Sunday 8 August 2010
New blog.
I've decided to carry on with the travel theme, but without limiting myself timewise, so please check out http://cheeseofvictory.wordpress.com/ for my further travel adventures.
Friday 30 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: days 3, 2, 1. No longer Her Majesty's subject.
Chile chapter finished. Now I have to do a heck of an editing job before we hit the train to Irkutsk because I'm five pages over the limit, never mind actually cutting the text.
Maps finished, photographed so that I can compare the first edit to the amendments the cartographers email me while I'm on the road and sent to James.
Have sent my Lithuania contract to my Lonely Planet editor.
The day before departure is a frenzy of packing, finishing the Peru chapter, and removing all traces of my existence from my room so that Qing can move in in my absense. Pre-trip blues. I don't want to leave; I want just a few days to myself, at home, with no work to do, so that I can just play computer games and read a good book.
Pre-trip injury in the form of a gash in my leg from where I collided with another cyclist at a blind corner; I came off worse than she did. There was blood.
Get less than two hours' sleep before departure day because there's too much to do. This is the first time I've checked in using a Russian passport in 14 years.
There's a fat chap in the departure lounge talking to a familiar-looking man in a grey suit; why, I do believe the besuited man is the Russian consul.
A three-hour sleep later, I'm whisked through the immigration point at Moscow's Domodedovo. I'm no longer Her Majesty's subject.
Maps finished, photographed so that I can compare the first edit to the amendments the cartographers email me while I'm on the road and sent to James.
Have sent my Lithuania contract to my Lonely Planet editor.
The day before departure is a frenzy of packing, finishing the Peru chapter, and removing all traces of my existence from my room so that Qing can move in in my absense. Pre-trip blues. I don't want to leave; I want just a few days to myself, at home, with no work to do, so that I can just play computer games and read a good book.
Pre-trip injury in the form of a gash in my leg from where I collided with another cyclist at a blind corner; I came off worse than she did. There was blood.
Get less than two hours' sleep before departure day because there's too much to do. This is the first time I've checked in using a Russian passport in 14 years.
There's a fat chap in the departure lounge talking to a familiar-looking man in a grey suit; why, I do believe the besuited man is the Russian consul.
A three-hour sleep later, I'm whisked through the immigration point at Moscow's Domodedovo. I'm no longer Her Majesty's subject.
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: days 5 & 4. Passport lost and found.
Final visit to the Russian consulate for a while, I hope. They're satisfied with the translation of the deed poll and charge me £20 per page for checking the accuracy. The consul then talks to me about changing my surname in my Russian passport - either do it in Russia, or it'll take up to 9 months if done through the consulate. He waves my deed poll and says: "It's not really a legal document to us, nor to the British government, for that matter." And that's after I'd spent around £200 legalising it, translating it and going to and from London.
Inside I'm screaming, trust me.
I want to tell him that it bloody well is a legal document in this country, that the passport office certainly thought so when they issued my new passport, but I just don't have the energy. His attitude makes me wonder whether it all makes any difference at all to whether I'll encounter trouble at the border.
Coffee with Georgia, lively fellow Rough Guides person who'll be covering the northern half of Peru. I answer questions and share travel tips.
Second tick-borne encephalitis jab. If you pay attention to the doomsday posters on the wall, you'd think that pretty much anyone in Europe's in immediate danger of dying from it.
Everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast...
Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
Try to collect Steve's passport from the Chinese visa section, only to encounter unexpected trouble. Text Steve: "They've lost your passport. Am waiting while they look for it." Steve has kittens. It turns out that it was erroneously given to some guy who wandered off with it without checking that he was given the right passport. Luckily, he returned it straight away, or it would've been the end of the (train) line for Steve.
Most hostels booked. Am debating whether to look up my mother's third cousin's daughter when in Novosibirsk.
Bryn's sent me the text; it seems to be all in order.
Working steadily on the Chile chapter. It's going to be a tough last two days.
Inside I'm screaming, trust me.
I want to tell him that it bloody well is a legal document in this country, that the passport office certainly thought so when they issued my new passport, but I just don't have the energy. His attitude makes me wonder whether it all makes any difference at all to whether I'll encounter trouble at the border.
Coffee with Georgia, lively fellow Rough Guides person who'll be covering the northern half of Peru. I answer questions and share travel tips.
Second tick-borne encephalitis jab. If you pay attention to the doomsday posters on the wall, you'd think that pretty much anyone in Europe's in immediate danger of dying from it.
Everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast...
Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
Try to collect Steve's passport from the Chinese visa section, only to encounter unexpected trouble. Text Steve: "They've lost your passport. Am waiting while they look for it." Steve has kittens. It turns out that it was erroneously given to some guy who wandered off with it without checking that he was given the right passport. Luckily, he returned it straight away, or it would've been the end of the (train) line for Steve.
Most hostels booked. Am debating whether to look up my mother's third cousin's daughter when in Novosibirsk.
Bryn's sent me the text; it seems to be all in order.
Working steadily on the Chile chapter. It's going to be a tough last two days.
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: days 9 - 6.
Bryn finally gets back to me. We’re trying to organise it so that I get a letter of introduction from Trailblazer, as well as business cards. Have approved the design of the cards, have translated the letter into Russian with assistance from my mother (I lack certain turns of phrase, and some of my Russian turns out to be a direct translation from English); now waiting for the delivery from Bryn.
Friday is hectic. I haven’t had word from the translation company to say that my deed poll is ready, but go to the office anyway; I need to have the translation in time for my appointment at the Russian consulate. It’s pretty close; get it with 10 minutes to spare before my train’s departure. Make it to the consulate with a minute to spare after sprinting from the Tube, only to be told that a) they don’t want the translation agency’s stamps on the paper, just the translation itself and b) that the translator’s made some sloppy mistakes (she has) and that the whole thing needs to be redone. If I’d known that, I could’ve translated the damn thing myself! Arrange to return on Monday.
Mike and Monica have come down from Peru for Cristian and Sophie’s wedding. Stay at Mike’s parents’ and work all evening. I’ve thought about not coming to the wedding, but didn’t want to let Cristian down at the last minute.
Work all Saturday morning until we have to drive down to Portsmouth for the ceremony. The evening’s gone; the reception at Sophie’s father’s farm means hours and hours of drunken revelry. The more pink champagne I have, the less likely the chance of doing any work.
Making progress on the train this morning, though. I’m not quite on target, but I’m no longer at that horrible stage where I can’t bear to think about how much work I have to do, because if I do, I freeze because of the stress, and can’t focus at all. Peru chapter almost finished, and I can fine-tune it on my one day in Moscow.
Alarming message from Steve last night; he's cheerfully hyseterical. He’s flying to Moscow with German Wings (which I’m not convinced is even a real airline) and is landing at some obscure airport that is neither Sheremetyevo nor Domodedovo. He's convinced that he won't register his visa on time and will become a fugitive from the law. I have no sympathy for him at all. He can make his own merry way to the hostel. My mother informs me that it has to be Vnukovo, formerly for internal flights only. I think I'll put Steve to work, writing about airport facilities for the guide.
Ulan Bator hostel booked. We’re looking into the ‘staying with nomads’ options, and three days/two nights is such a short time. I want to get a proper idea of nomad life without doing anything too touristy and gimmicky, whereas Steve wants to cram in all the camel rides he can get.
Staying at my sister’s. Alarmed at how expensive Russia accommodation seems to be. Or maybe that’s because I’ve already somehow managed to spend a substantial chunk of my trans-Siberian advance. Trouble.
Have printed out the new, corrected deed poll translation for the morning visit to the embassy.
Friday is hectic. I haven’t had word from the translation company to say that my deed poll is ready, but go to the office anyway; I need to have the translation in time for my appointment at the Russian consulate. It’s pretty close; get it with 10 minutes to spare before my train’s departure. Make it to the consulate with a minute to spare after sprinting from the Tube, only to be told that a) they don’t want the translation agency’s stamps on the paper, just the translation itself and b) that the translator’s made some sloppy mistakes (she has) and that the whole thing needs to be redone. If I’d known that, I could’ve translated the damn thing myself! Arrange to return on Monday.
Mike and Monica have come down from Peru for Cristian and Sophie’s wedding. Stay at Mike’s parents’ and work all evening. I’ve thought about not coming to the wedding, but didn’t want to let Cristian down at the last minute.
Work all Saturday morning until we have to drive down to Portsmouth for the ceremony. The evening’s gone; the reception at Sophie’s father’s farm means hours and hours of drunken revelry. The more pink champagne I have, the less likely the chance of doing any work.
Making progress on the train this morning, though. I’m not quite on target, but I’m no longer at that horrible stage where I can’t bear to think about how much work I have to do, because if I do, I freeze because of the stress, and can’t focus at all. Peru chapter almost finished, and I can fine-tune it on my one day in Moscow.
Alarming message from Steve last night; he's cheerfully hyseterical. He’s flying to Moscow with German Wings (which I’m not convinced is even a real airline) and is landing at some obscure airport that is neither Sheremetyevo nor Domodedovo. He's convinced that he won't register his visa on time and will become a fugitive from the law. I have no sympathy for him at all. He can make his own merry way to the hostel. My mother informs me that it has to be Vnukovo, formerly for internal flights only. I think I'll put Steve to work, writing about airport facilities for the guide.
Ulan Bator hostel booked. We’re looking into the ‘staying with nomads’ options, and three days/two nights is such a short time. I want to get a proper idea of nomad life without doing anything too touristy and gimmicky, whereas Steve wants to cram in all the camel rides he can get.
Staying at my sister’s. Alarmed at how expensive Russia accommodation seems to be. Or maybe that’s because I’ve already somehow managed to spend a substantial chunk of my trans-Siberian advance. Trouble.
Have printed out the new, corrected deed poll translation for the morning visit to the embassy.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: days 11 & 10. Mentoring session and another obstacle.
Yesterday I had my video call mentoring session with Brandon, my Lonely Planet mentor (every new writer is assigned a senior writer). He sat in a cafe in Turkey and talked to me in detail about how the system works. How to get more gigs: do a great job on your first one, since you're 'on probation'; build positive relationships with your editors and fellow writers - that way you'll know what's available to pitch for and if editors trust you and like you, you'll get more work. Don't be a 'pitching whore' - someone perpetually available who pitches for everything (after all, there must be a reason as to why you're perpetually available, and editors prefer writers who are clearly busy and sought-after). So one hand, I have to try and get as many gigs as possible to establish myself, but without seeming too desperate for work. Catch 22.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. Editors give you first pick if you've already worked on a guide.
He explains how it's possible to go from one gig to another in different parts of the world: "You don't have to be an expert on a destination. But you do have to be an expert on finding the expert." That makes sense, but goes against the advice given to me by a senior Rough Guide author, who is indeed an expert on two distinct regions.
Then follows the technical information - where to find the Author Manual, how to upload diffent fonts used for specific guidebooks from the Lonely Planet FTP site (because anything else will bugger up the text you're working on), how to approach editors and when to approach them.
Every year we have to fill out an 'Author At A Glance' Excel document, describing our travel experience. Brandon disabuses me of the illusion that it's an important document. "The editors' cubicles are all next to each other. If they want to know something about you, they just turn around and ask an editor who knows you."
The Skype connection is dreadful and we keep getting cut off. I appreciate Brandon's persevering. Since he's doing the Latvia chapter, we agree to meet in Riga when I go and do Lithuania.
Get a horrible shock when I check my bank balance. Somehow I've managed to spend almost £2000 in three weeks. All those visas, trips to London, essential purchases (Gore-Tex jacket, rucksack, Microsoft Office 2010), flight...it all adds up. Really need to sublet my room, otherwise am financially buggered.
Plod on with the finicky bits of the Peru chapter. Have a single house viewing by a Cambridge grad student. He seems to be interested in the room, and confirms his interest in the evening. Whew.
Today I get onto the urgent task of having my legalised deed poll document translated before Friday, when am due to go to London. Call several companies for quotes. Luckily I have the presence of mind to go on the Russian consulate website to discover that I can't just turn up with my deed poll and expect to have it ratified; I need to make an official appointment with the notary, and, as it happens, there's only one available slot this Friday (and none next week!), so I rush to a translation office and implore them to do my document in 46 hours, rather than 48, otherwise I'm in serious trouble.
Lunch with Sonia, my manga artist friend. Since we're both in the creative, freelance business, bounce a few ideas for new guidebooks off her and she gives constructive advice. To sell a good idea to big publishing company or to self-publish? Or even to sign a non-disclosure agreement and ask to work in partnership in exchange for financial backing and recognition? I've got a couple of ideas to pitch to Trailblazer, but I really need to hear back from Bryn first.
Feel sapped of creative energy, so focus on the mundane 'Directory' sections for each Peruvian city - addresses of airline companies, pharmacies, post offices, police stations, etc. It's slow, methodical work. Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. Editors give you first pick if you've already worked on a guide.
He explains how it's possible to go from one gig to another in different parts of the world: "You don't have to be an expert on a destination. But you do have to be an expert on finding the expert." That makes sense, but goes against the advice given to me by a senior Rough Guide author, who is indeed an expert on two distinct regions.
Then follows the technical information - where to find the Author Manual, how to upload diffent fonts used for specific guidebooks from the Lonely Planet FTP site (because anything else will bugger up the text you're working on), how to approach editors and when to approach them.
Every year we have to fill out an 'Author At A Glance' Excel document, describing our travel experience. Brandon disabuses me of the illusion that it's an important document. "The editors' cubicles are all next to each other. If they want to know something about you, they just turn around and ask an editor who knows you."
The Skype connection is dreadful and we keep getting cut off. I appreciate Brandon's persevering. Since he's doing the Latvia chapter, we agree to meet in Riga when I go and do Lithuania.
Get a horrible shock when I check my bank balance. Somehow I've managed to spend almost £2000 in three weeks. All those visas, trips to London, essential purchases (Gore-Tex jacket, rucksack, Microsoft Office 2010), flight...it all adds up. Really need to sublet my room, otherwise am financially buggered.
Plod on with the finicky bits of the Peru chapter. Have a single house viewing by a Cambridge grad student. He seems to be interested in the room, and confirms his interest in the evening. Whew.
Today I get onto the urgent task of having my legalised deed poll document translated before Friday, when am due to go to London. Call several companies for quotes. Luckily I have the presence of mind to go on the Russian consulate website to discover that I can't just turn up with my deed poll and expect to have it ratified; I need to make an official appointment with the notary, and, as it happens, there's only one available slot this Friday (and none next week!), so I rush to a translation office and implore them to do my document in 46 hours, rather than 48, otherwise I'm in serious trouble.
Lunch with Sonia, my manga artist friend. Since we're both in the creative, freelance business, bounce a few ideas for new guidebooks off her and she gives constructive advice. To sell a good idea to big publishing company or to self-publish? Or even to sign a non-disclosure agreement and ask to work in partnership in exchange for financial backing and recognition? I've got a couple of ideas to pitch to Trailblazer, but I really need to hear back from Bryn first.
Feel sapped of creative energy, so focus on the mundane 'Directory' sections for each Peruvian city - addresses of airline companies, pharmacies, post offices, police stations, etc. It's slow, methodical work. Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Days 14-12. Dress shopping and Milton Keynes.
Much of my Saturday is taken up by helping my friend Sara (who is getting married in February) and her bridesmaid Dawn sort out their dresses. After all, my sartorial eloquence makes my advice invaluable. Sara the power-tripping bride gets me to try various dresses 'for a laugh'. The experience is not terribly traumatic, but it is time-consuming. Helping people shop for clothes is not unlike being in a museum: you may not have walked far, but your legs really ache by the end of it.
