all started to go horribly wrong...

2010-02-08T06:23:00.000-08:00

He’s not going to be in Mancora for my birthday. But when I first found out about it, I decided to be cool about it. He has to go to Lima with his boss on 1st February – the day before my birthday. I’d been looking forward to having my first summer birthday since I arrived in South America and realised the seasons were the opposite to ours. So at first it ‘kinda sucked’ but then I started thinking that some peace and quiet for a week or so would do me good.

So I think I took this piece of news rather well considering, until he proceeded to make things worse. We were on his motorbike and he thought that was a good place to discuss the situation. I said let’s stop and talk, he said we’d talk when we got back to Mancora. When we got to Mancora we went to his house where I started chatting to Victoria. Mario disappeared. For 3 and a half hours.

We’d made a date to cook meat at my neighbour’s house but by the time it got to 9:30pm, I was hungry and he still hadn’t reappeared. Selene invited me to Punta Bellanas Inn (Kasian’s hotel) for dinner so I thought fuck it, I’m done with waiting for that douchebag. I got to Punta Bellanas and Mario’s motorbike is outside. Hmmm... What’s he doing here?

As I walked in I saw him through a doorway up ahead. I walked towards him “what are you doing here?” - “what are you doing here?” - “NO! What are you doing here?” He said he was looking for me. How did he know I was there? Apparently he’d just been to the house and Karine told him I’d gone there for dinner. He went in to Kasian’s room where a couple of other people were lying around watching TV and smoking weed.

“Mario we can either talk about this here in front of your friends or we can talk about this outside”

“5 minutes”

I graciously waited the 5 minutes. “Right outside, now.”

We then proceeded to have the best argument ever. Why was it the best? Because it was all in Spanish.

I. Was. Amazing. I was so proud of myself I carried it on way longer than necessary.

These days, when speaking to the male half of our species – if I need to make a point I talk in bullet points. Like no more than 3. They can’t take in too much information at any one given time and if you go on and on about the same thing or just say the same thing in 7 different ways, they stop listening 5 minutes in. If you condense your thoughts in to 3 simple bullet points – sometimes 1 is enough, then you get a far better result. This kind of – I’m going to call it wisdom - comes with experience and let’s face it, age.

This was an exception to the rule however, this discussion was in Spanish. I even insulted him – “suerte con las chicas en Lima puto, porque to peni es muy pequeno ellas no siente nada”. Luckily he laughed.

My point was: I wasn’t happy with the idea of him going away for my birthday but I was understanding about it – so why make matters worse by not talking to me about it properly, then disappearing and worsening things further? Needless to say, after 30-45 minutes of epic international arguing – we made up.

The week Mario and I moved in together...
The next day - the day we moved in together - he tried to refuse signing the contract. Now I don’t like contracts either – I don’t even have a contract phone when I’m England so I wasn’t massively enamoured with the idea of signing my life away for 3 months.

Moving in together was his idea anyway, not mine. Obviously I was happy at the suggestion but being a sensible adult, I did triple check with the teenager that he was still up for it before the big day and he always said yes.

So I told him to take responsibility and sign. So we signed it, paid half each and moved in to the room I’d been waiting for, for weeks.

Then after a couple more days of bullshit and fighting and arguing and him creating ludicrous problems out of nowhere...

He dumped me and ran away. It was the same night that I met his mother for the first time – coincidence? I think not.

It was Thursday (4 days in) after accusing me of flirting with his friend & my neighbour, who's also my client for the marketing agency - Luciano - in front of him. He said I was lifting up my skirt at this guy. Please also bear in mind that not only am I with Mario, but Luciano’s married with a kid, his wife’s pregnant and I know her. So it's like: what the fuck? Who does that?

I was pretty stoned when this bizarre accusation was thrown at me. I couldn't chase after him as I'd left the door open and he disappeared. I got back to my house and called Luciano out and asked him if I was doing that - he said no. Luciano tried to find him to talk to him man to man, but Mario had already gone back to his house.

So the next day I woke up and I was pretty angry with him for accusing me of being a tart and then dumping me and running away. So I stopped speaking to him. I went for a walk on the beach and I saw him. I just walked straight past him and didn’t say anything. I went and lay down on the sand. After about 5 minutes or so he came over and said: “why charlotte why?” (In English) – I couldn’t believe he was still carrying this on in to a new day. I just said: no tengo la palabras en Espanol para ti ahorita (I don’t have the words in Spanish for you right now) no pasa nada (nothing happened) estas loco (you’re crazy).

Later that day was the wedding of Danni (gringa I don’t know very well) and Marco (some Peruvian guy I don’t really know). I wasn’t going to go, then Fiorella asked me to go with her and I was already Karine’s plus one so I thought fuck it, I’ll go.

So I went, alone – and everyone was asking me where Mario was. I said I didn’t know, probably at work. I did tell a few of our mates what he’d accused me of doing, and that he then dumped me and ran away. Why did I do this? Because in Mancora gossip gets around and I didn’t want them to make up their own version of events – so they got the truth.

He turned up at the wedding at like 11:30pm (after he finished work). We didn’t acknowledge each other. I continued to ignore him and he ignored me back. I found out the next day he got in to a big fight that night along with his friends, punched loads of guys and hurt them – nice way of dealing with emotions.

I continued to ignore him on Saturday morning, I had quite an enjoyable hangover which always heightens my sense of humour. By the afternoon, it sunk in – I was sad and I got upset on the beach. I couldn’t stop myself from crying so I went a bit further down the beach away from people, still couldn’t stop so I took myself home so no one would see. Unfortunately – someone did see: Gato. His cousin. He must have reported back to Mario because I’d been at home for about 45 minutes when Mario appears in my/our room.

He tells me that he’s moving back in as he’s paid for half the room and his name is on the contract. I really didn’t like the idea. How was I supposed to get over him and move on if he’s in my face – in my room – in my bed!!!??? So in the end I told him ok, just don’t touch me.

So that night I went to bed early. Even though it was Saturday night, I just wanted to sleep and start the process of recuperation. At 5:30am he came in wasted and got in to bed. I turned on the light and thank him for waking me up. He starts heaving as if he’s going to puke on the floor, so I turn off the light and angrily go back to sleep.
Now – Mario’s not a big drinker; I’ve never actually seen him drunk before, so it was unusual to say the least. Plus he’s normally bored by 4am.

The next morning he tried to cuddle me. I wasn’t having any of it.

Sunday night, he’s out drinking again, not as pissed as the night before but he still comes in late smelling of booze trying to cuddle me. No, I don’t think so.

The next couple of days he gets nothing from me. Except if he cuddled me, I started to let him, but I always resisted the urge to cuddle him first. I win.

Plus I was still getting free sushi from his brother Jhonathon. I win again.

The situation – sleeping in the same bed as me but getting nothing - was driving him crazy, I was in control and he was forced to face his feelings. Then on Wednesday morning he asked me what I wanted. So I asked him what he wanted. So he asked me if I’d like to be his chica again. (Never answer a question with a question). I told him I’d think about it. He said yes or no charlotte – I said maybe, I’d get back to him. Then I instigated some well needed sex.

As he left our house on his motorbike, he whispered in my ear: I love you charlotte, I love you. I told him: no creo.

Karma?
Then on Wednesday evening Luciano tells me he’s off to Lima that night and do I want to come with him. Now – this isn’t a random invitation, I told him that when he goes I want to come with him so I can speak to some DJ’s and bands for the festival. Andrea (his wife) had told me about a reggae festival that was happening at the end of the January and her cousin was something to do with it – they’d invited me previously and I really wanted to go – especially as that would be my birthday weekend.

It was all a bit sudden so I wasn’t keen on the idea of just fucking off to Lima. I have responsibilities in Mancora don’t you know. There’s the marketing agency and now the boutique – Dio Mio. But after speaking to Luciano a bit more, it motivated me to go to Lima, get the festival organised and make some goddamn money.

So I went off in to town to tie up my lose ends, dropped in to the Sushi bar to let Pedro know that Luciano wanted to speak to him and mentioned to Puto (Mario) that I was off to Lima that night. His response was: what? With Marco? I said yer and Luciano. I told Mario and Ped I’d meet them back at the house. And I did.

All was fine back at the house, but as soon as we were alone together in our room Mario got all weird and jealous about it even though I said I didn’t want to go alone with the two guys without Karine. So after talking about it with Mario for six hours and Karine decided she couldn’t go and as I didn’t want to go without her, I decided not to go that day.

After being asked what I want after such an epic romancing from the teenager (if you can count moving in to my bed and forcing me to deal with him as romance) I gave Mario another chance. After all, I’ve always been given second, third, fourth chances by everyone in the past, so it’s only fair.

After all that drama, we fell asleep. Woke up and everything was kind of normal. I think.

That night I headed out with Karine, Scrappy and Salvador. Who the hell are Scrappy and Salvador? Scrappy is Karine’s dog – he’s a big black street dog with one ear. That’s right, one ear. It’s kind of disturbing to look at sometimes but he’s very very sweet. Karine rescued him as a puppy and he lives in our house on and off. Unfortunately when he’s not at our house or at the beach – he hangs out at Loki of all places.

Salvador is half dachshund, half Pitbull. For those of you who don’t know – a dachshund is more commonly known as a sausage dog. Salvador is the best dog in the whole world (sorry Bob). He’s Luciano & Andrea’s dog really, but he follows me around everywhere so they’ve said I can borrow him. He looks like a sausage dog with slightly longer legs, but he feels like a Pitbull.

Anyway, I digress. The four of us headed straight for the sushi bar to say ‘word up’ to my puto. Got some free sushi – standard, then Karine and I headed for the beach, dogs in tow. The beach was pretty lame so Karine, me and a couple of other chicas headed for a sneaky beer in Hula Hula.

Mario shows up, sees that it’s a girl’s conversation and disappears. Then he comes back at 1:49am and tells me to be home by 2am.

WHAT???

Obviously even if I wanted to be home any time soon, I couldn’t possibly show my face for a few hours now that he’d said that. I would be back some time before 8am. After everything that’s happened in the last week, he can’t even last 24hours without being a douchebag.

I got in at 7am. He came storming down the stairs as I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. I was greeted by: “You know it’s over don’t you?”
I replied: “Again?”

Definitely karma
After more talking it wasn’t over. Yet. Well not for him anyway. I told him I am not being told to be in by a certain time. I will not be controlled by a man. He said he was joking. I said I didn’t care; I don’t like being spoken to like that. He got the point.

Later on I walked past the Sushi bar and popped in to say hi as always. He fed me and closed the restaurant. Once everyone else had left I got accused of ‘talking to boys on the beach’ the night before. Interesting. Yes indeed, words were uttered to males on the beach, but in this instance – barely more than 5 sentences. But that is beside the point: what’s wrong with TALKING to boys? Since when was that a crime?

Who? Nick? No. Jake? No. Finn? Yes him.

The night before I’d been in Hula Bar for 90% of the night and went to the beach twice, both times for about 15 minutes. We left Hula at one point to go to the beach to get people to come to the bar for a lock-in. However as we were leaving the bar, we bumped in to Finn. Finn’s an English boy from London and he ‘tawks a lil bit loike this loike – coz eez proper Laandan loike’. I’ve spoken to him a few times and I always thought he was ‘awite’ and it’s nice to hear the London accent again – you don’t hear it too often in Peru.

Anyway, Finn was on his own and ‘ee was a lil bit alf cut loike’ and I remember he touched my waist. In a moment of self-preservation I actually said to him: don’t do that. I explained that if anyone sees, they’ll tell Mario and he’ll get beaten up. Finn was not impressed and said no he wouldn’t. I assured him he would, but he was pissed off by the suggestion. I felt ashamed that my life had come to a new low – ‘don’t touch me or my boyfriend will beat you up’. Urgh.

Anyway, he came to the beach with us and I saw the girls - Victoria and Liz – and had a chat with them. They were sitting at a table and I was bending over to speak to them and Nick came up behind me and smacked me on the arse. I didn’t bother saying anything to Nick at that point but Finn called over from a few tables away and said: you’d better not talk to her mate or you’ll get beaten up.

It’s alright, they know each other – but I still felt like a twat.

We all went back to Hula Hula but both Nick and Finn left within 20 minutes, Karen kicked Finn out for asking her for coke and Nick wasn’t digging the vibe after that so he left. So it was just me, Karine and Belen (a girl from Lima that I met that night). Belen left – I took her home in a cop car. Then it was just me and Karen for the next few hours.

Hence why I told Mario I was with Karine all night and didn’t really see much need to mention anyone else. It was a pretty uneventful night.

Once Mario had calmed down he sat me down at a table in the Sushi restaurant and explained: “people in Mancora are bad. They think bad. And if they see you talking to any guys they will tell me.” He said if I go out without him, the next day I have to tell him everyone I spoke to the night before so when people come to him the next day he already knows about it.

What. The. Fuck. Shouldn’t he just trust me and if someone tells him I was talking to a boy the night before he should just say: so what? I trust her. This pissed me off but I appreciated him explaining things to me calmly. I asked him who told him ‘I was talking to boys on the beach’. He said 6 different people told him. How pathetic.

I’m not stupid; I know how the boys in Mancora work. They’re all jealous – it’s not just Mario – so they all feed each other jealousy by pretending they’re looking out for each other, when really because they’re lonely, single or not getting any – they’re jealous. And one thing I know about jealousy is: people who are jealous are jealous of people that don’t get jealous. Seriously.

Where the love is
I put the bullshit behind me once again. I’d had enough of it all and apart from the new bout of jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity and paranoia he had started making an effort to listen and understand. The rest of the day was lovely, I gave myself the day off work so we spent the entire afternoon together.

We went up to his land and watered his plants. The terrano is looking good now. As I was watching him with his plants, I saw him admiring the individual beauty of all the different types. He told me he loves his plants because they’re beautiful and he wishes he could give up working in the Sushi bar and just spend the whole day up on his land, watering them 3 times a day. It was that moment when I fell in love with him all over again.

The terrano is where the love first started. The first week we didn’t talk much, the second week we started getting to know each other and he took me up to his land and slept in the tent for the first time. We were always happy together when we were up there. The land has good energy, even better now the plants are there. We’d always wake-up happy and have a good start to a good day. Ever since I moved in to the house, we started having more problems and bad moods.

We still went up there after I moved in to the house. In the day and sometimes in the night; when we didn’t have a bedroom we’d sleep in the cabin with the night watchman (Victor). Not ideal, but still we were still happy. We’d climb up near to where the tent used to be and Mario would ask me where I thought he should build his house. I’d always say: in exactly the same place as the tent used to be.

We left the terrano that afternoon and rode back to his house on the back of his bike. I held on tight like I used to, tighter than I needed to. As we got closer to his house, I whispered behind his ear: I love you.

We were happy again. In an instant, out of nowhere when I least expected it - all the love came flooding back.

The last straw
Then the next morning he insulted me. I will not repeat what was said.
Over the last few weeks, I had spent hours and hours talking to him, helping him and trying to make him understand that being jealous, paranoid, insecure and possessive is a waste of time. I had tried so hard to make our relationship work because I love him, I understand him and I respect him. I had given him another chance... and within 24 hours he’d thrown it back in my face and due to more insecurity he had really insulted me.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about it and decided I’d had enough. That was the last straw. I’ve never in my life been spoken to like that.

On Saturday afternoon he popped by Dio Mio. I was dealing with some customers; he was on his motorbike and didn’t bother coming in to talk to me so I didn’t bother stepping outside to talk to him. He rode off.

Later that night I went out with my girls. It was a pretty standard Saturday night in Mancora. Lots of reggaeton and South American music. Victoria and I had a good old boogie. Mario sort of came over to join us but I wasn’t too fussed. I was still feeling insulted.

I thought he’d gone home, but much later on he appeared upstairs at the beach bar and asked me why I was being weird. I told him I wasn’t. Then I said: I’m going to Lima tomorrow with all my stuff. I also told him: My cousin has offered to pay for me to go and work in Mexico City with her. I said I might do that. I reminded him about the last time I left my stuff somewhere (La Paz) and I ended up in Argentina for the best part of two months.

(See - I learn from my mistakes. But in saying that – I wouldn’t have gone to Peru if I didn’t leave my luggage in La Paz. And I wouldn’t have met Mario... hmmm!)

Leaving Mancora
On Sunday someone came in to the shop and asked if I designed flyers – word was getting around. People I don’t even know are becoming potential clients. So when I left Mancora on Sunday evening I just felt like I wasn´t ready to leave forever: leaving my home, my house, my dog, my friends, my business, my job - all because of a silly boy.

In Mancora I just had so much to do and I wanted to get on with so many things but it was all impossible with all that Mario bullshit going on. It was taking 5 hours out of my day on average which meant I couldn´t do all the things I needed to do.

There is a whole lot of love between me and Mario. He told me on Sunday before I left that I’m the best girl he’s ever met and that’s why we’ve been together for ‘such a long time’.

Despite everything I am in love with him and he’s in love with me. I do understand him. I´ve been there man. All his actions are out of insecurity. He pushes me away because he can´t handle his feelings. He says there´s something bad in him that makes him say bad shit to me - but I know he just has a problem that he needs to sort out. He´s not ready for real love yet. Not until he learns the hard way and that can take years.

And I have to look after my head - I don´t want to regress backwards. But even I wasn’t that bad – I didn’t cause trouble for my ex-boyfriends every day. I actually checked with one of them and he concurred he did have the odd day off. No in all seriousness I admit, when I was younger, I was so jealous sometimes because I was insecure. And it was horrible, I hated feeling like that. And yes my ex-boyfriends suffered because of it and that’s why i think this is karma.

Egotistically I have always wanted to meet the boy version of me; and now I have met the boy version of me when I was about 22 - I’m horrified and slightly traumatised. Thank you universe.

What now?
Sunday was so hard. I got my bus ticket and said goodbye to Mario (twice) for ages. We were both really upset. I was a mess right up until the moto taxi arrived at the house. I was so scared of getting on the bus - I just thought I´d cry all the way to Lima. But I didn´t. I didn´t cry once. I slept.

So that´s it in a coconut shell.

I promised myself before New Year that I’d finish what I started. I didn’t want Mancora Fest to become yet another good idea that I don’t see through to the end. That’s why I told you about it. I wanted to make sure that I at least tried to do it. Now if I don’t, you lot will all think I’m a twat and I can’t come home with my head held high.

I´ve only been in Lima for a few days so I need to give things a chance here for a bit. But yer, I have all my luggage with me - not that I like any of it anymore, so I´m ready to get a flight to Mexico City if I want, or maybe I’ll go back to Mancora. No pressure.

I love Mancora - I made a life there and a business there. I just need to work out whether it´s worth going back there for it, despite Mario. Or whether to just get away from him forever. As I say - I´m in love with him, he´s not a bad person. He´s amazing in so many ways. He´s just not experienced in love or relationships because he´s 19 - he´s jealous, insecure and paranoid. But it´s so hard to deal with because it’s such a huge waste of time and it´s so unnecessary.

©

Hello 2010

2010-02-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

After the first week of January, things calmed down. Yes there had been a lot of people in Mancora which is great for local business, but URGH – the people. They weren’t even good people, just moody looking people that stand in the street waiting for something to happen which doesn’t create a good atmosphere; it just creates trouble.

This made me start to have doubts about Mancora Fest. I didn’t like Mancora when it was really busy, plus things weren’t really moving along either - I was doing all the work without any help. My neighbours (Luciano & Andrea) had translated the proposal in to Spanish for me so I could approach businesses with it and get them on board. I’d asked Mario to take me to the municipality to get permission to have the festival in the Quebrada but he didn’t. Everyone was too busy to help.

There was a big party planned for 2nd January at Punta Ballenas. After New Year being predictably average as usual, we were up for it and Micaela was involved in selling tickets for it.

The day beofre I needed to do some printing for a client. Being in Mancora means this is no simple task, as always I had to go on a mission to find a decent photocopier which meant walking around all day in the sweltering humidity. I went in to every locutorio in town and failed miserably in finding the quality that I needed to achieve.

But still, every cloud... I went in to one place where this dwarf-like creature suggested that I get my flyer printed in colour, in Lima. He handed me an example that he seemed particularly proud of – it was a flyer printed in colour, but the quality was pretty bad – it looked like it had been done on an old-school colour photocopier. I looked at the flyer it read: Mancora Fest, 2nd January, Punta Ballenas Inn.

WHAT?

You can guess what happened next: BEEF!

So after a confrontation with Micaela about stealing the name of the festival for some crappy one night party that could be called anything, she denied all knowledge and begged for forgiveness. So after having further confrontations with Chicho (the dwarf-like creature) about how immoral it is to steal from the people of Mancora (oh yes) and then going to the party with the intention of telling everyone he stole the name of the festival for this party until... we got there and it was absolutely shit.

Chicho was DJ-ing and it was that progressive techy house that doesn’t progress and is totally unsuitable for anything other than some grubby ketamine-fuelled after-party in Brixton. So I decided to keep schtum.

After a week or so of more ‘nothing happening’ I started to think: maybe I should just give up?

Until one day in the sushi bar Luciano said we should get on the case. I didn’t think we had enough time to get it all done by March, but he said we could go to Lima and do it in 10 days if necessary. Suddenly I was motivated again; I now have a dynamic business partner with a can do attitude... and lots of contacts.

Plus I’d promised myself at New Year that I would finish what I started and see this project through to the end.

Back to school
After communication issues with Mario and the need to be able to discuss relationship stuff in Spanish, I decided it was time for some more Spanish lessons. I’d picked up a lot just from talking to him and some other people, but I felt it was time to educate myself further and maybe start using the past and present tense properly - rather than just beginning a sentence with: en passado / en futuro and then continuing to speak in the present tense.

Why is it that when someone can’t speak English properly it’s kind of cute, but when I don’t speak Spanish fluently a Peruvian said to me: please Charlotte, speak in English, your Spanish is so shit. Thanks Daniel - way to boost my confidence in practising my Spanish, buddy.

Mario had offered to pay for my Spanish classes but I decided I should pay for them as it didn’t seem right. Plus it puts pressure on me to improve faster if someone else is paying. However, after my first lesson, I improved a lot. I started speaking to more people in Spanish and I was experimenting with new words. However, the past and future tense is still a bit of a problem – too many goddaamn verbs to conjugate.

I had three lessons in total. I had planned to have 3 a week for four weeks but my bank decided otherwise.

Long and boring story but the punch line is: I now have no more £’s. However I do have work: Lorena wanted to get the shop open ASAP but she had to go to Colombia to get checked out as she was still ill. Fiorella and I said we’d look after the shop for her and between us we’d open every day and sell her stuff for her.

The Mothership

One quiet evening I was hanging out in the sushi restaurant. Mario had to zoom off somewhere with Luciano but he said he’d be back in a minute. I was just chilling, smoking a cigarette - I’d eaten my sushi and was ready to head home but Mario asked me to wait for him, so I did.

Mario’s cousin came in with another woman whom I’d assumed was an aunt. I said “hola, que tal?” to his cousin, kissed her on the cheek and did the same to the other woman.

Then Jhonathon smiled in his usual mischievous way and said – “Ella is mi mama.”

GULP. EEEK.

I instantly put the cigarette out. I needed time to collect my thoughts and re-group, so I went to the shop for some well-needed, chilled water. I came back, took down 3 glasses off the shelf poured one for the mum, the cousin and me; then sat down at the table with them.

The sushi bar was empty apart from a guy at the bar, Pedro and the aforementioned family members. Needless to say, it was a little bit awkward. Especially as I knew she didn’t like the idea of me:

On the morning of new years day before we went to sleep, Mario told me that his mum doesn’t like gringas – she thinks they’re all bitches. (Well, you’re almost right there Mrs H). So she doesn’t like the idea of him being with me, she wants him to be with a nice Peruvian girl. Plus she’s seen me though the window of their house (and I was probably wearing something short and beachy).

After he told me that I decided it wasn’t necessary for the meeting to take place any time soon. But suddenly I was faced with it when I least expected it. She was here, in front of me and I simply had to make a good impression.

And I did.

I very much led the conversation in terms of finding new subject matters to talk about. My Spanish took a turn for the worst due to nerves but I managed to communicate and have a proper conversation and promote myself as a decent human being.

She told me she misses Mario. I didn’t know what to say to that. He’s not ALWAYS with me. Granted we see each other between 2 and 4 times a day, but most of the time he’s either working or sorting out his terrano.

Half way through the conversation Mario reappears. He was just as startled to see me sitting at a table in his restaurant talking to his mother as I was. But he played it cool and went behind the counter and pretended not to be trying to listen to everything we were saying.

After a long while, she left and Mario gave me a round of applause. I’d done it and it wasn’t that bad. I don’t know if she liked me, but she definitely didn’t seem to hate me AND she didn’t ask me how old I was. I win.

©

Bedless

2010-02-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

The usual no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year was actually better than the big events themselves. All the girls in my house came back on the same day which was great. I hadn’t seen Karine for weeks so it was good to see her.

But with the sudden arrival of everyone – including my landlady China, her husband David and their two kids – I was bedless. I hadn’t thought it through. Selene had mentioned something confusing to me before Christmas that I didn’t quite understand – she’d offered to rent out her room to me because the rent is higher in the peak period for two weeks. Every time she explained it to me I didn’t get it. It seemed like a scam.

However, I had a plan and my eye on Teta’s room. Selene and Teta were going to start running the hostel – El Pirata - in front of our house in the Quebrada as of 10th January. So all I had to do was wait and I’d get the luxury soundproof suit with sea views at the top of the house. Yay.

When I saw Mario later that day I told him the situation: we have nowhere to sleep. He told me that his mum had just that day rented out his bedroom for a month because he’s never there - because he’s always with me. Apparently she showed him to his things which were in another corner of the house. So between the two of us, we didn’t have one bed. Mancora was fully booked up, and even if we found a room somewhere all the hostels were ridiculously over-priced due to the peak season.

Victoria and Claire also returned to Mancora. Claire arrived before Christmas but disappeared again to spend Christmas with Eloy (Eduardo). Victoria had been volunteering in Arequipa for a few weeks but always planned to return. Claire pretended she had no intention of returning, but I always knew she would. It was nice to have my girls back in town.

I asked Victoria where her hostel was. She said it was further in to town quite a way from the beach but near the market. I didn’t know of it. About three days after Victoria’s return I walked down with her to her hostel. “Ah this is near Mario’s house”. We walk a bit further. “No this IS Mario’s house – ahahahahahaaaaa – you’re the one who stole his bed!”

So Victoria and Pedro now live in Mario’s house with his mum, but he doesn’t. Hilarious.

I couldn’t help over hearing your conversation...
Before Christmas we had a new regular in Hula Hula – Liz. She often came in during the early part of the night and consumed a couple of ‘sex on the beach’ cocktails or she’d mix it up a bit and have a white wine spritzer. I instantly decided she was nice, but I didn’t really chat to her too much until one day I overheard her and another girl – Cat – having a conversation about ‘younger men’, at the bar.

I wasn’t eavesdropping, it’s not the biggest bar in the world, so after a couple of minutes of... ok, eavesdropping – I approached the girls. We got in to an interesting discussion about the pros and cons of younger men and if it ever really works. I told them that Mario stresses me out quite a bit because he loves winding me up, creating problems and generally causing unnecessary drama out of nowhere.

