First we had to eat, so we had some cheap-but-dodgy street food, which seems to be the standard sea-front fare in Santa Marta: greasy pizzas and salchipapas. But the two Aussie girls were pleased to be able to pay more for “vegetarian” pizzas, which just looked like normal ones with the meat left off. While we were getting our food Fraggle let slip that the Aussies had not actually contributed towards our guide Castro’s tip. It seemed a bit stingy, especially when you consider what a great guide he was, moreover considering how disappointing everyone else’s guide sounded, but tips are voluntary and it’s easy to get into a habit of being stingy when you are travelling. However I had tipped because Castro’s performance was so good it overcame my stinginess. Well everyone has their own threshold, I supposed. Then I remembered Castro carrying Ali on his back for significant parts of the trek, and the fact that he organised a birthday party for her, up in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, after carrying a cake all the way there as well as booze and wine. Now that is really tight. Nevertheless, Fraggle hadn’t wanted to make a big thing out of it, so he told Castro that the tip was from all of us.

Party!

After “food” we carried on to the place the local had chosen for our big night out. I should have realised that most people’s idea of a night out is not the same as mine: I had pictured all of us sitting round a large wooden table at a simple drinking den, slowly getting drunk as we relived the last five days, after all these were nice new friends all of whom, I thought, had become quite close in a short period of time, but many of whom would never see each other again after that night. But no. Our big night out was to be in loud a dancing place, doing its best (not very well) to imitate any number of bland nightclubs in the UK. We couldn’t speak and the drinks were expensive, and it had almost everything going for it that I hated about Boca Grande in Cartagena. Of course we had to go somewhere like that because girls like dancing, and most people seem to think you have to go for the most expensive place for a good night out. Well what a load crap! I just sat down and started working my way through a bottle of rum with Jamie and Fraggle.

Dance floor

Ali, Fraggle, and Emma

It was only after we left the nightclub that the evening started to get interesting, although it was also rather hazy, after two bottles of rum among the three of us. We found ourselves roaming along the front looking for somewhere to buy beer, but everything was shut and there were very few people around. As we walked along the front I noticed that there was a scattering of people who all seemed to be following and converging on us, slowly and without openly acknowledging us. Actually it was a bit like a zombie film. So far every local I had encountered in Colombia had been really nice and friendly, but here we were easily outnumbered, and I wondered what sort of Colombian hangs around on or near the beach this late at night. It suddenly felt like the dodgiest situation I had been in for the whole trip, and I remembered that Joanne had asked me not to be more reckless after she left. But after a brief period where they seemed to be hanging menacingly around us, we were sitting down with them, being offered beer, and chatting away. They were all very friendly after all, though they did seem to be a mix of students, buskers, beach bums, tramps, and other miscellaneous dodgy people. They were able to tell us which other dodgy person would be able to get us beer so late, correctly assuming, I suppose, that we would share it when it arrived.

At one point Gemma had to leave, I think just to use the toilet somewhere – I can’t remember, but she was too scared to go alone, instead opting to take one of the dodgy characters with her. Fraggle and I just assumed that she fancied him, and Fraggle assured me that Gemma could look after herself. Quite a lot of time passed, most of which I spent speaking to a Rastafarian artist about dreadlocks, who eventually sold me a woven bracelet thing, and I occasionally asked Fraggle if we should worry about Gemma not being back, but he just said she’d be fine. Just as we were getting up to leave and call it a night, Gemma arrived back, rushing to keep ahead of the guy she had disappeared with and told us that he was a “total pervert” who had tried to make a move on her.

Fraggle moves…

For hazily unremembered reasons, we went to someone else’s hostel instead of going to sleep; I think it may have been because there was a rooftop terrace and they had a bottle of rum. We managed to get rid of most of the dodgy crew, who had started following us, by enlisting the local girl to explain that only people who are staying there will be allowed in so late. Unfortunately Gemma’s creepy guy was a tourist and, though she did say it was OK for him to come, asked Fraggle and me to keep him away from her. So the task fell to me to speak to him. Gemma was not wrong when she said he was creepy, and it wasn’t long before I was pretty sure he had switched his affections from Gemma to me, though he was never explicit, thank goodness, instead telling me about being a hairdresser on a Ritalin prescription.

Creepy hairdresser

Scary man!