Work on the Peru chapter between the shopping and group dinner with friends, then burn the 2am candle.
Spend the whole of Sunday behind my desk, but the Peru chapter is finally shaping up. The only problem is that I do the easy stuff first - re-writing or editing the text on attractions, but leaving the time-consuming and finicky listings until the end, which is what's happening now. At the same time, I need to decide on all the listings in order to complete the maps. At this rate, it may all be as I'd feared: I will end up taking the text to Russia and finishing editing on the plane or even in Moscow.
Put up an ad to let my room while I'm away. Lonely Planet pay sufficiently for me not to have to do this, but the other guides do not.
Spend almost my entire Monday at Milton Keynes, trying to get my deep poll document legalised for the Russian consulate. I get there early, having caught the 7am bus, but it takes me forever to walk up from the bus station to the legalisation office along Silbury Boulevard, which turns out to be a lot longer than expected. Milton Keynes has got to be the armpit of Britain; I've never come across an uglier, less pedestrian-friendly place in my life!
First the office sends me to a nearby solicitor's, so that he may sign the deed poll to confirm that it's genuine. Then I wait. And wait. And wait. As Sod's Law will have it, this is the first time in ages that their network's gone down, so the promised 90-minute turnaround turns into a 6-hour turnaround. I manage to use the time productively, tweaking the Nazca and Paracas part of the Peru chapter and reading Robert Harris's "Lustrum", but it's not the same as being in my 'office'.
Get through to the Trailblazer office; Bryn's away until Thursday, but he'll get back to me as soon as possible, I'm promised. Just as well really; I need that text and those maps before I go. Must print out all the Lonely Planet Lithuania stuff as well before departure.
Have to abandon my plans to visit my friend Kala in Coventry, meet her new children and gorge myself on her Jamaica cooking. At coming round to the realisation that I'm trying to do too much.
Work on the Peru chapter between the shopping and group dinner with friends, then burn the 2am candle.
Spend the whole of Sunday behind my desk, but the Peru chapter is finally shaping up. The only problem is that I do the easy stuff first - re-writing or editing the text on attractions, but leaving the time-consuming and finicky listings until the end, which is what's happening now. At the same time, I need to decide on all the listings in order to complete the maps. At this rate, it may all be as I'd feared: I will end up taking the text to Russia and finishing editing on the plane or even in Moscow.
Put up an ad to let my room while I'm away. Lonely Planet pay sufficiently for me not to have to do this, but the other guides do not.
Spend almost my entire Monday at Milton Keynes, trying to get my deep poll document legalised for the Russian consulate. I get there early, having caught the 7am bus, but it takes me forever to walk up from the bus station to the legalisation office along Silbury Boulevard, which turns out to be a lot longer than expected. Milton Keynes has got to be the armpit of Britain; I've never come across an uglier, less pedestrian-friendly place in my life!
First the office sends me to a nearby solicitor's, so that he may sign the deed poll to confirm that it's genuine. Then I wait. And wait. And wait. As Sod's Law will have it, this is the first time in ages that their network's gone down, so the promised 90-minute turnaround turns into a 6-hour turnaround. I manage to use the time productively, tweaking the Nazca and Paracas part of the Peru chapter and reading Robert Harris's "Lustrum", but it's not the same as being in my 'office'.
Get through to the Trailblazer office; Bryn's away until Thursday, but he'll get back to me as soon as possible, I'm promised. Just as well really; I need that text and those maps before I go. Must print out all the Lonely Planet Lithuania stuff as well before departure.
Have to abandon my plans to visit my friend Kala in Coventry, meet her new children and gorge myself on her Jamaica cooking. At coming round to the realisation that I'm trying to do too much.
Friday 16 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: days 16 and 15.
Go pick up my passport from the Chinese visa centre. Their £30 visa charge is deceptively cheap; turns out they charge just as much for 'visa processing'. Daylight robbery. Oh well, at least I have all my visas now, unlike Steve, who's hated by the Chinese.
Take Christine around. She's getting very irritable and monosyllabic. I recognise it as travel fatigue; the difference is that I'd only be getting to that point after months on the road, rather than one week.
We meet with Subo, who will know next week what shape his life will take over the next two years, depending on the outcome of his interview at the Japanese embassy. This is followed by dinner at my favourite Georgian restaurant with my friend Paul, a fellow intern in Jamaica in 2006, and his girlfriend Kelly.
The dinner get more raucous with each subsequent bottle of wine, as my friends quote more and more scandalous anecdotes from my past life. Paul gives me and Steve tips on Beijing and how to get around. I produce a 2008 copy of the Moscow Times, featuring Solzhenitsyn's death on the front; Paul's a big admirer and I've been meaning to hand it over. My work plans go out of the window as I go for another drink with Paul and Kelly and resign myself to arriving home after midnight, worse for wear.
Make up for it today by sitting at my desk pretty much all day and working on the Peru chapter. I can't seem to focus on any single bit today, so I have to work with my limited attention span and jump from one part of the chapter to another. My goal is to submit all the maps on Monday.
Still no word at all from Trailblazer. This is rather worrying. Will give Bryn another three or four days and then I'll have to phone him. It'd be rather difficult to update the guide if I don't have the text that I'm supposed to be working on.
Take Christine around. She's getting very irritable and monosyllabic. I recognise it as travel fatigue; the difference is that I'd only be getting to that point after months on the road, rather than one week.
We meet with Subo, who will know next week what shape his life will take over the next two years, depending on the outcome of his interview at the Japanese embassy. This is followed by dinner at my favourite Georgian restaurant with my friend Paul, a fellow intern in Jamaica in 2006, and his girlfriend Kelly.
The dinner get more raucous with each subsequent bottle of wine, as my friends quote more and more scandalous anecdotes from my past life. Paul gives me and Steve tips on Beijing and how to get around. I produce a 2008 copy of the Moscow Times, featuring Solzhenitsyn's death on the front; Paul's a big admirer and I've been meaning to hand it over. My work plans go out of the window as I go for another drink with Paul and Kelly and resign myself to arriving home after midnight, worse for wear.
Make up for it today by sitting at my desk pretty much all day and working on the Peru chapter. I can't seem to focus on any single bit today, so I have to work with my limited attention span and jump from one part of the chapter to another. My goal is to submit all the maps on Monday.
Still no word at all from Trailblazer. This is rather worrying. Will give Bryn another three or four days and then I'll have to phone him. It'd be rather difficult to update the guide if I don't have the text that I'm supposed to be working on.
Thursday 15 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 17. A little family history.
My new travelling companion arrives. Am very pleased with my 80-litre Lowe Alpine Sagarmatha; it seems sturdy and has lots of pockets, which is essential for someone who carries as much crap on the road as I do.
Take Christine on a tour of Trinity college (being the offspring of a professor has its advantages when the place is technically closed to visitors), and then on a punting tour. Unsucessful search for a Tamron multi-purpose lens for my Canon Rebel; the used camera shop stocks a beautiful used Canon lens (17-85mm), which'd be perfect, but it's still £300.
Manage to get a little Peru mapwork done before a friend turns up for tea and before I head out to see an old friend. Express my desire to delve deeper into my family's history while in Russia, tracing my grandfather's case, who was denounced as an 'enemy of the people' and imprisoned - an episode which almost spelled the end of my family - and am given a couple of vital leads to follow up. I shall attempt to track down the Kings College expert on that period of Russian history and try to at least find out which archive the case could be in.
My Ulan Bator-Beijing ticket will be waiting for me at some office in Ulan Bator.
Email from the commissioning editor for the Rough Guide Budget Guide to Central America: I was a stand-by, but now he's got authors covering every chapter. Better luck next time. Still need to arrange my mentoring session with a senior Lonely Planet writer via Skype.
Take Christine on a tour of Trinity college (being the offspring of a professor has its advantages when the place is technically closed to visitors), and then on a punting tour. Unsucessful search for a Tamron multi-purpose lens for my Canon Rebel; the used camera shop stocks a beautiful used Canon lens (17-85mm), which'd be perfect, but it's still £300.
Manage to get a little Peru mapwork done before a friend turns up for tea and before I head out to see an old friend. Express my desire to delve deeper into my family's history while in Russia, tracing my grandfather's case, who was denounced as an 'enemy of the people' and imprisoned - an episode which almost spelled the end of my family - and am given a couple of vital leads to follow up. I shall attempt to track down the Kings College expert on that period of Russian history and try to at least find out which archive the case could be in.
My Ulan Bator-Beijing ticket will be waiting for me at some office in Ulan Bator.
Email from the commissioning editor for the Rough Guide Budget Guide to Central America: I was a stand-by, but now he's got authors covering every chapter. Better luck next time. Still need to arrange my mentoring session with a senior Lonely Planet writer via Skype.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 18. Train tickets booked.
A productive morning's work. Manage to complete most of the Chile chapter maps before my friend Christine from South Carolina shows up. Then I discover that I missed the delivery of my new rucksack because I'm clearly deaf and can't hear the doorbell when upstairs in my room/office.
Take Christine into town, since she hasn't been here for nearly a decade. Glad that I'd managed to get most of my work done earlier, because another friend arrives for dinner and I have to fulfil my obligations as a host. I think I must be cracking up due to being cooped up in my room/office and the stresses of the past two weeks; I see sexual innuendo in everything and am bouncing off the walls. My behaviour towards Steve's ex-wife can be misconstrued as making a pass at her. She is probably still traumatised.
Steve informs me that the Ulan-Ude to Ulan Bator leg is now also booked. When I complain about paying an extra £12 to have the tickets sent to our home, as opposed to picking them up from the relevant office in Moscow, he laughs at my naive assumption that the ticket office will be somewhere near the train station. I'm grudgingly persuaded that £12 may be a small price to pay to avoid the hassle of looking for said office in some random part of Moscow on the one full day we'll have in the capital.
My Chile maps are all finished! I've had to redo the one of the Lake District which I swear I'd already updated last year, but clearly they didn't save that copy. Now to complete the Peru maps, and I can pack the whole lot off to my editor.
Take Christine into town, since she hasn't been here for nearly a decade. Glad that I'd managed to get most of my work done earlier, because another friend arrives for dinner and I have to fulfil my obligations as a host. I think I must be cracking up due to being cooped up in my room/office and the stresses of the past two weeks; I see sexual innuendo in everything and am bouncing off the walls. My behaviour towards Steve's ex-wife can be misconstrued as making a pass at her. She is probably still traumatised.
Steve informs me that the Ulan-Ude to Ulan Bator leg is now also booked. When I complain about paying an extra £12 to have the tickets sent to our home, as opposed to picking them up from the relevant office in Moscow, he laughs at my naive assumption that the ticket office will be somewhere near the train station. I'm grudgingly persuaded that £12 may be a small price to pay to avoid the hassle of looking for said office in some random part of Moscow on the one full day we'll have in the capital.
My Chile maps are all finished! I've had to redo the one of the Lake District which I swear I'd already updated last year, but clearly they didn't save that copy. Now to complete the Peru maps, and I can pack the whole lot off to my editor.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 19. Another spanner in the works.
Am on a tight schedule this morning, but things mostly go according to plan. Make it from my sister's place to the Russian consulate before it even opens. Of course, the passport section does not open on time, but the woman who dishes out the passports is nice, whereas the one who accepts passport-related paperwork is a complete harpy. No nasty surprises: everything seems to be in order and they even got my former surname right.
Get my British passport back from the Mongolian embassy. The procedure takes seconds, since I'm the only person there. I then sprint for the Kensington High St tube and make it to Chancery Lane in time for my Chinese visa application appointment. Events take an unexpected turn when I submit Steve's paperwork alongside mine; the girl behind the counter informs me that he can't apply for a visa yet, since he's a journalist, and for some absurd reason they don't allow members of the media to apply more than a month before the date they wish to enter China. Explaining that he works for a humble local paper and is on holiday makes absolutely no difference. She tells me that I may bring his paperwork back when I collect my passport on Thursday.
Call Steve: "There's a spanner in the works and you're the spanner." Steve has to rearrange his time off work. I'm amused because it's not my paperwork that's causing trouble for a change.
Get my first tick-borne encephalitis jab at the Nomad clinic at Russel Square. The nurse tries to talk me into getting a polio booster, but when I glance at her computer screen, it only talks of a polio outbreak in Tajikistan, so I figure that unless I run into some sick Tajiks, I should be okay.
Back in Cambridge, I try to book the Ulan-Ude-Ulan Bator train and the Ulan Bator-Beijing train directly with Russian rail, but they're having none of it. Am told to go and buy the tickets from the nearest ticket office. And no, their website does not allow you to book tickets online. First World country, my fat fanny, as the Americans would say.
Finally try to book the tickets with Steve via Real Russia, the middleman with the 25% markup. Humbug. We'll know shortly whether there's any availability of whether we'll be stuck in Ulan-Ude forever. I absolutely must book accommodation tomorrow.
Look into Leonard Cohen tickets at the Kremlin. Can't believe that some Russians pay 30,000 roubles ($1000) for the first few rows. In fact, all the tickets are pricier than they would be here. Originally, I put the concert down as a 'maybe', but who am I kidding? The words 'afford' and 'can't' are simply not in my vocabulary and this may well be Cohen's last tour, so I will sell whatever's left of my soul to be at the Kremlin Palace on October 7th.
Am at that stage in my work where I'm beginning to really loathe the Chile chapter. Progress is slow and all the maps have to be submitted in the next few days. It's not the end of the world if the editing is not finished before the end of the year, since the text won't be going to the printers before the end of January, but my workload, post-Russia, will be tremendous, so it's in my interests to get as much done now as possible.
Get my British passport back from the Mongolian embassy. The procedure takes seconds, since I'm the only person there. I then sprint for the Kensington High St tube and make it to Chancery Lane in time for my Chinese visa application appointment. Events take an unexpected turn when I submit Steve's paperwork alongside mine; the girl behind the counter informs me that he can't apply for a visa yet, since he's a journalist, and for some absurd reason they don't allow members of the media to apply more than a month before the date they wish to enter China. Explaining that he works for a humble local paper and is on holiday makes absolutely no difference. She tells me that I may bring his paperwork back when I collect my passport on Thursday.
Call Steve: "There's a spanner in the works and you're the spanner." Steve has to rearrange his time off work. I'm amused because it's not my paperwork that's causing trouble for a change.
Get my first tick-borne encephalitis jab at the Nomad clinic at Russel Square. The nurse tries to talk me into getting a polio booster, but when I glance at her computer screen, it only talks of a polio outbreak in Tajikistan, so I figure that unless I run into some sick Tajiks, I should be okay.
Back in Cambridge, I try to book the Ulan-Ude-Ulan Bator train and the Ulan Bator-Beijing train directly with Russian rail, but they're having none of it. Am told to go and buy the tickets from the nearest ticket office. And no, their website does not allow you to book tickets online. First World country, my fat fanny, as the Americans would say.
Finally try to book the tickets with Steve via Real Russia, the middleman with the 25% markup. Humbug. We'll know shortly whether there's any availability of whether we'll be stuck in Ulan-Ude forever. I absolutely must book accommodation tomorrow.