Wonderfully, Liz and Victoria became friends – it was nothing to do with me, they met on the beach. They would go to the beach every day whether it was sunny or not and just hang out, lie on their sarongs and talk about boys and stuff. So Liz moved in to Mario’s house with Victoria.

Re: it not always being sunny.
Since it became ‘summer’ the weather has been shitter – or more shit. It’s rained more because it’s the rainy season. This is fine, but don’t call it summer. The word ‘summer’ has connotations of ice cream, paddling pools, strolling along the promenade, flip-flops, sunglasses, sunhats, sun cream and most importantly – sun. As of January most afternoons in Mancora are overcast. So it’s not just England that suffers from seasonal retardedness. Why not just re-order the seasons accordingly:

UK

Winter: November – April

Spring: May – August

Summer: September

Autumn: October

Mancora

Winter: January – February

Summer: March – December

NYE
Over the festive period, Lorena, Fiorella and I got the boutique – Dio Mio - up and running, just about. Lorena sacked the painter, and the carpenter got a well needed kick up the arse. So we painted it ourselves and just about managed to half open in time for New Year’s Eve. The actual shop part still wasn’t ready after weeks of god knows what; so instead we sold dresses in the porch area so the women of Mancora could buy them for the big night ahead. Obviously there was a flyer involved to generate awareness within our target market: girls that like dresses.

It was a crazy rush and Lorena had been suffering from bizarre stomach pains for weeks now. I’d taken her to the hospital in Tumbes a couple of days before but they just told her to change her diet. We opened anyway and it was a successful day of business.

I also acquired two rather lovely new dresses. I couldn’t decide between the slinky, sophisticated silver-grey strapless jersey dress and the shorter silver and yellow tight Lycra number. Mario stopped by the shop just at the right moment – I was wearing the grey one. I asked him what he thought, he said “perfect”, but I made him wait to see the other one. I told him I wasn’t sure if it was too slutty. He gawked at me then turned to Lorena and said that he likes it but he’s worried that it’s so hot all the boys will be trying it on all night. So......... I got both.

I chose the hotter dress for New Years Eve – the only night I could get away with wearing something like that in Mancora. And oh what a night. It started with a minor dispute because it was almost 12 and Mario was still faffing around in the sushi bar and he wouldn’t hurry the fuck up. A well needed shot of pisco lubricated the situation and we stepped out to begin the night’s celebrations. We drank beer outside a bar, on the street with our friends and I started to get pissed.

12 o’clock came round we did the ‘feliz ano’ thing but it seemed weird not to be drunk-calling my sober parents.

After that, me and the boys headed for the beach. They all boshed one of these dirty & wrong pills at the same time and within 10 minutes they were completely fucked. Normally it can take up to an hour to come up, but these were fast. I decided to opt out especially after Pedro declared: “I haven’t felt fucked like this for a long time – and it feels goooooooood.” Oh dear.

After that I went on a mission to find another shot of pisco... and Victoria. I achieved both but lost Victoria almost instantly as the beach was packed. So Mario, Ped and I headed off on a mission to find another party. We went in the back of Gato’s (Mario’s cousin’s) truck got to The Point hostel where nothing was happening and drove back. On the way, I passed out. By the time I got back in to town I decided I was too drunk and tired to continue so I thought I’d call it a night and go home. It was around 3am; Mario wasn’t having any of it. He put me in the recovery position and fed me water until I felt normal again. Needless to say, I continued partying.

By this point we were on a roof bar of a hotel that I’d never been to before - there were a group of us dancing around a stereo to some kind of trance music.

The highlight of the night for most people was an interesting love-pentagon going on. Mario’s friend Ricardo had his eye on this Californian girl Lydia who had her eye on... me. I was oblivious to this and started chatting to her:

“So which one of these boys are you interested in then?”

“None of them, I’m with her (points at a shorter blonde girl).”

“Ah ok.”

Then we casually start chatting about lesbian stuff for a while before we get interrupted. Then Mario calls me over and says in Spanish:

“Be careful, she fancies you and her girlfriend’s getting jealous”.

“What?”

“Yeah Ricardo just told me that she told him that she likes you.”

“Oh.”

Haha – the dress worked.

©

Spanglish

2010-01-31T00:56:00.000-08:00

From the very beginning, we were both often asked: how do you two communicate? We would both have the same answer: I don’t know, we just do.

To be honest for the first week, we didn’t really do much talking. Mostly dancing and sex. It was fun. Then after a week of that, I remember one night we were both at the beach bar with The Team and we were both ‘all danced out’ after 7 days of partying. We sat down on the sand where it was a bit quieter – and had a chat. In Spanish. He asked me about my family, what I do in London etc. I told him about my career, university and my travels. We talked about travelling and all the places we’d like to see. He told me he wants to visit New Zealand one day. So do I.

Then after that we started to really like each other. It wasn’t just sex and fun anymore, it was starting to become something else. He introduced me to everyone and we were together as much as possible. When we were together we’d talk and joke a lot in Spanish and I was picking up more and more words.

Before I arrived in Mancora I didn’t really speak Spanish. I knew a bit and I understood a fair bit, but I didn’t feel comfortable speaking to most people. Lola’s parents were the first people I really had a conversation with – then Meli, Emi and Nano eventually; but it was always a struggle. When Molo was suffering from altitude sickness in La Paz he couldn’t speak English (gay) so I’d have to give it a shot. He understood - I could waffle on about basic things but couldn’t really communicate about anything conceptual.

Then I got to Mancora and I met Mario; who speaks less English than I do Spanish – perfect. Finally I had the opportunity to speak Spanish with someone I felt comfortable with. One of the reasons for my previous lack of practise is that I was almost always with South Americans who spoke English, so it was easier for me to speak to them in English and which was good practise for them but bad for me.

After a while I had a breakthrough – speaking faster. Having to think about each individual word you want to say means you speak broken Spanish which is kind of embarrassing for you and painful for the person you’re trying to talk to. Once you can string whole sentences together without really thinking about it, you feel quite pleased with yourself.

Otras lugares
The first month with Mario was magical. He’d introduced me to Selene who was the first of many people to tell me they’d never seen Mario with a girl for so long, never seen him with the same girl all the time and never seen him actually like a girl seriously before. She told me he wanted me to stay in Mancora for a long time. I was happy about this; it made me feel pretty special.

I was only supposed to go to Mancora for a month, get a tan then go back to Argentina for Christmas. But when November turned in to December, the month was up and I was as bronzed enough, I didn’t want to go and Mario didn’t want me to leave. So I stayed.

There were times where we’d just take a ride across the beach at night on his bike, zooming over the sand I'd hold on to him tight and think to myself: I love my life.

However our second month together wasn’t quite as rosy. I always joked that Mario would be a pain in the arse once a week and it would usually be on a Tuesday. For example: pretending he had a son to wind me up – it later turned out Jhonathon has a son; or pretending to break up with me as a joke. Then problems started to occur more frequently; sometimes due to communication issues.

We were more serious about each other and didn’t have as much free time as we did before, because I was working as well. Mario used to try and find time to take me to ‘otras lugares’ (other places) so we weren’t just in Mancora all the time, but we didn’t do it as often as we’d like.

The beginning of December was also pretty boring for both of us. Mancora was dead and there was nothing going on. But I was looking forward to Christmas because a) it gets busier until the end of January and b) I’d never spent Christmas in another country before so I wanted to see what it’s like in Peru.

Before Christmas some of Mario’s friends from Lima showed up including Micaela and Diego. They seemed nice enough and the four of us plus Pedro and Mario’s friend Kasian headed for Los Pillares – a place deep in the countryside that has some freshwater pools in the rocks.

Los Pillares is an interesting arid landscape of silver slabs of rock dividing green pools surrounded by cliffs decorated with screaming trees, an occasional gecko and the odd cactus.

It was a good day, but we were all hungry or dehydrated by the time we got back to the campervan so we passed out. Mario was driving. When we woke up we were at the hot springs near Mancora, he’d taken me there once before – in our first week so this was a lovely surprise. We all put the natural mud on our faces and bathed in the warm water until it got dark.

Pills, pills and parties
As Christmas approached, people started to appear and Mancora got pretty busy. The sushi restaurant got busier and I had new clients for the marketing agency.

More big parties were planned and Kasian held the first bash of the festive season at his hotel Punta Ballenas Inn. It promised to be a good night, someone had got hold of some pills and they were supposed to be decent. I hadn’t taken pills for years.

The party was awesome; the pills were the best I’ve ever had. They were happy and fun. After the party Mario and I stayed at Kasian’s hotel and I had the best sex of my life.

The next day, I think I took a quarter which kept me going for another 12 hours – it took me all the way through the night, I worked at Hula Hula, which luckily was pretty empty and I just danced around the bar all night. Went to the beach after work with Pedro and Kasian and raved it up a bit more, while Mario slept it off.

I didn’t get a bad come down off the first batch of pills, but ‘bosh-age’ occurred a few times over a period of 2 weeks which wasn’t the best idea. Plus they weren’t the same pills; the ones we took the next couple of times were dirty and wrong instead of happy and fun – no mi gusta. So I felt horrible and depressed for a few days and after new year decided once again that I shouldn’t take those things, it always ends up the same: I have one good experience and then after that I want it again, but it’s not the same for whatever reason (music, atmosphere, people) and the pills are different. Then afterwards, I get sad. Silly Charlotte.

Christmas
Mario had suggested that I spend Christmas with his family – which would mean meeting his mum for the first time. I wasn’t sure if he was saying it to wind me up, or whether it was a real invitation – you can never tell with him.

I’d already met his Grandma, his aunt, some of his cousins and I knew his brothers, so why didn’t I want to meet his mum? Because at the time my Spanish had improved a lot, but I couldn’t (and still can’t) understand everybody. I especially didn’t want to meet her for the first time on Christmas Eve (the day they celebrate Christmas – meal etc) in front of the entire family and, I didn’t want to be asked any awkward questions – like how old are you? I didn’t feel like being chased out of the house whilst being beaten with a broom by his mother shouting “paedophile” at me. Not particularly conducive to the festive spirit and I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas. So I thought I’d best just leave it.

The night before Christmas Eve there was a big party in Hula Hula and I worked. It was good fun but on Christmas Eve I was pretty tired.

In Peru Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve is always somewhere between 10pm and midnight, then after that everyone goes out and parties on the street. I was looking forward to it; it would be an interesting cultural experience and a change from the usual Wimbledon tradition of heading to The Rose & Crown in the village.

In Mancora there was barely any build up and the people only stopped work for a few hours to celebrate. Yes they have Christmas decorations, but it’s not over-the-top, plus there’s no 4 months of mind control, manipulation and Marks & Spencers beforehand.

Anyway...

After telling me I was mean for refusing Mario’s invitation, Lorena and Fiorella invited me to have Christmas dinner with them, Marco and Luana. Marco’s Lorena’s boyfriend and Fiorella’s brother, he’s also one of Mario’s friends and now he’s my friend too. Luana is Fiorella’s beautiful 6 year old daughter. It was a nice meal of meat and trimmings, followed by maracuja pie. Followed by a glass of wine and a spliff. Followed by me passing out for the rest of the night and missing EVERYTHING.

The next morning I woke up. I’d slept on my face, on Fiorella’s sofa, in all my clothes. I was pissed off. But I had shit to do – it was Christmas Day and I had a meal to cook.

I’d already planned everything - bought the chicken, prepared it, bought all the potatoes etc - all I had to do was cook it. I wanted to do something nice for Christmas, something nice for Mario – I decided Christmas Day was best as a) it’s traditional for me and b) we could all have 2 Christmas dinners.

When Micaela asked me what I was doing for Christmas, she said her and Diego would come over and bring stuff too. I’d already invited Mario, Pedro, Lorena, Fiorella, Marco and Luana obviously to return the favour and they had become my surrogate family in Mancora. Suddenly I was cooking for 9 people – the pressure was on.

I was definitely on a bar humbuggery kind of vibe due to missing the previous night of fun, plus cooking the chicken took longer than it should have done. It was a fairly large chicken (but not large enough to feed 9 people, especially as I wanted at least a quarter of it – there’s nothing more rubbish than not having enough food on your plate), but it was still a chicken and it shouldn’t take more than 2 and a half hours to cook. However I’d never used my oven before and wasn’t aware of its capabilities: it was like roasting poultry on a candle flame.

Luckily a few people didn’t show up so there was enough food, but as always when I’m trying to impress Mario with my cooking skills – it went wrong. It was late by over an hour. He still had time to eat it, but he had to go to work shortly after (work – on Christmas day??????????).Still, I gave him a huge plate of food. I wasn’t happy with my potatoes, the chicken turned out quite well but not perfect. my usual secret ingredient of ‘love’ was missing and had been replaced with the flavour of ‘annoyed’. The best bit was the sweet potato mash; unfortunately he helped me with that so in his mind I’m sure he took full credit.

Moral of the story: never try to impress a professional chef with your cooking.

©

The Real World

2010-01-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

Yet again I just received an email that ended with: "any plans to head back to the real world?"

Mancora feels free, happy and natural - I think that’s why I like it. People have grown up here and will raise their families here for generations. People have businesses here. People live their lives here. Mancora is real. But with the lack of high-rise buildings and the fact that most buildings here are 1 story high and are made of wood and bamboo, the lack of normal looking cars and people, it is a bubble – a really interesting bubble.

Ever since I was told “you’ll have to come back to the real world some time Charlotte” when I tried to stay in Mexico and not return, I have resented ‘the real world’ for everything it is and everything it stands for. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, reality is what you make your life – everywhere is the real world and it’s insulting to places like Peru, to suggest otherwise.

Just because a place doesn’t revolve around stress... debt, mortgages, shiny cars, stupid plastic buildings, health warnings, fun being banned, prices going up, quality of life going down, corporate bullshit, your boss, warrantees, customer services, grey carpets, bad lighting and products we don’t need – is this what you’re talking about? Do I have any plans to come back to this? No thanks.

Mancora es de puta madre
Mancora is a dusty little surf town in Northern Peru. Surfing, kite surfing. It has loads of restaurants, hotels and hostels, quite a few bars and small clubs, dozens of motor taxis and fruit sellers. But it doesn’t have a post office. We don’t have taxis here, well not really. We have motor taxis. Little tuk-tuk type things driven by a motorbike with a kind of canopy carriage thing attached to the back. Some of them are even pimped out to the max with stereos pumping out reggaeton all day. Nice.

It’s summer all year round - it's where Lima goes on holiday. It’s what Brighton is to London, what Blackpool is to The North. But better, because it’s hot, sunny, remote and cut off from what some people call ‘reality’. The people here are very special. And when I say special, I mean ‘special’. Everyone is at least slightly mad in some way. Not insane, just ‘loco’. So in comparison, I *almost* feel normal.

In it’s own way, it’s a party town: the locals are always ready for a big night out (even if nothing’s happening) and they love mixing with the gringos... ok, well the local boys love mixing with the gringas. A party can randomly happen on any night of the week, so you *almost* need to go out every night so you don’t miss anything. Suddenly there’ll be a DJ from Lima in town playing at Moomba on a Sunday night, but the night before - Saturday night - was crap. This place has so much potential. Places like Cusco are pumping every night of the week. I have the same vision for Mancora and I want to make it happen.

Todo la gente
You’ve got the different groups of people. There are the hippies that all hang out making and selling jewellery by the side of the road, they’re always really friendly. Then you’ve got the beach boys – the surfers that hang out at the beach all day, every day smoking weed, surfing, talking shit and not doing much else. Then you’ve got the business men/ women of Mancora. People who have realised the potential of the town and are trying to make it work for them. They’re more ambitious and proactive than the rest of Mancora. Most of my friends here fall in to this category.

Then there’s ‘the pueblo’. The pueblo is the part of Mancora where everyone who’s from here lives. I guess it’s the poor part of town, separate from the main tourist area – but everything down there is much cheaper and more interesting. The market’s there and lots of other useful places. The tourist bit by the beach is basically restaurants and hostels.

I live in the Quebrada. It’s a neighbourhood at the opposite end to the pueblo. It has its own vibe, locals and gringos live side by side, with a few hostels thrown in for good measure. It has two shops that both sell almost the same things, but neither of them sells bread. Our end of the Quebrada is the best bit; I know most of my close neighbours – some of which are now my clients.

Mancora Fest
When Mario first took me to the Quebrada area to show me where I was going to live, I saw a piece of land before my house and thought: this place would be perfect for a festival. It’s a big expanse of land in front of a road bridge that goes over some sand that leads directly to the beach. I envisioned a stage in front of the bridge either facing the Quebrada area or on the other side, facing the sea. Once I had this idea in my head, I couldn’t get it out. I kept thinking about it until in the end, I decided I had to at least try and make it happen. Mancora Fest 2010 was born.

©

Ps. I found all the kittens in a drawer. The little bastards can walk now, bless ‘em. I've decided I'm definitely a dog person.

Suddenly, I got really busy...

2010-01-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

Life is like a gripping novel, you keep turning the pages to see what happens next and in some ways you can’t wait to get to the end so you know how it all turns out. But you’re enjoying reading it so much, you never want it to finish. You’re emotionally involved in every twist and turn, every up and down, all the highs and lows. You’re so involved because the protagonist is You.

When everyone fucked off and left me, I made some new friends. Literally. As I was walking back from saying bye to Tom & Simon, I bumped in to Lorena in the street. She was all dressed up and ready to go out, but it was early. She said she was bored but needed to use the internet. So I told her to come over to our house and use my computer. She did.

Lorena is Colombian, but she lived in the states – San Francisco – since she was fourteen. I originally met Lorena through Mario. He made a point of introducing me to every girl that lives in Mancora that speaks English before my team left so I would have some new amigas that he approved of. But before Black Saturday, I’d never really chatted to her that much, just said ‘hi’. Mostly because she was hanging out with this really annoying girl that every time she opened her mouth, something ridiculous came out –so I avoided speaking to her.

But that night Lorena and I hit it off and it was to become the start of a beautiful friendship. I already knew her boyfriend Marco, also through Mario, and the four of us started to hang out together, along with Marco’s sister Fiorella.

Karina left for Lima and Steff returned. Who the hell is Steff? Steff is the other owner of Hula Hula. She’s English. I’d heard a lot about her before she came back so I was interested to meet her, but also a little bit nervous. What if we didn’t get along? And I’d be working for her? Karina hadn’t told Steff about me so I was going to be a nice surprise for her. Mario had told me that Steff is ‘good people’ in his best English.

I didn’t need to worry, because he was right - she’s very pleasant.

Business as usual
Because I don’t surf (yet) People ask me and other people that moved here from other countries: don’t you get bored here? The answer is always, no – not really.

The departure of the team meant I had more time to work on some new projects. I couldn’t justify lying on the beach all day every day and Mario’s always pretty busy with work and his own projects, so I was inspired to get some of my own ideas off the ground.

Mancora Marketing - it all started with one flyer. Early on, I decided the sushi bar needed some marketing. The sushi is incredible, but the restaurant is hidden away, not on the main street. It needed a flyer, not just any flyer - a flyer with a map.

Now, I’m not a designer, but I’m a dab-hand at PowerPoint. Using my initiative and my computer, I designed a simple (but incredibly classy) flyer, got it printed (high-quality photocopying) and distributed it on the beach. It worked. The sushi bar has more customers. The flyer (strategy) attracted interest from other businesses and a one-woman, make-shift marketing agency was born. I have clients!

Lorena is opening a clothing boutique and she needs a right hand man – me.

I’ve also got a few other things up my sleeve, but concerned that I’ve already got way too much on my plate, I’m going to prioritise and come back to those ideas later.

And then Mario met Pedro
Things are going well for Pedro too. Every time Jonathon (Mario’s older brother) didn’t show up for work, I’d suggest – why not get Pedro to work here?

Initially, Mario was dubious of this Brasiliero, this male friend that I’d met previously in La Paz (of all places). He wasn’t jealous of Tom, he loved Tom. But Tom left him – and Mario needed a new man.

After suggesting Pedro for the fourth time, I think it subliminally went in; Mario had the wonderful idea of employing Pedro at the sushi bar. Nice one. Little did I know that it would become the romance that it has:

Mario has now STOLEN Pedro off me and Pedro is now HIS friend. To the point that they are together all day and night at the restaurant and Mario has moved him in to his mum’s house. To be fair, Mario barely lives at his parents’ house because I have STOLEN him from them. But still.

Now Mario takes Pedro for rides on his motorbike, takes him to show him his land – I’m sure Pedro holds on tight, leans in close and smells his hair and I’m sure Mario loves it. I can’t believe that bitch got my man. It’s so Jerry Springer.

Ok – I’m exaggerating. They’re not a couple. Yet. But I’m keeping a close eye on the pair of them.

©

I live here?

2010-01-06T17:22:00.000-08:00

Being able to say “I live here” is a very powerful thing. One only realises this, when you haven’t been able to say it for a while – when you’ve been drifting from post to post, experience to experience.

After seeing my cousin’s life in Puerto Escondido back in April 2008, it was always in the back of my mind that I would settle down by the beach as well. I always thought I’d return to Puerto and join her... but as time has moved on and money slips away, it’s looking less and less likely.

I kind of lived in Cordoba with Lola, but all along I knew I would have to leave to go back and get my stuff from La Paz, so I couldn’t get too settled. And it was lacking one thing: a beach. Before that I guess Rio was the last place I ‘lived’ – but living in a hostel is not the same as living in a house. Hostels are transient places full of transient people. So Paraty in Brazil was the last place I ‘lived’. I had a house, dogs, cats, a job - a routine. But I was restless. It was my first port of call in South America so I was excited to see more.

Mancora is different. I have been away for nine months now and I’ve been here for eight weeks – nearly two months. The record so far for staying somewhere for a long time was Rio, I was there for over 2 months. Let’s see if I beat my previous record.

Welcome to the family
I’d been living in the house for about 2 weeks when the girls and boys left and my new house mates told me “welcome to the family”. It was a touching moment that cemented my feelings: I felt like a resident of Mancora. I’m not travelling any more. Now that the team had almost completely disbanded – and I had made the decision that I was going to live in Mancora for a while, try and make it work.

Sierra had been working in the Hula Hula Hut with Karina, but as she was leaving Karina needed a replacement. She asks me if I’m up for it. I say yes of course. Done. I now have a job.

The house itself is lovely. It’s mostly made of wood and bamboo, but it’s pretty big – 3 stories, 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and garden. Teta lives at the top of the house – she has the best room with the most privacy. Karina has the big bedroom at the front of the house on the first floor. Selene and Anna Marie have the other two rooms. Teta & Anna Marie are Peruvian, Selene is Chilean but she’s lived in Peru for a long time and Karina is French-Canadian.

Sierra and I had shared the smallest bedroom in the world for a week, then we got kicked out because the owners of the house needed it for something. My stuff is fine but I am roomless and bedless. The living room floor, someone else’s bed or sometimes, I’d sleep in the tent. So when will I be able to legitimately say: I live here?

The Tent
Mario has some land just near the sign that says ‘Bienvenidos Mancora – paraiso de turismo y amor’. The beach at Mancora is called ‘playa del amor’ - beach of love. After we’d been together for about 2 weeks he took me to his land and showed me his tent. Not trouser tent. His actual tent – or carpa en espanol. That boy is full of surprises. I asked him why he’d never taken me here before, he just shrugged.

After that at the end of every night, we’d ride off on his ‘moto’ to the outskirts of Mancora (5 minutes away) and ‘vamos a terrano’. Climb up the dusty mounds in the dark and head for the secret tent. Mario took the roof off so we could sleep under the stars... and wake up every morning to the blistering sunshine. But we always woke up happy. Hot, but happy. Mario called it our house and it did feel like our secret hiding place, our little refuge where you can see the sea and catch a nice breeze.

The tent was a happy place. We had many happy times there. Once I moved in to the house, we slept up there less and less and had more and more late mornings. One day we went back to the tent, we missed it as we hadn’t been up there for over a week.
When we got up there we found that the tent had been destroyed by the sun. Big tears in the material made it unusable. RIP tent.

Cats
Just before the girls left, our cat - Princessa - gave birth to some kittens. It was pretty cool to watch and I’d never seen anything like that before. One popped out after the other. The first two came out pretty quickly. Then she had a break and another one arrived. 3 lovely kittens, Karina suggested we should name them after the girls as they were leaving that week: Sierra, Kelly & Victoria. Then a fourth one appeared. What to call it? I decided his name is Pedro. Why not Tom? Because Pedro is a great name for a cat.

The cat and her kittens slept in a cardboard box. I’d check on them a few times a day to see what was going on. One night, Mario and I were getting jiggy in the room and Princessa took offense at us performing such an act in front of her children. The expression on her face told me in no uncertain terms, that she was absolutely disgusted.

The next morning the kittens were gone. I looked for them everywhere, but couldn’t find them. Princessa was still about, whining for food. But the kittens were nowhere to be seen...

©

Team Update

2010-01-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

In life, people come and go. Nothing is forever – right? It’s an unfortunate reality of the 21st century, with our disposable furniture, disposable careers, disposable lifestyles - sometimes things change, life changes, circumstances change and things are never quite the same again.

However, real friendships should be able to stand the test of time... and distance. Especially since the era of Facebook. But every time we use it, we make a huge sacrifice: we sacrifice our freedom, for friendship.

Oh Facebook– with your double edged sword - you give us the huge benefit of keeping in touch with our mates, whilst our every online action is being spied on by ‘the man’.

“Dogging – become a fan. 4 of your friends are fans”. Every time you ‘become a fan’ an alert is sent to HQ, to those in control of the world as you know it. Your information is used to create a profile of you as a consumer for marketing purposes and also to track terrorist activity. Probably.

Anyway
Since travelling, as you know – I’ve met a lot of people. A lot of good people. The best ones make it to the blog, sometimes more than once...

Jenna was the first to depart, after only 5 days in Mancora. She planned to stay for three. Claire planned to leave with Jenna. She didn’t. But for a week it felt like it was just me and Sierra, as Claire was always with Eloy. We stayed in The Shed and went out every night, but the team was missing something. A week later Claire was still here, but planning on leaving soon. Then Kelly returned to Mancora, with Victoria.

Who the fuck are Kelly and Victoria?
Kelly left Mancora on the day me, Jenna and Claire arrived. She had been staying in Loki and became friends with Sierra. Kelly met Victoria in Cusco and they became close friends, husband & wife, and travelling buddies - a bit like me and Stephanie, but more like Stewie & Brian from Family guy. Kelly IS Stewie from Family Guy.

Kelly’s English, very English, she studies Spanish and Arabic at university and she came to South America as part of her placement year, to study Spanish and improve her language skills. Instead, she got drunk. That’s m’girl. Victoria is like an orchid. She’s very sensitive to pretty much everything, but it’s not annoying. It’s just quite funny. For example: she can’t drink alcohol with a mixer, because it makes her too drunk and sick, so she can only drink shots. Shots. Sometimes 12 shots. But if she had two vodka and oranges, she’ll puke and pass out. It’s a strange one.

They’re both vegetarians. Fucking vegetarians. But it’s ok, I guess. If that’s what makes them happy. Victoria doesn’t eat meat because it makes her sick. Kelly doesn’t eat meat because she just likes being difficult, I suppose.

So the 5 of us lived in the shed. For S/15 per night between the 5 of us – S/3 each or 63p. There were only four beds, but Claire never actually slept in the shed, she always stayed with Eloy.

