Picking Daisies

We've been away a while, and I can only apologise one again for the titan delay between blog posts. I could - as was the case last time - write a paragraph or so filled with self-condemnation, begging forgiveness from the precious few followers left. After all, we've nurtured this blog about as well as a heroin-addict may nurture a new-born baby, but this is going to be a long'un and there's no use wasting your time and the page's space with empty apologies. We've had a brilliant time.

I think we last left you in the cosy middle-class haven of Carmel, California. We've passed safely through two phases (and entered into a third) of our trip since then, and there's no one way to approach them collectively. So, I'll walk you through the separate stages, hopefully going some way in helping you visualise the whirlwind roller-coaster of a ride on which we've been willing passengers since being tucked away on a beach on North America's west coast.

It seems like a lifetime ago now, but we hopped on a plane to cross the mighty Pacific at the end of the first week of April, having gone through another teary goodbye to my mother (a striking example of deja vu) at LAX Airport. For reasons unknown, Cosmo's driving license never materialised while the time was ripe, so reluctantly abandoned our somewhat over-ambitious plans to rent a campervan for New Zealand, and instead opted for a much more tourist-friendly bus tour across the country. With Katie and her troupe acting as a scout party, we were already savvy to the step-by-step nature of this journey, and we arrived in Auckland feeling very comfortable in our plans for what promised to be a pregnant month.

For once, and to our astonishment, our expectations proved to be more or less accurate. New Zealand is renowned (for better or for worse) as a nest crawling with young English backpackers, and we felt very much in the mainstream almost at once. There were very few "where shall we go next" conversations and even fewer "where the hell are we?!" moments during the proceeding weeks. There is often a negative corrolation, I find, between the quality of one's memory and the amount one has to remember (reading it back, I suppose that seems obvious!) so in this case I ask you to forgive me if at times my recollection is hazy. Having said that, my head's filled with vivid pictures from every moment while on this trip - the tricky part is merely placing them in a comprehensible order. Even so, I'll do my best to retrace our steps with a few (perhaps idealised and always, I'm afraid, generalised) judgements which will, hopefully, add colour to a picture I can only sketch with descriptive words.

The principle behind the bus tour - called 'Kiwi Experience' for those who are familiar with the concept - was very simple: pick a day to leave each destination, and hop on or off a big bus at your leisure. We had a jumbled and very changeable itinerary to begin with, so our paths were laid before us like carpets as soon as we arrived. So, having had a hazy day in Auckland (after a sleepless overnight flight, six cups of coffee and mythical jetlag) cramming in the museums, art galleries and sights the city had to offer, we headed north to the Bay of Islands. Paihia, the northernmost 'city' (its size hardly merits the label) was our first stop. Picture a long straight road along a shallow beach with a horizon stretching endlessly into the Pacific in one direction and green-clad hills in the other. The city itself was pleasant but hardly jaw-dropping and the weather was by no means flattering. That said, no gathering of clouds could dampen too severely a sunset over the clear unspoiled Pacific, and we breathed in the view with a newfound optimism that our time in New Zealand would, at the very least, be memorable. Having spent the night in the hostel bar in the midst of strange folk and even stranger pub-quiz questions (which was the first country to declare war on Germany in WWII? Anyone? Leave answers below, and now Wikipedia searches), I roused Cosmo at a respectable hour the next morning to trek through the hills to a waterfall - here my memory has gone completely haywire so I cannot tell you the name. Even though its name has slipped my mind, it's beauty certainly has not. It was lovely and, although in no way a reminder of the sheer power of the natural world, it served to demonstrate Mother Nature's serenity. Sitting on a rock on top of the Falls, I had one of those infrequent but familiar moments in which I realised how lucky we were to be there and how gloriously far away from home, not just in geographical terms, we'd come.

The next day we hopped back to Auckland to catch another bus over to Mercury Bay, the northeastern spot to admire the surrounding ocean. The Bay was dotted as far as the eye could see with small islands, all of which (including the surrounding ocean) were part of a protected wildlife reserve. It was breathtaking and, consumed by a smiling sun and a gentle breeze, a very small handful of us went on a guided sea-kayaking trip from island to island, pausing to admire the late afternoon on an all but deserted beach with mugs of hot chocolate and cookies (prepared for us by a guide who was no doubt very content in his career choice).

We then headed down to Rotorua, known in New Zealand (at least by appreciative tourists) as the traditional Maori capital. There we had the opportunity to enter a very old-fashioned (unfortunately but, I suppose, necessarily fabricated) Maori village in the woods where, having enjoyed several demonstrations and performances, we sat down to a huge all-you-can-eat buffet. Although the village, it has to be said, lacked any genuine authenticity, it was great fun nonetheless and our stomachs welcomed greedily the rare opportunity of being filled to the brim.