Look into Leonard Cohen tickets at the Kremlin. Can't believe that some Russians pay 30,000 roubles ($1000) for the first few rows. In fact, all the tickets are pricier than they would be here. Originally, I put the concert down as a 'maybe', but who am I kidding? The words 'afford' and 'can't' are simply not in my vocabulary and this may well be Cohen's last tour, so I will sell whatever's left of my soul to be at the Kremlin Palace on October 7th.
Am at that stage in my work where I'm beginning to really loathe the Chile chapter. Progress is slow and all the maps have to be submitted in the next few days. It's not the end of the world if the editing is not finished before the end of the year, since the text won't be going to the printers before the end of January, but my workload, post-Russia, will be tremendous, so it's in my interests to get as much done now as possible.
Monday 12 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 20. Back to London.
Up bright and early and working on the Patagonia section of the Chile chapter. Since my friend now feels perpetually tired and goes to bed early, it means that I get plenty of rest too. Accommodation listings are tricky; there are only so many ways you can describe a youth hostel, and I try hard not to be repetitive. It’s more fun with food listings; I’ve managed to work references to sex into restaurant reviews elsewhere in the chapter; I hope that Rough Guides keep them in.
Email from a South Carolina friend who’s visiting us for the first time in ten years; we need to work out when she can come down to Cambridge during the coming week. On Thursday, Steve and I have to collect our passports from the Chinese embassy, and I’m half-thinking of spending the evening in Coventry, visiting another Warwick friend of mine, before legalising my deed poll in Milton Keynes on Friday, and the staying with another friend in London, but that might be somewhat ambitious…
Work on the train on the way back to Paddington. I can’t remember the last time I’ve taken a trip without my laptop. There’s always too much to do.
The northern Patagonia section is shaping up nicely. I hope I get half of the Chile guide again next year; last year, I was rushed because I didn’t want to stay away for too long because a friend of mine was dying, so it’d be good to explore the south of Chile properly again.
The Ulan-Ude – Ulan Bator and the Ulan Bator – Beijing legs need to be booked in the next day or two, and then I’ll breathe easier. Not sure which name I should book the former in – my Russian or my English. Probably the Russian, since they’re sure to check my ticket, but I’ll be entering my final destination under my English name, so what to do???
Stay with my sister and her partner because I’ve got a list of things to do in central London in the morning. My sister is trying to order her ticket with Siberia Air (or something like that) from Ulan-Ude to Moscow and her card keeps getting rejected. Russia may think it's a First World country, but its online booking systems are bloody prehistoric.
Manage to get through to my lawyer friend David on the phone, which I’m very happy about. He’s one of the people I respect the most; I haven’t spoken to him for a year and haven’t seen him since 2005, when I assisted him with a federal death case in Ukraine. Discuss Leonard Cohen (we’re both fans), my name change and my forthcoming Russia trip. He thinks it’s funny that Russia doesn’t recognise my British citizenship. He asks me if it's okay to pass on my details to an attorney in Virginia who's handling some Russia-related case. I agree; I think it's the same one that my mitigation specialist friend Scharlette mentioned to me earlier this year, but I didn't want to put myself forward before I actually got my Russian passport.
Work late into the night thanks to a sudden burst of energy; still, progress is too slow for my satisfaction.
Email from a South Carolina friend who’s visiting us for the first time in ten years; we need to work out when she can come down to Cambridge during the coming week. On Thursday, Steve and I have to collect our passports from the Chinese embassy, and I’m half-thinking of spending the evening in Coventry, visiting another Warwick friend of mine, before legalising my deed poll in Milton Keynes on Friday, and the staying with another friend in London, but that might be somewhat ambitious…
Work on the train on the way back to Paddington. I can’t remember the last time I’ve taken a trip without my laptop. There’s always too much to do.
The northern Patagonia section is shaping up nicely. I hope I get half of the Chile guide again next year; last year, I was rushed because I didn’t want to stay away for too long because a friend of mine was dying, so it’d be good to explore the south of Chile properly again.
The Ulan-Ude – Ulan Bator and the Ulan Bator – Beijing legs need to be booked in the next day or two, and then I’ll breathe easier. Not sure which name I should book the former in – my Russian or my English. Probably the Russian, since they’re sure to check my ticket, but I’ll be entering my final destination under my English name, so what to do???
Stay with my sister and her partner because I’ve got a list of things to do in central London in the morning. My sister is trying to order her ticket with Siberia Air (or something like that) from Ulan-Ude to Moscow and her card keeps getting rejected. Russia may think it's a First World country, but its online booking systems are bloody prehistoric.
Manage to get through to my lawyer friend David on the phone, which I’m very happy about. He’s one of the people I respect the most; I haven’t spoken to him for a year and haven’t seen him since 2005, when I assisted him with a federal death case in Ukraine. Discuss Leonard Cohen (we’re both fans), my name change and my forthcoming Russia trip. He thinks it’s funny that Russia doesn’t recognise my British citizenship. He asks me if it's okay to pass on my details to an attorney in Virginia who's handling some Russia-related case. I agree; I think it's the same one that my mitigation specialist friend Scharlette mentioned to me earlier this year, but I didn't want to put myself forward before I actually got my Russian passport.
Work late into the night thanks to a sudden burst of energy; still, progress is too slow for my satisfaction.
Sunday 11 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 21. Goodnight Saigon.
Since there’s an open day at Dartington Hall, my friend has to go into work for several hours, so I plant myself in her office along with my laptop amidst my disarray of paperwork and work on the finicky parts of the Chile chapter – accommodation listings and tour companies. This is one of the most time-consuming tasks, since I have to make sure that each section is done in a relevant font, that all the phone numbers and website addresses are correct. It means spending a considerable amount of time online, so I’m actually being more productive here than I would be at home due to current lack of internet there. The Chile chapter is coming along nicely, so I should be finished in the next few days, though I won’t be editing it before the end of the month. Have to send several queries to James, my editor, with regard to improving the text.
Haven’t heard back from Bryn, my Trailblazer editor. He should have already sent me the de-Quarked text, but I know that there have been delays due to his mother’s recent death, as she was one of the editors. It would be good to meet up with him before departure for a last-minute briefing, but it looks like it’ll be a bit touch-and-go.
Decide that my friend’s pregnancy means that I can actually come down and visit her for longer when her baby is born, since she’ll probably be going stir-crazy at home, and she’ll probably need a hand around the house due to perpetual sleep deprivation.
Have done a rough day-by-day breakdown of the trans-Siberian trip, and technically, I have about six days spare out of my grand total of 67, so I could potentially make that side trip to Hanoi from Beijing. However, knowing my luck, there will be unexpected delays en-route, and I’m sure I’ll need more time to see everything than I actually think I will, so this means that I have to sacrifice Vietnam. It would take me two days by train to even get there from Beijing, and four days’ travel is just not worth it for a stay of two days. Next time…
My friend and I spend time by the sea, discussing careers. We reach the conclusion that we’re both on track with regard to what we want to do, but haven’t yet reached our full potential.
Round off a productive day with ‘Eclipse’ at the movies. It’s strangely compelling, this story of an American teenage girl in love with a vampire, though her behaviour gets increasingly irritating and it figures that the Mormon author would include an old-fashioned vampire boyfriend who’s against sex before marriage.
Haven’t heard back from Bryn, my Trailblazer editor. He should have already sent me the de-Quarked text, but I know that there have been delays due to his mother’s recent death, as she was one of the editors. It would be good to meet up with him before departure for a last-minute briefing, but it looks like it’ll be a bit touch-and-go.
Decide that my friend’s pregnancy means that I can actually come down and visit her for longer when her baby is born, since she’ll probably be going stir-crazy at home, and she’ll probably need a hand around the house due to perpetual sleep deprivation.
Have done a rough day-by-day breakdown of the trans-Siberian trip, and technically, I have about six days spare out of my grand total of 67, so I could potentially make that side trip to Hanoi from Beijing. However, knowing my luck, there will be unexpected delays en-route, and I’m sure I’ll need more time to see everything than I actually think I will, so this means that I have to sacrifice Vietnam. It would take me two days by train to even get there from Beijing, and four days’ travel is just not worth it for a stay of two days. Next time…
My friend and I spend time by the sea, discussing careers. We reach the conclusion that we’re both on track with regard to what we want to do, but haven’t yet reached our full potential.
Round off a productive day with ‘Eclipse’ at the movies. It’s strangely compelling, this story of an American teenage girl in love with a vampire, though her behaviour gets increasingly irritating and it figures that the Mormon author would include an old-fashioned vampire boyfriend who’s against sex before marriage.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 22. A breakthrough!
I get an email from the Russian consulate after midnight, telling me that my passport is now ready for collection. Yes! Though I was rather looking forward to going there with my sister and giving them a hard time for processing her passport before mine. Never mind; I'm sure I'll get my chance to lock horns with petty bureaucrats during the course of this adventure. Am picking up my passport on Monday because I can then combine the trip with a myriad other tasks: picking up my British passport from the Mongolian embassy, dropping it off at the Chinese embassy along with Steve's paperwork, and getting my first tick-borne encephalitus jab.
Have a bit of a retarded moment when I book my visa appointment online with the Chinese embassy and then realise that I can't possibly make the earliest time because I need to pick up my passport from Mongolian embaassy first. Rebook the whole thing.
Lightning-quick lunch with my sister at 'Patara', off Tottenham Ct Road. Fill her in on the Baikal route. She and Steve will have no say in it; this is a research trip, not a holiday. May even put them to work in Irkutsk to help me cover all the sights.
Work on the Easter Island section of the Chile chapter on the train down to Devon to visit my best friend. The main sights are now covered; now for the finicky bit - making sure that all the addresses, phone numbers and website addresses are correct.
A bit melancholy; find out that the professor that I'd been looking after pre-South America had passed away on Saturday. He was a cantankerous, willful man, but also a very intelligent one; I enjoyed reading Russian poetry to him and actually grew rather fond of him. Feel bad about not inquiring about him earlier; I could've caught him alive last week. It's hard to leave one's work behind when it involves human beings.
My best friend is pregnant! Am very happy for her, but also know that in six months' time, things will change irreversibly; I shan't be able to just drop in on her whenever I feel like it.
Plod on with the Chile chapter. Interrupted by a phone call from Rasheed, one of my death row friends. Haven't talked to him for months, so it's good to know that he's alive and well. Arrange to write to him via his son while on the road. I feel that I've neglected my death row guys this year due to spending so much time on the road and not being able to correspond as often as I'd like. Must make amends before leaving for Russia.
Have a bit of a retarded moment when I book my visa appointment online with the Chinese embassy and then realise that I can't possibly make the earliest time because I need to pick up my passport from Mongolian embaassy first. Rebook the whole thing.
Lightning-quick lunch with my sister at 'Patara', off Tottenham Ct Road. Fill her in on the Baikal route. She and Steve will have no say in it; this is a research trip, not a holiday. May even put them to work in Irkutsk to help me cover all the sights.
Work on the Easter Island section of the Chile chapter on the train down to Devon to visit my best friend. The main sights are now covered; now for the finicky bit - making sure that all the addresses, phone numbers and website addresses are correct.
A bit melancholy; find out that the professor that I'd been looking after pre-South America had passed away on Saturday. He was a cantankerous, willful man, but also a very intelligent one; I enjoyed reading Russian poetry to him and actually grew rather fond of him. Feel bad about not inquiring about him earlier; I could've caught him alive last week. It's hard to leave one's work behind when it involves human beings.
My best friend is pregnant! Am very happy for her, but also know that in six months' time, things will change irreversibly; I shan't be able to just drop in on her whenever I feel like it.
Plod on with the Chile chapter. Interrupted by a phone call from Rasheed, one of my death row friends. Haven't talked to him for months, so it's good to know that he's alive and well. Arrange to write to him via his son while on the road. I feel that I've neglected my death row guys this year due to spending so much time on the road and not being able to correspond as often as I'd like. Must make amends before leaving for Russia.
Friday 9 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 23. A spanner in the works.
Maybe I should've gone to Milton Keynes after all. Spend half an hour trying to get hold of the legalisation office over the phone; they put me on hold for 25 minutes and then the call gets disconnected. Not impressed. Am trying to find out how much it would cost to have my deed poll certified by a notary or a solicitor, which is one of the requirements before the office can legalise it. A solicitor in Cambridge has quoted me £80 for basically stamping the damn thing. A pox on the Russian consulate for making me do this. Why they couldn't put my new name in my Russian passport straight away, I do not know.
Can't get hold of the consulate when I call them to find out whether there's been any progress. The phone number, which worked just fine last week, now disconnects when you press '1' for the Russian language option. The English language option gets you nowhere fast as well. Have to go to the consulate first thing tomorrow morning along with my sister, who'll be picking up her passport, to find out exactly what the delay is.
Having trouble editing the Easter Island section of the Chile chapter. I have to cut one of the boxes - either the brief history of the island, the one on the rongorongo script, the one on the significance of the moai or the one on the Birdman cult. It's an impossible choice; it's all important. I'll see if I can incorporate one of the boxes into the main text.
Not an entirely wasted day. Since we don't have internet in the new house yet, spend the afternoon working at Central Library, as well as comparison shopping online for the vital pieces of travel gear I'll need. Find a top of the range trekking rucksack similar to the one offered by the Nomad shop. Perfect. It's significantly cheaper on eBay, though I seem to be doomed to own purple rucksacks; women's trekking gear never comes in sensible colours. My 80-litre Lowe Alpine Sagarmatha should arrive in a few days, and should last me until I'm 40. Now I just need to find a Gore Tex jacket.
Finalise the route around Lake Baikal, squeezing in the Circumbaikal railway, which'll take a whole day, plus time on Okhon Island and in Listvyanka, 'the Baikal riviera'. A couple of days in Irkutsk, and then an overnight train to Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat republic. I need a couple of days to check out both the city, which is rumoured to be 'lively with an Asian feel to it', and the Buddist monastery at the nearby village of Ivolga.
Then it gets tricky: when I tried to look up trains from Ulan-Ude to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the Russian rail website told me that they're booked up on the day I need to travel, whereas the Real Russia website displays ticket prices, though availability is 'to be announced'. Worrying. Much more of a concern is the booked up train from Ulan Bator to Beijing; there are only three per week and we have to be on the one leaving on August 19th, or Steve will miss his flight. At this rate, he might miss Beijing too; the distances we're covering are way greater than anticipated, and as it stands, we'll get into Beijing on the afternoon of the 20th and Steve will have to decide between the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City, because we probably won't be able to cram in both. In fact, even one might be a push, since we'll be arriving in a completely new country, neither of us speaking the language, and will have to get our bearings, see the sights, and get Steve to the airport before the end of the day.
Steve's considering flying from Ulan Bator to Beijing to give himself some extra time therre, and I may have to follow suit if there are no train tickets, though ideally, I need to make the thirty-hour train journey in order to see what it's like and to make sure all the kilometre markers are in the right place.
This will be my most challenging trip to date. Travelling in South America is a breeze by comparison.
Can't get hold of the consulate when I call them to find out whether there's been any progress. The phone number, which worked just fine last week, now disconnects when you press '1' for the Russian language option. The English language option gets you nowhere fast as well. Have to go to the consulate first thing tomorrow morning along with my sister, who'll be picking up her passport, to find out exactly what the delay is.
Having trouble editing the Easter Island section of the Chile chapter. I have to cut one of the boxes - either the brief history of the island, the one on the rongorongo script, the one on the significance of the moai or the one on the Birdman cult. It's an impossible choice; it's all important. I'll see if I can incorporate one of the boxes into the main text.