It became a team tradition to take the departing team member to the bus station - making sure they get on the bus ok and we say goodbye properly. Eventually Claire had to go. I don’t know why. Something about Mexico and flights in January. My parting words to her were: there’s no shame in coming back.

The four of us lived in the shed for a few more days. When we were told that the price would go up at the end of November, it was time to look for alternative accommodation.

Friends Reunited... on Facebook
I was on Facebook one day and a conversation popped up on my ‘newsfeed’. Chris and Pedro were chatting about ‘seeing you there’ and ‘staying at Loki’. There are 3 other Loki’s. One in La Paz, one in Cusco and one in Lima. I knew they’d already been to La Paz and Cusco. Using my immense powers of deduction I realised they could only be in Lima... or Mancora. So I interrupted their conversation to find out. They were indeed in Mancora.

I met up with Chris at the Loki bar. It had been over 3 months since I’d seen him. I kept in touch with Pedro on Facebook so the 3 of us could meet up again. We tried to reunite in La Paz, but my procrastinating made us miss each other by only a few days. It was good to see him. We had a big catch-up, it was nice. The boys are the only other people I’ve met who like to stay in one place for a really long time. They spent two and a half months in ‘The Squat’ in La Paz. It’s good to hang out with like-minded explorers, instead of backpackers that stay everywhere for only 3 days and spend 72.9% of their time on buses.

Chris left, Pedro stayed and Tom showed up with Simon.

Who the hell are Tom & Simon?
Tom – you remember Tom? Rio tom. The one that I said should be the Prime minister of England. Tom is another person I stayed in touch with, with the intention of meeting up again. I was supposed to go to Colombia and meet him. Then I was supposed to go to Ecuador to meet him. As you know, I didn’t do either of these things so Tom came to Mancora. Good Tom. Simon’s Tom’s mate, they went to university together. Simon’s pretty safe. We like Simon too.

The team was suddenly pretty huge and much more fun now we had some new members, boy members. I knew Tom & Pedro would get on before Tom arrived. They did. They even got arrested together, how sweet.

Ok, not quite arrested. The police planted some drugs on Pedro and Tom, to set them up so they would have to bribe them so they didn’t end up in jail. Little did the police know that Pedro already had some supplies on him. So the boys haggled for a while and the little escapade cost them about $100 each.

Black Saturday
Then suddenly, everyone left at the same time. Kelly had to go back to England for Christmas before heading to Syria for more drinki... I mean studying. Victoria had to get to Arequipa for some voluntary work and after over a month of partying every night Sierra just needed to get the hell out of Mancora and continue her adventure elsewhere. Tom didn’t have to leave he just wanted to leave on the same day as everyone else to upset me. Pedro was leaving to go to Colombia to hang out with his nephew at Christmas.

When I saw the girls say goodbye to the Sushi boys at lunchtime, I broke down. It was too much for me. I got very emotional at the sudden departure of my entire team. The 3 girls left for Lima. Even Karina was leaving for Lima on the same day. Karine is one of the owners of Hula Hula Hut – the bar the team always go to, let’s call it HQ. I also now live with her.

Then I went to Tom & Simon’s hostel to hang out before they left that evening. Then Pedro shows up. The ATM ate his bank card. He aint goin’ nowhere. It seems the universe worked its magic yet again...

©

And then I met Mario

2009-12-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

I didn’t want to go to Peru. I thought it would just be a deluxe version of Bolivia. So when Lola’s mum asked me if I was going there (which she did numerous times) I’d always answer: es no interesante para mi, in my best Spanglish. She would always talk about how much she wanted to go to Machu Picchu but I told her it also didn’t interest me once I found out it wasn’t that old.

The only reason why I went to Peru was because a) Molo was going and I thought I might as well have a look around and b) its on the way to Ecuador, which is where I was heading. As always, there was a change of plan – and I think it’s safe to say, I’m not going to make it to Ecuador any time soon...

Cougars
Steph always called me a Cougar. It’s another ridiculous American term that doesn’t make any sense. The definition in a nutshell is: a woman who goes for toy boys - for example Demi Moore is a Cougar because she’s with Ashton Kutcher. Now, I would contest this, I really would. But I actually can’t. I don’t know why but since my last boyfriend who was only three years younger than me, I prefer younger men. Why? Oh I don’t know, because they’re fresh, young, excitable, not yet jaded by life or women and they have so much stamina and enthusiasm, it would be a shame for them to waste it on some young thing that has no idea what she’s doing.

Recently however, I have been taking it to a new level – teenagers. Legal teenagers, but still teenagers – a 19 year old to be precise. A man at his peak.

Sushi
When Sierra first told us about Mancora, one of the first things she mentioned was the sushi bar, then the sushi boys – particularly Mario. I didn’t take a great deal of notice as I usually don’t find the same men attractive as other girls. She told me about his dimples, I remember that, but I don’t know why I remember.

The first night in Mancora, we went to check this sushi place out – only for the sushi you must understand. The sushi was amazing – the best I’ve ever had. We ordered a combo dos and another plate for the four of us to share. It was so good we ordered another combo dos. We were pretty drunk at this point; Jenna and I in particular had been drinking pretty much all day so we happily spent 130 Soles on rice and fish.

Mario is the main sushi guy. He’s the manager and the chef and his older brother’s boss. When I first saw Mario – I was like: yeah. I turned to Claire and said: he’s hot. She said he wasn’t her cup of tea. I said is that only because he’s so hot all the girls want him so you don’t? She said yes. I said I’m usually like that about hot guys too. But this time it was different.

However on day one The Team went to bed pretty early as Sierra had one hours sleep, the rest of us had slept on a bus the night before and I had also puked a little bit from all the beer.

Loki
The next day we checked out of Loki and in to ‘the shed’. I couldn’t take it anymore. It took less than 24 hours for that place to annoy me. The last straw was in the morning when I’d JUST woken up and a guy that works there said good morning to me etc and I said good morning back. But barely being able to peel my eyes open as the bright white paint of the Loki penal complex blinded me whilst pouring myself a cup of coffee and grabbing a piece of the free bread you get for your 25 Soles a night (how generous) - I forgot to smile. So he felt the need to say to me: “why aren’t you happy - just look at your surroundings?” I just glared at him and walked off. What a fucking douchebag.

Seriously, I’m not in to organised fun, talking in the mornings – or being told to be happy when fundamentally I’m happier than I’ve ever been and I’m a lot happier than most people I meet. It’s like being back in England and being told to smile (by a group of builders that you’re trying to avoid) at the beginning of a very long day in a very boring office.

Loki is apparently a ‘party hostel’. Now I fully intended to try and get a job there, to get free accommodation and food and stay in Mancora for a month. But it turns out it’s a hostel full of English – mostly posers, people that think they’re cool and people that want to be cool – in other words: idiots. Especially the boys. They’re all Topman wearing skinny pricks with ridiculous sunglasses and no personality.

The team forced me to go to a party there on our first weekend, I reluctantly joined them and within minutes of being there I was bored and verbally attacked by yet another douchebag. He started talking to me and I said: this place is shit and the party is boring, so he asked me if I wanted to go to his room. I walked off in disgust. As I was leaving yet another tosser came over to me and gave me the most ridiculous chat-up line I’ve ever heard - I can’t even repeat it. But it was like: really? Does that ever work for you? If it has I’d like to shoot the girl who allowed you to fuck her after you said that to her. Jeeeeeez.

It’s not that I don’t like Loki. I just don’t like the vast majority of people that stay there and I don’t like being told what to do. On the outside it looks like a small hotel on the Costa del Sol, on the inside – it’s a concrete incarceration unit with many rules. Oh and the parties are rubbish because everyone who stays there needs to be told how to party - by a hostel. Or there are people dancing on the bar at 8:30pm – really? Don’t you think that’s a bit early? Not to mention unnecessary? Dancing on a bar doesn’t make you a ‘crazy party person’. It makes you a danger to yourself and others around you - not to mention a disgrace to your country. Most Loki guests are English and look about 24. Now, I didn’t leave England to go travelling to hang out with English people all the time, what’s the point of that?

Woooo – glad I’ve got that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

The Shed
The Shed became HQ for The Team. Why is it called the shed? Because when you’re in the room, you feel like you’re in a shed and the beds are made out of what seems to be made out of fence wood – the same wood, as a fence. It creates a lovely ambience. The shed is actually a hostel – Sierra was told about it and she told us about it. Where Loki is 25 Soles EACH per night, the shed is 15 Soles between us.

More sushi anyone?
Jenna and Sierra spent most of our second day in and out of the sushi bar, whilst I was doing some writing and following up on some other work.

That night we went to the sushi bar again. Ate more sushi as we’d been thinking about it all day, drank some pisco that we brought with us and then headed out. We found a bar, it was pretty empty because it was quite early, but we liked the music and started dancing. We were already drunk from the pisco and Inca Kola ‘cocktails’. We drew in quite a crowd and got the party started – this would be our formula for at least the next 3 days and that’s why we became The Team.

Later that night – Mario showed up. I turned to Sierra and said: I have to have him. I mildly danced with his brother Jonathon for a few minutes, then I danced with Mario. We kissed and that was it for the rest of the night. We danced together for hours then we hopped on his motorbike and rode off in to the distance... to the shed.

I’m not going to give you many details, all I will say is it was amazing. Jenna turned up after a few hours and disturbed us, but it was ok. I was satisfied and relieved of the break.

The next day, we couldn’t find Claire. The girls said that the last they saw of her she went off with some guy the night before. I said we should look for her. We did, but we couldn’t find her. Then at around 4pm, she showed up, on the beach with a big tall Rastafarian - Eduardo. All is good in Claire’s world.

That night, I just had to have Mario again. I HAD to make sure of this. So I picked out yet another hot dress from my ‘travellers’ wardrobe to make sure of it.

Let’s just say, the dress worked...

©

From MENdoza to MANcora [part 2]

2009-11-29T17:12:00.000-08:00

Everything that happens, everything you do – leads you up to the point you are at now. Life is a series of events and turning points that lead to other events: It’s all about timing. People and timing.

I had planned to leave Cordoba a week earlier than I did. As always there was a big weekend coming up. This time it was a bank holiday so I had to stay for that. After much fun and hilarity at a polo tournament with a fair chunk of Lola’s family, including the infamous Javi (her brother) and followed by the lovely Perico’s birthday, it was time to go.

Fortunately a friend of Lola’s was heading in a similar direction as me – well, Peru - also by bus. So Lola arranged for me and Molo to go together by persuading him to go to Peru via La Paz.

Now, I’d never met Molo before and didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t even know if he could speak English. How would we communicate? So armed with an English-Spanish dictionary and a lot more stuff than I arrived with, I headed to the bus station to meet him.

I said goodbye to Lola, but it wouldn’t be forever. My plan was to go to La Paz, get my stuff then head to Ecuador via Peru, go to the beach for a month, get a tan and come back to Argentina for Christmas.

Molo
Molo and I had no choice but to get to know each other. We started talking about business first. Then he told me why he was going to Peru: to see a shaman to take Ayahuasca and have a spiritual experience. Molo was looking to achieve balance in his life – a balance of mind, body and spirituality. He was hoping to achieve this by taking this hallucinogenic drink. I explained that it doesn’t work like that.

Ayahuasca is similar to San Pedro. It’s a strong hallucinogenic substance that is made from a special cactus. It should not be taken alone, only when accompanied by a shaman – otherwise, you might freak out. It’s supposed to open your mind and make you see things differently after taking it and help you overcome your problems. I’m a little bit sceptical about this, not for other people – but for me. Hallucenogenics aren’t really my thing – I don’t need to go permanently mad thank you very much. The more I got to know Molo, the more I thought: he should not take this stuff.

A bit about Molo: he’s the same age as me, he’s a big, tall, hairy Argentinean man and he’s quite good looking. I suppose. He’s pretty intelligent, but as time went on I realised he’s not as intelligent as me. He’s in to psychology and spirituality. But he is an Argentino and these men are muy machismo. At times this made things very interesting.

Retracing my steps
Molo can be quite bossy – even when we got to Santa Cruz, somewhere that I had been to previously – he was bossy. After a day, Santa Cruz got boring so I returned to Samaipata this time with Molo. If I told him “it’s this way” he’d check with a local who would confirm that I was in fact right. There’s not enough room in my life for two egos. I like a man to know his place and SHUT THE FUCK UP from time to time. I like a man who knows whose boss: me. I’m always willing to compromise. But these alpha males are so full of shit sometimes it’s unbelievable.

As we walked through the hills of Samaipata we talked about our past relationships, men, women, situations, more about spirituality. Molo stated that men and women cannot be friends. It is impossible, because sex always gets in the way. I don’t agree. Men and women can be friends even after they’ve had sex with each other. Please see: http://missdmeanour.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

It is possible and I wanted to prove to Molo that he could have a real female friend – me.

The day before we had walked around Santa Cruz discussing the state of the world, the conspiracies of capitalism and the government, Americanisation, globalisation, religion, war, The Zeitgeist Movement and The Venus Project. It turns out we agree on a lot of these things. You can’t talk to most people about such subjects, most people find it too heavy, too boring or they just don’t have an opinion so it was refreshing to talk to Molo.

Friday night in Samaipata
Now to give you a bit of context – Samaipata is a small town, with houses made of mud bricks, lots of agriculture and has some tourism due to the proximity of the national park and the incredible surrounding countryside. It has one club. This club is a bit home-made: a bottle opener hangs on a string from the bar, the bar staff are more than sloppy in their appearance and their desire to serve you a drink, sporadic karaoke to local music, then reggaeton, all night they have a screen showing a slideshow of images – a mixture of scenery, Ricky Martin, some holiday snaps, Enrique Inglesias, but mostly ‘pretty ladies in bikinis’. It made for an interesting cultural experience.

Laptop?
We left Cordoba on Tuesday, arrived in Santa Cruz on Thursday. Went to Samaipata on Friday. Left Santa Cruz on Saturday, arrived in La Paz on Sunday morning – spent the day there, showing Molo around. I took him to El Alto and my favourite restaurant. I wanted to take him to Blue but the altitude was getting to him.

By the way - my laptop and my bag were still in the same place as I left them – PHEW.
We left for Cusco very early on Monday morning and arrived in Cusco on Monday night to meet Molo’s friend Felipe. It was an interesting journey – daytime journeys feel longer because you sleep less. The decent long-distance buses always show films. This time it was 3 dubbed films with The Rock in, in a row. Followed by all of ‘The Mummy’ films, also dubbed. ‘Quality’ films such as these are easy to follow, with or without dubbing, subtitles or even sound.

Magical Cusco
Before we arrived in Cusco, Molo told me that it was supposed to be a special place and the people there are very magical. I was interested to see what Cusco was like as I was supposed to be there 2 months before - remember the emergency plane ticket incident at Buenos Aires Airport?

I wasn’t disappointed. Felipe had already got us a 3 bed dorm that was more like an apartment and it was right by the beautiful plaza. Cusco is so pretty it’s almost as if the Spanish had tourism in mind when they colonised Peru and took it from the Incas.

We spent Monday night drinking and dancing and that’s when Molo decided to kiss me. I let it go. Tuesday we rented mountain bikes and explored the city. Meanwhile, Felipe was off to prepare himself for his experience with the Shaman. Molo had decided against doing it. Mostly because I had pointed out that a shaman with an email address that charges $100 doesn’t sound very spiritual to me. And if he was going to do something like that, maybe it would be better to stumble in the jungle and find one coincidentally. These things should not be planned, let the universe take control. Plus, after talking to me - he was scared of going permanently mad.

That night while Felipe was with the Shaman, Molo and I went for a Chinese. It was quite nice, ordering the food was bit of an ordeal, but as I have since discovered that this is often the case when dining out in Peru. We discussed the kissing incident and I told him that it wasn’t a good idea if we were travelling together. He probably only did it to spite me and prove me wrong about the ‘men and women can’t be friends’ thing. So I decided we shouldn’t take it any further.

So that night, we had sex.

Action, adventure and more bikes
The next day the three of us hired mountain bikes again, but this time we headed for the hills. The landscape around Cusco is dramatic. We cycled about. Up and down, cross country, I hurt myself a couple of times, but that’s pretty standard procedure for me - I didn’t break anything and I didn’t die: I win.

My bike was pretty shit, I let Molo have the good bike as it seemed important to him – I didn’t really care that much.

We hitched a ride with a man and his truck so we could go further up and cycle down; we threw our bikes in the back of the truck and sat in the open air, driving through the Peruvian countryside. We cycled through a remote village where we were greeted and followed by a dozen beautiful children.

And - I rediscovered my fear of ‘down’; this time on a bike. I got stuck, as I do and needed to get my bike down a downy bit. I called out for help as I could see my legs were in serious danger of getting scratched by my bike. No one came. So I just let the bike go down on its own and I followed. Apparently you’re not supposed to do this and one of the brakes didn’t like it at all.

Once we got on to the main road, cycling was much more fun. I prefer freewheeling down a nice smooth downhill road, with a few curves and corners thrown in for good measure.

The next day, we did Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu vs. Stonehenge
The Incas began their phase in around 1200AD and the Spanish invaded Peru in 1529, so they had quite a good innings. Machu Picchu was started in 1430 and took about 100 years to get to what it looks like now. And it’s unfinished. Lazy.

Ever since I went to a museum in Samaipata the first time around and I found out that Incas were here until 500 years ago and Machu Picchu is under 600 years old, I was a little disappointed. I was under the impression that the Incas were about at the same time as the Egyptians, Romans etc – but they weren’t. Everyone goes on about Machu Picchu. I’d never even heard of it until I went to Bolivia. The only wonder of the world I knew was Stonehenge.

After doing some research I find out that Stonehenge is NOT one of the ‘seven wonders of the world’. WHAT?

Stonehenge is magnificent and highly mysterious. Ok, so it isn’t magnificent, but it has something that Machu Picchu doesn’t: it’s really, really old. It’s from the Bronze Age so it’s thousands of years old. AND they don’t know how it got there or why exactly. So it’s better and more wondrous. This isn’t my opinion – this is FACT. So it’s not up for discussion.

Really. Think about what was built in England around 500 years ago: Hampton Court Palace for example. Rochester Castle was built in 1127 - before the Incas had even got started AND it’s still there. So in terms of human progress, the Incas were a little behind. But to give them their dues: well done for making it look so nice and putting it on top of a mountain. I really enjoyed climbing it and Wayna Picchu after that to have a look it from a distance.

Solo en Cusco
The boys left for Lima on Saturday, I decided to stay behind in Cusco to do some writing. I felt safe in Cusco and I wasn’t finished with it yet so I spent the next few days making the most of the wifi in a hotel on the plaza... and McDonalds. Skype'd the family – chatted to my younger brother, saw him sitting on his sofa, with his girlfriend, in their house, in the midlands, with their cat, whilst I was hanging out in Maccy D’s all day, wearing ripped jeans and Converse. Something’s gone wrong there.

Never alone for long, I managed to find people to hang out with - if I wanted. I met a Peruvian boy called Jose who couldn’t speak any English so I chatted to him to practice my Spanish. Then I went for dinner in a nice looking, relatively inexpensive, good quality restaurant. That’s when I met Diego.

It’s funny how the universe works... If that restaurant hadn’t caught my eye who knows where I’d be now and what I’d be doing. I told you - it’s all about timing: being in the right place at the right time changes the path of your life forever.

Anyway - Diego, the manager of the restaurant started talking to me once I had finished my main course. He seemed like a nice guy and he was easy to talk to. I told him my plan: head to Ecuador and go to the beach for a month, get a tan and then go back to Argentina. He told me about a really nice beach that he knows in Peru: Mancora. He told me he goes there every summer and wrote it down in my notebook for me. We continued to talk and he invited me to a dinner party the next night which I attended and had my first real Peruvian experience. I met his amigos and amigas, they were good fun and good people – I decided I liked Peruvians then and there.

Lima
Unfortunately there isn’t a bus that goes from Cusco to Mancora; I had to go via Lima. I spent the Halloween weekend with Molo which was actually rather pleasant. I tried to kidnap him to Mancora but he wasn’t having any of it, he had to start heading back to Cordoba. On our last day, we fell out over him telling me what to do (AGAIN), made up, then went our separate ways.

The Team
After yet another 12 hour bus ride, I arrived in Mancora. Alone.
I checked in to Loki hostel there as I’d contacted them about a job. Two other girls (Claire and Jenna) that were apparently on my bus checked in at the same time so we were put in the same room, where we found only one resident – Sierra. Whose first words to us were: what time is it? It was 8am, she’d only been asleep for an hour. My kinda girl.

The Team formed almost instantly.

Jenna and I headed for the beach whilst Claire slept off her cold. Sierra joined us and told us all we need to know about Mancora. Jenna and I went for an early afternoon beer and cracked on. Claire joined us and we became an impenetrable foursome – for at least 24 hours. Sierra had told us about a sushi bar – and the sushi boys. She was excited to take us there, so that night we went to check it out...

©

From MENdoza to MANcora [part 1]

2009-11-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

Argentina is supposed to be the holy grail of cock. I had high expectations after meeting Gwilly and a couple of other chicos in Brazil that ALL the men in Argentina would be hot and in-turn I would be duly uncontrollable.

So when Steph wanted me to come to Argentina with her, I was somewhat excited by the prospect. Even if I wasn’t I’m sure she would have just kidnapped me again any way. So after a bit of ‘do I / don’t I’ pondering for a day, I decided: fuck it, I’m going to Argentina, I’ll deal with getting my stuff from La Paz later.

I also had another not quite so man-hungry reason to visit Argentina, but I’ll come on to that a bit later.

Q: What are the first three things one does when one crosses the border from Bolivia to Argentina?

A: Meat, MEAT, then get your hair done by a post-op transsexual.

After an ordeal on the Bolivian side of the border with a pack of shifty looking Bolivian men that were blatantly lying to us about a) how much our bus ticket cost and b) how long the journey to Argentina is, I decided that I would walk over the border myself and buy my ticket on the Argie side. After some negotiation with Steph who had accumulated an extra bag of stuff since she left San Francisco and was loaded up like a pack-mule, I compromised and changed my terms to: I refuse to buy my bus ticket from a man - I’m only dealing with women from now on.

We bought our ticket from a woman, then it transpired that we would have to walk across the border anyway. Needless to say, we missed our bus – however, this gave me the opportunity to try my first portion of Argentinean meat - in Argentina: 1 steak sandwich and chips and yet another egg-based thing for the vegetarian.

Before I go on can I just point out that: I went to ARGENTINA WITH A VEGETARIAN. The concept is farcical. I’ve always said (mostly to vegetarians) that vegetarians are trouble-makers. If we weren’t supposed to eat meat – then why do animals taste so good? I tried being a vegetarian once when I was a child - it lasted until Sunday dinner time. Vegetarianism was invented solely for one purpose: so twelve year olds can annoy their parents with their new found pre-pubescent individuality and they have to have ‘special food’. This is something that one should grow out of by the time you’re 16 – by then you should have discovered much more exciting ways of rebelling than eating your greens.

Our first real port of call in Argentina was Salta. Salta is a pretty colonial city in the north. Steph and I donned our best travellers’ attire and sat in the plaza drinking coffee, smoking slim cigarettes and feeling incredibly chic and European; especially as our previous wardrobes consisted of a plastic cowboy hat and chaps or wearing all our clothes at the same time just so we didn’t get frost bite on our nipples.

Our hostel was pretty chilled out, they had no other guests apart from us and there were a couple of guys that worked there. After dinner Steph and I headed back to the hostel to hang out for a bit and see what was going on. It was a Wednesday night so not much was happening as we could see. So we hung out with the guys. One of them was quite tall and good looking, if not a touch on the gay side. The other was small and hairy.

Steph and I had our first public ‘argument’ about the English language and who is easier to understand and the correct way of saying things. It wouldn’t be our last. It turns out south American men don’t understand banter, especially not between two girls: girls, girls, stop fighting please – if I had a peso for every time a bloke said that to us... I’d have 6 pesos.

Needless to say, we went dancing with the two hostel boys. I think Steph and I had consumed at least one bottle of wine and several large bottles of Quilmes by this point, so we were suitably lubricated.

Got back to the hostel and after ‘my one’ insinuated that he preferred tall girls I decided I wasn’t going to have sex with him. Then I had sex with him. Then he proceeded to tell me his whole depressing life story as post coital pillow talk. He told me various things for which I was sympathetic. Then he told me he has a girlfriend. Nice. Then he pointed out that he’s actually completely out of proportion and he is in fact a bit of a freak. Nicer.

The sex wasn’t great either. So the next day, Steph and I made a swift exit and on to our next destination for the weekend: Cordoba.

The showgirl and the post-op
Do you remember Lola? From Paraty? Well I certainly hadn’t forgotten her and as promised, I went to visit her. And as promised, she let me stay with her family.
I told her before I was ready to meet any new people; I simply MUST get my hair done. So she made me an appointment with Georgie. Georgie used to be called George – and to look at shim, you can tell. There’s no doubt about it: that was a man. But now, she’s a woman. A hair dresser. And a bellydancer. S/he did a good job and with my newly blackened hair, I was ready to hit Cordoba.

Cordoba is Argentina’s second city, after Buenos Aires of course. It has seven universities and therefore has a lot of students, which means a lot of young people, a lot of clubs and A LOT of parties.

That weekend and the following week, Lola made sure that we met as many people as possible, went to a lot of good clubs and generally had a good time. On Saturday I had my first real Argentinean assado (barbeque). Lola’s Dad did the cooking and the meat was incredible, the best I’ve ever eaten. Steph had a salad.

Bikes & Wines
Mendoza – sounds a bit like a woman that bulldozes men in to the bedroom. Lola had to head off with her parents for a family shindig in BA so Steph and I decided to go for a mini-break in Mendoza. After my week in Cordoba I decided that I was definitely going to come back and I had behaved pretty well so far and seemed to make quite a good impression on Lola’s friends.

However, in Mendoza, I knew no one.

After yet another 12 hour bus journey extravaganza, we arrived in Mendoza. We checked in to a hostel which I instantly branded as ‘gay’. I.e. Too much orange and looks like a primary school. But whatever, a hostel is a hostel.

Steph and I took a walk around the area. A few blocks away from the hostel we saw a shop called ‘Bikes & Wines’. Perfect – well, for Steph. She had it in her head that she wanted to cycle around the bodegas. I agreed that it was a nice idea, so we went to check it out.

We were greeted by a big Argentinean man in his twenties who told us about the tours then offered us a coffee, we graciously refused the coffee. Then he offered us some wine – now we’re talking. So he cracked open the bottle, his colleague – Fernando - joined us for a glass. A couple of bottles later we were on the roof eating lunch in the sunshine. One more bottle later I was downstairs in the shop with Fernando and Steph out the back with Nico. At first I was reluctant, but he seemed to know what he was doing and he was really quite good (in retrospect I think the wine and the novelty of the location helped).

Back on the roof and back on the booze, the beer ensued. Then on to a random meat shack for a dinner of steak and intestines then back to the bike shop for more sex...

Fernando and I were just getting down to round two, when we hear a crashing sound followed by Steph banging on the door “let me out, let me out”. Fernando scrambled to his feet and started putting his trousers on. I hid behind the desk covering what’s left of my dignity with my hands whilst starting to dress myself.

He let Steph out of the bike shop. After much begging from Fernando for me to stay, I followed Steph. Running down the road, mostly dressed - bra in one hand, breasts in the other – eventually I caught up with her.