Dawn is coming

Nice view

Nevertheless, it was a lovely roof terrace, with a nice view and a great sunrise. I shouldn’t have been up that late! I was supposed to be going back to Cartagena the next day to organise passage to Panama, since Joanne had not been able to find me the trip I wanted. So Gemma and I left to back to the dorm, managing not to wake the others when we got back, leaving Fraggle with the French girl he had pulled. Gemma told me he would be very pleased, because he’s never had a French bird before, and he had made it his mission to collect one woman from every country.

Creepy man makes one last attempt at Gemma

First we had to eat, so we had some cheap-but-dodgy street food, which seems to be the standard sea-front fare in Santa Marta: greasy pizzas and salchipapas. But the two Aussie girls were pleased to be able to pay more for “vegetarian” pizzas, which just looked like normal ones with the meat left off. While we were getting our food Fraggle let slip that the Aussies had not actually contributed towards our guide Castro’s tip. It seemed a bit stingy, especially when you consider what a great guide he was, moreover considering how disappointing everyone else’s guide sounded, but tips are voluntary and it’s easy to get into a habit of being stingy when you are travelling. However I had tipped because Castro’s performance was so good it overcame my stinginess. Well everyone has their own threshold, I supposed. Then I remembered Castro carrying Ali on his back for significant parts of the trek, and the fact that he organised a birthday party for her, up in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, after carrying a cake all the way there as well as booze and wine. Now that is really tight. Nevertheless, Fraggle hadn’t wanted to make a big thing out of it, so he told Castro that the tip was from all of us.

Party!

After “food” we carried on to the place the local had chosen for our big night out. I should have realised that most people’s idea of a night out is not the same as mine: I had pictured all of us sitting round a large wooden table at a simple drinking den, slowly getting drunk as we relived the last five days, after all these were nice new friends all of whom, I thought, had become quite close in a short period of time, but many of whom would never see each other again after that night. But no. Our big night out was to be in loud a dancing place, doing its best (not very well) to imitate any number of bland nightclubs in the UK. We couldn’t speak and the drinks were expensive, and it had almost everything going for it that I hated about Boca Grande in Cartagena. Of course we had to go somewhere like that because girls like dancing, and most people seem to think you have to go for the most expensive place for a good night out. Well what a load crap! I just sat down and started working my way through a bottle of rum with Jamie and Fraggle.

Dance floor

Ali, Fraggle, and Emma

It was only after we left the nightclub that the evening started to get interesting, although it was also rather hazy, after two bottles of rum among the three of us. We found ourselves roaming along the front looking for somewhere to buy beer, but everything was shut and there were very few people around. As we walked along the front I noticed that there was a scattering of people who all seemed to be following and converging on us, slowly and without openly acknowledging us. Actually it was a bit like a zombie film. So far every local I had encountered in Colombia had been really nice and friendly, but here we were easily outnumbered, and I wondered what sort of Colombian hangs around on or near the beach this late at night. It suddenly felt like the dodgiest situation I had been in for the whole trip, and I remembered that Joanne had asked me not to be more reckless after she left. But after a brief period where they seemed to be hanging menacingly around us, we were sitting down with them, being offered beer, and chatting away. They were all very friendly after all, though they did seem to be a mix of students, buskers, beach bums, tramps, and other miscellaneous dodgy people. They were able to tell us which other dodgy person would be able to get us beer so late, correctly assuming, I suppose, that we would share it when it arrived.

At one point Gemma had to leave, I think just to use the toilet somewhere – I can’t remember, but she was too scared to go alone, instead opting to take one of the dodgy characters with her. Fraggle and I just assumed that she fancied him, and Fraggle assured me that Gemma could look after herself. Quite a lot of time passed, most of which I spent speaking to a Rastafarian artist about dreadlocks, who eventually sold me a woven bracelet thing, and I occasionally asked Fraggle if we should worry about Gemma not being back, but he just said she’d be fine. Just as we were getting up to leave and call it a night, Gemma arrived back, rushing to keep ahead of the guy she had disappeared with and told us that he was a “total pervert” who had tried to make a move on her.

Fraggle moves…

For hazily unremembered reasons, we went to someone else’s hostel instead of going to sleep; I think it may have been because there was a rooftop terrace and they had a bottle of rum. We managed to get rid of most of the dodgy crew, who had started following us, by enlisting the local girl to explain that only people who are staying there will be allowed in so late. Unfortunately Gemma’s creepy guy was a tourist and, though she did say it was OK for him to come, asked Fraggle and me to keep him away from her. So the task fell to me to speak to him. Gemma was not wrong when she said he was creepy, and it wasn’t long before I was pretty sure he had switched his affections from Gemma to me, though he was never explicit, thank goodness, instead telling me about being a hairdresser on a Ritalin prescription.