After Rotorua came Taupo (here's where I think I may have missed a step), celebrated as the country's adrenalin epicentre. We had a couple of days and nights here, and tried to cram in all the foolhardy activities possible in the realtively short time period available. In short, we both booked slots on a plane for the sole purpose of jumping out of it again. There's a long story behind this, and I'd dearly like to have this secure in writing: I didn't get to go skydiving, due neither to lack of courage nor lack of trying, but the company messed us about and I had my eyes on a bigger prize - more on that in a second. Still, Cosmo managed to get on a later flight and has told me that it was one of the thrills of his life, and that means a lot coming from a cliff-jumping, motorbike-riding, back-flipping maniac like him. I won't try to recreate his experience having missed out on the opportunity myself, but all his followers should know that he loved it and would, I'm sure, be more than happy to speak to you about it with the utmost enthusiasm, assuming of course that he hasn't already (and I suspect he has). Anyway, I didn't go skydiving and any sci-fi nuts amongst you will understand why. Taupo, I discovered only after arriving, is home to the Tungaruro Crossing, otherwise known to film buffs as the deadly Land of Mordor in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. I've always been frustrated at Frodo for being unable to climb Mount Doom, and I was determined to rid my accusations of any hypocrisy. So, without any water (that, I assure you, was not done purposefully for the sake of authenticity but a silly miscalculation of supplies during the 20km hike to the mountain itself), I clambered through ash and volcanic rock to the top. The view at three thousand and something metres was surreal, and now I have only to laugh in Elijah Wood's face in order to die a happy man. Anyway, we both left Taupo feeling thoroughly pleased with ourselves for one reason or another, and we went on our way with a self-confident smirk for the next couple of weeks.

Next stop was windy Wellington, the actual capital of New Zealand. It was surprisingly, actually, surprisingly sweet and charming, not boasting the hectic buzz which capitals usually impose upon intimidated visitors. We spent a couple of days going to various museums and admiring the proud harbour and a couple of nights spending far too much money having what I can only assume were great evenings (needless to say, my memory fails me here for other, less romantic reasons). The city's gorgeous and surprisingly small and we had, by that time, made good friends in a few of our bus-trip comrades, making the days more colourful and nights, in Cosmo's case, more sordid.

Having said our goodbyes to the North Island, we hopped on a ferry and jumped into the 'canoe' (Maori legend has it that the two main landmasses of New Zealand were formed when a great ancestor in a boat [South Island] caught and dragged to the surface a gigantic fish [North Island]). We headed straight for Nelson, said to be the country's hippy haven. It does, more or less, live up to its reputation, and I spent a great afternoon wandering into old-school bookshops and visiting a modern yet good-looking cathedral.

I'm definitely missing a few out here, but I'll push on anyway. The next momumental stepping stone was Franz Joseph, home to the world-famous Fox Glacier. Although weather conditions could not have been worse, we gritted our teeth, put on some cramp-ons and started walking. The guide could only take us up so far while it was bucketing with rain, but the views were awe-inspiring nonetheless, trekking up a mountain of solid ice surrounded by hundreds (literally, hundreds) of vapourising waterfalls bursting out of the rock faces around us. Believe it or not, it got very cold very quickly (not helped by the fact that we were forced to stop for half an hour to hack a fresh way through the ice which had been coated by frozen rain). However, the pain was worth enduring as we strolled through ice caves and jumped from ridge to ridge in a setting that is almost impossible to describe. We were rewarded in full when we got back to the town with a long soak in the natural hot baths. The three pools vary in temperature from 36 to 40 degrees, and sinking into them was like thawing after a long, hard winter.

Last real stop on our coach was Queenstown, where we were determined to make a dramatic exit. Having won a costume competition (the theme being to dress up as something beginning with 'P' - I went as a picnic, complete with snacks that were gratefully but ungraciously torn from me throughout the night), I was given a free 'Canyon Swing' just outside Queestown. The name is pretty much self-explanatory: you stand on the edge of a canyon, jump off, freefall for 60 metres then swing at 200km/h or so in between two sheer cliffs. I had to wake up early for the privilege but, absurdly, it was only a warm up for the afternoon we'd had planned for a long time. Around noon, Cosmo and I downed a Red Bull and got on a bus to the location of the Queenstown Nevis Bungy. I expect some of you will have seen the video Cosmo uploaded, but for those of you who haven't, I'll tell the quick story. You arrive at a huge canyon and you're shipped in a tin can over to a stationery cable car in the middle of the canyon, standing 140 metres from the ground. The space is blasting with heavy metal music and you spend as long as you can shaking all over trying, inevitably in vain, to psych yourself up for the insanity ahead. When your name's called, you hobble forward, failing miserably to show signs of courage and optimism and, before you know it, you've jumped off a ledge and you're free-falling for eight full seconds. It's hard to say whether it was 'fun' or not - there isn't really a word in the English vocabulary that qualifies the feeling one gets when hurtling towards the ground from a 140 metre ledge for no apparent reason. Anyway, we were very glad to have done it but even more glad it was over, and we left feeling that we had abided to Cosmo unflinchingly narcissistic tattoo. "I came, I saw, I conquered".

We clearly needed to be brought down a notch, and some lovely person in Queenstown took it upon themselves to relieve us of our newly discovered (at least in my case) sense of invincibility. A creepy little swine pickpocketed our last working credit card on our last full day in New Zealand, leaving us penniless (save for the shrapnel buried in my rucksack) and facing four journeys (Queenstown - Christchurch - Sydney - Hong Kong).