Que pasa?
Steph had sobered up and realised what the HELL she was doing. Nico is not the most attractive of men, Fernando tambien. Nico is a heavy set, tall guy, but had a touch of the uglies about him. Fernando has a nice face, but he’s kinda going bald and has a mullet at the same time – so best of both worlds then. Both guys aren’t in the best shape either, not fat as such, just mner. So Steph decided to get a bit dramatic and tell him she couldn’t do it, she had a boyfriend (she doesn’t).

Suddenly Fernando appears on a bike, slightly out of breath pleading with me to come back with him. He then cycles off to get his car.

Back at the hostel, Steph and I sat on the stairs drinking water, discussing the day’s events and laughing at how random it had been. Then Fernando reappears, begging me to come with him. I tell him I’m a bit tired and I’ll see him tomorrow. Poor Fernando.

The next day Steph and I hung out in Mendoza, drank some more wine and when we got back to the hostel I had a message. Guess who? Yup – Fernando had called.

Bodacious bodegas
Monday was finally bike tour day – Steph point blank refused to go with Bikes & Wines, so I begrudgingly compromised and we booked one elsewhere. The tour itself was fine – went to some bodegas (vineyards) did some wine tasting, cycled about. Our group was lame - normal people – the type that wear hiking shoes for no reason, really boring trousers and pastel coloured t-shirts. The kind of attire that says: I’m the outdoorsy type, but then when it comes down to it they probably get vertigo, they’re scared of the dark and don’t like ‘creepy crawlies’.

We got back to the hostel and I had another message, this time it was from... Fernando. I felt a bit guilty, but it had been a tiring day but it was our last night together so Steph and I went to a bar and got drunk.

More wine madam?
We got to the bar and ordered a bottle of wine. The barman insisted that we get a better, more expensive bottle of wine. And then gave it to us on the house. Interesting. Steph and I sat in a far corner of the bar, chatting about our incredible success in achieving so much free wine in one weekend.

Then the barman came over with a couple of tequila shots for us. Nice. By this time we were dancing in the mostly empty bar, on a Monday – whatever.

Then the mojitos arrived. Does this guy want us drunk for some reason?

Then we went downstairs to smoke a joint with him. By this point I was pretty wasted, but luckily I spilt half my mojito on the table. Steph on the other hand was bollocksed off her face. We went back upstairs to dance it off. The barman brought over some beers.

Then I lost Steph. Now – the bar isn’t that big, not big at all. And there were probably ten people in there, including the bar staff – i looked for her but couldn’t find her anywhere. So I went downstairs with the barman for another joint. And somehow ended up having sex with him. The barman wasn’t particularly good looking, he was actually kind of weird looking in a sleazy sexy kind of way – so I think (in my inebriated state) that I decided that after my last experience, maybe he’d be good in bed – or in this case, another desk.

I was wrong; it was disappointing and pretty embarrassing for him.

Cautionary tale?
Tuesday was our last day in Mendoza, our long weekend was getting longer and it was time to go. Steph and I strolled around the plaza and sat in the sunshine. On our way back to the hostel we passed Bikes & Wines. I said I should go in and say bye to Fernando. Steph said she’d meet me back in the plaza.

Fernando was sitting at the desk, he was surprised to see me as he’d given up. I said I just wanted to say bye before I left. I said goodbye and went to leave. He asked me to give him one hour. We went out the back... and it didn’t really happen. Let’s just say it was a bit of a flop.

So what’s the moral of this story? Don’t drink too much red wine or you’ll find slightly fat, balding or weird looking men attractive? Or don’t go back for seconds?

Maybe there is no moral of the story.

All I know is a not particularly wise, ginger man said to me before I left Rio: You don’t always have to find someone irresistible to sleep with them - if you find someone vaguely attractive, just have sex with them.

I’ve stopped taking that advice; it leads to nothing but trouble and unwanted notches on the old bedpost.

“Best travel partner ever”
It’s weird. I just said goodbye to Stephanie at the bus station in and now the bus is pulling away. After over three weeks of pure adventure, she’s the closest person to me right now, at this moment. We have covered everything – and I mean everything: every relationship, our families, our darkest secrets – we’ve laughed so much - we’ve explored Bolivia together, watched films together, rode horses together, smoked spliffs together, travelled together, got drunk together and met men together.

And that’s why I cried like a baby when we parted and proceeded to write 32 pages in my journal about the adventure we had. On reflection, it was a bit over emotional and slightly scary. So I’ll continue with the rest of the story.

Back to Cordoba
My first return trip, but not my last. I arrived in Cordoba tired and greasy – covered in bus air conditioning. But Lola although happy to see me again, would not let me have a shower. Instead she introduced me to half her family and made me hang out with boys whilst looking and feeling like a shadow of my usual self. Because she always looks amazing – even if she hasn’t washed for three days, she doesn’t understand the needs of a normal woman.

I remember telling Tamsin in my second week in Paraty: I love Lola. Now I love her more – she’s brilliant. She’s like an Argentine version of me, but much better. She doesn’t give a shit about anything. Or as she puts it ‘I don’t give a shit for anything’. My love for her is not unrequited – she loves me too. And the more time we spent together in Cordoba, the closer we got.

Her parents adopted me and her mum started calling me her daughter. Even as ‘sisters’ – living together, eating together, clubbing together - doing everything together, there was never a cross word between us. If I was a bloke, she’d be my ideal woman.

Spanish lessons
Friday night was going to be a quiet one. Lola lives an hour outside central Cordoba in a beautiful little town called Rio Ceballos. We went over to Meli & Emi’s house. Meli & Emi are sisters and are a key part of Lola’s group of girls. Nano is Meli’s long-term boyfriend. And he’s almost always at Meli’s house.

When I arrived I couldn’t speak Spanish at all. I told them that I understand a lot of Spanish, but can’t really speak it. BUT it turns out I can’t understand Argentineans with their “sh sh sher’s” and incomprehensible accents. I realised that socialising would be a bit of a problem – especially as a lot of Lola’s friends don’t speak any English and I couldn’t expect Lola to translate all the time. After trying to converse with me Nano stated: no entiende nada. He was right. And he wasn’t impressed.

Steph and I had been curious about how to swear in Spanish, so after a few drinks at Meli’s house, I asked them what the swear words are. Meli started listing off various words; I got my homework book out and wrote them down. We started with the essentials:

PORONGA – big penis
PITITO CHICO – man with a small penis
ZORRA – bitch
ATORRANTA – bitch
CHUPALA - suck it

How many Africans?
After the Spanish lesson, we went to a local venue where a band was playing covers of various Argie and English songs. The band was pretty good. Lola and I got on the beers. At one point, the lead singer came over to Meli and got her to sing with him.
Some Bonnie Tyler song came on and Lola decided I should sing with him too. I’d never heard the song before in my life. So I didn’t sing. Then Mixed Emotions by The (Rolling) Stones came on – not one for being a spoilsport – especially when inebriated, I accepted the microphone and sang the entire song, with the band – taking karaoke to a new level: singing(badly)accompanied by a live band.

In my defence – I’ve always avoided karaoke, it’s sad and I pretty much hate singing in public. However, sometimes it’s more embarrassing to not do something, than to do it. Especially when you’re meeting new people. This is how I have retrospectively justified it to myself.

Nano asked me how big the boys are in England, penis wise. I indicated my response by holding my hands three inches apart. Then he grabbed a 600ml bottle of beer and said that Africans are about this big. I laughed and asked him how many Africans he’d slept with. He laughed, embarrassed, sipped his drink and blushed. From that moment on – Nano and I became friends. Despite the language barrier.

Provi
I spent about 6 weeks in Cordoba. I met a lot of people that I hope I will know for a very long time. Lola’s home became my second home. Her family became my second family. And when I say family – I don’t just mean her mum and dad. I mean her uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins...

Her Mum’s side of the family have a country house in Unquillo, the town next to Rio Ceballos. It’s a huge white house or a small mansion and it’s gorgeous. There are horses and dogs wandering the grounds all day, a swimming pool and acres of land. I spent a lot of time there for various family functions – mostly after a huge night out when my Spanish was particularly non-existent.

Bats
The routine became go out at about 10 ish get in at about 9 ish, sleep all day, get up when it started to get dark... There were a few days when the only time I saw daylight was first thing in the morning when we were getting in from the night before. Even on our various ‘quiet nights in’ (Monday – Wednesday) when we watched English films with Spanish subtitles (really helped me with the Spanish), we’d watch three in a row and go to bed at 7am. So Lola's dad called us bats.

We weren’t alone in our night time ventures; Lola has many ‘friends of the night’ as she puts it. Including Perico, Pepo, Edu and Guada. Our social lives often involved them, especially when clubbing. I temporarily became part of ‘the scene’ in Cordoba, thanks to Lola.

Padel (casi) Pro – Go Nano!
If tennis and squash had a love child, it would be padel. It’s really popular in Argentina, I’d never heard of it before. Nano was playing in a tournament one weekend, so Lola, Meli and my good self went down to the club to support him and check out the men.

We got the beers in and by the time he was on court, we were on our third large bottle of Quilmes. Nano is a lucky boy; he was the only player with his own personal cheerleading squad. He got so much support he and his partner won their game. We take full credit for his success – as our winning chant of ‘Go Nano, go Nano, Go Nano’ definitely helped. Definitely not embarrassing for Nano.

We chilled out after his game and I spotted a guy that I thought was alright looking: Cata. Lola had her eye on another: Mariano. Cata couldn’t speak English and he kept drinking my beer without asking, so I went off him, decided he was a bolsa para douche and hated him a little bit. The four of us (Me, Lola, Meli & Nano) hung out at the padel club all day and all night – ate another assado which was amazing as usual. I think I was the first to start eating and the last to finish. I couldn’t help myself, we just don’t get meat like that in England.

We returned to the padel club on Sunday to support Nano again. He lost. Mariano and his partner won the whole tournament. Cata was all over Lola – she could have him, he continued to drink my beer without asking and I continued to dislike him for it.

Ironically a few weeks later Lola and I had a double date with the boys: Cata & Lola and Me & Mariano.

My stuff
The whole time I was in Cordoba, I had something hanging over my head – my lap top. I knew I couldn’t get too settled there despite the amount of people I now know in Cordoba. After about 7 weeks in Argentina, it was time to head back to La Paz and get my things. A bus from Cordoba to Santa Cruz in Bolivia takes just under two days. That’s right kids, 2 days. The thought of it was killing me: Why did I leave my stuff behind? Why do I have to go back and get it? Can’t someone else do it for me?

After being told that the management ‘weren’t happy with his work’ Phil had to leave La Paz, so my incentive for going back was diminishing. There was a brief ray of hope when Phil planned to come to Argentina with Irena – but alas he returned back to the land of stolen hub-caps and teenage pregnancy: Liverpool.

So I had to go. Alone. To La Paz. Would my stuff still be there? Or would I open the locker and find nothing? This played on my mind a bit, but I decided to just keep my fingers crossed and if necessary cross that bridge when I came to it...

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The Kidnapping

2009-11-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

When Steph kidnapped me, I have to admit I was a little bit stoned. I’d already packed my bags as I was ready to embark on a short break from La Paz, with Davina. After a slight change of plan and the fact that I am probably the easiest person to kidnap in the world – stoned or not – Steph marched me off to the bus station.

Where was I going? Salir de Uyuni – the Uyuni desert. Only for four days, then I’d head back to La Paz and get a job at The Adventure Brew Bar. Phil was to become the new bar manager and he’d be my boss. The thought amused me and I was looking forward to it. I only packed a small bag, as I was only going away for four days, so I locked my big backpack away and put my laptop in a locker until my return.

Both Helen and Steph had arrived the night before the hat party – the night before my flight to Cusco (that I didn’t take). Helen had come to kidnap Joe and take him away from me, thus splitting up the group. Steph had just returned from a monkey sanctuary three hours outside La Paz. She loves the monkey sanctuary, she dreams about it – probably because the monkeys give her more action than she’s ever had in her life. A buxom wench, the monkeys don’t miss a trick in motorboating her chest – apparently, so I’ve heard.

After the hat party, the team only had a couple more days left together. We all knew that. Joe had more of Bolivia to see, but then he must return to the motherland to attend university. Sunday was a sad day – a day of goodbyes. It would be the last time I would see Joe... and Phil.

Road trip!

We got on the bus in the nick of time, armed with a 2L bottle of rum and Coke and a 2L bottle of vodka and Sprite, and some essential supplies...

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-coloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into locked a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

Ok, not quite. But we did have some weed, a bottle of wine, hand sanitiser and a box of clove cigarettes to get us through the next few days.

I won’t bore you with the details of the Uyuni desert tour again. As no doubt you’ve read my ‘review’ of Bolivia that comprehensively covers the scenery. This story isn’t about scenery – it’s about people.

There were six of us in our 4x4, including me and Steph. There was a Dutch guy – let’s call him Johannes. And a Japanese guy – let’s call him Scotty. They were both parodies of themselves. Johannes had bright blonde hair, bright blue eyes and tanned skin – needless to say, and I didn’t fancy him, which was weird. He had a very extreme face. Scotty was small and looked like a Japanese person.

Mike & Eva
Mike & Eva were the other two. They were a couple from New York. Mike was an asshole – or arsehole in proper English. I took an instant dislike to him. He was a control freak, he was spoilt, and he thought that because he had the biggest camera – he was the most important person on the trip. He was a graffiti artist, a DJ, a photographer, played basketball and did numerous other ‘cool’ things and lived in the ‘coolest’ part of New York City. You could tell he was an only child and you could tell that Mom and Pop were pretty well off. But despite all this, he was a freak and a geek. Not only this, but he had the BIGGEST, ugliest nose I’ve ever seen in my life. Eva was actually quite sweet.

The first night Steph and I had a twin room to ourselves – so we were free to 'have office meetings' in the freezing cold, wearing all our clothes in bed. But on the second night of the tour, we all had to share a dorm room. This would have been ok apart from the fact that this couple who’d known each other for ten years and had been married for a few years HAD to have sex in our dorm. Why? I don’t know. It can’t have been because Eva found Mike irresistible in his brown woolly hat and brown jumper. It must have been because it was Mike’s right as a man to have sex with his wife. He didn’t say that – not in so many words – but they had no shame in constantly asking if there was a matrimonial suit at any possible opportunity. Nothing was ever good enough for them. Anyway, back to the disgusting act itself. It was obvious they were having sex – a) because of the noises and b) because they insisted on leaving the torch on. I pulled my hat down over my ears and tried to go to sleep.

A few hours later, I woke up in the pitch dark, desperate for the toilet. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. But there was no light, none at all. I’d have to lie there awake til dawn break. But I couldn’t I needed the toilet NOW. I was lying in my sleeping bag, panic stricken. Mike & Eva’s torch would have come in handy. When I heard movement I called out for a torch. But no one came. Was I going to wet my sleeping bag? Suddenly, I had a brain wave. I reached down for my iPod speakers. Why? They have a small standby light on them. I used the small standby light as a torch and guided my way out of the dorm, to the toilet. Phew!

Why did I bring iPod speakers in my small selection of stuff? Because she shall have music wherever she goes, of course. And I’m so glad I did, partly for the music, but mostly for that moment in the dark.

Proper English
Bit of background on Stephanie: she’s American. That’s all you need to know.

No there is more – she’s from San Francisco (bay area) which makes her a bit more tolerable than your average Yank, but still she has other ways of annoying you. What’s worse than an American? A vegetarian American.

Over the course of our journey, we discovered that there are in fact a lot of words that Americans have got wrong. It’s not just the spelling of ‘colour’ (Steph that’s: c.o.l o.U.r); they insist on calling an aubergine an eggplant (what part of it looks like an egg?) and a courgette a zucchini. Under normal circumstances, one would not find oneself having a conversation about vegetables, however when one is travelling with a vegetarian, lesbian, Yankee, (ok, she’s not a lesbian) you’d be surprised at how many times a day you hear the word ‘eggplant’. There are more words than you can imagine that they say incorrectly: aluminium, oregano, using flashlight instead of torch, candy instead of sweets, pants instead of trousers (god that gets confusing), and truck instead of lorry... the list goes on.

Little horse on the prairie
The second kidnapping - on to Tupiza – horseback riding. It couldn’t have been more different – we could have crossed the world to a different country, rather than just hopping on a bus and going a few hours down the road. The warm weather and not needing 15 layers of clothes not to die of hypothermia was a welcome break. The horse riding itself was a healthy mix of severe discomfort in the bum-cheek department and good clean fun. But after Tupiza I would return to La Paz and start my job at the bar.

Or would I...

©

Fear and loathing in La Paz

2009-11-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

La Paz, La Paz, La Paz. I’d heard good things about it from a couple of different people before I arrived so I was pretty excited about going there. When I arrived one Friday morning in August I was disappointed: is this it? I don’t get it. What a dump.

By 10am on Tuesday morning, I was in love with it in a funny sort of way...

The Adventure Brew Crew & The Brew Too Crew
A bit of context for you: Adventure Brew is the main hostel with the main bar. Brew Too is the annex which holds a lot more people (including me and Leo) and the staff room.
Saturday night Leo and I met Sian and Dave for the first time. It was love at first sight. They’re a couple from Melbourne Australia and they are such good value. Sian could easily be a brilliant character in Kath & Kim. Dave is a laid back Aussie boy who loves a laugh. As a double act – they’re priceless. We dragged them out with us to a couple of bars on ‘the map’ – Sian openly stated that she only goes to places that are on ‘the map’ – a promotional map of La Paz that to be fair, is pretty fucking useful.

So off we went to Traffic – a bar. It was rock night. We knew that a) because the music was only rock and b) because the DJ was wearing a green t-short that said “Mr Rock” on it. Being an electro head – Leo wasn’t impressed. Sian and I were quite happy singing along to The Killers but after an hour or so, it was time to go. We went to another bar that’s supposed to be "if Paris Hilton came to La Paz, this is where she’d hang out” – despite this description, we showed up. It looked like Bar Med. The music was being played out of yet another small, crap speaker, so we left, immediately. NEXT! Mungo’s.

Mungo’s was pretty good – the music was stuff like Destination Unknown and other ‘dance floor classics.’ It did the job; we got drunk and danced, even though the ‘sound system’, again, was pretty bad.

Sunday was big fat hangover day. We achieved nothing and then the four of us headed off to the Cholita wrestling, which whilst being mildly disturbing it was also entertaining in a brain dead sort of way. Perfect. We went back to the hostel bar, had dinner then joined in the ‘pub quiz’ and won. Of course.

Monday was Leo’s birthday. My bankcard still hadn’t shown up. I’d gone in to the huge Ecobol post office building on Friday and Saturday to check. So I borrowed yet more money from Leo - to buy him a birthday present. We went for a birthday lunch then headed back to the hostel to start the drinking and meet the others. I gave Leo his present when he was drunk enough to appreciate it: panpipes.

We decided to try Traffic again. This time we were the only people in there. We were all pretty drunk so we were talking adequate amounts of shit. Then Phil & Joe arrived. The crew began to form.

Who the hell are Phil & Joe?

Well, Phil is a tall, gay, Scouser hairdresser and Joe is a small, straight, Geordie boy who’s wise beyond mine and Phil’s years. (Joe’s 19 and Phil’s 23). They both worked at Adventure Brew. I hit it off with Phil when I met him on Saturday; he’s on a similar wavelength to me, so I took an instant liking to him. Joe was the cute ‘quiz master’ from the night before.

Blue
We sat around talking nonsense for a while, and then headed to another bar before we discovered Blue for the first time. Blue is the weirdest club I’ve ever been to. I spent most of the night talking to Joe and Phil. Leo spent most of the night talking to Dave.

Blue has a downstairs bar area and dance floor, and an upstairs ‘chill out’ area where people have sex, apparently. While we were sitting chatting upstairs, this fat, bald, Brazilian guy in his forties started shagging a Kiwi girl in her twenties. On the floor. In the club. In front of everyone. Nice. So on that note, we went downstairs for a dance.

The night culminated at Eddies bar. By 9:30am, Joe and I decided to call it a DAY and go back to the staff room in the hostel to smoke something and chill the fuck out. Meanwhile Leo and Phil stayed there and carried on until MIDDAY. Dave – by this point, had gone missing.

Happy birthday Leo.

Tuesday
Ow, ow, ow – the pain. Leo was grumpy and hung-over. I was feeling pretty special too. I didn’t make it to the post office to check my bank card was there.

Wednesday
Leo had to leave to go to Rawenabake that day. I decided to stay in La Paz. I wasn’t ready to leave and I didn’t have much choice as the bank card still hadn’t shown up.

I went up to the bar, logged on to Facebook and was told by a girl who was my friend in primary school, that my ex-boyfriend had killed himself a month ago. It didn’t quite sink in at first. I hadn't seen or spoken to him for years.

I went to the Post Office – lo and behold, the bank card was there. That night – Sian, Dave and I celebrated with a jug (or three) of beer at the bar.

Thursday
I went to breakfast at a restaurant called Angelo’s. It was pretty good. I sat there, alone, reading Shantaram. Suddenly I realised - fuck – he’s dead. I went for a walk around La Paz for the rest of the afternoon. It had sunk in. It was weird.

By the time I got back to the hostel I was ready to get drunk again.

The fire & the formula
The formula for the 2 weeks I spent in La Paz was a combination of this: hostel bar, Mungo’s, Eddies, Traffic and Blue. Not necessarily in that order. One night Sian decided she was going to get me and Joe together in the ‘subtlest’ way possible. Her finest moment was when another girl started talking to him and she shouted over the music – “she’s cuttin’ yer graaass Char, she’s cuttin’ yer graaass” and standing in between said girl and poor Joe. It worked though, somehow. I love that girl, she’s fucking brilliant.

The formula was good fun, but once it killed us all a little bit and Sian & Dave left for more cultural experiences - Phil, Joe and I found a new, chilled-out hide-out: The Brew Too bar. It was our saviour and our favourite place to go of an evening. Yes it was outside, yes it was freezing cold – but it had two things no other bar in La Paz had: a camp fire and swings.

The Brew Too Bar was never open for business, but that made it even better, we could escape the Llama jumper-hat-and-socks-clad, pretentious, gap-year kid and 30 something traveller clan that plagues La Paz with their unoriginality and simultaneous belief that they are really cultured, interesting and worldly. The best thing about these people in their ‘ethnic’ clothes is that they can’t tell the difference between the synthetic jumpers made and imported from China as souvenirs and the stuff woven by Bolivians. Arseholes.

Any way - there, we could hang out without being disturbed or discovered. Most of the time.

The view was amazing - we could see all the lights of the city, but the camp fire became our favourite thing. Our proudest moment was building and starting the fire all by ourselves for the first time. That night we had a lot of visitors donning the aforementioned hats and jumpers and never failed to tell them that we built it ourselves and isn’t it great.

Each night we’d sit there mesmerised for hours, smoking things and drinking things and talking absolute bollocks until the early hours. Sometimes our conversations were profound. Other times we would just take the piss out of each other. Geordies and Scousers (northerners) provide me with SO MUCH material to work with.

The Squat
It was mostly just the three of us, but we did have an extension: the squat. Phil lived in a nice flat just outside La Paz. He lived with Irena and a German Punk boy whose name I cannot quite recall. It was a pleasant flat that welcomed Couch Surfers. Now, for those of you that don’t know what couch surfing is – it a website, a bit like Facebook that allows you to have a profile and rent out your home to people, for free. Or – go and live in someone else’s home – for free. Imagine that. But also imagine approximately 12 couch surfers, plus 3 regular tenants, all living in a two bedroom flat. The result was quite amazing: constant parties and a squat-like atmosphere.

When I say constant – I mean all day and all night. Someone always had a bottle of rum and a spliff on the go. It was immense. I nearly lived there and then I realised I’d never sleep – ever - and opted to just ‘visit’ the flat as often as possible. I stayed there one night. When it was finally time for bed for a few hours, everyone lined up mattresses and pillows and slept like sardines across the living room floor.

The main squat characters consisted of Rodrigo, Pedro and Chris. Rodrigo was a sweet Mexican boy who looked - and coughed - like he had the beginnings of leprosy. Every night, he’d get ready to go out, put eye makeup on his face in tribal patterns, don a luminous shell jacket and a trilby.

Pedro & Chris were an unlikely duo. Pedro hailing from Brazil and Chris from New Zealand. Pedro is a good guy with a wonderful smile and an expressive face – we had many conversations, but I’m sure neither of us can remember what they were about. Chris starts off the day as quite aloof, but by 8pm (the middle of the ‘night’) he’s much more lucid and friendly. I remember the time he danced around the living room in a cowboy hat and wearing a cigarette packet for a belt buckle.

Irena is a funny chick. She’s another Kiwi and was the manager of the bar at Adventure Brew. She has a quirky style and a dry sense of humour. She doesn’t like girly girls, but she liked me – so that’s ok. I could tell you an anecdote about Irena, but I won’t - “has anyone got a jar???...”

Hats, Drugs & Rock n Roll
El Alto provided me with my hat. It’s blue, it’s felt and it hides me when I feel wrong in the head. I love that damn hat. It cost 25Bs – that’s £2.50. The same hat in England would cost a minimum of £30. Bargain. Another bargain from El Alto are my green ‘Converse’. Not Converse at all but a poor imitation that are somehow better (in my mind) because they have yellow chevrons on them. They also cost me £2.50 and replaced my real Converse that got destroyed on my trek in Samaipata - due to my severe dislike of hiking boots.

August 20th was looming – the day I had a flight booked for Cusco, but I didn’t feel like it. I wasn’t ready yet. So instead, I went to a hat party to commemorate and celebrate the opening of the Brew Too bar. It was a good party, only because it meant that we had to go to El Alto to buy hats. Yay! I bought two more. £4.50 well spent!

My hat was olive green and purple, with a splash of orange on the trim. It’s the kind of hat one could wear to the races – but MUCH better. Joe wore a purple bowler hat and Phil wore a baseball cap advertising (car) lubricants and shoved a toy cow on it that held a sign saying: eat more chicken. Suitably random. Steph bought a glamorous red hat.

Who THE HELL is Steph? We’ll get on to her later. She becomes an integral part of my journey, my story and my adventure...

©

Bolivia

2009-09-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

Going to Bolivia is the closest thing to visiting another planet - for me, anyway. I’d never had a culture shock before, I didn’t even know what one was – I just thought it was one of those wanky phrases that people say like “blue sky thinking” - then I arrived in Bolivia and I understood.

Within 24 hours of arriving in the country I saw a woman without a face. It was as horrifying as it was heartbreaking when I saw her begging on the streets of pretty, picturesque Sucre. Torn between barely being able to look and wanting to help her more than anyone I’ve ever encountered. With no eyes or nose and only a cage of teeth set in a purple spherical head – how could life be so cruel?

Cholita’s are weird. Cholilta wrestling is even weirder. They are Bolivian women who wear the traditional dress of: leg warmers, a full layered skirt of any colour, a few layers of blouse, a shawl, a big bag made out of a single piece of fluorescent fabric... Oh, and a bowler hat - obviously. It actually looks pretty cool, but I’ve never felt so different to another person, another woman.

The Cholitas themselves ignore you - in general, Bolivians are not interested or bothered by tourists. They will negotiate a price with you, sell anything from orange juice, to a DVD, to an empanada, or a car to you – but they don’t force their wares or their culture on you. Take it or leave it, it’s there if you want it.