Creepy hairdresser

Scary man!

Dawn is coming

Nice view

Nevertheless, it was a lovely roof terrace, with a nice view and a great sunrise. I shouldn’t have been up that late! I was supposed to be going back to Cartagena the next day to organise passage to Panama, since Joanne had not been able to find me the trip I wanted. So Gemma and I left to back to the dorm, managing not to wake the others when we got back, leaving Fraggle with the French girl he had pulled. Gemma told me he would be very pleased, because he’s never had a French bird before, and he had made it his mission to collect one woman from every country.

Creepy man makes one last attempt at Gemma

Second meal: garlic sprouts with pork and a tofu dish.

Third meal: pick your own boil. Somewhat similar to hot pot but they cook it for you. You choose from a refrigerator of skewered tofus, green leafy vegatables, squid arms, various unidentified meat balls, mushrooms, and even identifiable veggies such as broccoli and cauliflower. Spicy & good!

Second meal: garlic sprouts with pork and a tofu dish.

Third meal: pick your own boil. Somewhat similar to hot pot but they cook it for you. You choose from a refrigerator of skewered tofus, green leafy vegatables, squid arms, various unidentified meat balls, mushrooms, and even identifiable veggies such as broccoli and cauliflower. Spicy & good!

I grabbed my luggage off the carousel and placed it on a cart before jumping on the back myself and riding it outside and to the Antarctic Clothing Distribution Center like a skateboard. The warm breeze and humid air felt euphoric against my bare arms. I checked in all of my cold weather gear and then joined others to hop on the shuttle into the city. In town, we noticed a group of four women dressed as pirate maidens heading to some party or dance. A few blocks later another group of maidens. Then a different quad with pink hair in fairy costumes. We had been in a place where the male to female ratio had been 4 to 1. I forgot the general populous was 50/50. Then I saw a peculiar creature, otherwise known as a baby. And then a small child and elderly. Then some more girls with blue and green wigs. It was land of the freaks.

Sitting in the hotel check-in line, four young women in Catholic school girl outfits approached us and asked us a question. We just looked at each other and started laughing. The first words a civilian in the real world uttered to us were, “Do you have any ribbed condoms?” Apparently it was for some scavenger hunt or a bachelorette party, I don’t remember. They continued asked other people nearby as I moved forward in the queue and got my room number at the looks-like-Apple-designed-it, Hotel So. The trendy rooms weren’t liked by all the roughnecks from the ice but I enjoyed it. Later that night I met up with a couple of the guys I knew from the Pole.

The dynamic between the two was like hanging out with Bert and Ernie. One was a deliberate, conservative in demeanor, Ivy League graduate from New England and the other was an Texan who worked on oil rigs and has a girlfriend that wants him to get a job in Kuwait because you can’t do anything immoral in that country or they chop off the offending member or hand. All night long, without his girlfriend watching, The Texan would goad and prod the Ivy leaguer into drinking faster than just one beer an hour, drinking more than just two or three beers a night, and staying out later than midnight. I laughed the entire evening, they were like movie characters. Our journey started with me feeling really old just from looking at all the young looking people in line. The girl in front of us started a conversation by noticing my pale arms and gleefully exclaiming “You’re just as white as I am,” before bursting out in laughter.

We started talking a little bit, but before soon I had to ask how old she was. She started giggling again and said “I’m 27. Ha ha ha ha yeah I’m 27.” She then showed me her ID which looked like a gym membership. Suddenly something dawned on me as I scanned the crowd. I looked at her and said, “Yeah I’m 27 too, just like you are, only the opposite direction.” Translation: I was just as close to age 27 as she. The legal drinking age in New Zealand, like the majority of the world, is 18. Her fake ID made me want to get out of there in a hurry, as I could picture my sister calling me a sicko. We ended up not going inside and finding a more mixed crowd but I had other problems. Usually foreign people in New York love talking with me because I speak English so slow they can actually understand someone, but here I just talk, umm, I’ll say exotic. I ordered my drink three times before the bartender could comprehend my words. I’m having trouble with their accents once in a while too.

I walked into a bathroom and was about to enter a private stall, when I heard a voice calling to me. I looked up and saw a beautiful blonde woman dressed up in a French Maid costume. Yes, another one from the costume party thing, this is my chance. I smiled big, flattered that she would want to strike up a conversation with me, but had to excuse myself because I couldn’t understand what she said. Looking her in the eye, I focused with all the concentration I could muster, embarrassed to make her reiterate her words a third time.