Here's where, for me, the coolest part of the story begins.

We arrived in Hong Kong feeling weary and uncomfortable, but with a glimmer of hope. Having passed on the fateful news to my parents at home, they clearly mobilised at a speed which made the Queenstown fall seem slow. My dad sent cash via Western Union to keep us going in Hong Kong while my mum spoke to a friend of hers who lived in the city, begging him to put a roof over our heads. For the first time on our trip, we had no real clue what we were doing there, but the next two weeks were a delicious dream.

When we got to Jeff's and Christina's flat in HK, we were hugely grateful for a good meal and beds for the night. In the end, we got so much more than we'd bargained for. I was rooted until my card could be re-issued and couriered from London, and I was more than willing to move out as soon as we outstayed our welcome. Having said that, I was willing, but I really didn't want to! Christina's two beautiful young daughters, Athena and Cat Cat (12 and 10), adopted us almost immediately as, well, horses, insisting on offering further bed and board in exchange for piggy back rides across the city. The deal, to us, seemed more than favourable and we quickly, very quickly, felt that we'd found a home away from home. Travelling on the proverbial 'open road' is wonderful, and the feeling of complete freedom, for us at least, suffers only one rival: the cosy, warm, snuggly feeling of home. We were offered, and found, just that in Jeff and Christina's place and, although we made visited all sorts of exotic places in and around Hong Kong, the highlight of the time spent their was, for both of us, the kindness and warmth of our hosts. You'll hear all sorts of stories from both of us when we get back to our respective countries, far more than I can recount in an already oversized blog post, but know for now that Jeff, Christina, Athena, Cat Cat and their maid, Trini, not only sheltered us when we needed it most, but revitalised us emotionally (and gastronomically!) for the home stretch.

I'm wary of embarrassing anyone by singing their praises on such a public stage, but one thing needs to go into the blog. Jeff, one of the wisest and most interesting guys either of us have come across while away, left us with the following quote. You'll understand, of course, that it is the inspiration for the above title and, indeed, for our trip and beyond:

"If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have on this trip. I would be crazier. I would be less hygienic. I would take more chances, I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets. I would burn more gasoline. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. You see, I am one of those people who lives prophylactically and sensibly and sanely, hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I have had my moments and if I had it to do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another. Instead of living so many years ahead each day. I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things. I'd travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to live over, I would start barefooted earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more. I wouldn't make such good grades except by accident. I would ride on merry-go-rounds. I'd pick more daisies!" Nadine Stair, aged 85.

We're now in Vietnam with high spirits and, although itching to get home, ready and willing to pick as many daisies as we can before we're through. I've likened this stage of the trip to the feeling of intense anticipation a child experiences after going to bed on Christmas Eve. Home will be glorious, but it's not a light at the end of the tunnel. With the end in sight, we're redoubling our energy and (I'm afraid, mum) our recklessness to squeeze everything we can out of a healthy but relatively microscopic time in South East Asia.

Life out here is fast-paced and all over the place, but we're getting by with broad grins on our faces more often than stressed-out frowns.

Love to you all - we'll see most of you before long, but I'll try my hardest to keep you filled in on our stories before you get to hear them all over again in person. I've missed out so much in the post, mostly by necessity, but no doubt I've given you enough fuel to light a blazing conversational fire upon our return.

Email or phone if you need either of us or just fancy a bankcrupting chat. Remember to pick daisies!

Louis and Cosmo

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Louis going on record

for what it's worth, and for the sake of my own safety as well as the protection of the aforementioned 'Oregon girl's' feelings, I'd like to dissociate myself from all views and opinions expressed in the previous post.

I quite liked her...

"THE OREGON GIRL" (i warn you. the following content is unsuitable for those with squeamishness or weak stomachs.)

i feel guilty that louis has done all the blogging so far. he has covered pretty much everything there is to talk about except for one thing. the oregon girl. my god. i still wake up with a cold sweat when she decides to pop into my nightmares. she introduced herself and apart from the massive winter boots and dress that looked like it was made out of cobwebs she seemed normal as any world traveler is. we started talking about where we had and been and what we did back home and she said that she had been kicked out of her house for selling heroin. ok, fair enough, didn't bother me too much. i then asked where she lived now and she said that she lived in a "house" she had built a mile or so away from the her family home. still not totally weird but getting their. i shrugged it off and starting seeing images of the leatherface dude from the texas chainsaw massacre. thats (!!) where i'd seen those boots before... i inched my numb behind a couple inches farther away from the "the oregan girl". i had sort of stopped listening when i heard the words "bamboo and seal skins" pop into the convo. i asked her to repeat and she said that her "house" was made of bamboo and baby seal skins that she "found" dead on the beach. i threw up in my mouth a little at this bit and swallowed hard. eesh. i had a bit of a cold sweat at this point.