Fun for all the family
The Cholita wrestling takes place in El Alto, just outside La Paz. The night consists of a selection of about 6 different wrestlers (pretending to be 16 different wrestlers by cleverly changing their costume or mask) wrestling each other. It’s about as convincing as Keira Knightly’s performance in Bend it Like Beckham. And it goes on for about 3 hours. What’s interesting is the women don’t just fight each other – they fight the men too. And the men always win. The scenes smack of live domestic violence as the heavy skirted women are punched in the face and flung to the floor by their ringside ‘husbands’.

There’s something for everyone – a teenage mutant ninja turtle vs. an evil looking bloke in a wrestling mask. Kids love it. We saw a little girl and a little boy both about 4 years old got into the outer ring area and were playing together, adorable. Their parents were nowhere to be seen but we were keeping an eye on them. Suddenly, the little boy grabs the little girl and slams her face in to the concrete floor. The little girl bursts in to tears. The little boy looks confused. I hope I’ve made my point.

Sale of the century
El Alto is above La Paz. Every Sunday and Thursday the entire town becomes a huge market where you can buy anything from a rusty nail (seriously), to a new hammer, from an old hat, to a new sofa, from an old bed, to a new sleeping bag, from a sheep, to a monkey, from a puppy, to meat, from popcorn, to vegetables, from a 20 year old PC, to a new stereo, from a truck to a tabard, to a second hand pair of jeans... If it’s random or old, useless or a bargain – El Alto is the place to find it. Even if you don’t want to buy anything it’s a fascinating place to stroll around. In Bolivia, nothing goes to waste – if it’s tangible, it’s saleable – this is proved at El Alto.

La Paz is a city being constantly built around a huge crater - and the effect is as if a circus fell off somewhere at the top and landed in a building site at the bottom. It makes a bad first impression so it can only surprise you, amaze you, entice you, corrupt you but it can never disappoint you.

A cactus, a flamingo and a steam train
It’s not just the culture but the various landscapes. The diversity of the landscapes. And the landscapes themselves. Eco-systems vary dramatically from one side of a mountain to another. After driving for just a few hours it can feel like you've been transported from the dark side of the moon, to mars. I guarantee that if the altitude doesn’t take your breath away, the scenery will...

The Uyuni Desert is the most incredible place I’ve ever been. Parts of the desert are completely flat, miles and miles of beautiful nothing, a floating mountain in the distance and a giant space filled with silence. Until you get to Fish Island.

Fish Island is not technically an island, but when the Salt Flats are covered with a thin layer of water, it’s more like a giant mirror. And I didn’t see any fish there either. No fish at all. Just cactuses. Hundreds and hundreds of cactuses. Despite the spikes - it’s a place to sit, a place to reflect - to ponder, a place to wonder at the expanse of the planes of nothing stretched before you.

That’s the beauty of deserts – the desertedness of them. The Sahara is much the same, if not completely different. The landscape could not be less flat, but still the emptiness and the power of nature is overwhelmingly beautiful and you sit silent, awestruck. Thinking: this is what life is all about. We can make impressive buildings, but we can’t do that. Even the most powerful person, the most talented artist, the most stunning human being were all created by nature. But they can all be destroyed just as easily by the elements: earth, water, fire, air - earthquake, tsunami, bushfire... cancer. However, we’re mostly left to simply kill ourselves and each other.

It’s surreal. But it is real. And it’s not contrived. We would not have the imagination to create such a vast, varied and visual place as the Uyuni desert. Salvador Dali – one of the most influential artists of the 20th century took inspiration from a part of it for his famous surreal landscapes that feature in works such as The Persistence of Memory.

You can be in the middle of nowhere, drive for an hour and nothing turns into something, the landscape changes again and a lake appears. All you can see is pink. The brightest pink, set against the dullest grey, muddy water. Along with Alpacas and Llamas, flamingos are the principal residents of the national park.

Here the man-made is slung next to nature. Inorganic, industrial forms take on a fresh fascination in their deconstructed presence. In a graveyard without tombstones, the shells of dead steam engines, their skeletal steel hoops and dark cylinders form a striking juxtaposition when set against the vivid blue of the ice cold sky.

Uyuni is cold at night. Even wearing two hoodies, a cardigan, gloves, a scarf, 3 pairs of socks, a hat and a sleeping bag at night – I was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life. But in the day time, your surroundings make up for it.

I don’t believe there is anywhere in the world like that desert.

Tupiza is not far away but it couldn’t be more different – almost the opposite. For a start, it’s the perfect setting for a Western with red hills and dusty ground. It’s a prairie landscape and it’s anything but cold. Horse is the perfect mode of transport. Here the scenery doesn’t change at all – consistently blue skies, the occasional green tree, yellow fields and red dust.

Bolivia is a place with no reputation, so one has no expectations, no preconceptions and no knowledge of what to expect. You just show up, see it and see what happens.

©

From Pao De Acucar to Sucre

2009-09-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

The last you heard was I’d left Rio to go and meet Leo in Bolivia. Finally my adventure had legs and as Black said when I left Rio: “it’ll be good for you to get out of your comfort zone and do some real travelling.” I’ll reluctantly admit that he was right. Between the drunken rants, the sober snipes, the constant flow of bullshit and abuse – Black can deliver the occasional pearl of wisdom - or at least if you take his advice, it can lead to an interesting series of events...

A drunk Olivia escorted me to the airport. She’d consumed a large portion of an expensive bottle of cacaca. I was relieved to have the company and not be suddenly thrown in to the wilderness without any sleep or Portuguese. I knew i’d made the right decision and it was time to leave when I couldn’t even bring myself to drink more than 1 beer at my own leaving drinks. I was broken. Rio broke me. I remember Bri-dog (my other boss at the hostel) saying to me once: “Don’t let Rio break you Charlotte. I’ve seen it happen many times before and it’s not pretty.” This was after I told him I was having hallucinations because I was so tired and could I be excused from teaching caipirinha class. I pulled myself together, taught the class and went to bed.

Lots of flights in a short space of time and some ranting
My first flight was from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires where I was to wait for my flight to Asuncion, Paraguay. I waited in the airport for 8 hours. I amused myself by reading, writing my journal, buying something every so often, having a cup of tea. When the gate finally opened I handed over my passport and the bloke asked me for my itinerary. My what? I don’t have an itinerary. You need to have a flight out of Bolivia. I’m only going for 2 or 3 weeks. I’m sorry but we can’t let you get on this plane (to PARAGUAY!)if you don’t have an itinerary. I might get a bus and I don’t know what my plan is...

Did you know you can’t do whatever you want when you want? No, neither did I.

I was sent off to the internet cafe with only a few minutes to book a flight, after waiting in the airport for hours. A flight out of a country doesn’t mean that you’re definitely going to leave the country. I could miss the flight and i’d still be there. So what’s the point of forcing someone to buy a flight they don’t want? Bastards. I booked the cheapest one – a ticket to Cuzco on 20th August. It cost me £60. I was annoyed but decided that at least I knew where and when my next stop was.

I woke up in Paraguay. Got off the plane. Collected my bags. All the baggage handlers smelt of strong booze. My one tried to get me a taxi and a hostel. I wasn’t interested in such things. I was ready to sleep in the airport, and i did. I slept on a rickety metal bench made of 3 office chairs, with my backpack underneath it and my hand luggage wrapped around my leg. I slept for an hour at a time, then i’d jump myself awake, check i still had everything and go back to sleep. The airport was freezing, i was wearing 2 hoodies and a cardigan and i was still cold – quite different from the hot, sunny ‘winter’ i’d had in Rio.

Morning arrived and I got on my third flight in 24hours - from Asuncion to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. But it was not to be my last. I had one more flight I needed to take before I got to Leo. When I arrived in Santa Cruz I felt shattered and disgusting. All I wanted was a shower and a bed. Maybe I could get a hostel and book my fourth flight, for tomorrow. I got on the internet and chatted with Leo. He encouraged me to get on the flight that day: “you can do it, you’re nearly there, just one more flight.” It worked and I waited in the airport for a few hours for the final flight.
It was worth it. the hour long plane ride glided over the Bolivian countryside, skimming mountain ranges and soaring over dramatic landscapes – it showed up my darling Rio as slutty, artificial and obvious, whereas Bolivia, I realised, is naturally stunning.

Leo
I arrived in Sucre on Sunday, grubby and greasy, resembling a jellied eel. Leo and I caught up over dinner, exchanging tales of Santiago and Rio. Our stories differed in many ways but one – we’d both had 7 weeks of “trashbagging”. We both needed a break from our decadent lifestyles and we were both looking for good clean fun.

A year ago we would never have imagined that we’d be sitting together in a restaurant in Sucre – i’d never even heard of Sucre then. I met Leo through Fifi, he was a colleague and friend of hers. I first met him at her office Christmas party. From then on Friday night drinks in Old Street were a regular occurrence – but now we’re in Bolivia, exploring - a far cry from standing outside The Windmill drinking Staropraamen.

Español
First things first – Spanish. After failing at Portuguese i’d promised myself that i’d learn Spanish, a language that I have a real desire to learn. Leo had already had a week of lessons in Sucre and 7 weeks in Chile. I’d learnt: “mucho gusto” whilst in Mexico in 2008. He’d had a head start.

My teacher (Maria Elena) was really good and more importantly, very patient. We crammed in as much as possible in 4 days and she gave me a good basis. I booked 4 hours a day for 4 days as a start; we were leaving for Samaipata on Friday so unfortunately I didn’t have time for any more.

Leo had two Spanish teachers: Horhay and Roxanne. We renamed them: Whoregay and The Face. “Por que?” You may ask. I hadn’t met Whoregay when he got the nickname, but I wanted to more than I wanted to do anything else in Sucre. Leo had told me wild tales of this openly emotional, not quite in the closet, leatherclad bisexual. The Face is the only woman in Bolivia to have undertaken serious amounts of plastic surgery on - you guessed it – her face. So she now resembles someone like... Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show.

OH B*******!
By Wednesday I’d started to feel normal again, I was acclimatising to the cold at night but the weather was pleasantly sunny in the day. Then my mobile phone and bank card mysteriously went missing. Leo and I had a locked, private twin room to ourselves, but that was beside the point – my bag was always with me so I must have just dropped them or put them down somewhere when in my exhausted state.

This caused me 2 problems: all my Rio numbers are now gone. This includes Andre (my filming ‘boss’) and of course – Roberto*. My second and more important problem was: I had no access to my money. Thankfully the Royal Bank of Leo opened its doors to me and in turn, I opened an account. Every centavo spent was carefully noted to avoid any controversy. I cancelled my card, ordered a new one and tasked my parents with sending it to La Paz. Problem solved. Almost.

Moot point
The Face had invited Leo to come and speak to her English class in a kind of Q&A session, to help them practice their English. Leo accepted and I came along for moral support. I took a seat amongst the class and immediately got roped in to it. So there we were, Leo and I – sitting facing a class of over 20 Bolivians, all over 20 years old, all staring at us shyly, giggling and ready to ask us questions.

We answered their questions openly and honestly. I also took the opportunity to spout anti-capitalist propaganda to them. Leo thought it was a bit much, but i wanted to tell them that the capitalist way is not THE way and that there are more important things in life than money. The Bolivian students wholeheartedly disagreed. At least i tried.

Their next question was: what other countries have you been to? I let Leo go first. He listed off numerous countries across most continents. More than me but I could add a few random ones.

Money doesn’t make the world go round – but it does help you go round the world.

How embarrassing.

It was an interesting encounter and an eye opening experience that left Leo and I thoughtful and feeling like spoilt brats. The Bolivian students had never left Bolivia and some of them were in their mid-twenties. World travel or even travelling to other parts of South America is incredibly expensive for a Bolivian. Travel is still exclusive to the relatively rich. I’ve never though of myself as rich or privileged before, but if you take the entire population of the world in to consideration, I guess I am. Especially somewhere like Bolivia where the pound sterling goes a long way at 10 Bolivianos to the pound.

One night at Whoregay’s
Friday night was our last night in Sucre and it didn’t disappoint. After standing us up on Thursday night, i still hadn’t met Whoregay. To make up for it, on Friday Leo and I went to his house just outside the city for a fiesta. Leo had warned me about these little soirees and Whoregay’s friends. The previous weekend, before my arrival, Leo had been subjected to heavy rock, spontaneous gymnastics, an arguement and being mildly molested by his own (male) Spanish teacher.
I couldn’t contain myself with the excitement.

When we arrived we were greeted by a group of drunk, leatherclad, Bolivian men in their mid forties . all looking like bad imitations of The Fonze. My favourite was Alan, a Bolivian millionaire (he had about a £1000) with a very fetching moustache. He was on acid, apparently. Of course – he was renamed Acido Alan. Then there was a second Horhay, who we couldn’t understand at all because he was so drunk / retarded – he got renamed Hor-que? There was The Zombie – who looked like an extra from Shaun of the Dead. A young Bolivian boy was also there, we didn’t catch his name – he didn’t speak. We decided he was being groomed. And finally The German - a german boy who was one of Whoregay’s long-term students and hung out there every weekend, so he was used to practising his Spanish in said bizarre surroundings.

Rapidly the night disintegrated into beer-fuelled rock session – where Whoregay would ‘sing’ along to the lyrics of heavy bolivian rock music, whilst acido alan accompanied him on air guitar. Then the panpies cames out. Whoregay violently blew into the bamboo like his life depeneded on it. Thankfully, i remembered my camera, and the camera loved them. They posed in their leather jackets as i snapped away laughing my head off. Leo was less impressed – with the music and with Whoregay. As he got more drunk, he got more frisky; particularly when posing for a picture with Leo (also wearing a leather jacket).

Unlikely onthologists
On Saturday we left sucre for Samaipata, which promised tropical weather, outdoorsy trekking, hiking and doing nature stuff. When we got there on Sunday morning, it was freezing cold, raining and 6am. Leo hadn’t really slept on the bus. Maybe it was something to do with the first two hours of the journey, bad Bolivian music was being pumped through a broken speaker above our heads. The effect was like listening to an angry wasp play the accordion whilst flying around the inside of a paper bag.

Monday was just as miserable. It was cold. We were both a bit tired and fed up, but despite this we decided to go for a walk. We went up to El Fuerte – some pre-Incan ruins of a forte. It was kind of interesting, what we could see of it through the mist. Our photogaphs look like a wet weekend in wales.

On Tuesday, the sun came out. I snapped out of my semi-miserable state and Leo and I headed for the nearby waterfalls. There were 4 waterfalls all within walking distance of one another, it was a beautiful, peaceful place to walk around. We booked a tour for Wednesday with Michael Blendinger – we both agredd he was ‘old man hot’, mainly because he was so interesting and knew so much about nature. He took us and a funny little Frenchman on the condor tour – a trek up to a cliff where we could see condors take water after they feed. It wasn’t just condors though, we had a good day of general bird watching and learning about nature. And I got burnt!? Which i didn’t understand after being in Brazil for four months. It’s the altitude, apparently.

Oh and i ruined my relatively new, white Converse trekking. What? I’m not wearing hiking boots, i can’t look down and see my feet in hiking boots. So Converse it is. Leo’s just as bad. The pair of us, him in Nike hightops, a vest, skinny jeans and a yellow belt. Me in ripped jeans, a white vest and the aforementioned Converse - meant we didn’t exactly look the part.

Thursday was day two with Mike. This time it was the trek across the national park with a German girl. We trekked through jungle, farmland, wetland, forest, open hillside for seven hours or so. It was fascinating. It was exhausting. it felt good. The fresh air and the changing ecosystems kept us entertained, not to mention – the singing. As we walked along the hillside, i felt like we were in The Sound of Music, so I started singing: “high on a hill was a lonely goat, yodellay, yodellay, yodellay – hee hoo!” Then the German girl started yodelling for real.

Eventually we got back to the car where I passed out instantly. It had been a hard couple of days trekking and I rediscovered my fear of ‘down’ – something I realised when in Paraty and I tried to jump off the side of a boat. Then when i didn’t get vertigo climbing Sugarloaf, I decided it must be a fear of jumping in to water. But then trekking on hillside, I can walk downhill... it just takes quite a lot of time... and i’m at the back... and people kind of have to wait for me to catch up... which means they get regular rest breaks... whilst I trail behind... panting ...

When we got back to Samaipata we had to catch a cab to Santa Cruz, which was two and a half hours away. I slept until our arrival. When we got there leo and i got dressed up and went for dinner. Shattered, we went to bed. The next day was Bolivian independence day. Bit annoying cos all the interne cafe’s were shut. And all the shops. So our only day in Santa Cruz was a bit boring. Yeah there was a parade and yeah, I suppose they deserve their independence – but people need to use the internet too y’know.

That night, we got the bus to La Paz.

©

*Appendix
What happened with Roberto? Well, we all knew that wasn’t going to last. There was too much drama, too much bullshit and too many questions for it to work. He was at the prime age of douchebag: 22 – when they’re not a boy any more, but not quite ready to be a man. I got bored of the repetitive nature of our conversations, the routine of beach meetings and not much else. He said a lot of things to me: “we’re going to get an apartment together in Ipanema in two years” etc... He was all talk – I wanted action. Actions speak louder than words. So it fizzled. Ilona spoke to him one sunny day on the beach, a week or so after I’d left. He said the same old crap to her as he’d been saying to me. He’s pretty sure I’ll come back to Rio – to see him – and he said I’ll know where to find him. Pah! It didn’t take long for me to realise that it wasn’t love, it was lust. There’s only one man in the world that I love and he’s in England. He knows who he is.

Rio no happy Charlotchy go bye-byes?

2009-07-31T08:40:00.000-07:00

I’m in Bolivia. How the hell did that happen? You may ask. It was a snap decision made after a few days of well needed faffing. Trust me, that does make sense.
Rio finally broke me. It broke my body, my mind and my spirit. Every other Monday my body would tell me: nooooooooooooooooooo. And I would listen. I’d give it a few days off, then come Thursday, I’d hit it even harder. But this time it was different.

The week that was to be my last real week in Rio

Things were going swimmingly. The Rampant Rabbi (see One Man Mission to Destroy Paradise) checked in on Thursday night, Clobby arrived on Friday. Tamsin and Tom showed up on Saturday. Black and Manny were already staying at the Pirate Hostel due to an unfortunate turn of events.

Clobby is my best mate Fifi’s friend from London. Fifi instructed me to ‘look after’ Clobby. Now – we all know I’m incapable of looking after myself – let alone anyone else, so I agreed that I’d hang out with her and show her the best of Rio. And I did. She immediately became part of the ever extending gang.

We had a weekend of suitable debauchery. Friday – Lapa – obviously. Clobby was amazed by the street party and declared that she’d never been anywhere like it. Of course not. That night the Rabbi decided he loved a very average looking girl, that he’d met on his travels and they’d arranged to meet up in Rio. I told him he was being daft but he can congratulate himself on finding someone who is even less attractive than he is, attractive. Despite this, he still managed to fail miserably as little miss plain Jane turned him down in the most boring way possible: I thought we were friends. Ha! Normality is restored.

We all had a wicked night even though the group dispersed. Ours culminated in a baile funk club. Clobby wasn’t ready for this music and the club wasn’t quite equipped for the amount of people in it. So after a while we decided to leave, then queued for a considerable amount of time to leave the club, and then actually left.
Saturday day – Santa Teresa. I showed Clob around the bohemian arty neighbourhood, she saw some stuff, met Olivia and we went on the old school tram. Tour guide extraordinaire.

Saturday night we went to Casa Matriz, a club I’d heard a lot about from Norway so I was expecting great things. It was shit. So Black and I made the executive decision to take the kids to Lapa once more. So in the pissing rain, we got in a couple of Lapa-bound cabs and headed for a club: Manifesto. We danced until close then found a drum n bass street party just outside. We joined in – it would be rude not to - and the music evolved into reggae, Michael Jackson and various other things. I think we left Lapa at about 7:30. At one point Clobby decided the Rabbi was fit. They pulled and stuff. Now, she had been drinking, so I almost forgive her – but still, ew, I don’t know how he does it.

Just when we thought the weekend couldn’t get any better. Sunday happened. I woke up extraordinarily early for no apparent reason to find Tamsin up. Now, Tamsin had stayed in Casa Matriz and not come to Lapa with myself, Black, Clobby, Manny, The Rampant Rabbi and Carissa. Plus we had some catching up to do. We headed for the corner for some breakfast, followed by a tower, then another tower, then another tower. Then the boys all showed up and we had a bigger tower, then 2 more. You know the rest.

After a full day of recuperating (!!!) we were ready for our regular Sunday night slot – Baile Funk in Rocinha. Tamsin and The Rabbi had to leave for Sao Paulo that day, so we were already two down.

Myself, Clobby and Jules (a v.cool guest) went straight in to the club. Black insisted on taking the boys for a drink in a bar first. I don’t know what part of three massive towers and drinking all day made him think that going to another bar before the club was necessary, but he did. He was wrong of course. Manny and the others had to call an ambulance (cab) for him to take him to hospital (back to the hostel). Jules was in a similar state in the club and actually could stand up properly. Bless her. She never fell over, but she lost her balance at some point earlier in the day and didn’t get it back until the next morning. We had to send her home too. I saw some Brazilian girls I knew in there, the rest boys showed up in the club for the last bit, we had a good night.

It didn’t end there. Oh no. It had barely begun at this point. We all ended up going on ‘a mission’ with the girls, that partially involved having water balloons thrown at us from a great height. Said balloons may have contained ingredients other than water. Brown ingredients. We could never quite be sure. Best not to think about it. We had to wait about a bit on the edge of a Favela just near Copacabana.
When we got back to the hostel, we had a party. A mostly quiet party. But still a party. Black was up and about, drinking etc too so he rejoined us. It got a bit late/early. So the group headed for a kiosk on Ipanema beach. It was 8 o’clock on Monday morning, what better time for more beer.

A group of old people were doing Pilates on the beach. I pointed at them and instructed Black to join them. He did. He can be very obedient at times. Ok, he can’t. He’s never obedient. But this time he was so wasted, he did as he was told. I also think he appreciated how much he’d enjoy doing it and writing about it afterwards. He was actually pretty good – he copied an elderly lady precisely and he actually looked like he knew what he was doing.

Eventually we all headed back to the hostel. Everyone was tired by this point. All the drinking etc had worn off. I had a shower and took Clobby and Jules to the beach where we passed out peacefully for 3 hours. When we awoke at midday, the beach was packed and the usual circus of people trying to sell us tattoos, bikinis, watermelon, refreshing hot cheese lolly pops, beer, jewellery and bags made out of a long zip.

I think I saw Roberto at some point that day. He told me he missed me and he was his usual self. I told him I hadn’t actually been to bed yet.

Bitch please

That week Tom and I seriously bonded, as he would put it. I’d heard a lot about Tom when I was living in Paraty. He’d worked at the hostel there before I did and he was an old friend of Tamsin’s. From what I’d heard he was the sort of person that everyone likes and gets on with. I’d decided he was probably a twat and I probably wouldn’t like him. I was wrong. Tom’s a legend – and hopefully the future Prime Minister of England. It would be hilarious and I’d be happy to be a member of his cabinet. Our defining moment was going for a beer, coming back to the hostel playing Bitch Please II from the iPod speakers “rapping” to (almost) all the lyrics, putting it on repeat, definitely not annoying the other guests or anyone else that works there, then putting on the best bits of Dre’s 2001 album. Deciding it was time to leave, making the executive decision NOT to take the speakers to the beach kiosk as they may get stolen, going to a kiosk talk about politics over another beer or two. And why not ay.

AN ASIDE: One night we went to a swanky little club in Ipanema - not my usual scene. A guy came over to me and tried to dance with me - not my type, not interested. I went downstairs to get a drink, where I was chatted up by another guy who looked almost identical to him (same height, same face, same hair, same build, same colouring), different t-shirt. Weird. I went back upstairs, had a dance. Weirder: another guy, who looked almsot exactly the same as the first two tried to dance with me. If the first two failed, then of course the third one failed too. THEN a fourth guy: same height, build, hair, colouring - slightly different face tried it. This is twilight zone shit.

Anyway...

We didn’t go to see Christ the Redeemer, then we did. Tom, Clob and I did the touristy stuff I did in my first week here and I enjoyed it all over again the second and in some cases third time around. I took Clobby & Tom on the city tour. Caught up with Andre, my filming boss who said he and the director / editor were very happy with how it’s come out. Apparently it’s looking good.

Enter: Pete Tong

Friday was a shit day. I’d seen Roberto and he’d been weird for the second day in a row but he did ask me out on a date (sort of). I told him I had a meeting with Andre who then didn’t show up for the meeting. So I went to Lapa, feeling disheartened. I got wasted really quickly, then sent myself home in a van for being too drunk to have fun.

Saturday morning I woke up, went to the girls bathroom. There were too many girls in there to clean it so I decided to go and have a spot of breakfast with Chloe and Tom. Over breakfast I discussed the idea of leaving Rio. Maybe it was time to move on, I’d been there for two months and the novelty was starting to wear off. Things were moving too slowly and maybe the Roberto thing is just a bit of a waste of time. Tom said he’d be in Colombia in a month; we discussed the possibility of meeting up there and hanging out for a bit. Then I headed back to the hostel to clean the girls’ bathroom.

As I walked in Big Fred called me over to him and told me to get my things and leave. Ok, not what I was expecting. Why Fred? Because you haven’t cleaned the girls bathroom. I know, there were too many girls in there earlier so I thought I’d wait, I’ve come back to do it now. I don’t care; you can talk to Brian tomorrow, but now get your things and go.

Now – of all the things I should have been kicked out of the hostel for ‘not cleaning the girls bathroom’ shouldn’t be one of them. Therefore, we think this was just an excuse to get rid of me.

When I first started I was told the rules: Don’t take drugs in the hostel. Don’t let anyone else take drugs in the hostel. Don’t encourage anyone to take drugs. Don’t have sex in the hostel. Don’t have sex with anyone who lives in the hostel.

Now I’m not saying I consistently broke all those rules. I wouldn’t say that – that would be stupid. But what I will say is: that week I brought 9 new guests to that hostel that wouldn’t have stayed there if I hadn’t been living and working there. So I may or may not have become a little complacent that week. Complacent or not – I still cleaned the girls bathroom every (most) day(s). I was expecting to be kicked out weeks ago, but I wasn’t – so why now?

A bird is not an animal, it's a bird

I did the only thing a girl can do in that situation: checked in to the Copacabana Palace Hotel. Or the next best thing: Casa de Simpson, Copacabana. Black and Manny kindly said I could stay there for a couple of days until I sorted something out. That night: we got drunk. It was a housewarming party and it was pretty fun. There are even photos to prove it.

Over the next few days Tom left, and then Clobby, Jules had already left a few days before so it was just me, Black and Manny again. I played ‘the perfect house guest’ for a few days only to be called the monkey butler. We didn’t achieve much and it was mostly raining. Andre failed to show up to another meeting. I spent my time festering on the sofa planning my next move / annoying Black by ‘faffing’. He doesn’t understand my planning process. I contacted my friend Leo to find out where he was: Bolivia. Hmmmm.