“Um excuse me sir, you’re in the woman’s bathroom. “ she repeated. My giddy smile turned to a look of complete terror as I looked around. Through the propped open door I could see men entering and exiting a room just on the other side of the hallway. Where were they before and why hadn’t I seen any signs? AHHHHH. I meekly apologized, tucked my tail between my legs and scurried out. In hindsight I should have just started a new conversation like nothing was wrong, but I always think of things too late. Several bars in New York have unisex wash stations with stalls in separate individual small rooms. It never occurred to me that it was strange for a woman to be striking up a conversation with me in a restroom. I trotted back upstairs laughing about the situation. There, Ernie was pushing Bert to go to a nudie club. With my vote we stayed away and simply ended up at another nearby bar before calling it a night.The next day I went to a professional rugby game and then met up with those two for another interesting time. They both left Sunday morning though, while I slept in and ate a nice brunch around 1:30 in the afternoon.

I walked around in the foothills of Christchurch, through the botanical gardens, and got a relaxing Thai massage. Looking for lunch one day, I wanted something authentic and searched for an ethnic restaurant with native people eating inside. I found my spot, Sala Thai, and promptly asked for a table. They gave me a table alright, one directly in a corner. Either seat I choose had a grand view of the wall in front of me. I had to turn my body sideways between bites to face out into the room to observe the subdued scene. There were even empty tables. I finished my meal and went looking for backpacking gear. In one of the stores I bumped into a young woman I knew from the Pole. She had been trekking for the past four days in an area called Arthur’s Pass and was on her way to the South Pacific Island, Vanuatu. We made dinner plans and met up with another couple later that evening beforing saying goodbye again.

The next day I took a nine hour bus ride through the Canterbury Plains, through the Southern Alps and down to Queenstown. The town would be well described as the offspring of opulent and chic Park City and adventure driven and adrenaline riddled Moab. As long as we are pretending, the setting reminds me of what that mythical town would look like on the edge of a massive lake at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. As for now, the tourists in town are mostly from Australia, The U.K., France and Germany from the sounds of things. Aside from nationality, they also seem to fall into two categories. The first, foreign baby boomers with sweaters draped over their backs and shoulders like a superman cape or like they are going to a tennis match. All the fine dinning establishments have several groups of this type sipping fine wine and engaged in clever conversation.

The other segment of typical tourist here is young twenty-somethings wearing swim trunks, flip flops and t-shirts looking like they are heading to the beach. This group stays at hostels and buys their peanut butter and jelly at the grocery store so they can have more money for booze. While I don’t fit in with either contingent, it’s a simple guess on which side of the fence I landed. Case in point, last night my roommates were four spicy Swedish meatballs. Haven’t seen tonight’s cast that came here looking for extreme sports, but I’m sure I’ll meet them around four in the morning.

Some of the broucheres I’ve seen for the action, include bungy jumping off a bridge the length of 1 1/2 football fields, jetboating through narrow canyons at high speeds, and paragliding. I’ve heard of people driving Formula One race cars. But the best excursion I’ve seen was paying $400 dollars to drive a huge military tank. And for an extra 400 you can even crush and roll over a car. All prices are NZD, for the redneck in all of us.

As for me, I think I’m going to be holed up here for a couple of days because the weather is turning sour. I’ll try to wait it out so I can do the Rees-Dart Trek. It’s about 50 miles long and will take 4 or 5 days. I don’t want to do it in the rain, mud, swollen rivers and obstructed mountain views. I may do the bungy jump in the meanwhile, but the $230 price tag is creating hesitation. I might end up just moving out of town. We’ll see if I get too antsy waiting for sunshine while messy roommates leave shaved facial hair in the bathroom sink and fart repeatedly at night.

We had caught a glimpse of the glacier as we rounded one of the bends in the road, after crossing (those one-lane briges again!) an icy-blue river flowing from the glacier, and that glimpse alone, out the large front window of the bus, took our breath away. But when we do the actual glacier walk across the valley to it’s foot (or as close to the foot as those not on hiking tours are allowed to go), it’s astounding. It’s so huge it’s impossible to take in - sublime, a huge river of ice snaking down the mountains, it’s snowy top lit by the sunlight. The glacier valley itself (carved out by the glacier, which is now receding and growing in almost equal amounts, thousands of years ago) is a flat moonscape of grey-white rocks, the bush-covered sides of the hills cut at irregular intervals by small waterfalls falling from hundreds of feet up.