Not an entirely wasted day. Since we don't have internet in the new house yet, spend the afternoon working at Central Library, as well as comparison shopping online for the vital pieces of travel gear I'll need. Find a top of the range trekking rucksack similar to the one offered by the Nomad shop. Perfect. It's significantly cheaper on eBay, though I seem to be doomed to own purple rucksacks; women's trekking gear never comes in sensible colours. My 80-litre Lowe Alpine Sagarmatha should arrive in a few days, and should last me until I'm 40. Now I just need to find a Gore Tex jacket.
Finalise the route around Lake Baikal, squeezing in the Circumbaikal railway, which'll take a whole day, plus time on Okhon Island and in Listvyanka, 'the Baikal riviera'. A couple of days in Irkutsk, and then an overnight train to Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Buryat republic. I need a couple of days to check out both the city, which is rumoured to be 'lively with an Asian feel to it', and the Buddist monastery at the nearby village of Ivolga.
Then it gets tricky: when I tried to look up trains from Ulan-Ude to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the Russian rail website told me that they're booked up on the day I need to travel, whereas the Real Russia website displays ticket prices, though availability is 'to be announced'. Worrying. Much more of a concern is the booked up train from Ulan Bator to Beijing; there are only three per week and we have to be on the one leaving on August 19th, or Steve will miss his flight. At this rate, he might miss Beijing too; the distances we're covering are way greater than anticipated, and as it stands, we'll get into Beijing on the afternoon of the 20th and Steve will have to decide between the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City, because we probably won't be able to cram in both. In fact, even one might be a push, since we'll be arriving in a completely new country, neither of us speaking the language, and will have to get our bearings, see the sights, and get Steve to the airport before the end of the day.
Steve's considering flying from Ulan Bator to Beijing to give himself some extra time therre, and I may have to follow suit if there are no train tickets, though ideally, I need to make the thirty-hour train journey in order to see what it's like and to make sure all the kilometre markers are in the right place.
This will be my most challenging trip to date. Travelling in South America is a breeze by comparison.
Thursday 8 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 24. Mongolian visa and the Baikal leg.
Am in London first thing in the morning. The Mongolian visa application process is quick and painless. I descend to the basement in Kensington Court, hand in my application form, £40 and my passport to the friendly girl and get told to come back on Monday for it.
Look for travel gear at the Nomad shop at Russell Square. Am coveting a Gore-Tex jacket and a new rucksack, both in the region of £160. Business expenses, it's all business expenses. Get the insect repellent for my clothes, at least. In the Amazon, I discovered that mosquitoes can and will bite you through your clothes, so I shan't let the Siberian mosquitoes get a piece of me. Speaking of bites, I call up the MASTA and find out that a tick-borne encephalitus jab is £65 a pop, and you need to have two. At the Nomad clinic, it's only £55, and you get 10% off all travel gear. Hmm. Pass on the info to my travelling companions; I know that I'm light years behind my friends when it comes to using high-tech mobiles, but today I've discovered that mine will let me access and send emails.
Sushi and a jaunt around several modern art installations with Jacob. He shows off his latest gadget - a vintage Yashica camera. I went through a vintage phase too, taking square pictures with a Leica - including some really atmospheric ones which captured the darkness of San Diego. I need to get a multi-purpose lens for my Canon before the Russia trip because Trailblazer have commissioned a few photos for the guide.
There's a floor-to-ceiling poster on the underground featuring a grinning man in a wheelchair; he's an optimist who'd got Motor Neurone Disease, apparently. Feel like I've been sucker-punched in the stomach; one of my friends, too, was an optimist, and he died of MND last year.
Have used the train journeys to and from Cambridge to roughly plan our time around Lake Baikal. We'll visit Okhon Island and Listvyanka before moving on to Ulan-Ude from Irkutsk. Plus, I want to do the Circumbaikal Railway, which means going to Sludyanka, taking the train to Port Baikal, and then doubling back to Irkutsk. It'd be more logical to take the train the other way, but it only runs at night, sadly.
Looks like I won't have the time to explore the eastern (and less touristy) side of Lake Baikal; I'll have to save the Barguzin valley until the next time.
The five-hour nights have caught up with me. I don't have the energy to go to Milton Keynes tomorrow to legalise my deed poll certificate before it can be ratified by the Russian embassy to explain the two different names in my passports; I'll send it by post instead. It may take a few more days, but as long as it's sorted out before the departure, it's fine. More importantly, I need to chase up my Russian passport.
Due to my befuddled mental state, I concentrate on the part of the Chile chapter that doesn't require much brainpower. Almost finish the Torres del Paine section; email my Erratic Rock friends to chase up a few details.
Look for travel gear at the Nomad shop at Russell Square. Am coveting a Gore-Tex jacket and a new rucksack, both in the region of £160. Business expenses, it's all business expenses. Get the insect repellent for my clothes, at least. In the Amazon, I discovered that mosquitoes can and will bite you through your clothes, so I shan't let the Siberian mosquitoes get a piece of me. Speaking of bites, I call up the MASTA and find out that a tick-borne encephalitus jab is £65 a pop, and you need to have two. At the Nomad clinic, it's only £55, and you get 10% off all travel gear. Hmm. Pass on the info to my travelling companions; I know that I'm light years behind my friends when it comes to using high-tech mobiles, but today I've discovered that mine will let me access and send emails.
Sushi and a jaunt around several modern art installations with Jacob. He shows off his latest gadget - a vintage Yashica camera. I went through a vintage phase too, taking square pictures with a Leica - including some really atmospheric ones which captured the darkness of San Diego. I need to get a multi-purpose lens for my Canon before the Russia trip because Trailblazer have commissioned a few photos for the guide.
There's a floor-to-ceiling poster on the underground featuring a grinning man in a wheelchair; he's an optimist who'd got Motor Neurone Disease, apparently. Feel like I've been sucker-punched in the stomach; one of my friends, too, was an optimist, and he died of MND last year.
Have used the train journeys to and from Cambridge to roughly plan our time around Lake Baikal. We'll visit Okhon Island and Listvyanka before moving on to Ulan-Ude from Irkutsk. Plus, I want to do the Circumbaikal Railway, which means going to Sludyanka, taking the train to Port Baikal, and then doubling back to Irkutsk. It'd be more logical to take the train the other way, but it only runs at night, sadly.
Looks like I won't have the time to explore the eastern (and less touristy) side of Lake Baikal; I'll have to save the Barguzin valley until the next time.
The five-hour nights have caught up with me. I don't have the energy to go to Milton Keynes tomorrow to legalise my deed poll certificate before it can be ratified by the Russian embassy to explain the two different names in my passports; I'll send it by post instead. It may take a few more days, but as long as it's sorted out before the departure, it's fine. More importantly, I need to chase up my Russian passport.
Due to my befuddled mental state, I concentrate on the part of the Chile chapter that doesn't require much brainpower. Almost finish the Torres del Paine section; email my Erratic Rock friends to chase up a few details.
Tuesday 6 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 25. It finally sinks in just how big Russia is.
Spend several hours on the Russian rail website, trying to see what the train frequency is between each pair of cities that I have to stop in, i.e., every major town along the trans-Siberian, trans-Mongolian and trans-Manchurian railways, as well as BAM - the alternative trans-Siberian route. Well, in Mongolia and China I'm only really required to see the capitals and around, but would prefer to see more if I have the time.
Discover two things: that there are now railway connections between Vladivostok and Sovestskaya Gavan', and that travelling between cities will take considerably more time than originally thought. See, there I was, thinking that it would take me 4-5 hours to travel between, say, Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Tynda, only to discover that it takes 37 hours. This means more overnight journeys in platskartny (3rd class) than I care for - not sleeping due to lack of oxygen, or squalling babies, and then having to get out in the morning and run around a city I do not know, trying to make sure I collect all the relevant info before hopping on the next overnighter. How my editor thought I could possibly cover all the ground necessary in six weeks, I do not know. Even nine weeks will mean travelling under considerable pressure. I thrive under pressure.
Trains seem to be pretty frequent, particularly from Krasnoyarsk, roughly in the centre of Russia, towards Moscow, though I may get stuck in some godforsaken place for days when travelling on the BAM. I may end up getting to know Severobaikalsk or Bratsk very well indeed. Haven't even thought about my daily budget yet; the Moscow-Irkutsk leg is pretty expensive (£235), but what price sanity and a good night's sleep?
The next step is to figure out exactly how long we should spend around Lake Baikal and how many days I'll need for Mongolia because the Ulaanbaatar-Beijing leg sells out pretty quickly. Off to apply for the Mongolian visa tomorrow.
Fairly productive day. Manage to acquire free furniture for the new house because I was present at the inspection of the old house as the only former tenant who doesn't have regular work hours, and it turned out that all the furniture would otherwise be binned as the place is being refurbished. Aggravate an old back injury while lifting sofas in and out of the van, and have to be careful not to do any heavy lifting in the next few days.
Bored of working on the Peru chapter, I switch to the Chile chapter instead. It doesn't really matter which one I work on, since the priority right now is to get all the maps finished and sent off, and to do that, I need to finalise all the accommodation and eating options in all the major cities. Luckily, I managed to get a fair bit of work done while in Chile, whereas in Peru I found it almost impossible to force myself to work on both my blog and the chapter writeup at the end of a long day. Will have to become more efficient in Russia.
The maps are coming along nicely; though it's very time-consuming, it's one of my favourite tasks - marking everything on and meticulously checking every detail while listening to Leonard Cohen 'Live at the O2' - the gig I attended in 2008.
Discover two things: that there are now railway connections between Vladivostok and Sovestskaya Gavan', and that travelling between cities will take considerably more time than originally thought. See, there I was, thinking that it would take me 4-5 hours to travel between, say, Komsomolsk-na-Amure and Tynda, only to discover that it takes 37 hours. This means more overnight journeys in platskartny (3rd class) than I care for - not sleeping due to lack of oxygen, or squalling babies, and then having to get out in the morning and run around a city I do not know, trying to make sure I collect all the relevant info before hopping on the next overnighter. How my editor thought I could possibly cover all the ground necessary in six weeks, I do not know. Even nine weeks will mean travelling under considerable pressure. I thrive under pressure.
Trains seem to be pretty frequent, particularly from Krasnoyarsk, roughly in the centre of Russia, towards Moscow, though I may get stuck in some godforsaken place for days when travelling on the BAM. I may end up getting to know Severobaikalsk or Bratsk very well indeed. Haven't even thought about my daily budget yet; the Moscow-Irkutsk leg is pretty expensive (£235), but what price sanity and a good night's sleep?
The next step is to figure out exactly how long we should spend around Lake Baikal and how many days I'll need for Mongolia because the Ulaanbaatar-Beijing leg sells out pretty quickly. Off to apply for the Mongolian visa tomorrow.
Fairly productive day. Manage to acquire free furniture for the new house because I was present at the inspection of the old house as the only former tenant who doesn't have regular work hours, and it turned out that all the furniture would otherwise be binned as the place is being refurbished. Aggravate an old back injury while lifting sofas in and out of the van, and have to be careful not to do any heavy lifting in the next few days.
Bored of working on the Peru chapter, I switch to the Chile chapter instead. It doesn't really matter which one I work on, since the priority right now is to get all the maps finished and sent off, and to do that, I need to finalise all the accommodation and eating options in all the major cities. Luckily, I managed to get a fair bit of work done while in Chile, whereas in Peru I found it almost impossible to force myself to work on both my blog and the chapter writeup at the end of a long day. Will have to become more efficient in Russia.
The maps are coming along nicely; though it's very time-consuming, it's one of my favourite tasks - marking everything on and meticulously checking every detail while listening to Leonard Cohen 'Live at the O2' - the gig I attended in 2008.
Countdown to Russia: Day 26 - we finally have our first train tickets.
Am working in the now-empty house. There's been some confusion with regard to the house inspection, and the agency's representative is coming tomorrow instead, so I'm spending another night here.
Call from my sister. We finally have our train tickets! Turns out that she'd gotten mother to call the relevant bank in Russia to find out why the transaction wasn't going through and they told her that they did not deal with Barclays bank. Why, of course that's the most logical explanation. Gosh, I wonder why it didn't occur to me. Why not Barclays? Because they're trying to combat fraud, apparently. Mind you, it's mutual antagonism, since Barclays block any Russia-related transactions. The bank is happy to deal with Lloyds bank, though, so the problem is solved. I can now write in the guide that you can avoid the middlemen and book the train tickets directly with Russian rail, provided you a) read Russian and b) do not hold an account with Barclays. I don't think they accept American credit cards either.
Mother comments that one of the reasons we'd left all those years ago is so that we wouldn't have to deal with absurdity, and yet here we are, willingly getting back into it all.
Never mind. We're over the first hurdle, and allegedly have tickets for the same air-conditioned compartment; two bottom bunks and one top one, so we'll just have to flip a coin to see who gets to clamber up to the top, using any hand- and footholds available every night, since there are usually no ladders. I hope it's not me; last time I had the top bunk on the Riga-Moscow train, my friends had to literally shove me up in a very undignified fashion on account of my having short legs. I shall lie awake, wondering if I'll roll right off the top bunk in my sleep. I won't be surprised if we're told upon arrival that the air-con's not working. Now all we have to decide is whether we risk using the reference number given to print our tickets out at the train station right before departure or register online so that the IDs used to book the tickets become our tickets.
There's so much to do around Lake Baikal, and I could easily spend a couple of weeks there, but Steve and my sister cannot; he's only got three weeks off work and needs to get as far as Beijing, and my sister needs to fly back from Ulan-Ude. Actually, I only have nine weeks to cover 35 destinations, with three of them - Lake Baikal, Ulaanbaatar and Beijing - warranting a week each, plus my wanting to spend a little time in Vietnam also, which won't leave me much room for error or much time for any single city. I hope that the inter-city transport is frequent. I need to finish up in Moscow by October 7th, the date of the Leonard Cohen gig, which would be a spectacular way of finishing off the trans-Siberian gig before moving on to Lithuania.
Call from my sister. We finally have our train tickets! Turns out that she'd gotten mother to call the relevant bank in Russia to find out why the transaction wasn't going through and they told her that they did not deal with Barclays bank. Why, of course that's the most logical explanation. Gosh, I wonder why it didn't occur to me. Why not Barclays? Because they're trying to combat fraud, apparently. Mind you, it's mutual antagonism, since Barclays block any Russia-related transactions. The bank is happy to deal with Lloyds bank, though, so the problem is solved. I can now write in the guide that you can avoid the middlemen and book the train tickets directly with Russian rail, provided you a) read Russian and b) do not hold an account with Barclays. I don't think they accept American credit cards either.
Mother comments that one of the reasons we'd left all those years ago is so that we wouldn't have to deal with absurdity, and yet here we are, willingly getting back into it all.
Never mind. We're over the first hurdle, and allegedly have tickets for the same air-conditioned compartment; two bottom bunks and one top one, so we'll just have to flip a coin to see who gets to clamber up to the top, using any hand- and footholds available every night, since there are usually no ladders. I hope it's not me; last time I had the top bunk on the Riga-Moscow train, my friends had to literally shove me up in a very undignified fashion on account of my having short legs. I shall lie awake, wondering if I'll roll right off the top bunk in my sleep. I won't be surprised if we're told upon arrival that the air-con's not working. Now all we have to decide is whether we risk using the reference number given to print our tickets out at the train station right before departure or register online so that the IDs used to book the tickets become our tickets.