After deciding to go home and go to bed after a day out with Ilona, I got back to Casa de Simpson to find Black, Manny and Olivia pretty drunk. No sleep for me then. I joined in their conversation, not drinking. Then had a drink. Ended up at Lounge 69 – the boys’ favourite club in Rio as it’s the only one where the girls outnumber the boys. Rationale: I knew this was going to be one of my last nights in Rio and I’d bought a new little black number that day and wanted to test it. It worked. I only spent R$10 (£3) all night and it ended sometime around 7:30am. What I didn’t know at the time is that was my last night out in Rio.

I spent the next day or so doing more festering. More planning. Then on Friday I booked my ticket for Bolivia. For Saturday morning. I didn’t say goodbye to Roberto. I didn’t have my meeting. I’ve had enough of Carioca douche bags and their disorganised, annoying, bullshit behaviour. So I’ve left Rio. For now... but I’ll be back.

©

Read it and weep

2009-07-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

Rio de Janeiro. It’s real, it’s fake. It’s old, it’s new. It’s cultured, and superficial. It has everything. And everything contradicts everything else. Perfect for me.

This city makes good people bad and bad people worse. It has just the right combination of: sex, danger, fun, surfers, crime, excess, extremes, affordable drinking opportunities, weird people, eccentric people, dogs wearing clothes, surfers, guns, men, beaches, boys, nature, sea, sun... did I mention surfers?

Wakey wakey

On Friday I got woken up by my boss to be told to work on reception for an hour. It was 9:45am.

The previous evening Black had a date so I had to look after his little bro who's come to visit for a few weeks. Let’s call Black’s little bro – Manny. Me and Ilona took Manny to Lapa and had a funny fucking night filled with reggaeton, ace of base, I Will Survive, YMCA and then some more reggaeton. We got to bed at 5am.

So I got up, worked for an hour or so, then I couldn't go back to sleep. I was too awake. So I went for brunch with the girls. I was on my second cup of coffee when Black and Manny rock up. After I'd finished the second cup - I was wired and needed to do something. Anything.

Drinky drinky

An activity needed to take place. The beach wasn’t an option because the weather was shite. So it had to be either a) exercise or b) drinking. As it was Friday (I still get excited about Fridays even though my whole life is one huge weekend) I proposed we got drunk.

Stummelbummzen!

We started drinking Caipirinhas at 3pm. We talked a hell of a lot of shit, Ilona taught us some German words and we made up some new German words. Then at 6pm we were all so drunk and adequately tired we went to bed. I went back to the hostel, set my alarm for 9:45pm as I had to work at 10pm until midnight, then passed out. (FYI - I don't remember coming back to the hostel and I don't remember setting my alarm, but I know I did because my alarm went off).Black and Manny went home.

Yummy yummy

Woke up at 9:45pm and went to work, still feeling slightly drunk, a bit odd and very sociable.

Then - Hotty (Roberto) called me. As always it felt a bit out of the blue. He asked me what I was doing later and asked if I wanted to hang out with him. Of course I do. So when Black and Manny showed up - they went out and I went to meet Hotty.

We went for a drink and a bit of pizza and we had a chat. He'd been drinking earlier (a rarity for him) as it was a mate from work's birthday and they'd gone out. Then he went and got stoned. Then he came to meet me.

We'd been sitting chatting for a while, just talking about stuff: I was asking him about this ex-girlfriend situation – he convinced me that it’s definitely over and that he’s apparently only interested in me. He was concerned about me being a party girl going out and meeting guys when he just surfs, gets stoned and hangs out with his mates. I reassured him that he need not worry: my type is tall, fair hair and blue eyes - and I’ve found the only Carioca that meets all the above requirements.

Once we’d got all that cleared up, we talked about Kelly Slater winning in Brazil and the shit going down in Honduras.

Then after a while he said to me: I feel drunk and stoned... and in love.

(YAY).

As happy as I was to hear this, of course, I just gave him a big smile and kissed him across the table.

Good week / bad week

I didn’t see him for a few days.

On Monday Black got the news that he had 48 hours to leave his apartment. And now he and Manny are homeless in Rio. Plus Silje left to go home to Norway on Tuesday. It seems we have a good week, then a bad week, then a good week and a bad week. The way this week’s going; next week should be amazing...

As usual – when I least expected it – Hotty showed up at the beach today. I was talking to Ilona about various things and as he came up behind me. She said I think that’s Hotty coming over, don’t look round. Then I felt this tall shadow looming behind me. I turned round and he kissed me.

I continued my conversation with Ilona. He said he’d be back.

This may have been a BIG mistake. Because he went over to talk to some guys. Then he sat down. After a few minutes I walked over to him and sat down. The first thing he said to me was: do you know this guy? - That guy? No. - No him. I looked and said yes.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!! This guy has some shit on me – some real bad shit that I really really really didn’t want Hotty to find out about.

Since Hotty told me not to cheat on him – I haven’t I haven’t touched anyone except him.

But – now he knows. He must know about the bad thing that I did a few weeks ago. Because he said: I know you know him. I said yeah I did, he lives nearby and he knows the guys from the hostel.

We sat there for a while. We talked but he was a bit quiet. Then we walked back from the beach and he said he’d call me. Hmmm.

Oh dear. Has the shit hit the love fan already? Has something stupid that I did caught up with me? Is this going to end it all? I have no idea. I’m hoping that I can salvage something from the decadent debauchery that occurred a few weeks ago. I’ll let you know how it all pans out.

©

Hotty

2009-07-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it. I’m in love. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t expect it, but it’s happened and I couldn’t be more suspicious about it.

Remember Roberto? Beach guy? The amazing guy I met at the beach at the beginning of the craziest week of my life? WELL. It’s still going on. After spending half of last week hiding out at Black’s luxury apartment, getting some personal space; I saw HIM again on Thursday.

Just as I’d given up on him AGAIN. I decided to text the number I’d received a missed call from on Saturday. I said something like: hey, if this is Roberto, call this number.

A few hours later, I was walking past his house, and let’s face it – I had a little prayer. I prayed to god that when I walked around the corner, he’d be there. He wasn’t. He wasn’t there.

I kept walking for half a minute. Then my phone rang. It was him!

Betrayal

We arranged to meet later on and we did. And when we did he’d told me that he stopped by the hostel on his way back from surfing at the beach (to see me) and the guys told him I’d been at Black’s all week and I’d “betrayed” him with Black. And he had been (temporarily) very angry with me and Black.

URGH! BOYS!

Nooooooooooooooooooo!!! Yes I had been with Black for a few days; yes I had stayed at his apartment – getting some personal space – but nothing like that. Black and Roberto get on very well. Luckily – when he saw my message asking him to call me on Black’s number – he did. He spoke to Black and he – as my right honourable wingman – told Roberto that the boys were just jealous.

Then when Roberto saw me – he asked me and I said no, it wasn’t like that. Luckily, he believed me. If I hadn't sent that text message, it would have been over.

We went to the beach for a smoke and a chat. I met a close friend of his, we watched some surf DVD’s. It was good to see him again.

Smooth Criminal

I came back to the hostel – very stoned – and found out that Michael Jackson is dead. Nice. No, not nice. Very surreal: I logged in to the old Facebook and saw a lot of status’ referencing MJ’s departure and I didn’t know how to feel. Being stoned n’that.
So I hung out at the hostel for a bit, feeling confused. Then later on Roberto came to see me. As promised.

We went to his house and had an amazing time. I haven’t felt like that for a long time. Let me reiterate – a loooooooooooong time.

And whilst I’m reiterating – please can I just point out that I’ve managed to hunt down and bag the only gorgeous blue eyed fair haired carioca (person from Rio) in Zona Sul (south zone of Rio). Nice work - if I don’t mind saying so myself.

He said he’d call me. Roberto is pretty reliable for a Brazilian, with an approximate 75% success rate.

Hmmmm

He called me the next day. I met with him. As soon as he saw me he kissed me hello, said he was “scared” and then started running.

I walked round the corner where he was hiding. Not impressed, I asked him what was going on. He tells me he saw his ex girlfriend walking her dog. I ask him when he broke up with said ex, he said two or three weeks ago. They were together for a month. Hmmm.

So I let it slide and went to his friend’s apartment with him and another friend, where we had a smoke and a drink. His friend asked me: how did you two meet – at the beach? I said yes. We met at the beach, about 2 days before he broke up with his ex girlfriend – I looked at Roberto, gave him a knowing smile. He smiled back – then I said: he thinks I’m stupid, but I’m not.

We all had a good time – even though I gave Roberto a bit of a hard time, just to show him I’m no pushover and by the time I left his friend’s apartment – I was pretty wasted. We went back to Roberto’s place and did some stuff.

Then at 6am he woke me up: “we gotta go” – WHAT??? I’m asleep!!!! But I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything in fact, it was very early, I was very tired and had a massive weedover. I gradually got dressed and shuffled out of his parent’s apartment. When he saw my tired, disgruntled face in the light he laughed, apologised and promised one night we’ll be able to stay together all night. Fucking too right matey!

He walked me back to the hostel, kissed me goodnight (good morning) and told me to call him.

Playing it cool

On Sunday, I decided I’d play it cool and not call him for a couple of days.
Sunday night I went out with the girls (Norway and Germany) to Casa Rosa – a bar I’ve heard a lot of good things about from a lot of good people, so I was pretty excited about going. It also felt good to break the routine of the last few weeks and go somewhere different.

When we got there, it seemed pretty cool. It has a number of bars within the outside courtyard area and two small ish buildings with different music playing in each. Casa Rosa used to be a brothel back in the day. Nice.

The girls disappeared to the toilet or something so I was left alone for a moment. Some dude in a Chelsea shirt decided to start talking to me. No he wasn’t a Londoner; he was a fully fledged Brazilian. I find it hilarious seeing Brazilians in English football shirts. Anyway, I was polite, I allowed him to speak to me for a bit. Spoke to him about football and he said I sound like I know what I’m talking about but couldn’t believe I’d like football of my own accord, because I’m a girl. Strike 1.

The girls came back and we all headed over to the other end of the courtyard to another bar. The dude followed me. Strike 2. Then he said is he “too ugly” for me to speak to him (err, yeah, kinda). Strike 3. Then he got the message and fucked off. Great.

Marte (Norway) had her eye on this guy since he arrived and he’d finally come over. They started talking. Then they left. Fair play – it was her last night in Rio. She had no intention of it ending there though. She took my number and told me she’d call me once she’s finished with him. Ha! I love my Euro-gals.

Then Ilona (Germany) and I went in to one of the rooms for a dance. They’re playing baile funk and we want to get down to some serious ghetto booty shaking. That was a mistake. I was dressed like a lady for the first time in months, but there I was grinding, winding and basically doing my thing. Bam. Fucking vultures everywhere. We were only in there for about 7 minutes and we had to leave the room – it was just too much.

We went outside and stood with our mates. Then guess who rears his ugly head again? Yup, that’s right - Chelsea shirt. Urgh! Silje (Norway) had had enough of him and was getting pissed off that he wasn’t getting the message so she told him that I’m not interested.

Oooooooooooooooh - he really didn’t like that very much. I could tell, because He laid in to her: “you don’t know who you’re talking to! You can’t speak to me like this in my country!” he got so angry I thought he was going to hit her. I put my arm in front of her to protect her whilst giving him a screwface look. By this point security had got involved and he got removed. Result.

However, this little interlude ruined my mood and I decided Casa Rosa was not all it’s cracked up to be. Yes there are loads of guys here and hardly any girls, yes the music is good; yes it’s a good venue. But the guys aren’t particularly hot; many of them are incredibly ugly in fact. And NO ONE is anywhere near as gorgeous as Roberto.

So I called him. I know, I know, but I was drunk and bored and thought we were leaving. I only let it ring twice before I realised that I’m a knob. But still, I’d called him. Not cool.

Taking one for the team

The rest of the night was ok, we ended up talking to a couple of English lads (Stephen and Adrian) that were in Rio for a week. They were both from Colindale up in north London, I know a few people from there or live nearby. And Stephen works in Wimbledon. So we found enough to talk about. I also got talking to this Brazilian guy who decided he really fancied me. I decided he was ugly. So it didn’t work out so well for him. BUT he does work for a German company and Ilona really wants to get a job working for a German company. So when he told me this, my interest in him increased. Just for the sake of Ilona’s future you must understand.

He tried to kiss me. It was gross.

After a while, we left and headed for the infamous Imporio. I got instantly bored and decided it was bed time. I was supposed to start filming on Monday, so I needed my beauty sleep.

Action!

Monday I started filming for a project that’s been in the pipeline since week 1. I’ve had many meetings about it and been ready to start for weeks now. The project is a promotional documentary about Rio, for potential tourists. My boss – Andre - is a guy that runs a tour company and it’s his baby. He’d been looking for the right person to be the presenter of the documentary for ages. And for some bizarre reason, he thinks i’m the right woman for the job.

Because it’s me and because it was taking ages to get off the ground, with lots of false starts, I had previously decided that I wouldn’t believe it would actually happen until I saw the camera.

We went to a few locations; I did my TV presenter bit. At first, I found the whole thing really awkward and couldn’t relax, but once I warmed up I was ok.

We were doing the city tour, so there were some tourists with us. Great. At one point they started watching. “Oh no, no no no no no” - I told them - “don’t watch me, this is bad enough as it is.”

They probably thought I was being a pre-madonna, but fuck it, as you know - I’m shy. After a few goes with Andre watching me, I discovered I’m at my best if it’s just me, whoever’s with me on screen and the camera dude, then I feel like less of a dick.
The best bit was when we went to the Lapa steps. I met the artist who created them, whilst ON CAMERA. By that point I was feeling pretty confident so I was ad-libbing: “and this is the man himself – Selaron – the creator of this modern masterpiece.”

I am so fucking cool it’s dangerous. Hahahahaha!

Yeah so, Monday was a good day. But still no Roberto. I gave up on him, again.

Beach Boys

Tuesday was a glorious day and nothing was going to stop me going to the beach. Except that I had to get my visa extended. Ilona and I headed for the airport at 6am. Yes that’s right – 6am. I haven’t seen that side of 6am since London. Fuck. I’ve seen it – obviously, but before bed, not after.

We got it sorted and headed for Ipanema before midday. All the surfers were out in full force. It was perfect. We were lying in the sun, watching a row of them bobbing along the waves until a big one came in (that’s what she said). We were there for hours. I was looking out for Roberto because I thought he had a day off. I knew I’d recognise him if I saw him – even in the distance – because of his ‘unique’ stance.

Then at 3pm – he appeared. He was surfing to my right and I was watching him. He looked gorgeous. So I went in to the sea, with my bodyboard and tried to catch some waves.
Roberto came over to me in the water, said hello, asked me whose board it was and kissed me. My bikini top fell off a bit in the waves a couple of times and he got all protective – he didn’t want anyone else to see the girls. The sea was fucking strong that afternoon. So I mostly drowned and failed at surfing - after a couple of wipeouts, I decided it was time to put the board away.

Not much later, he came to find me on the beach. I was with both Ilona and Silje by this point. I told them he was coming over and to look. Silje told me that if she saw him and she didn’t know he was with me she’d think “he likes the boys” – ha! Good.

Anyway – I digress. And I’m making my gorgeous boy sound queer.

Ilona was leaving anyway, so it was just me and Silje. But when he came over I kinda forgot and it became just me and him. We were kissing. He lifted me up and wrapped me round him. Ahhhhh. He told me that the next day we should go to the waterfall in the botanical gardens. I said I’d love to but I’m supposed to be filming. (Damn).

Summer days, driftin away, but oh those summer nightzzzzzzzzzzz...

I went to bed very early on Tuesday night after my unusually early start. In fact, I fell asleep on the job. No – not that – my actual job. Nico sent me to bed so I was asleep by 10:30 – another first since being in Brazil. Wednesday was another beautifully sunny day – beach time. I lay there all day, unfortunately the sea was pretty calm – no surfers. So no chance of seeing Roberto.

Just before 3pm I decided to call him and tell him filming wasn’t happening after all. He didn’t answer - oh well. I lay there and started daydreaming (about something else for a change) when this face appeared over mine – “what are you looking at” – “nothing” was my response and I smiled. It was him. He apologised for not calling me the night before but he fell asleep (snap). I told him I’d called him about 5 minutes before he appeared. We both agree that it’s weird that this keeps happening. We talked for a while, then we had a smoke with his friends.

We spent an hour together. By the time he left and I watched him walking down the beach with his board and his two friends, I was completely smitten. Stoned and smitten. I’d been lying there thinking about him all morning. Then he came looking for me. When I’m with him I feel so different: excited and happy but kind of shy.

I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what’s going on with this ex-girlfriend deal. I’ve asked him about it and he says he’s only interested in me. I want to believe him, but he’s Brazilian and they’re full of shit. So I’m told. I told him this and he was quite insulted.

He plans things with me. Makes promises to me. Kisses me in front of the whole beach and shows everyone that we’re together. That I’m his and he’s mine. He’s protective and possessive. But not too much, just enough for it to be cute and make me feel good.

Bye?

But when he left yesterday - He said: bye. He didn’t say – “I’ll call you” or “see you soon” –like he usually does. He just said “bye”. So is it bye forever? It felt a bit final when he said it. Is this it now? No more Roberto? Has he played with me, sucked me in and now it’s over? I don’t know. All I think I know is: I’m in love.

©

Sitting pretty in Sin City

2009-06-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

When I left the UK, many of my friends said: think of all the men. I told them this trip wasn’t about that, it was about me and the world.

Rio isn’t just all sex, drugs and baile funk y’know. There’s so much more to it than that. The experience I’ve been having has mostly been about people. And I wouldn’t want you to miss out on them.

There were some weeks in-between the good clean fun of week 1 when I climbed Sugarloaf; and week 4 – the craziest week of my life. So THIS is about filling in the gap. (That’s what she said).

“Fortune favours the brave” – is the phrase that I keep in my head at all times and it’s what made me come here in the first place. It’s a translation of the Latin proverb "Fortuna audax iuvat", meaning that good luck comes to those who take chances. In this instance, I’m glad I was ‘brave’ enough to go it alone because I feel fortunate to have met the following characters...

Roomie
After the Essex boys departed in week 1, I was left alone – or so I thought. I took the city tour with one of our guests, my new roommate – Kristine. Now, Kristine is from San Francisco. She’s a little bundle of fire at the moment, as she is a scorned woman. Men – don’t cross her. During the city tour we saw Christ the Redeemer (big Jesus) up close, went to the Lapa steps for the first time, went to the Americana stadium, visited Saint Sebastian Cathedral, the site of the carnival and possibly some other things that I can’t remember.

Amongst all this site seeing, Kristine and I managed to cover a lot of ground. We talked about relationships, travelling, home, family, friends, careers, studying, Brazil. We talked about life. The city tour ended, but we still had so much more to say. So we went for dinner at a kilo place on Copacabana and we ATE. I filled up my plate with buffet and had a secondary plate just for the meat. Oh yeah.

Mama-san
Thursday night was my first trip to Imporio and I haven’t had a better night there since. It was my first week at the hostel and I already had my first guest to look after – Ashley. She and her aggressive boyfriend Tom had had a particularly ridiculous argument about pretty much nothing. A group of us were walking towards Imporio found him storming off back towards the hostel and she was chasing after him crying. The boys dealt with him and I dealt with her. I told her I wouldn’t have her walking around on her own late at night so I’d go back with her. She said she didn’t want me to do that. Anyway, she ended up coming out with us. And I ended up giving her ‘the treatment’. Those of you who know me, know what that means: all the cliché’s come out (e.g. ‘it’s just a storm in a teacup luv, don’t worry about it’) and the more drinks I have, the wiser I think I am. That’s when Kristine decided to name me: Mama-San

NB: A mama-san, or mamasan, is a woman who works in a supervisory role in certain establishments in Southeast Asia, typically those related to sex work, but sometimes in drinking places as well. To at least some extent, these can be considered the local equivalents of a pimp.

Once all that had blown over. We hit the dance floor and we DANCED. I thought Kristine was great and she thought I was great. We were good for each other and bad for each other. She discouraged me and encouraged me. I didn’t want her to leave.

The next night, I saw Lapa for the first time. Kristine worked the Pirate caipirinha stand. So did I for a bit, until I smashed a full bottle of cacaca, realised I was a liability and I should step away from the vehicle.

Eurotrashed
Saturday was her last day – only 2 days of Kristine, but we seriously bonded. I was lost without her for a day or so. But week 2 was all about Europe. We had The Swedish Girls – Anna & Johanna - two 19 year old girls who loved to party. They were great. We had some good times and good drunk conversations. I had to clear up Anna’s sick, once, but it was kind of cute sick – not a massive pile of vomit.

Sam the self confessed ‘weird guy’ from Belgium (he wasn’t weird, he was lovely). Sam would purposely distance himself from most guests, get up early, walk the streets of Rio talking to homeless people and giving them his clothes, cigarettes and anything else they needed. Then he’d come back to the hostel, hang out and tell me about it. He would also tell me how he can’t go on the gay beach whilst covered in bed-bug-bites.

There was Boris and Martina from Switzerland – nice couple: Boris had his birthday while staying at the hostel and Martina organised a cake and a party for him. Boris is a huge Serbian/Swiss guy with a good heart, he was incredibly open and honest, so was Martina.

Seth & Harry
Weeks 2, 3 and the nib of 4 brought with it the comedy duo that is: Seth & Harry. Harry is definitely the straight-man (in more ways than one). How would I describe them? Well, at the ripe old age of 19, these boys are already cynical eccentrics and snappy dressers. Cool kids from Derby, bone-dry sense of humour, don’t suffer fools gladly. And good with nicknames:

There was a particular guest – Ben –he was a know-it-all that liked the sound of his own voice, thought he was incredibly worldly, had the kind of smug face that needs a slap, and of course with that résumé - he was travelling alone. Nickname: Lonely Planet

They provided me with much amusement on a daily basis for the best part of 2 weeks. Harry helped me make a flag. Seth was a fan of ‘the innuendo’. Harry would have an exquisite moan about something. Seth would point at the chubby American Girl.

On the day Seth left the hostel, this girl said to him: you don’t like me very much do you? Seth said: I thought we’d become quite close. Seth didn’t tell me this; I overheard her telling her slightly less thick American friend. Seth hated her. She didn’t get it. She never did. And she’d tell you – “I don’t geddit” – about most things. Any word with more than two syllables in it – she found difficult to pronounce, let alone comprehend. The best thing about it is: she’s an astrophysicist. Good lord.

Black also adored Seth, in his own way. I took a few guests to his apartment one night. Seth was one of them. Black was telling him about an open cremation he’d seen in India. Seth said he wanted a pantomime of his life to be played out at his funeral. So Black made Seth write his last will and testament and hung it off a nail in the wall. It’s still there.

Home Sweet Home: The Girls Dorm
The Norwegian Girls have almost become a permanent fixture at the hostel. They started staying there a few weeks before I arrived, then they went to Paraty for a few days and came back.

They can’t go home. Well, they can. They just don’t want to. They’ve changed their flight 4 times to extend their trip. They love Brazil and they adore Rio. They’re still here at the moment – well, kind of. They’ve gone on holiday to Bouzios, but they’ll be back – again.

Then there’s Ilona. A German girl. One of the first things she said to me was: I think this hostel is rotten. She’s kind of right, but she loves it really - she stayed there for at least 2 weeks while she was looking for an apartment.

When she gets dressed up to go out she looks like a doll: her hair looks nice, make-up immaculate. Then when he comes in at dawn the next morning: hair frazzled, eye makeup all over her face, carrying her shoes – I just think to myself: that’s m’girl. She now lives in an apartment just round the corner.

Scott was an honorary girl for a week and no one seemed to mind. Scott & Laura have been together for 10 years. Good couple. Good west country folk. Laura would provide us all with much entertainment and Scott much embarrassment; by having ‘girly chats’ about their sex life with us. In front of him. Apparently Scott is quite the stallion – go Scott. They left us for a few days and came back for more.

Old friends
Joe & Simon have provided me with amusement and entertainment on various occasions: Paraty, then Trindade, then Paraty again – then they said “goodbye, we’ll probably never see you again”. Then they came to Rio. To see me.

Week two also saw the return of Jules who I’d met in Trindade was now travelling alone, due to the departure of Tim, so he wanted to hang out. We did. I took Jules up to Santa T and we met up with Olivia, then that night was Caipirinha class. I contacted the lads and told them I had ‘a little surprise’ for them. Of course – it was Jules. It was an epic reunion.

When I first met Joe – I didn’t like him: he’s cocky, he has an opinion on everything and he will argue said opinion at any given opportunity. As I got to know him, I realised why I didn’t like him: he reminds me of me at 19. Simon on the other hand is quite discerning and distinguished. He doesn’t like it when Joe and I get in to a ‘discussion’ about the economy or the state of the world. The only time me and Joe have ever agreed on anything was when we were both disagreeing with Simon. Poor Simon.

The Birmingham Medics
A group formed. I always like it when people come together. It’s NICE. Seth, Harry, Lara, Zack, Dan and Jen united. Dan and Jen arrived, I checked them in – did my hostess with the mostess thing as I showed them to their dilapidated, bed-bug ridden, 12 bed dormitory. Then a couple of days later their friends Zack and Lara arrived.

At first, you’d think: they’re a couple. Then he starts flirting with you and you realise: No they’re not.

I hit it off with Zack straight away – we both like the same comedy – always a good start. The next night was Friday – when I have to take the kids to Lapa (of course). Seth, Harry and Zack worked the caipirinha stand. I hung out with Olivia and Felicity and met some cool Brazilian people: Ricardo and Carol.

Later on, a traumatised Zack found me. He had lost all his mates after going off with a hot girl that turned out to be something she wasn’t. Ok, not a ladyboy. No, nothing like that. But he had to dish out for something he wasn’t expecting to be charged for. Poor Zack. I gave him the treatment: told him it wasn’t that bad, it was an experience and if he thought about it in pounds sterling it actually only cost him about £8.

The next day, Lara and I got talking. We got on well. And while we were at the football match on Sunday, we had a very good chat. It turns out Zack is her ex. There’s a whole long story about how they both ended up in Rio at the same time, why they split up and how the next few days panned out. But that’s their business. Lara became my buddy – friendship blossomed and then, as usual, just as we got close. She had to go home.

Bloody Brits abroad
So, as you can see - I have been spending rather a lot of time at the hostel, with the guests. Good people, good times.

I see Olivia at least twice a week, she always makes the effort but we don’t hang out for too long as she’s pretty hectic. I also see Canadian Katie every now and then. Felicity I think I’ve only seen twice – but that’s because I don’t leave Ipanema all week and she won’t budge from Santa T. We tend to meet on neutral territory – Lapa. Then of course there’s Black who I see every day at the moment.

Seth and Harry left at the beginning of the craziest week of my life, but they witnessed most of the build up. I’ve just had news from Seth that upon their arrival in Sao Paulo the first person they randomly bump in to is guess who? No, not chubby American Girl. Lonely Planet - small world.

When I lived in London – I assumed most people are wankers. I was wrong. Most people are actually alright. There have only really been 2 or 3 guests so far that I couldn’t stand.

People are either stupid or intelligent. Interesting or boring. Having a good day or a bad day. You either hit it off, or you don’t. I never thought I’d be hanging out with 19 year olds, but most ‘travellers’ I meet are between 19 and 25. As soon as you find out their age it becomes almost irrelevant because we all have at least 1 thing in common - we’re in Rio - then you go from there.