i ignored it and we started talking about normal things like pot and music and beer etc... the oregon girl had remained silent for the last half hour and i wondered whether she was trying decide which of us would look better as her door mat and whether she would use a blunt axe or chainsaw like her (most likely) relative. she had spent the time eating the leaves out of a potted plant and drawing on the wall. the drawings were actually pretty good. they were sort of caricatures but of inter-bred species. she had a walrus with tits and and old man's face and fish with a woman's torso. so maybe she was just a very eclectic artist. i started to relax and asked her where she had acquired her dashing winter boots. she said that she had lived in a dumpster for a week and that some had thrown out these "perfectly good" winter boots. apart from being mens size 11 she said they fit pretty well. i quickly said good night and hid under my covers for the duration of the night.

the next morning was our departure from peru and we spent an hour talking to our newly made friends and getting facebooks etc... the oregon girl returned. she remained in her cobweb dress which was now slightly brown and covered in what looked like...(think of something gross). as she wedged herself between the wall and me i jumped and went to make myself a yummy breakfast bun with a strong cup of coffee. i returned outside where they were talking about japan and thailand and as if waiting for me to arrive she suddenly exclaimed that she had once smuggled spiders in from japan. (i shiver as i write this). i asked sarcastically what other wonderful pets she had had and either not noticing or ignoring my sarcasm she admitted that she had had a pet squirrel. normal enough and stupidly i relaxed. while i was munching away at my bun she started talking about how her squirrel and given her and her crackhead boyfriend scabies and then died. lovely. someone asked what scabies was and she enlightened us. "scabies is basically where bugs crawl under your skin and lay eggs as they tunnel there way up your leg or whichever appendage they have chosen. i yakked and swallowed my bun for the second time. and chugged my coffee trying to wash it down. i stupidly asked how you got rid of scabies and she said that you basically zap the areas the eggs have been laid and then slice open the area and spoon it out. she then lifted her dress a bit and showed us the scars from the "spooning" on her legs, which had enough hair to compete with chewbacca. as if trying to prove that she could beat chewbacca in a hair contest she stretched and gave us a nice view of her underarms. the women of the amazon would have made her queen in less time then it takes to say scabies.

5 minutes later we were in a cab to the airport, i sat in the front trying to get rid of my nausea by inhaling some "fresh" peruvian air. she still haunts my memory and my dreams...

California Dreamin'

Please accept our apologies and gratitude. If you’re still managing to follow this blog, you are among the most loyal and patient people that walk this earth. When it comes to writing these entries, frequency isn’t our forte, and the most recent delay has overshadowed all the others. As much as I’d like to explain away our internet inactivity with thrilling stories of being trapped in the wilderness without a glimpse of civilization, I’m afraid the oohing and ahhing will have to wait. The real reason for our unforgivable neglect is that, having been so well looked after for the last two weeks, we’ve been lulled into a happy stupor which doesn’t lend itself to travel blogging (not least because it’s playing hard and loose with the word ‘travelling’).

I’ve just read the last blog and scoffed at my innocent naivety concerning the flight which we were all set to get on to Mexico. In fact, the 24 hours after that entry were possibly the most unpleasant of our trip so far. I hate to admit it, but it was pretty much entirely my fault. Having been entrusted with the not-so-challenging task of guarding the passports, I passed on said responsibility to the hostel reception desk (I expect the more experienced among you will have figured out the punch line by now). Of course, we inevitably forgot that we’d left them and drove to the airport bidding a fond farewell to the hostel, passports and all. We didn’t realise the fateful blunder until check-in and five minutes later I found myself in a cab, trying to explain to the driver in Spanish that I’d pay 150% of the fare if he got me to the airport and back within the hour. He managed it, and while I ended up overpaying horribly for a ride, it was much cheaper than renting a racing car with similar adrenal results. During the taxi ride there were a fare (get the pun?) few near-death experiences, including two drag races, a flight from the police and a bumpy ride across a restricted stretch of land which I think was a dug-up building site. Anyway, we got there and back in about two-thirds of the time it took for us originally to get from the hostel to the airport, and I was pleased but panicky.

Needless to say, we did miss the flight as they wouldn’t let us check in less than an hour before departure. So (here’s the crunch), after a couple of hours of negotiating and heavy breathing, they allowed us to get the next flight at 6am the following morning (this was at 3pm in the afternoon) on the proviso that we paid a penalty of $150 each. We looked at all alternatives, including some rickety looking inter-continental buses but ended up swallowing the bitter pill and paying the fine. It was an unwelcome dent in both our meagre budgets and we weren’t best pleased.

I wish I could say the misery ended there, but alas a night spent in an airport is rarely problem-free. After wincing at the chunky penalty, we decided we needed some comfort and sought refuge in McDonald’s, the adolescent’s universal home-away-from-home. An hour later, I had a crippling stomach-ache and (I’ll try not to be too graphic about this) an hour after that I was locked in a cubicle with my head over the toilet, praying that I had food poisoning and not some exotic fungal disease. Luckily, it was the former, and I expect my mother will be doubly relieved as it naturally put me well and truly off Big Macs for a very long time. So that’s enough about the airport, but we arrived in Mexico City feeling tired, dirty and burdened with sickness.