There's so much to do around Lake Baikal, and I could easily spend a couple of weeks there, but Steve and my sister cannot; he's only got three weeks off work and needs to get as far as Beijing, and my sister needs to fly back from Ulan-Ude. Actually, I only have nine weeks to cover 35 destinations, with three of them - Lake Baikal, Ulaanbaatar and Beijing - warranting a week each, plus my wanting to spend a little time in Vietnam also, which won't leave me much room for error or much time for any single city. I hope that the inter-city transport is frequent. I need to finish up in Moscow by October 7th, the date of the Leonard Cohen gig, which would be a spectacular way of finishing off the trans-Siberian gig before moving on to Lithuania.
Monday 5 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 27 - we almost get our first train ticket. Almost.
It's incredible just how much grime can accumulate in one house over twelve years, and it's just our luck that we were the last tenants there and had to spend the day scrubbing and hoovering. The whole day is gone! Have had a change of heart overnight and decided that travelling 3rd class for four days in what is currently Russia's hottest summer for decades may be unbearable. I need to be able to open the windows, and I fear that I'll be no match for a Russian granny who doesn't like draughts. If I don't have enough fresh air, I can't sleep, and if I can't sleep, I can't function, and ideally I'd like to be able to work during that first stretch.
Call my sister and tell her that I've changed my mind. Delegate responsibility for booking the tickets. She may be a sloth, but she's able to mobilise herself when her holiday's at stake. She tells me that mother has suggested that we book the tickets under our British names. I think that mother really should know better, having lived in the Soviet Union for much of adult life, and that that's the worst idea since Hitler's father and mother had decided to consummate their passion and tell my sister so. The first pre-trip argument ensues.
Me: If we book under our English names, they'll want to check our visas, and when they dicover that we don't have any, there'll be no end of trouble.
My sister: But I don't see what difference it makes which names we book under.
Me: I can see that. The names on the tickets have to correspond with our IDs, and since we're travelling in Russia, we have to travel on our Russian passports. We can't use our British passports!
My sister: But we're not crossing any borders; I don't see why they'd even check.
Me: If they see foreign names, of course they'll check! You didn't think we'd even need ID numbers to book train tickets. Trust me on this.
My sister: But I still don't see why... [And on and on, ad nauseum].
She calls me at 5pm. The good news is, she's found a 2nd class carriage with air-con with three free berths. The bad news is, Visa's anti-fraud system has decided that she was trying to make a fraudulent transaction and blocked it. She's called them, but has to wait for a couple of hours before trying again.
At 10pm, the transaction almost went through, but was declined by Russian rail. Last I heard, she was trying a different credit card. This is only hurdle no. 1. I'm already feeling harassed and exhausted, and I'm not even the one booking these tickets.
Meantime, I've been looking up Mongolian, Chinese and Vietnamese visa requirements. For the Mongolian, I have to go in person, the embassy is open only between 10am and 12.30pm daily and there's no clue as to whether one has to book an appointment. I'm assuming not. The Chinese visa is the cheapest, and the Vietnamese is the optional extra. If I do a visa a week, I may just be ready on time.
Have just completed an excellent section on Peruvian food (if I do say so myself) and trying to finish the intro to outdoor activity. I really need to set aside a day or two just for editing, because am already five pages over the original limit, and my brief tells me to cut the original text, not add to it.
Call my sister and tell her that I've changed my mind. Delegate responsibility for booking the tickets. She may be a sloth, but she's able to mobilise herself when her holiday's at stake. She tells me that mother has suggested that we book the tickets under our British names. I think that mother really should know better, having lived in the Soviet Union for much of adult life, and that that's the worst idea since Hitler's father and mother had decided to consummate their passion and tell my sister so. The first pre-trip argument ensues.
Me: If we book under our English names, they'll want to check our visas, and when they dicover that we don't have any, there'll be no end of trouble.
My sister: But I don't see what difference it makes which names we book under.
Me: I can see that. The names on the tickets have to correspond with our IDs, and since we're travelling in Russia, we have to travel on our Russian passports. We can't use our British passports!
My sister: But we're not crossing any borders; I don't see why they'd even check.
Me: If they see foreign names, of course they'll check! You didn't think we'd even need ID numbers to book train tickets. Trust me on this.
My sister: But I still don't see why... [And on and on, ad nauseum].
She calls me at 5pm. The good news is, she's found a 2nd class carriage with air-con with three free berths. The bad news is, Visa's anti-fraud system has decided that she was trying to make a fraudulent transaction and blocked it. She's called them, but has to wait for a couple of hours before trying again.
At 10pm, the transaction almost went through, but was declined by Russian rail. Last I heard, she was trying a different credit card. This is only hurdle no. 1. I'm already feeling harassed and exhausted, and I'm not even the one booking these tickets.
Meantime, I've been looking up Mongolian, Chinese and Vietnamese visa requirements. For the Mongolian, I have to go in person, the embassy is open only between 10am and 12.30pm daily and there's no clue as to whether one has to book an appointment. I'm assuming not. The Chinese visa is the cheapest, and the Vietnamese is the optional extra. If I do a visa a week, I may just be ready on time.
Have just completed an excellent section on Peruvian food (if I do say so myself) and trying to finish the intro to outdoor activity. I really need to set aside a day or two just for editing, because am already five pages over the original limit, and my brief tells me to cut the original text, not add to it.
Sunday 4 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 28 - we decide which train to take.
Day spent shuttling back and forth between the old house and new. Furniture dismantled, assembled, carried up and down stairs. My new room is a dump. Bags everywhere. Staying in the old house overnight because there's no internet at the new house yet and I must work.
Book my flight to Moscow. I'm off on the June 30th, which means that I've lost a day in terms of Peru/Chile writeup and will have to revise my workload accordingly.
Steve, my sister and I have a crisis meeting about the trans-Siberian trip; Steve's coming with me as far as Beijing, and my sister's coming to Lake Baikal. Try to impress upon them that I have to spend some time in various towns and villages around the lake. Unfortunately, I can't stop by the southern half on the way back because it would mean a massive detour, so I need to make sure I've covered Irkutsk, Okhon Island, Listvyanka and other places of interest. A week no longer seems like enough, though I'd have to seriously plan my travels, day-by-day, in order to work out just how much time I can afford to spend in each place. Nor can I just go on to Mongolia from Irkutsk; I have to stop over in Ulan-Ude for a day at least, since it's the centre of Buryat culture and it's one of the few places in Russia to have a Buddhist monestery.
We manage to decide on a departure date from Moscow: August 1st. Steve and I are keen to travel 3rd class because it's significantly cheaper than 2nd class. Out of the four trains, the only one which has third class carriages arrives in Irkutsk at a crazy time of 3am. We doublecheck that it's 3am actual time, rather than Moscow time, since the Russian railway website has the annoying habit of posting all arrival times in Moscow time - never mind that Russia stretches across eight time zones.
We're trying to book our tickets via the railway website (in Russian only) to avoid the 20-30% markup charged by various middle companies, but it remains to be seen whether it'll accept our credit cards. I'd warned my sister that we'll probably need ID numbers to book tickets on the Russian railway website, and she was very dismissive of my prophecies of doom. Ha. I'm right, of course, and we either have to give our Russian passport numbers (which we do not have) or our birth certificate numbers (mine's at the new house, and my sister's boyfriend can't work out which bit of her certificate is the serial number). We call it a night.
Must sit down tomorrow and figure out when I'm getting visas, not to mention planning the trip, day by day. And do seven Peruvian pages.
Manage to complete the 'drinks' section in Peruvian 'Food and Drink', and get a start on 'Dangers and Annoyances'.
Book my flight to Moscow. I'm off on the June 30th, which means that I've lost a day in terms of Peru/Chile writeup and will have to revise my workload accordingly.
Steve, my sister and I have a crisis meeting about the trans-Siberian trip; Steve's coming with me as far as Beijing, and my sister's coming to Lake Baikal. Try to impress upon them that I have to spend some time in various towns and villages around the lake. Unfortunately, I can't stop by the southern half on the way back because it would mean a massive detour, so I need to make sure I've covered Irkutsk, Okhon Island, Listvyanka and other places of interest. A week no longer seems like enough, though I'd have to seriously plan my travels, day-by-day, in order to work out just how much time I can afford to spend in each place. Nor can I just go on to Mongolia from Irkutsk; I have to stop over in Ulan-Ude for a day at least, since it's the centre of Buryat culture and it's one of the few places in Russia to have a Buddhist monestery.
We manage to decide on a departure date from Moscow: August 1st. Steve and I are keen to travel 3rd class because it's significantly cheaper than 2nd class. Out of the four trains, the only one which has third class carriages arrives in Irkutsk at a crazy time of 3am. We doublecheck that it's 3am actual time, rather than Moscow time, since the Russian railway website has the annoying habit of posting all arrival times in Moscow time - never mind that Russia stretches across eight time zones.
We're trying to book our tickets via the railway website (in Russian only) to avoid the 20-30% markup charged by various middle companies, but it remains to be seen whether it'll accept our credit cards. I'd warned my sister that we'll probably need ID numbers to book tickets on the Russian railway website, and she was very dismissive of my prophecies of doom. Ha. I'm right, of course, and we either have to give our Russian passport numbers (which we do not have) or our birth certificate numbers (mine's at the new house, and my sister's boyfriend can't work out which bit of her certificate is the serial number). We call it a night.
Must sit down tomorrow and figure out when I'm getting visas, not to mention planning the trip, day by day. And do seven Peruvian pages.
Manage to complete the 'drinks' section in Peruvian 'Food and Drink', and get a start on 'Dangers and Annoyances'.
Saturday 3 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: Day 29 - the surname fiasco.
Day mostly spent shuttling boxes to the new house. Had to clean new house because the landlord 'forgot' to. None of us are very impressed. He's also left us a collection of absurd and impractical furniture, such as an antique desk and a double bed that doesn't fit into either of the smaller rooms.
Have the presence of mind to call the Russian consulate to find out the latin spelling of my surname in my new passport. Even though my mother's surname is identical to my old one, I figure that that's no guarantee that it'll be spelt the same in mine, and I'm absolutely right! I'm wising up to their illogical ways. The nice girl on the phone confirms that they've stuck an 'aya' at the end instead of an 'i'; she also informs me that my passport is not quite ready. Three and a half months ago they told me three months, but that's clearly a loose estimate. What I don't understand is whhy my sister's passport was ready before mine, even though she'd applied later.
Hang up, and it immeditately occurs to me that the 'aya' can cause me considerable problems, since the name that I had changed via deed poll ends in 'i'. Now I have three names! Call the Russian consulate again and ask them to change the ending of my surname; they tell me that it shouldn't be a problem. Call my sister as a harbinger of doom and tell her of what had transpired. She's already booked her flight to Moscow, so she now has to call both the airline and the consulate to verify whether the ending of her surname is the same as mine and to see if that's going to be a problem. She's not pleased.
Finish the day by doing several Peruvian maps and working out just how many pages/maps per days I'll have to do in order to finish on time. 7 Peruvian pages per day (though most of the maps are done) and 5 Chilean pages per day during the second half of this month. Discover that I'm missing a detailed map of the Colca Canyon and send a request to Mike, since he's more likely to find it in Peru than I am to find it here.
Have the presence of mind to call the Russian consulate to find out the latin spelling of my surname in my new passport. Even though my mother's surname is identical to my old one, I figure that that's no guarantee that it'll be spelt the same in mine, and I'm absolutely right! I'm wising up to their illogical ways. The nice girl on the phone confirms that they've stuck an 'aya' at the end instead of an 'i'; she also informs me that my passport is not quite ready. Three and a half months ago they told me three months, but that's clearly a loose estimate. What I don't understand is whhy my sister's passport was ready before mine, even though she'd applied later.
Hang up, and it immeditately occurs to me that the 'aya' can cause me considerable problems, since the name that I had changed via deed poll ends in 'i'. Now I have three names! Call the Russian consulate again and ask them to change the ending of my surname; they tell me that it shouldn't be a problem. Call my sister as a harbinger of doom and tell her of what had transpired. She's already booked her flight to Moscow, so she now has to call both the airline and the consulate to verify whether the ending of her surname is the same as mine and to see if that's going to be a problem. She's not pleased.
Finish the day by doing several Peruvian maps and working out just how many pages/maps per days I'll have to do in order to finish on time. 7 Peruvian pages per day (though most of the maps are done) and 5 Chilean pages per day during the second half of this month. Discover that I'm missing a detailed map of the Colca Canyon and send a request to Mike, since he's more likely to find it in Peru than I am to find it here.
Friday 2 July 2010
Countdown to Russia: day 30.
Packing frenzy. Books and maps strewn all over my room. We're moving house this weekend, so I have to do my writing on top of everything else that's going on. Have a set number of pages/maps to do per day so that all the Chile and Peru work is finished by the end of the month. Have promised my editor that I'll get all the maps to him, ASAP, because I won't be able to make any alterations to them while on the road in Siberia.
My sister and Steve have been researching the train timetables and prices. The trans-Siberian jaunt is going to be more expensive than expected. My research trip's in danger of being hijacked. I haven't even booked my flight yet due to the fiasco with my passports; as of last year, I can only travel to Russia on a Russian passport, so I applied for it before I left for South America. The consulate informed me that it should take up to three months to be ready, so it technically should be ready by now, but unlike my sister, I've had no communication from the Russian embassy to let me know that that's the case. That doesn't mean that it's not ready, but the situation is still worrying. The additional problem is that I have a different name in my British passport, having changed it for professional reasons last year, so am not sure which name to book my flight under.
Explain my dilemma to the woman at Trailfinders. It's the first time she'd come across a situation like mine, so she calls the visa section and they tell her that I should book the ticket under my Russian name. The only thing is, I don't know how they've spelt it in my new passport (which may or may not be ready); just because they spelt my mother's surname (the same as my former one) a certain way is no guarantee that mine's been spelt the same. I'm stuck.
Apart from that, there are the visas to be obtained - the Mongolian, the Chinese and possibly the Vietnamese (if I have time to make a short excursion into Vietnam), and those should go in my British passport, though this, combined with my name change, will cause extra confusion at the borders, I'm sure.
We go sign our new house contract. Am devastated when I discover that my favourite restaurant's been replaced with a Chinese place. Stop by to see an old housemate, since Rough Guides still insist on sending the free copy of the guide I've been working on to my old address.
More packing, cleaning, planning. Up till 2am, working on my Peru maps.
My sister and Steve have been researching the train timetables and prices. The trans-Siberian jaunt is going to be more expensive than expected. My research trip's in danger of being hijacked. I haven't even booked my flight yet due to the fiasco with my passports; as of last year, I can only travel to Russia on a Russian passport, so I applied for it before I left for South America. The consulate informed me that it should take up to three months to be ready, so it technically should be ready by now, but unlike my sister, I've had no communication from the Russian embassy to let me know that that's the case. That doesn't mean that it's not ready, but the situation is still worrying. The additional problem is that I have a different name in my British passport, having changed it for professional reasons last year, so am not sure which name to book my flight under.
Explain my dilemma to the woman at Trailfinders. It's the first time she'd come across a situation like mine, so she calls the visa section and they tell her that I should book the ticket under my Russian name. The only thing is, I don't know how they've spelt it in my new passport (which may or may not be ready); just because they spelt my mother's surname (the same as my former one) a certain way is no guarantee that mine's been spelt the same. I'm stuck.