I miss Kristine and Europe, they were all interesting people. We had some interesting conversations and we had some good times. I hope see them again one day soon.

But it’s the British banter that I miss most; England might be screwed - our economy is a mess and our leader is a joke. But there’s one thing that even Gordon Brown can’t take away from us - the glue that holds us together and unites us even when abroad - the unique art of: taking the piss.

©

Burning the candle at both ends. (That’s what SHE said).

2009-06-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been spending an unprecedented amount of time with a Bernard Black-esque character. He’s a bounder, a cad and a scoundrel; fellow Londoner, fellow writer, fellow egotist, and fellow carnivore - my new partner in crime. It’s been chaos. I’d like to tell you that we’ve been painting the town red, hitting a different bar every night. But we haven’t.

We spend the vast majority of our time within the same small area spanning: the beach (post 8-9), our favourite bar – “the bar on the corner” - just by the hostel, in the hostel, and a tiny chunk of Copacabana. How adventurous.

So why aren’t we making the most of Rio at the moment? It’s mainly to do with the fact that every day involves drinking. So every night is a late one. So every day is wasted. Then we get wasted. And it starts all over again. It’s never our intention to get drunk. It all starts with one beer. Or more often than not, one tower of beer. Don’t look at me like that – Black orders it, I just help drink it.

‘How boring’ - you must be thinking? However, despite our lack of geographical exploration - last week was quite possibly the craziest week of my life.

Blue Monday

We’ve had some great guests, some great parties, some great nights out. I’ve made new friends. I’ve made a pirate flag. But after 3 weeks of being here, I decided I was bored of Rio.

Just as soon as things got boring - they got interesting again.

Black and I went to the beach on Monday scouting for boys/girls. I was having a slightly bad day, hung-over, felt like shit, bored... we walked between post 8 and 9 and I literally saw no decent looking blokes. Black – on the other hand - saw many girls that caught his wandering eye. Lucky him.

After sitting on the beach for a while, we walked back towards post 8. Black went up to walk in the shade. I carried on walking along in the sunshine, by the sea. I got to post 8, Black was doing some chin-ups at the beach gym, so I walked to the sea.

As I walked back up, out of nowhere, this amazing guy emerged from the sea, calling me beautiful. I turned round, looked at him... then walked on.

He chased after me, asked my name, then asked to kiss me, then he kissed me. We talked for a bit but I felt a bit shy (me????) so I went back over to a bewildered yet impressed Black who told me to “stop being a dick” and go back and get his number. Although I felt shy (me????) I maintained my cool. Black spoke to him for a bit. He was shivering from surfing in the cold evening sea so we all headed back towards the hostel, then I arranged to meet him later. I told him I’d either be at the hostel or at the bar on the corner.

A bit about Roberto: He speaks very good English and he´s very interesting. He´s 6¨3, half Brazilian, half Honduran. Blue/green eyes. He’s a surfer. He originally told me he´s 24, but after some probing (ahem) I later found out he´s 22. And he is BEAUTIFUL.

After a steak dinner with Black, Roberto came and met me at the bar on the corner. We left for the beach, where we kissed, talked, smoked something, talked more, kissed more. We even managed to have quite a deep conversation. Unfortunately - I had to go to work, so we arranged to meet up again later on. He said he’d take me out for a drink.

When I got back, I don’t know if it was the weed or him – but I felt like I was in love or something.

Where am I?

The next few hours at the hostel passed VERY slowly. He showed up at exactly half past eleven – unusually punctual for a Brazilian. We walked down the road and got in a taxi. How exciting – where are we going? I thought. After a fairly short drive, we pull up to this place. Is it a club? So we got out of the cab and went to the entrance. He paid the lady at the window and we walked to the lift. He told me I can have anything I want. Where am I? We got out of the lift and walked down a corridor. He opened the door and we went in to a room. The room had a bed, a Jacuzzi and a pole. Hmmm... What is this place? Then it clicked: I’m in a Love Motel.

Now – ever since I got to Rio, I've been curious about these places. The concept fascinated me and I decided I definitely wanted to visit one. Only for research purposes of course.

I turned to him and said: you’re being a bit presumptuous. He asked me if I wanted to leave. Hmmmm... Do I want to leave? Well, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. And you seemed like such a nice boy. But fuck it, yeah, why not. We’re here now.

Good times

The next day he said he’d come back to the hostel that night to see me.

I woke up at 2pm the next day, I cleaned the bathroom and when I came out the some of the hostel boys were standing there. They’d seen me come back earlier at ridiculous o’clock. One of them said something to me in Portuguese. One of the others translated it: are you bored of us? Hahahahahahahaaaa! Yes. I was a little bit.

So they took me to the beach for the rest of the afternoon and I watched them take turns to surf. I think I’ve failed to mention previously that at the hostel in Rio, I work with 5 young men, South American men. And I - am the only girl. Life is sweet.

Any way. Later that night, he didn’t show up. I had a feeling he wouldn’t. The next day – I didn’t see him either. So I gave up. It was fun while it lasted, but I’m over it. So I went out to a bar with the boys and had a good night. Not quite as good a night as dear Black, who proceeded to go on what was to be a 24 hour bender, while I was sleeping.

When I met him at the bar on the corner the next day, he hadn’t slept. It was 5pm. He immediately ordered a tower of beer and we consumed half of it. Then his phone rang. He was informed that he had to go for a meeting. In 45 minutes. Oh dear.

Black had been drinking, heavily. Amongst other things. Despite this he kind of looked ok, except one of his eyes was bigger than the other.

Over the next 45 minutes his appearance started to deteriorate somewhat. I don’t know if it was the pressure, or the beer, or just the previous 24 hours but he started to look a bit like a maniac. He asked me if he was ok to go to the meeting. I told him to have a shower and he’d be fine. So we finished the tower. He went to the bathroom to splash his face with water. And went to the meeting. Ideal.

When he arrived at the meeting at 6pm, the first question he was asked was: have you looked at the website. Nope! The second question was: have you been drinking?

“Well, I might have had one or two glasses of wine with dinner” - was his response.
Brilliant.

The next day he asked me why I let him go in that state. Hmmm – I had faith in him. And I was right to - somehow he pulled it off.

Black said he’d be back. He wasn’t. I was supposed to see a man about a job at 6pm. He didn’t show up (until Saturday afternoon - damn Brazilians). Olivia said she’d come by the hostel between 8 and 9 o’clock. Nada. So within 24 hours, I’d been stood up 4 times. Great.

Even better

On Thursday I had some rather good news regarding my writing career – a step in the right direction any way. To celebrate, I went to the bar on the corner for a slap-up steak lunch. Black was busy volunteering in Rocinha, so I went alone, with my travel journal ‘come’ writing ideas book and a pen. Halfway through my steak, chips, rice and beans – Roberto appeared. Out of nowhere. Again.

A bit taken aback by his sudden arrival back in to my life, I didn’t really know what to say. We said how are you, we asked if the other was ok, then he said he’d go see the sea, and come and find me. Oooh, how exciting. So later on he came back to the hostel. He was standing outside the gate with his wetsuit half off (the top half), holding his surfboard behind his back. GR! He said he’s come and meet me later on. So true to his word, he did. We snuck in to his parents place this time. He said he’ll get his motorbike fixed so he can take me to see different parts of Rio.

When I got back to the hostel, he asked for my number, so I scrawled it on a piece of paper. Stupidly didn’t ask for his number back, but I was kind of distracted as one of the boys was telling him to get out as he’s not a guest. How embarrassing. Anyway, he said he’d call me.

Meat cravings

The next day, Black and I spent the day at his apartment eating steak. Not just any steak. This meat was a work of art. It was so perfect, it didn’t look real.
Black needed to work off the vast portion of bleeding cow he’d taken over an hour to eat, so we headed to the beach gym – a series of bars and ramps to do chin-ups and sits-ups. Whilst he was doing his thing, I wandered along the beach. I thought I could see Roberto in the distance, but being short-sighted I couldn’t tell. Although he does have a rather ‘unique’ stance.

He came over – I said I thought it was you. He said he’d been there for ages. He’d hurt his foot so he was going home. He asked me what I was doing later, I told him I had to take the gimps... I mean guests to Lapa. He said he’d call me. He may have called me the next night, but I got drunk and left my phone somewhere in the hostel. When I looked at it later that night, I had two missed calls from a mystery number. Tried to call it back, but it didn’t go through. Oh well, hopefully he’ll reappear when I least expect it.

What a weekend

Friday night Black and I headed to Lapa, ate meat on a stick, drank caipirinhas, went to a wicked little club, danced to some decent reggae and hip-hop tunes and he ended his dry spell with the ladies. It had been nearly 5 whole days since he’d had so much as a kiss.

Saturday I got drunk at a barbeque at the hostel and then passed out. Black got lucky once again, went out with a rather lovely German woman and took her to Rocinha – a favela where he volunteers a couple of times a week.

Sunday I convinced Black to come with me and spend a second night in a row in Rocinha. We took a load of guests to the Baile Funk club and did some serious dancing. To describe baile funk – i’d say it has the same effect as garage, but it’s more hectic. It has a drum beat, a bassline and gives you energy.

When the club finished at 3am we packed the guests off in to the van and sent them back to the hostel. Black and I went off to find a street party with a couple of the boys, their girlfriends, the guys with the van came back and we all danced to samba until the early hours of the morning.

Monday morning

I lost Black on the way out of the favela. Got in a van on my own. Got back to the hostel - closely followed by a concerned Black who’d got in a taxi to the hostel to make sure I wasn’t still wondering around in the largest favela in South America, on my own, wasted, at 7am. Plus, he didn’t have any money.

When I came round to his this afternoon – he was still in bed, groaning. I said I was feeling productive. He told me to “die off”. Nice. Then we went steak shopping.
Today has been a good day. We haven’t touched a drop. The bar on the corner must be wondering where the hell we are. This is the start of a ‘sensible week’ - to counteract last week’s various activities.

So you must be thinking – what was so crazy about last week? Now, that – I can’t tell you. Yet.

I have deliberately left out 2 adequate portions of the story. But you will probably find out, in due course. I’ll keep you posted...

©

Bem vindo a Rio De Janeiro

2009-06-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Within 24 hours of arriving in Rio De Janeiro, I got myself a job, somewhere to live and climbed Sugarloaf Mountain. No, seriously, I did.

I arrived on Monday afternoon, had lunch with Felipe who’d driven us down from Paraty. Then we went to see his University - Universidade Federal Do Rio De Janeiro - it’s the largest in South America, he showed me around and told me that you have to take entrance exams, but it’s free education if you get in. Then we met up with his friends and then went up to see an apartment in Santa Teresa. It looked as it did in the pictures - it had a pool and the building was nice - but the set up was just plain weird and the landlady seemed pretty aggressive. Nice.

Disheartened we headed to Ipanema, shared a beer at a beach bar kiosk, as I sat there I thought to myself: have I made a terrible mistake? Should I have just stayed in Paraty where it’s safe and familiar?

The Lads

We asked someone for directions to the hostel where the boys were staying. What boys? Why, the Essex boys of course!

As I was four hours late meeting them and still feeling a bit on edge - which must have shown on my face as Felipe said to me: do you know what the shortest distance is between two people? I said no. ‘ A smile‘ he responded. It was the first time I’d really felt ‘stressed’ since being in Brazil, but when I arrived at the hostel I was smiling. Even when greeted by an unhelpful Brazilian man (Rafa), who pointed at an older Brazilian man (Freddie) when I asked if Mark, Harry, Michael and Alec were staying there. He then hollered a couple of names as he walked me through to the common room area. Michael appeared, quickly followed by Harry and Alec.

Awkward at first, it was like meeting up with old friends - but not. Even though I’d spent all week planning my arrival in Rio with them and arranged to meet up, it dawned on me that I really hadn’t known these boys all that long. Michael led me through to the kitchen where I found Mark doing the washing up - nice, domesticated. We all sat down for a welcome beer and started chatting - remembered I’d left Felipe outside somewhere. He had to go and meet some friends and wanted to know what I was doing. What am I doing?

I could either go to a hostel in Botofogo and stay a couple of nights free, or stay there with the boys until they left. We decided I should stay there. Still feeling slightly anxious about being in Rio, Felipe and I headed back to the car to get my bags.

I’ve got used to this feeling over the years - the anxiety caused by the unknown and I’ve almost learnt to enjoy it. Ride the wave and see where it takes you, because after all - fortune favours the brave. However, in these moments of uncertainty it still feels a bit scary, exciting, but like reading a book that you can’t put down - you just want to know what happens, how will this all turn out? I’ve come to Rio where I know a few people but technically - I’m on my own.

Becoming a Pirate

As I head into the hostel with 3 bags, I wave goodbye to Felipe and thank him for everything. As I’m checking in I drop a little something in to the conversation: I’ll have to get used to being this side of reception. Freddie - the owner - immediately asks if I’m looking for work while I’m in Rio, as they need a girl to work there. Of course - I say yes. Great! Surely it shouldn’t be that easy?

So I inform that I can’t speak Portuguese. In response he tells me all the reasons why they don’t let locals stay here: drugs, crime, trouble - in a nutshell. Yes! I’m in!

The deal is: I get free accommodation so I don’t get paid. But I do get to go on all the tours and do all the activities for nothing. In return I need to give guests information about said tours and activities, clean the girls bathroom, the girls dorm and play hostess for the guests in the evenings. Fine by me!

Mark had previously promised me a welcome party after refusing to take a 4 hour bus journey to pop in to my leaving Paraty party (the cheek of it), so the 5 of us headed to the nearest bar and ordered a giant beer that even has it’s own tap. We drank, we joked, we laughed, we went back to the hostel and after saying ‘goodnight’ to Mark, went to bed.

Location, location, location

It was day 2 in Rio and I’d already got myself a job that facilitates me having somewhere to live. All my colleagues are male - no bitching, no stress, no hassle. Not only that but I now live 5 minutes walk from both Ipanema and Copacabana beach - life is sweet.

Piratas De Ipanema is very different from the last hostel I worked in - it’s like living in a Brixton night spot like The Fridge or the George 4 - but when the music is turned off and the lights are on. It’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s fucking cool. There’s stuff hanging everywhere - old carnival costumes, broken surf boards, plastic garlands, flags, ribbons - the walls are shabby but coloured with murals and graffiti.

I’d woken up feeling good, but restless. I needed to do something, anything. The boys were gearing up to climb Sugarloaf Mountain that afternoon, Victor - a Chilean dude that works at ‘Pirates’ told me I should come on the hike too. I thought about it and by 2pm when they were leaving - the thought of climbing a world famous mountain kind of appealed to me.

Ain’t no mountain high enough

I quickly ran to my new room - the female dorm -changed in to some shorts, a white vest and a pair of deck shoes. I’m all set. What? Perfect climbing attire I tell you. Leaving Michael behind at the hostel, the 4 of us plus Victor set off.

When we get there, we start by walking up a path at the base of the mountain, the walk becomes a trek, then a hike, clambering up and over rocks. We’re pretty high up - we see a helicopter flying above the sea - but beneath us. We’re getting closer to the top and the harnesses come out. 2 at a time we head up a vertical stretch of mountain. First Mark and Alec, then myself and Harry. I’m doing pretty well, suspended on a harness with a rope to support me - I had no idea what it was tied to and I’d only met Victor that day. But still I continue to climb, it feels good.

Then - I get stuck. I hate falling into the ‘typical girl’ stereotype. Boys tend to expect me to be rubbish at ‘manly’ things and at every opportunity I will try to prove otherwise. This time, I think I went too far: I’m hundreds off feet above the ground, clinging to the side of a mountain - I’d got to a point where I simply could not see where to put my foot. I’m there gripping on as hard as I can, but I’m sweating and after a few minutes my hands start getting slippery. I’m going to die.

Or stay here forever, I think to myself. I quickly get my head together and go for it. Just as I reach my foot around, stepping on to this non-existent ledge - Mark calls out: Victor’s coming to help you. Good! Luckily, I’m hidden beneath a ledge so the 3 men above me can’t see me cowering pathetically.

Victor appears and helps me through my tricky moment, then I climb to the top. Well, the top of that bit. Harry climbs up - complete with shades. Mark and Alec walk ahead, Harry and I continue hiking until we reach a big flat bit of rock, at a bit of an angle. Harry says: you go first, so I do. Start climbing it, then I realise there’s no grip at all anywhere on this rock and I’m going to have to get back down. Not a fan of going down things - I prefer going up - I realise the easiest way is to slide. So I let go, sliding down this rock on my front. Goodbye white vest, hello grey vest. As I’m doing this, Harry and I are both pissing ourselves with laughter. I knew I looked ridiculous, I felt ridiculous and it was just funny - especially as we were over the worst and to be quite frank, happy to be alive. Then Harry finds an alternative, easier route around the rock, which brings about more laughter.

From the top

We keep going and eventually make it to the top. Like any major tourist attraction these days there is a café and a gift shop - why should Sugarloaf be any different? Anyway, we arrived at the top - it was 5pm and sunset time! The view of pink skies and the sun going down over the exciting city - the lights, the landmarks, the people, the towers and the bays - it looked unreal.
The place was swarming with tourists that had come up in the cable car. I felt completely detached from them: I was sweating, had a harness slung around my neck, covered in dirt. I felt amazing. I’d just conquered a mountain.

The amazing feeling was intensified when I sat down with the boys, my victory Fanta and a huge packet of Ruffles (my favourite crisps) and quite a few people came over to us and with great curiosity asked us: did you just walk up? No - we climbed.

We all felt like exhausted, brave, hungry action heroes. Ok, so I got stuck - twice. Ok I had to put plasters on my heels before we’d even started. Ok, I was wearing bright yellow deck shoes. But still - I climbed a mountain and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

©

Leaving Paraty

2009-05-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

I´m going to Rio De Janeiro. I feel it´s time to move on. Since i´ve been in Brazil, i´ve only been in Paraty. There´s a whole lot more of Brazil to see which becomes more apparent when you meet new people every week who are passing through and have been somewhere and are going somewhere else. And I stay here.

This is the first place i´ve come to and i´ve met so many wicked people that i´m now friends with. I should be heading to Rio on Monday or some point next week. I have a couple of friends there: Olivia stayed here in week 2 and we are friends on Facebook. She booked in again last Friday and it turns out she knows Felicity who decided not to get her flight home and is now living in Rio. Small world. They met in Rio through a mutual friend.

So... I gave Mika my notice last Saturday and i´m moving on. I think i´m gonna head straight to Rio and check that out. Lola´s going to Ihla Grande so if she gets a job i´ll go see her there, or she´ll hook up with me in Rio. John (from N.London) is now living there so maybe I can hang out with him a bit too.

Paraty´s great but between Geko and Misti (the 2 hostels) people make mountains out of molehills and it does my brain in. I´m not into gossip. I just want to have a good time without feeling like i´m being watched or judged. I like being bad, doing slightly naughty things - it entertains me. But I want to be able to leave it behind, not be left to pick up the pieces of my shattered dignity and reputation in front of a load of prudes... or normal decent human beings. Whatever.

Holiday

To get away from it all and have a bit of a ´holiday´ - Olivia and I went to Trinidade together last weekend. Trinidade is an idyllic beach town with perfect beaches and amazing views. I worked Sunday Morning, then headed there in the afternoon, spent Monday night at a hostel that this English guy (George) owns, we send people there all the time so we stayed there free. Tamsin came for the night too with John. Lola and her friend from Sao Paulo stayed as well. Plus a couple of our hostel guests (Joe & Simon – Japs & Hotdog) were staying there. We met 2 actors from North London who were staying there too. It´s only a small hostel but it´s enchanting: a wooden jungle cabin, with a decking area out the back that´s suspended over a bit of jungle. Perfect for hanging out, chilling, chatting, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

Monday is my day off so I stayed there all day. Me and Olivia went on a spontaneous hike through a bit of jungle, over some rocks to try and get to a beach via the scenic route, but just ended up getting stuck and having to go back. It was a good walk though. Lots of nature, a mini-beach made out of shells instead of sand or pebbles and terreturous looking vultures in the palm trees above.

Anyway, so I stayed there again on Monday night as I didn´t have to go to work until yesterday afternoon.

Tuesday morning, George (owner of hostel) led a group of us to this waterfall where you can go into a gap in a rock and it looks like you´re being swallowed. The sensation is like being born in reverse: after being ´swallowed´ you end up in this small cave and then slip through the side to get out. Then we went to a mini waterfall. Then we went to this amazing beach and then the main beach, then I went back to Paraty, to work. I enjoyed my holiday within a holiday very much.

There are 3 amazing beaches at Trinidade – clear water, golden sand, clean air - it´s just a little town but it´s got something about it: it´s cool. I´d love to live and work there – and guess what? George has given Lola a job there for the next few weeks. Lucky Lola - she deserves it (up yours to those that sacked her). I am a bit jealous because it´s so much better than Paraty! I´ll go and see her there. One day, I want to live there.

Hello Rio?

But for now - I´m hoping to live in Santa Teresa in Rio De Janerio - it´s the highest point of the city so you get amazing views. Apparently. So i´ll have a look next week and let you know. It´s near Lapa where they have a carnival style street party every Friday night.

I´m all set for cosmopolitan life: my mate Felipe got me a mobile so I have a Brazilian phone number - how, cool, am, I.

I´m also hoping I can find bits and pieces of work in Rio and not have to work 6 days a week. It´s time for part 2 of my Brazil adventure. I´ve just been here for 6-7 weeks and I need to see other things. I will be sad to leave Paraty and my friends here, but it won´t be as hard as it was to leave everyone in London - so i´m sure i´ll cope.

It´s my leaving party tonight. We only have a few cool guests about this weekend: Joe & Simon and Laura & Ross are back from Trinidade and staying with us again. Roshan is making me a banner. I wonder what mischief will occur tonight, if any...

©

Carry On Paraty

2009-05-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

I had one rule when I got here: no English.

So far, i´ve been a good girl. Ok, so I haven´t but not too bad. There was moment with an Irishman that got a little too close to home. Then there was Gwilly – from Argentina. There may have been a little indiscretion with a Canadian fellow. I may have had a few Brazilian kisses, but nothing more.

What? Don´t look at me like that - I´m on holiday.

So how the hell did I manage to break my one golden rule? It was an Essex boy, of all things. A big, tall, loud, funny, 20 year old Essex boy.

My Penis is...

The story goes something like this: there were 4 boys from Essex (Mark, Harry, Michael & Alec) staying at Geko next door for about 2 weeks, they became part of the furniture – almost locals during that time. They´re absolutely lovely genuine boys, only 20 years old bless em. Anyhoo so one of them is quite big and built - Mark - and I kinda fancied him pretty much straight away. We´d been flirting for a few days, he´d always say hi and have a bit of a chat when I went next door, or if they popped in to our hostel... and I saw him with his shirt off a couple of times – that helped.

Then on Monday, I was a broken woman after: 5 days in a row of sleeping in the hostel after hanging out with ´the group´and Saturday nights transatlantic antics. It was my day off I´d been on a boat trip with Lola, some Jewish Scousers and some Portsmouth lads (yawn).

That night me and Tam hung out at Geko with ´Essex´, playing this fucking funny drinking game: My Penis is/My Vagina is - but without any alcohol. The game for those who don´t know it is you go through the alphabet: my vagina is atomic, my penis is amorous etc... during the game I noticed that Mark and Tam got on quite well too. Damn.

The next day, me and Tam were walking the dogs near our house and I told her: I like Mark and she was like, so do I.

Unfortunately, i´ve kinda been a bit predatory and alpha female about things recently: after 2 incidents of ´back off, he´s mine´- I felt I couldn´t really do that again. So I said she could have him and encouraged her to get with him. I backed off completely and left her to it and a few days later I asked her how it was going, she was like: if it happens it happens, i´m not that bothered.

Necessary nudity

Then on Thursday night there was a party (Lola´s leaving party – Lola got unfairly sacked the previous week) at Geko and this big drinking game (The Geko Cup) was planned (I know, drinking games = not cool - but I´ve recently discovered that it all depends who you play with). Pre-game Tamsin warned me to wear loads of layers cos you have to pick up cards and if you get a 2 someone has to take an item of clothing off.

So I went to work, got drunk, got changed and went over to Geko for a party, forgot all about the game and went over to have a bit of a boogie. I turn up wearing only: a red dress, a purple lace thong, a feather earring and a pair of flip flops. They´d already started playing, i join in and every one at the table has agreed that if a 2 comes up, the dress is coming off.

The night before some of our guests were playing a similar drinking game. Joe (a gobby but sweet 18 year old lad from Leicestershire) ended up starkers. He hid his ´dignity´from the group and lucky old me got an exclusive view from the bar. Thanks Joe. Not. One of the other guests – Charlie – a dull, dull, dull boy from Portsmouth who thinks he´s really cool and interesting – turns to me after playing the game for about an hour and says: immature isn´t it? I say: how old are you? He tells me he´s 29. I give him a pitying look. He got the message.

But it turns out – i´m a massive hypocrite, because 24 hours later... Guess what? A 2 comes up: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo - but for the sake of the game, the dress comes off. So, I´m sitting there in a thong with a silk scarf round my neck to cover ´the girls´. Now it´s my turn - I pick a 7 - which means I can make up a rule.

My rule is: everyone has to get naked.

The rule then gets amended to – everyone can keep 1 item of clothing. So a group of 12-15 of us are all sitting outside Geko, playing this drinking game, pretty much naked (except Tamsin, who´s wearing her 1 item - a dress). Obviously it all gets out of hand. Wicked.

Then it starts raining. We move the table in, this disrupts the game and people get distracted but we´re still playing. Lola´s completely off her face and pinching Marks leg. He asks me to help him by coming and sitting next to him. I say no, so he moves to the other side of the table and sits next to me. Michael (one of the Essex boys) picks a card and says everyone has to kiss the person next to them. So Mark grabs my head and kisses me. PROPERLY. When we stop, I look up and no one else is kissing. Whoops. Tamsin looked PISSED OFF. (It wasn´t me! It was him!)

Fair enough. She´s right to be pissed off. In her eyes: I encouraged her, then fucked her over = bad friend. If I wasn´t drunk - my judgement of the situation would have been better and I wouldn´t have then let him drag me to the beach and... you know... carry on.

But still, I can be forgiven – right? We all know there’s nothing quite like a bit of British beef.

Happy Birthday Roger, Goodbye Essex, Hello Neggers

The next day (Friday) I´m feeling a little bit deflated, Tamsin´s not speaking to me and I just felt like a bit of a bitch. Mark came with me to buy some ice for the bar. Later that night Olivia arrives (a previous guest who has since become a mate, she lives in Rio and holidays in Paraty) and we go out in to town for a few drinks. We bump in to Tamsin who´s with Ginger John (one of the North London crew, now living in Rio) and after a few drinks we´re OK.

Saturday arrives; I´m at work after a late night and I´m tasked with: making banners for the party tonight. One of our guests (Roger – a 47 year old gay German - brilliant) is having a birthday, he gets a banner. It´s the Essex boys last night (boo), so they get one too. Negro (yes, that is his name) the manager from next door has been away for a few days and is coming back, he get´s a banner: Happy Birthday Roger, Goodbye Essex, Hello Neggers.

Saturday night comes around and i´ve finished work, gone home got ready and come back. Tamsin and I have ´made up´and everything is sweet again. I gave myself permission to get on it and have fun.