Fortunately, we couldn’t have found a better place to recover. After being collected at the airport by Cosmo’s biological father (long story – those of you who aren’t in the loop can either overcome their curiosity or seek to satisfy it by talking to Cosmo), we were taken to his beautiful family home in the city. Travelling can be tiring when luxuries are so few, but entering into this home was like stepping into a warm bath after a long hard day in the cold. The food was wonderful, the shower was hot(!), and we even had our very own local tour guide to show us around in the form of Cosmo’s bio-pa (I find that’s the only way I can refer to him without feeling the need to support it with paragraphs of explanation).

Mexico City was surprisingly great to visit. Having heard tell of its soaring crime rates and suffocating pollution (apparently the air is only classified by the WHO as ‘breathable’ an average of four days a year – fun fact courtesy of Alice Simison PhD), I was expecting a lethal rat race too busy and too dirty to be appreciated by an observer. On the contrary, there were some real gems for the traveller. One highlight was the unrivalled Anthropology Museum, one of the best museums I’ve ever seen displaying artefacts recovered from all the civilizations to have populated different parts of modern-day Mexico over the centuries.

Another beauty is the main square in the city centre. Apparently, the invading Spanish decided to build their cathedral right on top of the religious monuments of their predecessors, meaning the square is at once a gleaming cathedral and an ancient archaeological site, provoking – I would imagine – an endless debate between historians and religious authorities. As it stands, the cathedral dominates and only a small corner of the square has been cleared for excavation, but it’s both exciting and upsetting to think that such a wealth of culture remains irrevocably trapped under perhaps the most potent symbol of those that destroyed it.

Walking around the Centro in Mexico is actually stunning. A whole network of well-preserved old fashioned streets has been completely pedestrianised so that, contrary to my expectations, aimless wandering (which is really the only way to soak up a city) is not just possible but actually very pleasant. As well as the beautiful buildings, there’s also a natural phenomenon to observe. According to our omniscient tour guide (although the more geologically-minded among you should feel free to confirm or deny this), Mexico City is built on the floor of a dried-up lake, meaning that the earth beneath it is unusually soft. Over many years, this has caused some parts of it to sink further into the ground, and several earthquakes have actually wiggled the whole place about a bit. The results are unnervingly steep slopes which evidently weren’t there when the streets on said slopes were built, giving you the sort of feeling I imagine an ant encounters when crawling across an un-ironed table cloth.

Burghard (the bio-pa – having said that, I do hope he’s happy with his unofficial title) and family gave us a perfect crash-course, filling us to the brim with local food and showing us all sorts of places, including the local contemporary art museum and all the must-see monuments and such of the city. As if that wasn’t enough, after a few days sightseeing, they packed us along with their luggage in the car and took us on their family holiday, taking us one step closer to heaven. We were taken to Banderas Bay, staying for one night in Las Juntas and the rest of the time near Puerto Vallarta. It’s difficult to describe how beautiful it was. Suffice to say that we had a private beach, the weather was warm but not stifling, and the water was refreshing but not cold. We learnt that Tequila didn’t always have to be ‘slammed’ with a pinch of salt and a slice of lime (who knew?!) and that whales migrate all the way from Canada to show off their majestic heads in the temperate Bay. Cosmo had the time of his life bonding with the previously unexplored half of his gene pool, releasing his inner eight-year old with his vastly more mature step-brother Sebastian, who’s also eight. I expect he’ll want to write a lot more either privately or publicly about his thoughts and feelings on the experience, but it was a real joy to watch him run around like a puppy dog, bio-pa and step-bro in tow. So Mexico was perfect, and we were feeling like pampered princes when we got on the flight to Los Angeles.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that any gap-yearer in possession of a healthy dose of curiosity is in want of a so-called ‘cultural education’. To achieve said education, one adopts the ‘when in Rome’ policy. So, to cut a long story well, not short, but shorter, two hours after landing in the US of A we had spent an extortionate amount of money, eaten lunch at Burger King and were driving around in a rented four by four (seriously). I don’t really know what we were expecting (a celebrity on every corner and a guided tour by Miley Cyrus probably) but we were jaw-droppingly disappointed when we landed in LAX. The hostel we were staying in was close to the airport as we were waiting for my mum and didn’t want to overspend on a cab-ride to the beach, and it turned out to be a hotspot for what I think the locals call ‘trailer trash’. This place made Butlin’s look like the Field of the Cloth of Gold. While there was nothing specifically wrong with it, it completely lacked class and possessed zilch of the fun backpacking vibe that we got so used to in hostels throughout South America. So, we decided to get out of there and quickly discovered that trying to get around L.A. without a car is like trying to cross the Atlantic in a dingy.

So, we rented a car from a suspicious-looking rental office connected to our hostel and ended up with the kind of car you can only find in North America. Neither of us had a driving license with us (I don’t even have one yet) but they were happy to give us the car on our Provisionals (perhaps because that’s far too big a word for Americans to understand – I don’t know) and we were off. If the place had a ‘culture’ in the true meaning of the word, then it escaped me, but it does have one thing going for it: glamour. The whole place is charged with high spending, and everything from the Beverly Hills mansions to the polished paving stones looks expensive. We did have a good time driving around Sunset Boulevard, convinced that every Tom, Dick and Harry was in fact Tom Cruise, Dick Van Dyke and Harry Houdini and we even saw Samuel L. Jackson in the flesh! Cosmo found his Shangri-La in the tattoo parlour which hosts ‘LA Ink’ and almost wet himself when he bought a skateboard deck and calendar designed and autographed by a girl previously unknown to me named ‘Kat Von D’.