Apart from that, there are the visas to be obtained - the Mongolian, the Chinese and possibly the Vietnamese (if I have time to make a short excursion into Vietnam), and those should go in my British passport, though this, combined with my name change, will cause extra confusion at the borders, I'm sure.
We go sign our new house contract. Am devastated when I discover that my favourite restaurant's been replaced with a Chinese place. Stop by to see an old housemate, since Rough Guides still insist on sending the free copy of the guide I've been working on to my old address.
More packing, cleaning, planning. Up till 2am, working on my Peru maps.
Thursday 1 July 2010
Day 83-85: last days in Lima and the brutal return to reality.
More of the Peru chapter is written up and more good food consumed. Two days before I'm due to leave, Mika and Monica get a Spanish Couchsurfer who'd never tried sushi, so clearly, the only way to remedy that is to get takeaway from Edo Sushi. They do some of the most imaginative and delicious maki rolls I've ever tasted, and no wonder - they're patronised by the likes of Nobu and various Latin American rock bands. The good thing about Lima is that unlike the sometimes snobby eating scene in London or New York, where mere mortals can't get into some elitist places, here you can go to any fine establishment without a problem.
On my penultimate day, I have a lunch date with Leo. Mike convinces me that Leo's meeting won't possibly finish before lunchtime, so we head for the centre of Lima to finish fitting my crown. As luck would have it, Leo calls me as soon as we reach the centre, so I fidget all the way through my dental appointment. Never trust a Peruvian dentist: Lucho told me that it would take 5-10 minutes to fit my crown, but it ends up taking forty minutes, with constant measuring, drilling and remeasuring. Am very satisfied with the final results, though.
Leo waits for me with typical Peruvian patience at Larcomar, the seafront mall set in the cliffs of Miraflores. Though lunch at the mall food court is not quite what I'd envisaged, I thoroughly enjoy my two hours there, and the course of events lead me to believe that if I wanted something to happen next time, it would. Of course, now I'm not sure I want anything, and after bidding him farewell, I take a long walk along the cliffs to clear my head.
On my last day I'm unable to work; it's taken up by packing, lunch with Monica's delightful family and friends, and flying. At the airport, I discover that the airline I've flown to Latin America with every other time has decided to change its baggage rules, and that I'm only allowed 23kg of luggage. Bloody Iberia. Repack in a frenzy, and manage to use my extra holdall as the biggest bit of 'hand luggage' I've ever travelled with. My Kelty still weighs 26.5kg, but they don't take issue with that. Then I somehow manage to lose my immigration card (which I got at the Chile-Peru border and which you have to hand in on departure); I have it before I put my stuff through the x-ray machine, and then it's gone, and after a fruitless search, I have to pay a 15 sol fine to the grumpy immigration lady.
Am catatonic/asleep throughout much of the flight to Madrid and then to London. Am halfway through 'Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR', written by a Canadian who spent a summer in a pioneer camp there in 1977. It's a really annoying book; she comes across as a whiny kid who complains about everything, and I get the impression that she'd missed the point of the cultural exchange.
[Though the Latin America leg of my travels has now reached its end, what I've decided to do now is to extend '90 Days...' and for the duration of July do a countdown to my next trip - a grand adventure spanning Siberia, Mongolia, China and possibly Vietnam. I have less than a month to get my act together, to write up my South American travels and plan my next research trip, as well as get all the necessary documents - visas, passport, etc.
The countdown begins now.]
On my penultimate day, I have a lunch date with Leo. Mike convinces me that Leo's meeting won't possibly finish before lunchtime, so we head for the centre of Lima to finish fitting my crown. As luck would have it, Leo calls me as soon as we reach the centre, so I fidget all the way through my dental appointment. Never trust a Peruvian dentist: Lucho told me that it would take 5-10 minutes to fit my crown, but it ends up taking forty minutes, with constant measuring, drilling and remeasuring. Am very satisfied with the final results, though.
Leo waits for me with typical Peruvian patience at Larcomar, the seafront mall set in the cliffs of Miraflores. Though lunch at the mall food court is not quite what I'd envisaged, I thoroughly enjoy my two hours there, and the course of events lead me to believe that if I wanted something to happen next time, it would. Of course, now I'm not sure I want anything, and after bidding him farewell, I take a long walk along the cliffs to clear my head.
On my last day I'm unable to work; it's taken up by packing, lunch with Monica's delightful family and friends, and flying. At the airport, I discover that the airline I've flown to Latin America with every other time has decided to change its baggage rules, and that I'm only allowed 23kg of luggage. Bloody Iberia. Repack in a frenzy, and manage to use my extra holdall as the biggest bit of 'hand luggage' I've ever travelled with. My Kelty still weighs 26.5kg, but they don't take issue with that. Then I somehow manage to lose my immigration card (which I got at the Chile-Peru border and which you have to hand in on departure); I have it before I put my stuff through the x-ray machine, and then it's gone, and after a fruitless search, I have to pay a 15 sol fine to the grumpy immigration lady.
Am catatonic/asleep throughout much of the flight to Madrid and then to London. Am halfway through 'Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR', written by a Canadian who spent a summer in a pioneer camp there in 1977. It's a really annoying book; she comes across as a whiny kid who complains about everything, and I get the impression that she'd missed the point of the cultural exchange.
[Though the Latin America leg of my travels has now reached its end, what I've decided to do now is to extend '90 Days...' and for the duration of July do a countdown to my next trip - a grand adventure spanning Siberia, Mongolia, China and possibly Vietnam. I have less than a month to get my act together, to write up my South American travels and plan my next research trip, as well as get all the necessary documents - visas, passport, etc.
The countdown begins now.]
Monday 28 June 2010
Days 80 - 82: futher adventures in Lima.
It seems I am destined to lie in dentists’ chairs around the world. My teeth are like the United Nations – they are sporting Hungarian, Thai, British and now Peruvian work. Since I’d lost that filling on the Inca Trail, there’s been practically nothing left of my back molar, so Mike convinces me to go see his dentist brother-in-law, Lucho, who apparently knows what he’s doing. I try to tell Mike that it’s not as simple as that, that it takes years to build the trust between dentist and patient, but he just doesn’t listen.
So I agree to a free checkup and Lucho confirms what I’d already suspected – that I need a crown, as well as a root canal and another urgent filling. Am dubious about the root canal, because according to Lucho, there’ll be very little left of my tooth, so he’ll have to rebuilt it using an artificial pin and a crown, but in the end I agree to the back crown at least.
I’ve had a phobia of dentists for as long as I can remember. Though I myself have never experienced serious pain at their hands, I’ve heard horror stories told by my parents of dental surgery in the Soviet Union, which was performed without any anaesthetic and which you’d regard as a session in a torture chamber. When I was a kid, I thought that by the time I was old (i.e. sixteen), I’d be over it. When I was sixteen, I figured that my fear would disappear by the time I hit twenty. I’m almost thirty and I still find myself lying rigid in the chair, mouth wide open, eyes bulging with the anticipation of pain that may or may not come. Going to the dentist is so undignified – it’s just like a visit to the gynaecologist. The only difference is the orifice in question; the discomfort and the vulnerability are about the same.
Lucho isn’t using the sucky tube thing, so I find myself spitting blood every minute; I must’ve lost about a gallon. I may have to rename myself ‘Bleeding Gums Kaminski’, like ‘Bleeding Gums Murphy’ in The Simpsons. Lucho thinks it’s hilarious that whenever he stops the procedure, I sit up and ask him: “Is it over?” There’s no pain, though, and after chomping down on a mould filled with yellow putty and fitted with a temporary crown, I’m released until the next visit. Lucho tells me that I may have a sugar-free sweetie for being so brave. I get the impression that he and Mike are making fun of me.
Dental adventures aside, I keep writing. Sometimes the writing is methodical, i.e. I focus on a particular part of the chapter, like Nazca, and try and work through that, but most of the time I find it difficult to focus on anything for too long and resort to flicking through the text, pausing at bits that I feel like updating at the time, and figuring I’ll fill in the gaps later on.
The map work is progressing nicely, though in order to complete the city maps, I first need to make a final decision as to which hostels and eateries to include for each city, and I’ve been known to agonise for hours over the merits of a particularly good dessert spot versus an equally good kebab joint. You can only include so many.
Have just re-read the chapter brief prepared by my editor, with suggestions for where to cut text and where to expand. Feel very protective of my Nazca section when I read that James suggests leaving the Nazca Lines but cutting all the outlying archaeological sites. I will argue against that vehemently; as it is, Nazca is viewed very much as a one-day destination, when it’s got so much more to offer. I wonder if I’d have liked Nazca as much if I hadn’t had an excellent guide and if I didn’t enjoy looking at human remains…
Since it’s the weekend, Mike, Monica and myself go out and explore more of Lima’s culinary delights. We visit Mar Azul, where the signature ceviche comes covered in a rocoto sauce; it’s tasty, but the ceviche purist in me rebels against the sight of bright red ceviche, as opposed to just chunks of white fish in lime juice. We meet up with a Couchsurfer who stayed at Mike and Monica’s before I arrived; she and her new friends meet us at a random little market stall which specialised in all things fishy, so it’s more ceviche for me, as well as seafood-fried rice. I thought I could go on eating the two indefinitely, but I think I may have reached saturation point as far as rice with miscellaneous tentacled things is concerned; I don’t understand why an average portion of rice should contain about seven pounds of boiled octopus. Yum rubbery yum.
What I haven’t lost the taste for is chicharrón, so will make sure to fit it more deep fried pork belly sandwiches before I leave. So much to eat and so little time.
I’ve begun to put down roots in Lima, so am not looking forward to having to uproot myself and fly home in two days. Still, I’ve got my hot date with Leo tomorrow (or mildly hot, since Mike’s coming along too)…
So I agree to a free checkup and Lucho confirms what I’d already suspected – that I need a crown, as well as a root canal and another urgent filling. Am dubious about the root canal, because according to Lucho, there’ll be very little left of my tooth, so he’ll have to rebuilt it using an artificial pin and a crown, but in the end I agree to the back crown at least.
I’ve had a phobia of dentists for as long as I can remember. Though I myself have never experienced serious pain at their hands, I’ve heard horror stories told by my parents of dental surgery in the Soviet Union, which was performed without any anaesthetic and which you’d regard as a session in a torture chamber. When I was a kid, I thought that by the time I was old (i.e. sixteen), I’d be over it. When I was sixteen, I figured that my fear would disappear by the time I hit twenty. I’m almost thirty and I still find myself lying rigid in the chair, mouth wide open, eyes bulging with the anticipation of pain that may or may not come. Going to the dentist is so undignified – it’s just like a visit to the gynaecologist. The only difference is the orifice in question; the discomfort and the vulnerability are about the same.
Lucho isn’t using the sucky tube thing, so I find myself spitting blood every minute; I must’ve lost about a gallon. I may have to rename myself ‘Bleeding Gums Kaminski’, like ‘Bleeding Gums Murphy’ in The Simpsons. Lucho thinks it’s hilarious that whenever he stops the procedure, I sit up and ask him: “Is it over?” There’s no pain, though, and after chomping down on a mould filled with yellow putty and fitted with a temporary crown, I’m released until the next visit. Lucho tells me that I may have a sugar-free sweetie for being so brave. I get the impression that he and Mike are making fun of me.
Dental adventures aside, I keep writing. Sometimes the writing is methodical, i.e. I focus on a particular part of the chapter, like Nazca, and try and work through that, but most of the time I find it difficult to focus on anything for too long and resort to flicking through the text, pausing at bits that I feel like updating at the time, and figuring I’ll fill in the gaps later on.
The map work is progressing nicely, though in order to complete the city maps, I first need to make a final decision as to which hostels and eateries to include for each city, and I’ve been known to agonise for hours over the merits of a particularly good dessert spot versus an equally good kebab joint. You can only include so many.
Have just re-read the chapter brief prepared by my editor, with suggestions for where to cut text and where to expand. Feel very protective of my Nazca section when I read that James suggests leaving the Nazca Lines but cutting all the outlying archaeological sites. I will argue against that vehemently; as it is, Nazca is viewed very much as a one-day destination, when it’s got so much more to offer. I wonder if I’d have liked Nazca as much if I hadn’t had an excellent guide and if I didn’t enjoy looking at human remains…
Since it’s the weekend, Mike, Monica and myself go out and explore more of Lima’s culinary delights. We visit Mar Azul, where the signature ceviche comes covered in a rocoto sauce; it’s tasty, but the ceviche purist in me rebels against the sight of bright red ceviche, as opposed to just chunks of white fish in lime juice. We meet up with a Couchsurfer who stayed at Mike and Monica’s before I arrived; she and her new friends meet us at a random little market stall which specialised in all things fishy, so it’s more ceviche for me, as well as seafood-fried rice. I thought I could go on eating the two indefinitely, but I think I may have reached saturation point as far as rice with miscellaneous tentacled things is concerned; I don’t understand why an average portion of rice should contain about seven pounds of boiled octopus. Yum rubbery yum.
What I haven’t lost the taste for is chicharrón, so will make sure to fit it more deep fried pork belly sandwiches before I leave. So much to eat and so little time.
I’ve begun to put down roots in Lima, so am not looking forward to having to uproot myself and fly home in two days. Still, I’ve got my hot date with Leo tomorrow (or mildly hot, since Mike’s coming along too)…
Saturday 26 June 2010
Days 77-79 - sweet home Lima.
The travels may be over, but the work continues.
I immediately fall into my old Lima routine: when I’m not enthroned on my bean bag, surrounded by a mess of maps, notebooks, guidebooks and other assorted paperwork, typing while looking over Miraflores far below, Mike and I go foraging for food.
When I was here two years ago, we frequented the same jugería every morning for a pint of fresh juice and a butifarra sandwich, before he’d resume his work as a freelance translator and I got back to my typing. He tells me that that jugería had gone downhill since, so instead we visit La Lucha, just around the corner, and though I never eat breakfast at home, my day here seems incomplete without a spicy chicharrón (deep fried pork belly) sandwich.
Leo had told me that Gastón Acurio, the superstar chef, has released a book detailing all the best neighbourhood eateries in Lima, the holes-in-the-wall that only locals know about – the best place in town to eat a speciality, like ceviche de conchas negras, for example – and that this book is technically only available to people who open accounts with Banco Continental. Mike informs me that you can also get it on the black market, and since it would be an invaluable research tool if I were to come back to Lima, I drag him to the centre of Lima to help me search for it.
We check out the Metropolitano – the brand new swipe card-operated bus system with its own lanes which stretches north-south along Lima; for the next couple of weeks, it’s free, while they’re trying it out, and they have wardens in yellow vests, telling people where to stand and how to use the system. The queuing is orderly, we completely bypass all the traffic, and it makes going into the centre of Lima a pleasure rather than a chore.
There’s an enormous TV screen set up in the main plaza, flanked by giant inflatable Coca-Cola bottles – ‘blatant self-promotion on the mayor’s part’, according to Mike. A massive crowd is watching the World Cup game, while another, smaller crowd, is watching the changing of the guard. The goose-stepping is out of synch, just like last time.
Mike takes me to some discount book shops, where they sell a mix of illegal photocopies (including the book I seek) and proper versions. The search takes two minutes. I should’ve set him a more difficult task.