Mark and I head into town to buy some cigarettes and on the way there, we see there´s a bit of a construction site with a few booths - I now know these booths are part of a Christian Rock festival that´s happening this weekend. Me and Mark take almost full advantage of these booths. Perfect place to have a bit of a fumble and discover that Mark is VERY good with his hands, ahem. We´re both going to hell.

Game over

When everyone finishes work, the drinking games begin again. Half way through, I get a bit tired, end up bailing out and sleeping on the sofa in Geko´s reception. Mark covers me with a sheet. And everyone thinks it´s game over. But it´s not. Later on, they wake me up and tell me to sleep in a room. I assess the situation and decide: it´s time to go out. So armed with a giant bottle of water and R$20, I head for the bars.

While I was sleeping, Ginger John has managed to piss Mark off by calling him a fat gay. They´re not happy with one another. Mark has a word with him. Whatta man. Mark and I head for the beach and... well... continue. It gets late so we head to Geko where I plan to sleep. Neggers (Negro) has other ideas. I´m not allowed to sleep there (what a heartless bastard). So I go to our hostel and sleep alone on a cold wooden bench for 3 hours. Next morning I roll off the bench, land in reception, ´ready´ for work at 8. Ideal.

Cheerio

The Essex boys leave that day. Me and Roshan are tired and emotional. As the Essex boys walk off down the street with their bags, I have a little cry. What? Don´t you do that? Get wasted on a Saturday night, watch the Eastenders omnibus on Sunday and get abnormally emotional? No? Just me? OK.

Working in a hostel, you´re exposed… whoops… no you come into contact with… no no… you MEET so many new people. And because they´re on holiday or travelling, they´re on top form. And because one is working in a hostel, you´re in a relaxed mood and you have to be sociable. A perfect recipe for making new friends. But I had no idea i´d meet so many great people in such a short space of time.

The last few weeks have brought a goodbye almost every day. Most of the time, you smile, wave and say: bye, have a great trip. I came all this way for an adventure, try some new things, meet some new people. And I have. Some guests are great, some interesting, some funny but most are pretty boring.

I´ve also have some Brazilian friends that live in Paraty and my other friends that live in Rio, Sao Paulo or are travelling and are long gone. Sometimes, you meet some good people, you hang out and hit it off and when they leave, it´s sad saying goodbye to them. You don´t know if you´ll ever see them again.

©

Back to life, back to reality

2009-05-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

When I went to Mexico last year for a 2 week holiday to see my cousin who now lives there, working as a surf photographer, that´s when I got the travel bug – as they say. I didn´t want to leave. I had opportunities there I could have followed up and see where they led me. I called my mum and my boss and told them I wasn´t coming home. My boss told me I had to come back to ´reality´at some point. What terrible advice. What is ´reality´?

Surely reality is whatever you are, whatever you´re doing, that is your reality. It´s not fiction. One is not a character in a film or cartoon, playing out a contrived story. One is living a life of spontanaeity whether you live in the middle east, or the midlands.

Any way – I digress. I went home with the intention of coming back to Mexico ASAP. This did not happen. Life took it´s twists and turns and after a certain chain of events, one year on i´m here in Brazil and my cousin is now living in LA. But that bad advice has stayed with me and the consequences of taking it has clearly put me on the path to the life I am now living. But i´m still left wandering – what is reality?

Paraty could be described as not the ´real´ Brazil. It´s a beach town, on the coast, with a lot of tourism keeping it going. It´s not in the internal part of Brazil, it sits between Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo. So does this make it less ´real´ than a favella town?

Cycling is a big thing in and around Paraty. And the beauty of it is – you don´t have to wear a helmet! This pleases me greatly and at the same time makes me realize why I stopped cycling in London. As a self-conscious teenager, I would not be seen dead in the bright green cycling helmet my Dad bought me when boring health and safety rules first reared their ugly head (ok, maybe not as ugly as a squashed head with tyre marks on it, but still).

Anyway – I digress. My love of biking around everywhere has returned – when I run errands I do them all by bike. I cycle to work every day, and more often than not - make the journey back home after working (and drinking) the bar; the roads are clear, the wind in your face is refreshing (sobering) and the exercise tires me out nicely, before bed.

It´s not just the love of the bicycle that makes me feel like a kid again. All this nature does too. When it rains in the jungle, the frogs come out; I’ve seen a huge toad in our garden a few times. Frogs, toads – that takes me back: frog hunting in the small strip of land behind my parents house every summer. Living in a shack in the jungle, surrounded by nature doing everything by bike – I often think: ten year old me would be so proud.

So, is the person we are as a kid – the real us? The things that we love as a child, the playful or timid person we were then, the things we enjoyed doing – for a lot of us these interests fell by the wayside, usually because of outside influences. We are encouraged... no no... forced to ´grow up´- but the purity of the person you are and the fun you have as a child doesn´t last long enough. One should never be in a hurry to grow up. You only spend twelve years being a child and 7 years being a teenager, then you´re 20 – a random age just before the big twenty-one, when you become a grown up. Allegedly.

So now i´m on a quest for reality. Ok that sounds whack. Um, no – I am. I want to see different realities for different people in different towns, cities and countries. From LA to Bombay. I want to live my own reality in different circumstances and surroundings, make it my life, live it and if necessary, move on. On to the next place. The whole idea behind this adventure is: there is no plan, no timeframe, purely going with the flow, taking opportunities as they arise.

In London – my reality is being on a time schedule. Even at the weekend. Meeting this person at this time, then getting the tube across the city to go meet some other people later on. It´s great but it doesn´t feel very ´free´.

Freedom from ´reality´ - could be roughly translated as: living the dream-?

©

Back to basics

2009-05-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

I realised yesterday that I haven’t worn shoes for over a month now. This is a record. I have been donning a pair of balance-defying killer heels on a regular basis for over ten years. Here - I slip on the same pair of flip-flops every day without a second thought.

Not only that, this week I’ve found myself not once but twice, washing all my laundry in a bucket in the garden with cold water. And I really enjoy it. It’s kind of therapeutic. It’s also MUCH cheaper than paying for my laundry to be done - as I have been doing up to this point, not just here but back in London too.

I used to really like the feeling of dropping off my washing to the little Polish girl at the launderette in Marylebone; then collecting it eleven quid later, clean, dry and neatly folded in a sealed polythene bag. What an arsehole. But in my pathetic defense – needs must - I had no washing machine and no where to really dry my clothes, unlike here – where I can have all the colours of the rainbow strung up across the garden, flapping in the breezy sunshine.

This is progress - going back to living only within necessity and not excess. ´Developed countries are over ´developed´to the point where our practical capabilities are no longer put to the test on a regular basis and we have become dependent on nonsensical items that we are programmed to believe we need. E.g. shower gel and face wash are marketing scams. All you need is soap and water.

Developing countries such as Brazil and Mexico are basing their future on the ´western world´model of success: capitalism and consumerism. Which has proved to be intrinsically flawed, based on greed and money at the expense of all that is good in the world. Artificial perfection to the detriment of natural beauty – from cityscapes to human beings. Generic. I hope developing countries will realise this, go into reverse and start honing and harvesting natural resources to save the world from total homogenisation – otherwise known as globalisation.

Getting away from it all

With Blackberry’s, iPhones, laptops, notebooks to check our Outlook, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, Bebo, Piczo, Flickr or update our blogs. And looking on the BBC, Sky, CNN, Reuters, FT, Times, Guardian or YouTube to see what’s going on in the world – can we really ever escape? Even if you don’t take a device with you, internet access is everywhere and so is good ol´TV.

So, what would it take to truly get away from it all – being stranded on a deserted island, lost at sea? I wonder how long I’d survive in either of those situations…

©

Mud, sweat and beers

2009-05-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

We have a lot to catch up on since I last wrote.

Ok, so it’s been nearly a month now – week 4 is drawing to a close and I’m pretty brown (for me). Week 1 was all about troublesome Londoners, week 2 was all about troublesome Aussies and week 3 was all about troublesome, sexy, Argentineans. Week 4 has been about troublesome Brazilians.

How am I? I´m well. I’m never bored here. I have less to say for myself then I do when I’m in London. This is for several reasons: I have nothing to rant about, literally nothing. I’ve taken to loving the gossip of the Paraty bubble. I have literally no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world at the moment (except swine flu – thanks mum). I simply do not want to know about world news. Unless it’s good. Ignorant, but true. I’m too busy soaking up the atmosphere and looking around me at everything, thinking: this is good.

It’s strange because I’m not excited to be here, I’m pleased to be here. I’m glad that I’m here and this is what I do. This is my life right now and I’m taking each day as it comes, thinking about the next. I truly am going with the flow, along with everyone else I know here.

Time is almost irrelevant - I guess what the time is – I don’t have a mobile phone or a watch and I’ve never been late for work. I have a routine now: I cycle to and from work every day. I mostly work the evening shift doing the bar, starting at 3pm finishing at 11pm, so I can chill out in the garden all morning, with my bum out in the sun.

For the first two weeks I seemed to be covered in mud, sand or drenched with rain – needing a shower every time I showed up to work. Coming in covered with mud - from the bike, or if I’d been sleeping on the beach – sand everywhere.

Blood, sweat and tears…

Week 2 brought with it Marc and Hamish – they were an entertaining replacement for Felix and Ed. They got drunk, got us drunk, had fun, made us laugh, took charge of the music at the hostel and injured Tamsin – not necessarily in that order. Yes, week 2 brought the hideous accident which left Tamsin limping, no - hobbling, no – hunchbacked and a shadow of her former self. Temporarily. A drunken Tamsin and an even drunker Hamish decided it would be a splendid idea for them to both ride the same bike to the club, really fast. Rum + bike + Aussie + speed bump = ouch. Very ouch. That was then the better of our two bikes got renamed: Deathbike 3000, and will be known as such forever more.

All was immediately forgiven and we continued to hang out with the guys. Their stay culminated in a wicked day out - The Boat trip. We all got drunk and tanned as the boat sailed to some of the surrounding islands, stopping for us to jump off the side of the boat, back-flip off the top of the boat and flirt with other boats.

Ok, so I may not have back-flipped off a boat, but I did do a bit of long distance flirting with the skipper of a smaller boat – Latitude – from afar. I was doing so well, with the help of a lot of hand signals and Tamsin hollering at him, we managed to arrange to meet up in Paraty later on. Great.

So we got off the boat after hours of fun, started walking back, then the Aussies remembered I needed to go and see Captain Latitude.

So I sidled over to the boat, he recognized me instantly and invited me on to his boat. Cool? Well, maybe. I’m actually pretty short-sighted. He was a bit older then I had anticipated, alright though, but still no. He had different ideas and stuck his waggling tongue in my mouth. Yuck. Unfortunately he knows where I work and has turned up outside the hostel a couple of times… whoops.

Back off girls, he’s mine…

Week 3 started slowly, then, on Wednesday good ol´Lola pimped the hostel to five of her fellow countrymen: 5 sexy Argentines.

Mika (my manager/housemate) said to me in the car that morning that she had a feeling six gorgeous guys were going to come into the hostel that day. And five Argentinean guys did. One of them was good looking (the one who spoke the best English) - he started chatting to me on the beach and I felt like I’d only just woken up so wasn’t really with it. AND I’d been bitten by mosquitoes all over my face (not too bad, but still - yuck) so I wasn’t up for being seen.

When they all came in from their day out I decided I definitely wanted a piece. Announced it to the girls I work with (Tams in etc)and they backed off. So I started working the old magic and he was hanging around me most of the night.

THEN these five English teacher girls check in - hold up - competition - I had to up my game. One of them started chatting to him. Then when he walked over to me - we kissed (I don’t know who instigated it, maybe both of us?) I was supposed to be working at the time (oops) but it was worth it...

Bored to tears…

Week 4 hasn’t been quite as exciting. Spent my day off hanging out at the house, chilling out in the sunshine, very nice. Then Tuesday night was Rafael’s (Haffa) last night in Paraty. He’s a Brazilian guy, who’s been working as a barman here - I met him through Tamsin and has become a friend. But he has had to go back to Sao Paulo.

We wanted to give him a bit of a send off. We were all heading out into town, then we find out town just isn’t happening that night but there’s a boat party to go to. Sweet. I love a boat party. But guess what? Yup, that’s right – it’s on bloody Latitude. I still considered going, a boat party’s a boat party – right? But, Haffa had other ideas. We were to go to Felipe’s house for a party. So the 6 of us (Me, Tam, Felipe, Haffa, random Swiss bird and Tiago) went to Felipe’s house, got drunk, danced ´forro´ and laughed lots. Me and Tam got back to the hostel at about 6am, I slept on the wooden bench, then when the guests woke up for breakfast dragged my sorry ass over to the beach and slept on the sand, in the shade of a tree for the next few hours.

That was the highlight of the week. We’ve had a LOT of boring guests. Mostly English with a few Dutch thrown in for good measure. Good god, how does one manage to notch up over 25 years of life without obtaining any sort of personality along the way? Seriously, we had a few English guests check in on Sunday: nasal voices, football shirts, bit scrawny, nondescript - I had the misfortune of overhearing their conversation: one of them was giving the other 2 a blow by blow account of an episode of The Simpsons.

Really? You’re in Brazil, there’s a lot going on in the world and this is all you have to discuss? I personally would rather have a heated debate than idle chit chat about what is technically known as bollocks. But not the good kind, not the drunken ´philosophical´ kind of bollocks, no - dull mundane nonsense about nothing. British travellers these days are very boring people, working their way through Lonely Planet, ticking off a list of places to go. We had the misfortune of having these people here from Sunday to Wednesday. Dull, dull, dull.

Another guy checked in on Tuesday. Before he arrived Tamsin said he had a fit name, I said everyone I’ve ever met with that name has been – well – minging to be quite frank. Anyway, I was right. Damn. To be specific, he was an ugly version of a very unattractive bloke we know.

Plans & progress…

I did meet a couple of interesting people this week. Dirk – a Dutch guy, very useful (Ill come on to that later) and Felicity. Felicity is feeling how I did when I went to Mexico last year: I don’t want to go home. So don’t, I tell her - you regret the things you don’t do, never the things you do. I think she’s taking my advice, I hope for her sake she is.

Now it’s Friday and we have huge groups of Brazilian families just checking in now. They will challenge my patience, but on the upside - at least I can’t understand what they’re saying.

My Portuguese is coming along. A bit. I had a full conversation with the man in the gas station; I asked him for 2 bags of ice, 2 carrier bags to put them in (carrier bags aren’t the root of all evil over here yet) and a receipt. Go me! But still, it’s hard.

I love Paraty. The boats, the cobbled streets of the historical centre, the hostel, the ride home, the dogs, the shack in the jungle, the jungle, the river, the lush green trees all around and the beautiful hills. This was one of the first colonial towns in Brazil, so it’s very quaint. Not a skyscraper in sight. Lola and I went to the waterfalls yesterday. It was amazing. They were almost horizontal, fresh water falling down rocks that forms a natural slide. A guy there could surf down on his feet and walk back up again. We of course, went down on our bottoms and slid into the water. I could do that all day.

However, I have formed a plan. I’m thinking of leaving Paraty next month to go to Argentina, stay with Lola and go to Spanish school. Dirk (the Dutch guest) did a 6 week course there and has given me a load of information. He turned up the day after I formed the plan, I got chatting to him and it turns out he has done exactly what I’m thinking of doing. See – told you he was useful. Then once I have the basics, go to Buenos Aires and ´practice´.

Now I’ve got the taste for Argentinean meat, I really would rather learn Spanish first.

©

A one ´man´ mission to ´destroy´ paradise…

2009-04-18T04:57:00.000-07:00

So, i´m here ´living the dream as it were, and it´s very nice. But tiring. Working hard, playing harder. I´m happy.

The hostel is by the beach – almost on the beach; our house is in the jungle – well, on the edge of the jungle. I live with Tamsin (we lived together in Finsbury Park) and Mika (my new boss). We have 2 dogs: Rasta and Kimmy, a cat – Sharon and the kitten – Baby Jesus – BJ for short. We also have a ´pet´ spider – Rapey - who has made a web for herself on our porch. Lovely. Very different from the life I got bored of in London.

How´s my Portuguese going? Hmmm… it´s not really. I am the local retard who can’t speak the language. Yet. So that´s my challenge for next week, getting people to give me lessons. I can say thank you – obrigada – I say that a lot. If I can’t be fluent, I can at least be ´polite. Google Translate is my best buddy at work – it comes in very handy when understanding emails. Wish I could have it installed into my brain when I talk to everyone else.

The best part of my job is making Caipirinhas. I especially like making them for Brazilians: they look at me with suspicion – an English girl making our national drink? – then I hand it to them, they take a sip, taste the goodness and lap it up. Even had a few compliments. 1-0.

It´s all go here. Last week (week 1) was about learning the ropes of my new job – working at the hostel. And Brits abroad. What a shambles. It turns out the English are the worst – not your average chav, but your typical off the shelf, middle class, educated idiot.

An Englishman, Irishman, and a Scotsman walk in to a bar...

... in Brazil. The Irishman has a few beers and a few caipirinhas, goes to a club, has a good time, then calls it a night. The Scotsman has a little more to drink than the Irishman, gets smashed on pirate rum, forgets where he is (thinks he’s on an island and needs to get a boat, not realising he is very much on mainland Brazil) then eventually gets himself home safely to bed. The Englishman gets wrecked after drinking straight rum all night, washed down with several caipirinhas and beers and quickly takes to work on ruining paradise...

The Rabbi and The Showgirl

It turns out, that Paraty is a parallel universe where anything can happen. To the extent to which the aforementioned Englishman - an undersized, slightly chubby, pastey little blonde boy from Golders Green – for the sake of this story, lets call him the Rampant Rabbi – is a sex god.

A few of us (2 of our friends from London, some guests and a few people I work with at the hostel) went to a Brazilian Funk night at a club in Paraty – lots of booty shaking, grinding - sexually charged dancing. The place is full of big Brazilian dudes that look like gangsters – big silver chains, baseball caps, baggy jeans; most of them look a bit mean. The Rampant Rabbi has somehow over the last 5 days since he arrived, managed to catch the eye of a rather lovely piece of Argentinean skirt – The Showgirl. Ok, so her name is Lola – but she’s not actually a showgirl. But she probably could be.

Lola, at first glance is a pretty girl, but nothing to write home about. BUT she does have a certain je ne cais quoi about her that makes her beautiful – which is why I´m writing home about her, so to speak. When we arrived, Lola was actually Nico´s girlfriend. Nico works at the hostel with me, Tamsin, Mika and Lola. When the Rabbi and The Showgirl first started getting together she was still wih Nico.

So the Rabbi (ok, so he´s not Jewish, but he IS from Golders Green) and the showgirl are together, dancing, kissing, etc. Then one of our hostel guests – a reasonably attractive 19 year old girl from South East London also wants a piece of circumcised action and starts dancing up to him, she´s all over him – then – she says to him: once you’ve finished with her, come and meet me in Rio and we can fuck.

Er... hold up – what IS this? The rest of us are standing on the sidelines watching this incredible feat of luck on his part. Never before have two girls in the same club wanted this dude as much as they do. So this OBVIOUSLY goes to his head – big time. He drinks more and more, he now thinks he´s invincible: bowling his way round the club, t-shirt sleeves rolled up, chain out – as if he owns the place. The worst thing is - he´s getting away with it, Brazil seems to be convinced that he is in fact The Pimp Daddy. He even has the audacity to turn to me while we´re standing at the bar and say: I suppose you want a piece too. Jeeeeeeeeez.

So eventually we leave the club – it´s 5 o´clock in the morning. He´s walking home with me and Lola. We get to the little bridge that crosses the river and a group of guys walk past us, one of them says something in Portuguese – Lola translates tis for us: can we share your girls. It just gets worse, Brazil belives he has bitches in tow. He´s superman now.

To be fair to the boy – and he is very much a boy, his head was understandably over inflated. We head back towards the hostel, where I fall asleep in reception, so when I wake up in 2 hours time – I will be where I need to be: at work.

The beach house is basically ´the servant’s quarters´. Everyone (including Nico) who works at our hostel and the hostel next door (both owned by the same couple) live there. (Except me, Tamsin and Mika who live in in a shack in the jungle with our cats and dogs). While I sleep, they head to the beach house. When they get there, they take a mattress and put it on the kitchen floor and start getting it on.

Then - ´knock, knock, knock´- Eddie (our friend from London) comes in as he´s been told that he can come sleep there for the night. He goes straight to sleep in Nico´s bed (he´s doing the night shift). Our unlikely couple continue. Then - ´knock, knock, knock´- Mya (works at the hostel next door) comes back with a random guy she met in the club earlier and she goes to her room with him. So The Rabbi and Lola are at it now, having a great time. Then - ´knock, knock, knock´- Roshan´s at the door with a guy she´s met in the club (Roshan is from London, doesn´t speak any Portuguese and she´s my new mate, she also works at the hostel next door). But the randy twosome don´t let her in. So she starts banging on the door, shouting - she´s been locked out.

This then wakes up Lissandro. A big guy, works as a chef at the hostel next door, he´s been sleeping in his room at the beach house with his wife. He wakes up to absolute debauchery in his house: his housemate´s ´girlfriend´ shamelessly shagging a rowdy English bloke on the kitchen floor; Mya´s getting laid in her room and Roshan´s shouting outside waiting to get it on with her fresh piece of Brazilian meat, to polish it all off - Eddie snoring in the bed above him - all at 6am on a Sunday.

Not a happy man, he starts shouting at the extremely drunk, naked and horny Rabbi who´s not having any of it. The Rabbi takes a swig of what he thinks is water whilst Lissandro´s shouting at him.
It turns out it´s not water, but detergent in a glass – spits it out all over the kitchen before being kicked out, still very naked.

I´ve heard the story from Eddie, Roshan, Lola and The Rabbi and it sounds just as ridiculous each time.

When I woke up Lola was at work having not slept at all and The Rabbi was unconscious on the sofa. Tamsin was at home as it was her day off, she didn´t come to the club the night before so was none the wiser. Until she turned up later on that day to hear from several different sources that her best mate from London has single handedly managed to destroy the peaceful chilled out atmosphere of Parati and (temporarily) sever all ties she´s made here in the last few months.

Everything’s fine now. Most people could laugh about it the next day. And within 24 hours Roshan had taken the heat off our Rabbi – by bringing a batch of dickhead English guests to a private staff only party. Said dickheads were dressed in either drag or panto clothes, some of them only wearing an open shirt and speedos, with painted on moustaches – all thinking they were fucking hilarious. But they weren’t. They were knobs. They pissed everyone off and had to go.

Roshan had got so hammered before the party, she climbed over a wall to get into the house, only to find it was the wrong house. Then got to the house and beat down the door with a full bottle of wine, entered the house with the now broken wine bottle, proceeded to get more hammered over the next few hours, puked up and ended up shagging one of the dickhead guests – yup – back at the beach house.

From now on, if anyone asks me where i´m from, i´m going to say Éurope´.

Every few days there’s a new story, a new hangover. I’m sure as I sit here writing this from my hammock, our dogs lying beneath me, looking out at the miles of lush green forest landscape, everyone back at the hostel is talking about the latest drama that happened last night. I’ll find out when I get there later this afternoon. This is the life ay.

New challenges, new people, new stories - new life: riding to work on a bike everyday, the outdoor lifestyle, Portuguese. Right, I’d better go – off to walk the dogs... :)

©

11 days to go

2009-03-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

With just under 2 weeks to go - i’m kinda numb and mute. Not a great start to an article – you’ve probably already stopped reading. It turns out that I can’t really function normally unless i’m drunk at the moment. And even then all I think about is the ‘great escape’.

So the last thing I told you was that I was about to hand in my notice
at work – right? I kept to my word: as soon as I got my passport I handed my notice in and booked my flight. So I’m leaving work on Friday 3rd April, then I’m flying out Saturday 4th April. Not leaving any room for breathing space.

Work were fine about it, said they weren’t too surprised and were supportive, I guess. How boring for you – no dramas there. But this is me we’re talking about – there will be plenty of palavers along the way. Especially as i’ll be living in a hut in the jungle. Yes that’s right, a hut, in the jungle by the mountains. NICE. That’s all I know – i’ll tell you more when I get there.

Yep – i’m pretty dull. One track mind and not in the good way. From the moment I wake up all I think about is: Brazil; what I need to do before I go and what I need to take with me; whether I have enough money saved up; what it will be like; what i’ll do when I get there and have I got enough bikinis?

Then I think about the rest of the adventure.

Then I go to sleep.

©

Portuguese, Paraty and pre-passport palpitations...

2009-03-11T14:18:00.001-07:00

Procrastination can be a wonderful thing, as by the time you've decided to do something - you know you definitely want to do it. Also - friends that point out to you how long you've been talking about doing said thing, are even more wonderful. Being decisive is an art form I have only very recently started to master. But it feels good.

Right now i'm in the process of waiting for a brand-spanking new passport. Soooo... how did I lose my passport? 10 years I had the thing. It was my only form of ID being a non-driver so it went clubbing with me for 10 years [not so much in the last year or so - I just pull out a grey hair or point at a wrinkle and the bouncers let me in]. It went to Europe, Africa and Central America with me on some short excursions. It’s surprising that it wasn't lost during some wild night out in Brixton, I didn't get mugged on the streets of Belgrade, nor did it go astray when staying in a derelict beach hut in Acapulco...

No. During the process of filling out a passport form before it expired and getting new photos. It went missing. At work. Poor bastard - what a sad way to go. I often wonder if our cleaner at work - Rosa - sold it on the Cuban black market. That would be more exciting than being recycled. Although, I'll probably find it under the wobbly leg of a desk about 2 hours after I get the new one.

Anyway, I digress.

So after waiting in vain for it to show its battered, stapled, stamped, worn out face for a couple of months; this week I decided to fast-track my application to get a new one - without the old one as back up. This takes 1 week.

Why the hurry you may ask? [As my boss must have done as I legged it to the passport office with 11 different forms of identification and proof of address, donning a panic stricken look - not commonly seen in the work place these days].

Because now i've made the decision that i'm definitely 'off' - I want to go NOW. And when I say now, I mean RIGHT NOW. FYI - This feeling of wanting to go 'now' gets stronger by about 11:30 every day of the working week. So as soon as I get my new passport, that's it, i'm done. I'm handing my notice in and I’m off to see as much of the world as possible with the pittance I’ve managed to salvage from the reckless frivolity of the last 12 months.

Where am I going? Well, to start the adventure - Paraty, Brazil - where I hope to work in a backpacking hostel to fund my existence and live the beach life. There’s talk of lots of exciting things like boat trips - I do love a good boat. Other than getting myself a working visa, the only condition is I have to be willing to learn Portuguese. I can do willing. But can I do Portuguese? We shall see.

But that’s what I’m going to do and that’s where I want to be for at least the next few months. Then - who knows. Might have a browse around South America, see what it’s all about. Then head to Mexico, the states, Hawaii, hopefully get a bit of work in Australia, go and see NZ, Fiji, Micronesia… then see whether it takes me to Thailand and Vietnam, Goa, Africa - Malawi, Ghana, Kenya, the Sahara, pop into Europe on my way home, back in time for the Olympics.

Doesn’t that sound nice? It would be fun, but to be honest - if I manage to learn Portuguese and make it to Brazil and back, I’ll be a happy woman.

©

Written 01.03.2009