After a couple of days of boisterous (as far as I’m at all capable of that characteristic) messing around in the most celebrity-rich city in the world, my mum came to join the party. Thank God, as I’m positive one week of California alone would have drained our bank accounts into overdraft. Having said that, the boisterousness apparently didn’t need to end with the arrival of a maternal figure. The next morning at the car-hire place, Cosmo and I discovered that Avis was offering a special deal on Chevrolet Camaros (for those of you who don’t know what that is, either watch ‘Transformers’ or Google it and hold your breath). Persuading her to go for it was stunningly easy – perhaps because we told her it was a family saloon – and half an hour later we were revving a V8 down Hollywood Blvd feeling like we had officially joined the high-society so visible all around us.

So by now you may have noticed that the California experience and the oh-so-profound-i’m-finding-myself-gap-year experience are incompatible. But hey, we’re taking a break for ten days. Speaking of which, that brings me neatly on to probably the coolest thing we did in L.A. One of our (my mum’s and my) old neighbours in London has been a loyal follower of my modest acting career throughout school, and has always been generous enough (and good enough at acting herself) to shower me with praise whenever she sees anything I’m in. In that vein, she passed on to my mum the email address of her cousin who works in film production in L.A. just so that if we were ever in the area we could meet up and talk about the glitz and glamour of the film industry. Well, we went to the area and we got so much better than that.

After a culturally responsible morning at the Getty Centre (a superb art museum in the Hills), we indulged our more superficial but equally enthusiastic fascination with celebrities by visiting Warner Brothers Studios and getting a guided tour of all the different sets. Alex (the cousin) works for Legendary picture which, for the film buffs amongst you, is the company behind such titles as 300, The Hangover, The Dark Knight and, most recently, Clash of the Titans. There was a museum in the Studios which had all the original costumes and bits and bobs from the movie sets of some real classics, including clothes worn by the entire cast of The Departed, the Spartans’ red capes from 300, Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka costume and Heath Ledger’s Joker suit. Probably the coolest thing in the whole place was a telegram written by Jack Warner after he’d just read the script of Bonnie and Clyde, saying that he thought there was no way it could ever make a successful movie. On either side of it were the shot-up costumes of Faye Dunnaway and Warren Beatty. How cool is that?! Any condemnations of the cultural poverty of Los Angeles were redeemed in the glorious hour and a half spent in Warner Brothers Studios, which left us starry-eyed and giggly.

The next morning we left L.A. for a glimpse of its arch Californian rival. San Francisco could not be more different from her sister, and although she trails in her shadow when it comes to pop music and film industry, she offers so much more in the way of beauty. San Fran is an undeniably pleasant place and every street corner is so picturesque it just begs to be painted. The hills actually are as steep as they’re rumoured to be and the cable cars do actually work. We spent our only full day in the city walking around the fisherman’s market, enjoying the views and browsing the stalls which were a refreshing break from the big superstore feel of L.A. Feeling somehow integral to its production (no idea why), we felt compelled to watch Clash of the Titans. It was almost as hard convincing my mum to watch it as it was to get her to rent the Camaro, but she eventually conceded and obediently put on her 3D glasses. Ironically, Cosmo and I were both really disappointed (sorry if you’re reading this Alex – for what it’s worth, we quote The Hangover on an hourly basis) and my mum thought it was great fun.

So we finally left the hustle and bustle of big cities and took to the Californian countryside. After leaving the city, we spent a night with some more of our old neighbour’s friends, who showed us the local area, including the Google head offices and Stanford University. We’ve been staying in Carmel Valley since Monday and will be back in L.A. tomorrow afternoon. Everything around here seems intensified with beauty and, while none of it seems untouched, it all seems very well-respected and there’s a rarely-visited beach round every corner. It’s very quiet which, of course, has its down sides, but a spoonful of peace seems necessary after the hectic lifestyle we’ve grown used to recently. As for security, we started feeling pretty safe after discovering that Clint Eastwood was the local governor (/Sheriff)!

Wow that was long. If you’ve got this far then I suppose I owe you an even bigger apology and even more gratitude than when you started. Having separated the wheat from the chaff, we’re now truly left with the most loyal and patient people that walk this earth. I think Cosmo wants to write something about a creepy girl from Oregon, so you may have to read even more soon. Anyway, I hope the titan length of this post is redemption for my neglect over the past two weeks.

Love you all. If you need us we’re on Cosmo’s phone number – 0035679879090.

xxx

The End of the Beginning

This morning Cosmo and I breathe a heavy ambiguous sigh of relief (a testament to the fact that we've made it through South America without a scratch or scar to remember it by) and sadness (a painful realisation that we are now coming to the end of the first part of our trip on this beautiful continent). It's been wonderful and, apart from the relatively minor hiccup of missing out on the "life-changing" experience of Macchu Picchu, we feel completely satisfied with everything we've done. Having said that, while our thirst for the continent has been quenched temporarily, I have no doubt that we'll both be coming back for more very soon.