Foraging for food often seems to take up the entire day, since Lima is so huge, and Mike’s favourite places are so far apart. On the first day, we then catch a bus to the Jesús María area, where no tourists venture, just to find Cevichería Mary, a local institution famous for its leche de tigre – fish juices mixed with onion, lime juice and spicy rocoto pepper that in other places you’d knock straight back, but here it’s like a mini ceviche in a cup – it comes with battered, fried calamari. I try the leche de pantera – the same thing, but made with little black molluscs (conchas negras) only found along the north coast of Peru. My drink is the colour of muddy water, but it tastes amazing, and leaves you feeling energised.
In the evening, we go to another local institution – an anticucho stall on a street corner that’s been given the seal of approval by Gastón, so we get there early, when they’re just rolling the grill out; a few minutes later, the queue stretches around the block. There seems to be a street food revival, because beef heart kebabs are as ‘street’ as you can get, but the queue here consists of well-to-do yuppies. And oh my gaaaaad, are the kebabs good! We stick around to watch the mesmerising spectacle of the two chefs who systematically oil the grill, making huge flames shoot out, chop the kebabs, and deftly flip them so that they don’t burn, all in a shower of sparks.
Mike has less work this week than normal, so we’re free to wander the city at our leisure, going straight from breakfast to a juice stall at the local market, then walking off the food on the way to lunch at Pescados Capitales, for example – an excellent upscale fish restaurant where we lament the lack of good fish and seafood in the UK over exotic ceviche with peach and mandarin and seared tuna steak, or going to Lima’s Chinatown for a superb all-you-can-eat buffet. Then it’s another long ride or walk in search of dessert – the best ice cream in Miraflores at an Italian place frequented by the Mafia, or La Maga, the hole-in-the-wall offering the best tres leches pudding (also approved by Gastón). Then we typically have a siesta before settling down for several hours of work in the afternoon and evening.
I visit the local South American Explorers’ Club clubhouse to see what kind of facilities/information they have to offer and come away satisfied; they give me ample information for the Basics section of the Peru chapter – the part dealing with all the practicalities. I'll definitely send young Georgia their way (the new writer covering Lima and the north half of Peru).
I give Mike and Monica some time to themselves by going to see Sex and the City II at the nearby cinema. Those are two and a half of my life that I’ll never get back. I was a big fan of the series, but they were really pushing it with a second film; the plot is cringeworthy, and the women are really beginning to show their age – ‘Carrie Bradshaw’ in particular has a chicken neck.
Am beginning to fret a little about the amount of work I have to do over the coming month; progress seems slow, and I’m hacked off with my predecessor for clearly not putting enough effort into the updating work two years ago. To me, it's important not just to fulfil the norm, but to actively improve the existing guidebook, and I wonder why not everyone seems to share my view. The maps in particular take a very long time, because I’m particularly finicky when it comes to maps and wish to get every single detail right. I spend at least an hour poring over the road map of Peru in order to make sure that all the now-paved main roads are marked on correctly on the Rough Guide Peru map. I really need to get a move on, because not only do I have to finish the two chapters by the end of July, I also need to plan my next major venture – the trans-Siberian journey, due to commence at the beginning of August. Aaargh!
I immediately fall into my old Lima routine: when I’m not enthroned on my bean bag, surrounded by a mess of maps, notebooks, guidebooks and other assorted paperwork, typing while looking over Miraflores far below, Mike and I go foraging for food.
When I was here two years ago, we frequented the same jugería every morning for a pint of fresh juice and a butifarra sandwich, before he’d resume his work as a freelance translator and I got back to my typing. He tells me that that jugería had gone downhill since, so instead we visit La Lucha, just around the corner, and though I never eat breakfast at home, my day here seems incomplete without a spicy chicharrón (deep fried pork belly) sandwich.
Leo had told me that Gastón Acurio, the superstar chef, has released a book detailing all the best neighbourhood eateries in Lima, the holes-in-the-wall that only locals know about – the best place in town to eat a speciality, like ceviche de conchas negras, for example – and that this book is technically only available to people who open accounts with Banco Continental. Mike informs me that you can also get it on the black market, and since it would be an invaluable research tool if I were to come back to Lima, I drag him to the centre of Lima to help me search for it.
We check out the Metropolitano – the brand new swipe card-operated bus system with its own lanes which stretches north-south along Lima; for the next couple of weeks, it’s free, while they’re trying it out, and they have wardens in yellow vests, telling people where to stand and how to use the system. The queuing is orderly, we completely bypass all the traffic, and it makes going into the centre of Lima a pleasure rather than a chore.
There’s an enormous TV screen set up in the main plaza, flanked by giant inflatable Coca-Cola bottles – ‘blatant self-promotion on the mayor’s part’, according to Mike. A massive crowd is watching the World Cup game, while another, smaller crowd, is watching the changing of the guard. The goose-stepping is out of synch, just like last time.
Mike takes me to some discount book shops, where they sell a mix of illegal photocopies (including the book I seek) and proper versions. The search takes two minutes. I should’ve set him a more difficult task.
Foraging for food often seems to take up the entire day, since Lima is so huge, and Mike’s favourite places are so far apart. On the first day, we then catch a bus to the Jesús María area, where no tourists venture, just to find Cevichería Mary, a local institution famous for its leche de tigre – fish juices mixed with onion, lime juice and spicy rocoto pepper that in other places you’d knock straight back, but here it’s like a mini ceviche in a cup – it comes with battered, fried calamari. I try the leche de pantera – the same thing, but made with little black molluscs (conchas negras) only found along the north coast of Peru. My drink is the colour of muddy water, but it tastes amazing, and leaves you feeling energised.
In the evening, we go to another local institution – an anticucho stall on a street corner that’s been given the seal of approval by Gastón, so we get there early, when they’re just rolling the grill out; a few minutes later, the queue stretches around the block. There seems to be a street food revival, because beef heart kebabs are as ‘street’ as you can get, but the queue here consists of well-to-do yuppies. And oh my gaaaaad, are the kebabs good! We stick around to watch the mesmerising spectacle of the two chefs who systematically oil the grill, making huge flames shoot out, chop the kebabs, and deftly flip them so that they don’t burn, all in a shower of sparks.
Mike has less work this week than normal, so we’re free to wander the city at our leisure, going straight from breakfast to a juice stall at the local market, then walking off the food on the way to lunch at Pescados Capitales, for example – an excellent upscale fish restaurant where we lament the lack of good fish and seafood in the UK over exotic ceviche with peach and mandarin and seared tuna steak, or going to Lima’s Chinatown for a superb all-you-can-eat buffet. Then it’s another long ride or walk in search of dessert – the best ice cream in Miraflores at an Italian place frequented by the Mafia, or La Maga, the hole-in-the-wall offering the best tres leches pudding (also approved by Gastón). Then we typically have a siesta before settling down for several hours of work in the afternoon and evening.
I visit the local South American Explorers’ Club clubhouse to see what kind of facilities/information they have to offer and come away satisfied; they give me ample information for the Basics section of the Peru chapter – the part dealing with all the practicalities. I'll definitely send young Georgia their way (the new writer covering Lima and the north half of Peru).
I give Mike and Monica some time to themselves by going to see Sex and the City II at the nearby cinema. Those are two and a half of my life that I’ll never get back. I was a big fan of the series, but they were really pushing it with a second film; the plot is cringeworthy, and the women are really beginning to show their age – ‘Carrie Bradshaw’ in particular has a chicken neck.
Am beginning to fret a little about the amount of work I have to do over the coming month; progress seems slow, and I’m hacked off with my predecessor for clearly not putting enough effort into the updating work two years ago. To me, it's important not just to fulfil the norm, but to actively improve the existing guidebook, and I wonder why not everyone seems to share my view. The maps in particular take a very long time, because I’m particularly finicky when it comes to maps and wish to get every single detail right. I spend at least an hour poring over the road map of Peru in order to make sure that all the now-paved main roads are marked on correctly on the Rough Guide Peru map. I really need to get a move on, because not only do I have to finish the two chapters by the end of July, I also need to plan my next major venture – the trans-Siberian journey, due to commence at the beginning of August. Aaargh!
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Day 76 - Ballestas Islands and the Paracas Reserve.
By 8am, we’re lined up by the pier, next to several other groups all set to visit one of the two main attractions – the Ballestas Islands, home to numerous species of sea birds and animals, sometimes described as a ‘poor man’s Galapagos’. An enterprising fisherman is feeding a bunch of pelicans, who follow him around like a pack of dogs; he brings them close so that tourists can take photos and hands out his cap for a tip.
Since I’ve been to a similar marine nature reserve in Chile, I’m not quite as excited as the gaggle of tourists next to me, but feel that it’s my duty to check it out, in spite of the warning that the nautical conditions may fluctuate between mirror-still sea and nausea-inducing ten-metre waves.
When we actually do set off, after an hour’s delay due to fog, it’s somewhere in between: we bounce along small waves until a flash of fins to our left alerts us to the presence of a school of bottle-nosed dolphins. “We are lucky,” our guide tells us. “They were away for three weeks, but now they have come back.”
We sail past a giant cactus petroglyph on the sandy hillside; some say that it’s been put there by 16th century pirates as some kind of navigational tool. The islands themselves are twenty minutes away and I smell them long before we get there. The stench of guano is impressive, as is the sight of thousands of nesting Peruvian boobies, cormorants, seagulls and terns – grooming, fishing, squabbling, of Humboldt penguins waddling around the low cliffs, the giant stone archways, and the packs of sea lions asleep on smaller islets. The sky is dark with birds above a further island; we don’t get too close, as it’s an important nesting ground. The nearer island has a couple of decrepit-looking wooden huts, where a couple of people live permanently, making sure that no one lands on the islands, and a low stone wall runs along the border of the first island, making me wonder who put it there, and whether people used to live here, centuries ago.
Back on the mainland, it’s immediately time for a tour of the Paracas Reserve – the vast stretch of desert immediately beyond the village. I love the desert and particularly enjoy being let loose in a section where we go looking for 40 million-year old fossils, as this all used to be underwater. I find a few petrified spiral shells; they crumble into bright white crystals in my hand.
There’s a viewpoint overlooking what used to be a natural monument – a giant stone archway eroded by the sea, known as the Cathedral. It collapsed after the immense 2007 earthquake, but the remaining stone island is still home to clamouring Peruvian boobies. Far below, I can see sandpipers running away from encroaching waves, then turning around and pecking at the sand as the sea retreats.
The tour is pretty controlled, but we do get some free time, which I use to sit and stare at the sea, enjoying the smooth texture of shells and pebbles in my hand. I feel oddly comforted by the steady roar of the large Pacific waves.
At lunch at El Che in the village of Lagunillas, I get talking to Ann, a thirty eight-year old Italian-American photography professor. She’d taught English in Vladimir, in Russia, but was forced to leave before completing the year because she was denounced by some market traders as a Chechen rebel because of her dark hair and olive skin; it was 2004, just after the Beslan atrocities. She knew enough Russian to argue with the special forces, but they wouldn’t believe that she was American, even after she’d shown them her passport, and wouldn’t let her call the US embassy. Only when they took her to the school where she taught was the matter cleared up, but the US embassy then advised her to get the hell out of Russia. Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about going to Russia as a Russian and not as Her Majesty’s subject; even if you have a foreign passport, if they want to disregard your basic rights, they will do so, it seems, so it makes no difference.
Lunch goes on far too long, and Ann is cross about missing the opportunity to shoot the boats in the desert – that’s the kind of conceptual photography she’s into, she explains. In the morning, she didn't go to the islands, choosing to stay in the village and photograph the fishermen bringing in the day's catch. Her presence caused immense confusion, since tourists normally only come here for two things. "But why aren't you at the islands?" she was repeatedly asked.
I finish my rounds of Paracas and am glad to have found a couple of decent places not mentioned in any of the guidebooks.
That’s it. Research over. For the three-and-a-half hour journey to Lima, I’m engrossed in my book and trying to ignore “Hannah Montana - the Movie”. Met by Mike (wearing a dashing cap) at the Oltursa bus terminal and taken to my home away from home – his and Monica’s apartment in Miraflores. Even though it’s been two years since I’ve been here, when I sink onto my beanbag in front of the TV, it feels like I’ve never been away.
Looking forward to a week of rest, writing, and numerous culinary adventures.
Since I’ve been to a similar marine nature reserve in Chile, I’m not quite as excited as the gaggle of tourists next to me, but feel that it’s my duty to check it out, in spite of the warning that the nautical conditions may fluctuate between mirror-still sea and nausea-inducing ten-metre waves.
When we actually do set off, after an hour’s delay due to fog, it’s somewhere in between: we bounce along small waves until a flash of fins to our left alerts us to the presence of a school of bottle-nosed dolphins. “We are lucky,” our guide tells us. “They were away for three weeks, but now they have come back.”
We sail past a giant cactus petroglyph on the sandy hillside; some say that it’s been put there by 16th century pirates as some kind of navigational tool. The islands themselves are twenty minutes away and I smell them long before we get there. The stench of guano is impressive, as is the sight of thousands of nesting Peruvian boobies, cormorants, seagulls and terns – grooming, fishing, squabbling, of Humboldt penguins waddling around the low cliffs, the giant stone archways, and the packs of sea lions asleep on smaller islets. The sky is dark with birds above a further island; we don’t get too close, as it’s an important nesting ground. The nearer island has a couple of decrepit-looking wooden huts, where a couple of people live permanently, making sure that no one lands on the islands, and a low stone wall runs along the border of the first island, making me wonder who put it there, and whether people used to live here, centuries ago.
Back on the mainland, it’s immediately time for a tour of the Paracas Reserve – the vast stretch of desert immediately beyond the village. I love the desert and particularly enjoy being let loose in a section where we go looking for 40 million-year old fossils, as this all used to be underwater. I find a few petrified spiral shells; they crumble into bright white crystals in my hand.
There’s a viewpoint overlooking what used to be a natural monument – a giant stone archway eroded by the sea, known as the Cathedral. It collapsed after the immense 2007 earthquake, but the remaining stone island is still home to clamouring Peruvian boobies. Far below, I can see sandpipers running away from encroaching waves, then turning around and pecking at the sand as the sea retreats.
The tour is pretty controlled, but we do get some free time, which I use to sit and stare at the sea, enjoying the smooth texture of shells and pebbles in my hand. I feel oddly comforted by the steady roar of the large Pacific waves.
At lunch at El Che in the village of Lagunillas, I get talking to Ann, a thirty eight-year old Italian-American photography professor. She’d taught English in Vladimir, in Russia, but was forced to leave before completing the year because she was denounced by some market traders as a Chechen rebel because of her dark hair and olive skin; it was 2004, just after the Beslan atrocities. She knew enough Russian to argue with the special forces, but they wouldn’t believe that she was American, even after she’d shown them her passport, and wouldn’t let her call the US embassy. Only when they took her to the school where she taught was the matter cleared up, but the US embassy then advised her to get the hell out of Russia. Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about going to Russia as a Russian and not as Her Majesty’s subject; even if you have a foreign passport, if they want to disregard your basic rights, they will do so, it seems, so it makes no difference.
Lunch goes on far too long, and Ann is cross about missing the opportunity to shoot the boats in the desert – that’s the kind of conceptual photography she’s into, she explains. In the morning, she didn't go to the islands, choosing to stay in the village and photograph the fishermen bringing in the day's catch. Her presence caused immense confusion, since tourists normally only come here for two things. "But why aren't you at the islands?" she was repeatedly asked.
I finish my rounds of Paracas and am glad to have found a couple of decent places not mentioned in any of the guidebooks.