Up close the glacier seems less huge - the snowy top obscured by the bend in the valley walls. Where the river flows out there is a dark cavern in the ice - after a few minutes standing there we see a large chunk of ice detach itself from the cave roof and land with a splash in the river. It kind of reinforces the slightly comically dramatic, bright yellow signs on the other side of the fence, warning of all types of dangers from crushing with ice to drowing, if we cross the ropes. A few people have been killed in the past trying to get photos right up on the ice, or trying to touch it, when pieces the size of campervans came crashing loose at just the wrong moment.

That night we make the healthiest meal I’ve had this trip, an epic salad… I wish I’d taken a picture as evidence that I am actually eating vegetables, but unfortunately we ate it too fast :).

The next day we had planned to do a five hour hike around the glacier valley, while others from our bus went off to do glacier ice-hikes. But it’s raining in the morning, and when we check with the DOC at the I-Site office, the woman behind the desk gives us an horrified look and exclaims that the route is far too dangerous, and has been since flooding a month or two ago which washed away a lot of the stream-sides leaving deep gullies to cross, with slippery ascents and descent.. “And anyway,” she adds, frowning, “It was always a really, really nasty route!”. Good job we checked then I guess!

Instead we do a short hike away from the township, to a man-made tunnel through the mountain. We take headtorches like the map says, but when we get the tunnel it’s over ankle-deep in water. Still, the promise of some amateur caving definitely outweighs having soaking wet shoes and freezing feet for the walk back. And it’s pretty cool: entering the pitch-dark tunnel, our torchbeams hardly seeming to fight against the gloom, we splash into the water, flinching again the cold, following rough tunnel walls with our hands as we gingerly step forward, wary of deeper pools ahead. On the way back out we cover our torchlights and catch sight of glowworms on the cave-roof.

We squelch back to the hostel just as the rain starts. It starts at 1pm - moonsoon-style, battering the hostel roof - and doesn’t stop until late that night. The rest of the day is lost to books, films and one risky sprint to the fish’n'chip shop down the road.

Central Park

Lincoln Center

The last time Somchai visited New York, he was terrified of its criminal reputation. As far as I can tell, he took a Circle Line boat tour of the city, then a bus tour of the city, then left, so I don’t think his feet ever touched the ground. He was particularly scared of Central Park, which I dragged him to on the last day to show him that it’s a lively, beautiful place that NY couldn’t live without. As you can see, I was right and he agreed, and in future trips Central Park was his favorite place to hang out.

We also walked around the East and West sides, nice residential areas on either side of the park. Again, very few pictures, except for the ugly Lincoln Center and what I actually do find scary, the nature dioramas of the Natural History Museum, both on the west side. I don’t really get the diorama thing, it looks so old fashioned and dreary. When you can see the live thing on safari or a zoo, or pictures, movies etc anywhere, I’m not sure who would want to see stuffed, dead hundred year old animals with marble eyes.

I don’t want to end my New York trip on such a happy Central Park moment, and I just remembered an “incident”. It is beautiful, and safe, but also very, very unpredictable. When we first entered, I remember we saw this guy in tight white spandex shorts with an enormous fake penis shoved down them. He was walking around the park and everyone was laughing, except him, as he was seriously trying to impress the ladies. Somchai gave me such an “I told you so” look and I thought he was going to flee the park after that, but he persevered, and if something like that happens to you, you should too, and just stash the memory for future use in your own blog.

Natural History Museum

Central Park

our Soho apartment

our Soho apartment

Our loft was a work in progress. The building is about 175 years old, and used to be a department store, a warehouse and many other things besides. Its most recent reincarnation was as a tobacco warehouse, which tarred the floors dark brown. Like all the Soho buildings, they were converted into residential lofts by artists in the ’60’s. The place I bought had electricity and one toilet, and that’s it, so it needed a pretty big rework. The neighbors hated me (rightfully so) when the construction crew somehow turned on the building sprinkler system and ruined all sorts of artworks, clothing, etc. It was pretty horrible. One really odd thing about the building was it only had an ancient freight elevator, and you had too manually pull on a rope to get it going, then grab the rope when the elevator was passing your apartment,which was pretty freaky. Anyway, during the long construction process I ended up moving to Hong Kong and then Bangkok, so I actually never lived in the place except for having a great New Year’s Eve party there for the Millenium.

our Soho apartment

our Soho apartment