The past week has been dedicated entirely to the discovery of Peru, which has been much less challenging than Inca Trail travel agencies would have you believe. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, Peru offers so much more than Macchu Picchu. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a good thing we missed out on the country's most popular tourist destination, it has given us a chance to look beyond the foreground and experience other parts of the country.

Lima is a hard city to capture in writing. Neither of us has fallen in love with it (and I have yet to meet somebody who has) but it does have its own charm, characterised less by monuments and beautiful buildings, and more by the buzz of its streets. The city is huge (geographically and size-wise) and the thing you notice immediately is that nobody stands still for longer than ten seconds. Taxis are everywhere, and if you linger then a conductor of a"collectivo" (the love child of a taxi and bus) will be ushering you inside before you can say "pisco sour". The organised chaos of the whole place makes the whole place feel somehow alive. In fact, I think Boris should organise a collective sobatical for everyone at TFL to spend a few weeks here - the idea of waiting ten minutes for a bus would be unintelligible to a resident of Lima.

So, after two days wallowing in the wake of Buenos Aires (we both missed it terribly), we found a morsel of energy and got on a bus to a place called Chiclayo, which acts as a launching pad for tourists wanting to see the historic monuments and museums in the surrounding area. For 30 soles (about six pounds fifty) we got a full day being carted around in a mini-van with a guide, hearing all about the different civilisations that had populated the area since 2000BC. While most of it was umm-ing and ahh-ing (the guide only spoke Spanish), some of it was fascinating. We spent about an hour climbing one of the old Mochica pyramids which dominate the skyline for miles.

After coming back to Lima we seemed to return back to a sort of stupour. We've seen various sites in the city (including a very boistrous museum about Peruvian military history in the setting of the capital's old fort - Cosmo and I got a bit too excited playing with the guns and got left behind by the group several times before a soldier ushered us forward). The hostel we're staying at is beautiful - a lovely little villa in Lima's "most pleasant" (apparently) district.

While we're both very sad to be leaving South America, we're also hungry to keep moving. We'll be in Mexico tonight and our actual plans are still in the making (really the only way to travel). We're staying with a family friend of Cosmo's, and we're very excited about being looked after by a local. While it's great meeting travellers and we're far from bored with our company so far, it'll be nice not having to begin every conversation with the universal travelling lines: "Where are you from?"; "How long have you been travelling for?"; "Where have you been?" etc.

Now I must leave and start packing so we don't miss our flight this afternoon. We fly at 2.30 to Panama and get a connection a few hours later to Mexico City. Loads of love to everyone from both of us.

Toodles. xxx

Never send a teenager to do a traveller´s job

In our sleep habits at least, we´ve had rather an unapologetically adolescent week. The Buenos Aireans, we discovered the evening of our arrival, don´t waste quality darkness on sleep. The party-goers hibernate in a standby stupour until gone midnight and slowly but surely rear their bopping heads for a full (and I mean full) night of drum´n´bass, dancing and debauchery. I´m not ashamed to admit, therefore, that we have lived a life of very late nights our only experiences of a curious entity known to the layman as ´morning´ have been down to our insistence on staying up past sunrise in order to get a breakfast bagel when the first cafes begin to open.

Having a great time is all well and good, but these late nights and sleep-ins take their toll on one´s energy to do, well, anything. We have therefore been carefully rationing our time so as to preserve some drive to go sightseeing and experience the city which, believe it or not, is pretty lively during the daytime as well as the night. We´ve been to see various parts of the city, each one being individual in their own way but all sharing a common beauty as described in the previous post. The streets are so beautiful and the people are adorable to talk to, even when you´re accidentally shouting at them for a croissant at 7am because the ringing is still in your ears from the club you left less than half an hour before.

I must sound like such an English tourist, which is something to avoid like the plague in a city as rich as this. As I think I´ve said before, you can make whatever you want of travelling, and this flexibility is especially easy in a city which offers far more than you can ever hope to do in a matter of weeks. It´s important, therefore, to feel like you´re seeing the real city, and not just cushioning yourself in the lifestyle which can be found in just the same way at home. This week has been a lively mix between seeing new things and sticking to reassuring but unchallenging customs (i.e. clubbing with the english). I´d like to think the former has outweighed the latter.

There is something for everyone in Buenos Aires. The "gringo triangle" (Rio, Iguassu, B.A.) ends (or begins, I suppose, depending on which way you do it) here, and you bump into all sorts of travellers, most of whom are in very small groups or alone. We´ve met some really beautiful and interesting types, and it will be like leaving home all over again when we get on a bus to the airport tomorrow. Alas, the rose of constant travel bears the thorn of leaving so many lovely people and places behind. We have been tempted more times than we can count to delay delay delay and stay out here for a few more weeks, but the impulse to move on and see new things is still vastly superior in strength to the bonds formed over the last ten days. So, we shall say goodbye but not for good. A great thing about our trip - perhaps the best thing - is that we are learning about the world as a somelier discovers his wine. No doubt he hardly ever has a full glass and certainly never allows himself to get drunk from one sample alone. On the contrary, he tastes, spits out, remembers and returns to his favourite bottles when the time is right. Without meaning to, both Cosmo and I have already found ourselves making flimsy but earnest plans to return to the places we love the most (Rio is his shangri-la while I feel more attached to Buenos Aires), and we´ve met enough people to be fully assured that travel is by no means reserved for the young (not in years, at least).

I do apologise to loyal followers of this blog that the posts are so infrequent and so long. Seeing this site always makes me somewhat homesick as it reminds me of TFL´s bus service; you wait around all day and then an onslaught descends all at once. Still, I feel like there´s one can write with more meaning and depth if the material has been compiled over some significant period of time, so no complaining.

Lima next. The Inca Trail, sadly, has been cancelled. The mudslides of January still appear to be taking their toll on local infrastructure and the route is deemed too dangerous for dimwitted tourists to tread. We shall get on the plane, nonetheless, and find something to do. I have heard nothing pleasant about Lima, so I expect we shall get on a bus and head into the Andes as I hear it´s stunning.

God knows when we´ll be able to put pictures and videos up. I expect there´ll be time and means in Mexico as we´ll be staying in a home rather than a hostel. Meanwhile, sit tight and try to conjure up your own images.

Love to you all from both of us.

Louis and Cosmo x

On The Road

Louis here. Firstly I´d like to thank Cosmo for his brilliantly disguised yet undeniably implicit suggestion that I´m hogging the blogspace. To all those from Malta and across the pond, I do apologise and promise I will zealously strive towards a world of greater equality in this particular section of the blogosphere from now on. Having said that, there is a lot to talk about, so forgive me if I ramble. Tell you what; if you´re in a rush or just get bored of my writing then I´ll try to tailor this post to a scan-readable version using the invaluable feature of bold type.

Iguazu was not exactly what we expected it to be. There I was thinking it would be a perfect week of solitude to recover from the socially blazing streets of Rio de Janeiro, and we ended up drinking and meeting just as many, if not more, people in this little gateway between Brazil and Argentina (by the way, can somebody please correct me if I´m supposed to spell it "Brasil" - i still don´t really know). The town itself (on the Argentinian side, at least) is tiny and it would be very hard to scrape a night out in the centre. Completely contradicting this first impression, however, our hostel seemed to be jampacked full of the hustle and bustle of passing travellers from all over the place. We reckoned there were actually more people in the hostel than in the town - no, seriously. So anyway, with a pool, some snooker tables and a bar, there were plenty of good times to be had.

The other side of the otherwise shiny coin was that we did NOT spend any time ´digging into the roots´of anywhere. Iguazu is meant for travellers who pass through in a few days. You go; you see what there is to see while having a great time with others who are doing the same; you leave. So it was brilliant fun for a few days, but I´d beware of being tempted to spend too long there. After all, pools and bars exist elsewhere in the world.

Cosmo told you all about the Falls, so I´ll keep the description as light as I can, which should be quite easy because they inspire speechlessness. They really are incredible and a must for anyone travelling through the right-ish part of South America. Only advice to give is prepare to be amazed, prepare to get wet and if, like me, you turn into a little girl around spiders, prepare for a shock or two as well.

We´ve been bus-ing like four-wheeled vagabonds for the past week or so, and we´ve finally reached our destination in the form of one of the coolest-looking cities I´ve ever visited. This is hugely precipitous of me (having only been in the place for the best part of three hours) but Buenos Aires looks and feels absolutely incredible. The streets are lined with beautiful early modern architecture which give off a sort of well-preserved faded grandeur. At the same time, it feels a like a rich culture has grown from the roots of a once-golden city (did you know it was the ninth richest city in the world in 1910?!) and there´s a fabulous blend between a Manhattan-like grid layout with the chaos (i mean that in a good way) of a developing country. All meshed together, it means you get the beauty of an old powerhouse without the "museum" feel of a city that´s so attached to its roots that it´s stubbornly refuses to move away from them. It´s hard to describe, but after reading what I´ve read and seeing what I´ve seen, I can´t wait to spend the next ten days diving in head first.

So, here´s hoping that Buenos Aires is worth the 6 hours to Parati, 16 hours to Iguazu and 20 hours to the capital. The coaches here make National Express seem about as comfortable as bamboo torture, but they´re still coaches all the same. We´re in one piece, though, and we have yet to run out of funds, so we´re doing a hell of a lot better than I thought as I was biting my nails on the plane-ride to Rio.

I know I promised pictures and videos, but it turns out that this un-exploding PC we´ve been looking for is a sneaky bugger and has thus far avoided our attention. However, I promise we´ll keep looking and I know for a fact we´ll be in a real home (Hallelujah!) when we get to Mexico, so they´ll all be up by the end of March at the latest. Hold your breath!

Love to everyone from the Madman and the Englishman. I think I definitely drew the short straw in the nick name raffle. Sigh...

xx