That’s it. Research over. For the three-and-a-half hour journey to Lima, I’m engrossed in my book and trying to ignore “Hannah Montana - the Movie”. Met by Mike (wearing a dashing cap) at the Oltursa bus terminal and taken to my home away from home – his and Monica’s apartment in Miraflores. Even though it’s been two years since I’ve been here, when I sink onto my beanbag in front of the TV, it feels like I’ve never been away.
Looking forward to a week of rest, writing, and numerous culinary adventures.
Day 75 - onwards to Paracas.
Tranquil morning by the lagoon. I check out several hostels and decide that I’m done with Huacachina. I debate taking a bodega tour to see how local wines and piscos are made, but decide that being drunk before lunch is not the best idea.
Since I’ve been told that all major bus companies stop in Paracas (an area which comprises the Paracas nature reserve and El Chaco the village that acts as a springboard for trips to the Ballestas Islands marine reserve), I decide to save some money by taking a Soyuz bus (4 soles) v. Cruz del Sur (20 soles).
Surprise! Soyuz doesn’t stop in Paracas; it stops at some godforsaken fork in the road known as Cruce Pisco, from where you have to catch a combi (shared taxi) to Pisco proper before you can catch another combi to Paracas itself. Since Pisco was wrecked by the 2007 earthquake and is known for being a bit of a rough place, and since most people who come to Pisco only come there to go to Paracas anyway, I decide to skip Pisco altogether. End up catching a combi to Pisco and then to avoid the hassle of changing transport, I agree to the combi driver’s suggestion that he drives me straight to Paracas for 15 soles. I end up saving 1 sol and give myself a very restrained round of applause.
We pass through an unattractive part of Pisco – adobe houses that have seen better days, trash in the gutters – and then pass through the seaside village of San Andrés – shacks advertising ceviche, little boats bobbing on the tide, pelicans flying. There’s a strong smell of the sea, followed by the stench of rotting garbage as we pull out of the village and ride along the coast amidst piles of rubble.
Paracas is supposed to be quite upscale, and the guesthouses here cost a wee bit more than in places I’ve stayed recently, but it’s not much to look at. After checking into the Refugio El Pirata, I have a quick wander round the waterfront. Some sellers have jewellery stalls set out, pelicans wait patiently for scraps from a fishermen, but there are very few people out and about, it’s overcast, and the whole place has a desolate air about it. The deserted playground at the other end of the waterfront, with its broken, rusty swings only adds to the impression.
After nearly three months of non-stop travel and research, I’m somewhat weary mentally. After a quick lunch at an excellent cevichería behind my guesthouse, where I have the best arroz con mariscos yet – with tiny melt-in-your-mouth scallops – I retreat to my cosy room and stay there until the evening, napping on my comfortable bed (the last few beds have had terrible mattresses and I woke up every morning a broken woman), and reading, totally engrossed in “A Girl With a Dragon Tattoo”.
There’s no nightlife here whatsoever, as I discover, taking an evening stroll. In the words of Leonard Cohen: “The place is dead as heaven on a Saturday night.” More importantly, there seem to be no places to eat on a Sunday night, though after some searching, I discover that one of the cevicherías does chicken. Nothing but roast chicken.
Early night in anticipation of the morning trip to the Ballestas Islands.
Since I’ve been told that all major bus companies stop in Paracas (an area which comprises the Paracas nature reserve and El Chaco the village that acts as a springboard for trips to the Ballestas Islands marine reserve), I decide to save some money by taking a Soyuz bus (4 soles) v. Cruz del Sur (20 soles).
Surprise! Soyuz doesn’t stop in Paracas; it stops at some godforsaken fork in the road known as Cruce Pisco, from where you have to catch a combi (shared taxi) to Pisco proper before you can catch another combi to Paracas itself. Since Pisco was wrecked by the 2007 earthquake and is known for being a bit of a rough place, and since most people who come to Pisco only come there to go to Paracas anyway, I decide to skip Pisco altogether. End up catching a combi to Pisco and then to avoid the hassle of changing transport, I agree to the combi driver’s suggestion that he drives me straight to Paracas for 15 soles. I end up saving 1 sol and give myself a very restrained round of applause.
We pass through an unattractive part of Pisco – adobe houses that have seen better days, trash in the gutters – and then pass through the seaside village of San Andrés – shacks advertising ceviche, little boats bobbing on the tide, pelicans flying. There’s a strong smell of the sea, followed by the stench of rotting garbage as we pull out of the village and ride along the coast amidst piles of rubble.
Paracas is supposed to be quite upscale, and the guesthouses here cost a wee bit more than in places I’ve stayed recently, but it’s not much to look at. After checking into the Refugio El Pirata, I have a quick wander round the waterfront. Some sellers have jewellery stalls set out, pelicans wait patiently for scraps from a fishermen, but there are very few people out and about, it’s overcast, and the whole place has a desolate air about it. The deserted playground at the other end of the waterfront, with its broken, rusty swings only adds to the impression.
After nearly three months of non-stop travel and research, I’m somewhat weary mentally. After a quick lunch at an excellent cevichería behind my guesthouse, where I have the best arroz con mariscos yet – with tiny melt-in-your-mouth scallops – I retreat to my cosy room and stay there until the evening, napping on my comfortable bed (the last few beds have had terrible mattresses and I woke up every morning a broken woman), and reading, totally engrossed in “A Girl With a Dragon Tattoo”.
There’s no nightlife here whatsoever, as I discover, taking an evening stroll. In the words of Leonard Cohen: “The place is dead as heaven on a Saturday night.” More importantly, there seem to be no places to eat on a Sunday night, though after some searching, I discover that one of the cevicherías does chicken. Nothing but roast chicken.
Early night in anticipation of the morning trip to the Ballestas Islands.
Sunday 20 June 2010
Day 74 - Huacachina and the perils of dune buggying.
Depart Nazca in the morning, though not before calling Leo and inviting him to lunch in Lima, since he’s going to go there in week or so to pick up a group of New Zealand students. Oh dear, this has all the markings of a bona fide crush: I can't stop thinking about him.
Take a wretched, ancient Soyuz bus to Ica. For the duration the two-hour journey I am subjected to a loud Nicolas Cage movie where he turns into something undead with a flaming skull. Smooth transition from bus terminal to the village of Huacachina; I catch a taxi straight from the bus terminal and Lucho the taxi driver feeds me biscuits.
Huacachina used to be a posh resort area based around a picturesque lagoon amidst giant sand dunes; in fact, you can still see it on the 50 sol notes. Now there’s nothing posh about it - it’s a magnet for adrenalin-mad backpackers who flock here in droves to go sandboarding and to ride the dune buggies. In fact, every second vehicle in the village is a dune buggy. When I first heard ‘dune buggy’, I imagined something like a golf course buggy, chugging sedately up and down the dunes, but it turned out to be something quite different.
A metal contraption with large wheels roars around the corner and skids to a stop by the tour agency. Think large open-plan car with a reinforced steel frame and heavily padded seats with harnesses, like the kind you’re strapped into on a roller coaster. There are eight of us; I’m in the second row and the thing takes off at great speed and roars up the nearest dune. We’re bouncing all over the place, especially the British girls in the back who keep swearing; didn’t realise what exactly they were signing up for. It really is like a roller coaster ride; the buggy rushes up to the dune’s crest, only to drop straight over the edge, taking our stomachs with it. Cue lots of screaming and hysterical laughter. The sand’s in our hair and in our eyes as the buggy rushes along at great speed, up and down the dunes, screeching around corners, sometimes barely balancing at a forty-five degree angle, plunging down near-vertical slopes again, setting off another chorus of screams. I love it, and cackle gleefully to myself, imagining my friends back home stuck in their office jobs. This is my office.
At the top of a particularly large sand dune, the sand boards come out. Our belligerent, unsmiling driver waxes them and shows us that we can go down on our stomachs if we’re not great on our feet. I’ve done sandboarding before in San Pedro, in the Atacama Desert, and recall falling over a lot, so I try the other way. Hurtling down a steep sand dune, head first, doesn’t seem terribly sensible, but then again, neither am I. An exhilarating alternative. I try standing on my feet when coming down the second dune, fall over, spit the sand out of my mouth and screech: “Puta madre, me caí!”, just like I’ve been taught by my San Pedro instructor. It means: “Bugger, I’ve fallen down!”
One of the British girls is particularly fearless and she’s the first one down every dune, even though she’s never done it before. Other groups join us and soon the dune side is crowded with skidding, rolling, sliding bodies. Sand clouds are everywhere.
We roar off to another dune, and another, even steeper and bigger one. Afterwards, a bunch of sand-covered creatures piles back into the buggy, the sand stuck to our sun cream, inside our clothes, in places where you wouldn’t imagine sand could get into. The sun sinks behind the dunes as our driver runs us up and down some more dunes at a reckless speed, rattling our bones and scaring the heck out of us. Dune buggy rides are not for the faint-hearted.
Hostal Salvatierra, where I’m staying, is a basic place with a warren of huge, basic rooms, a swimming pool and a patio dotted with listless dogs. Huacachina has a great many hostels for a tiny place and seems to exist solely for tourism.
Over a hamburger dinner at Desert Nights, I am hailed by a vaguely familiar-looking guy with a beard. Then I remember: he’s the British guy who climbed Huayna Picchu ahead of me, draped in the England flag on the day of the first World Cup match. Geoff invites me to join him and a motley crew of backpackers, and I end up having a lively dinner with Ruud the Israeli guy, Ed from Cambridge and a girl who thinks that my being a travel writer is the coolest thing ever. We swap travel tips and I ask Ruud why Israelis seem to always travel in groups. He says it’s because they tend to travel with a friend or two and then meet up and join up with other Israelis. He doesn’t like travelling in groups, and feels that many Israelis miss out on things they want to do, because they won’t do them alone, and if the group doesn’t do it, no one does. I agree that group travel can be a challenge; I also prefer to travel either alone or with just a single friend; there are fewer decisions to be made that way.
Geoff and Ed do card tricks. I go off to do my writing. Itchy feet. Moving on again in the morning.
Take a wretched, ancient Soyuz bus to Ica. For the duration the two-hour journey I am subjected to a loud Nicolas Cage movie where he turns into something undead with a flaming skull. Smooth transition from bus terminal to the village of Huacachina; I catch a taxi straight from the bus terminal and Lucho the taxi driver feeds me biscuits.
Huacachina used to be a posh resort area based around a picturesque lagoon amidst giant sand dunes; in fact, you can still see it on the 50 sol notes. Now there’s nothing posh about it - it’s a magnet for adrenalin-mad backpackers who flock here in droves to go sandboarding and to ride the dune buggies. In fact, every second vehicle in the village is a dune buggy. When I first heard ‘dune buggy’, I imagined something like a golf course buggy, chugging sedately up and down the dunes, but it turned out to be something quite different.
A metal contraption with large wheels roars around the corner and skids to a stop by the tour agency. Think large open-plan car with a reinforced steel frame and heavily padded seats with harnesses, like the kind you’re strapped into on a roller coaster. There are eight of us; I’m in the second row and the thing takes off at great speed and roars up the nearest dune. We’re bouncing all over the place, especially the British girls in the back who keep swearing; didn’t realise what exactly they were signing up for. It really is like a roller coaster ride; the buggy rushes up to the dune’s crest, only to drop straight over the edge, taking our stomachs with it. Cue lots of screaming and hysterical laughter. The sand’s in our hair and in our eyes as the buggy rushes along at great speed, up and down the dunes, screeching around corners, sometimes barely balancing at a forty-five degree angle, plunging down near-vertical slopes again, setting off another chorus of screams. I love it, and cackle gleefully to myself, imagining my friends back home stuck in their office jobs. This is my office.
At the top of a particularly large sand dune, the sand boards come out. Our belligerent, unsmiling driver waxes them and shows us that we can go down on our stomachs if we’re not great on our feet. I’ve done sandboarding before in San Pedro, in the Atacama Desert, and recall falling over a lot, so I try the other way. Hurtling down a steep sand dune, head first, doesn’t seem terribly sensible, but then again, neither am I. An exhilarating alternative. I try standing on my feet when coming down the second dune, fall over, spit the sand out of my mouth and screech: “Puta madre, me caí!”, just like I’ve been taught by my San Pedro instructor. It means: “Bugger, I’ve fallen down!”
One of the British girls is particularly fearless and she’s the first one down every dune, even though she’s never done it before. Other groups join us and soon the dune side is crowded with skidding, rolling, sliding bodies. Sand clouds are everywhere.
We roar off to another dune, and another, even steeper and bigger one. Afterwards, a bunch of sand-covered creatures piles back into the buggy, the sand stuck to our sun cream, inside our clothes, in places where you wouldn’t imagine sand could get into. The sun sinks behind the dunes as our driver runs us up and down some more dunes at a reckless speed, rattling our bones and scaring the heck out of us. Dune buggy rides are not for the faint-hearted.
Hostal Salvatierra, where I’m staying, is a basic place with a warren of huge, basic rooms, a swimming pool and a patio dotted with listless dogs. Huacachina has a great many hostels for a tiny place and seems to exist solely for tourism.
Over a hamburger dinner at Desert Nights, I am hailed by a vaguely familiar-looking guy with a beard. Then I remember: he’s the British guy who climbed Huayna Picchu ahead of me, draped in the England flag on the day of the first World Cup match. Geoff invites me to join him and a motley crew of backpackers, and I end up having a lively dinner with Ruud the Israeli guy, Ed from Cambridge and a girl who thinks that my being a travel writer is the coolest thing ever. We swap travel tips and I ask Ruud why Israelis seem to always travel in groups. He says it’s because they tend to travel with a friend or two and then meet up and join up with other Israelis. He doesn’t like travelling in groups, and feels that many Israelis miss out on things they want to do, because they won’t do them alone, and if the group doesn’t do it, no one does. I agree that group travel can be a challenge; I also prefer to travel either alone or with just a single friend; there are fewer decisions to be made that way.
Geoff and Ed do card tricks. I go off to do my writing. Itchy feet. Moving on again in the morning.
Saturday 19 June 2010
Day 73 - flight over the Nazca lines.
By 9am we’re at Nazca airport. I’ve been told to fly in the morning because in the afternoon the wind picks up and sometimes the airport shuts down because the small places can’t cope with it. Also, the lines are at their most visible either early in the morning or at around 3pm, when the angle of the sun accentuates their outlines. Flying at midday is bloody useless because the sun is directly above them and you can barely see them at all.
The ‘airport’ is a large waiting room where about ten different flight companies are represented. The Nazca Travel desk is conspicuously empty; two years ago, they had a fatal crash, after which the company changed its name until this year’s fatal crash. The other companies have no fatalities to their names.
Though we’re pretty much the first ones there, several groups go before us, because they’ve either paid through the nose or booked the flight weeks in advance. Since there’s no public phone, I sweettalk the lady at the check-in desk into letting me use her phone to call Leo and arrange for him to meet me at the airport after the flight so that we can go straight to the Cahuachi ruins.
The four or us pile into the tiny six-seater and then we’re off, rising rapidly above the parched ground. I almost chickened out of flying, since it doesn’t have the same attraction for me that it once did, but I am so glad I did this! The pussy way out is to go up the observation tower instead, from where you can see the outline of a giant tree and part of a lizard, but it can’t compare to flying over the lines. The flight last half an hour and we follow the pattern on our boarding cards – first the giant whale, then some giant triangles, then the monkey, and so on. The ride isn’t particularly bumpy, though when we hit the air pockets, our stomachs drop our from underneath us; it’s like a long and picturesque roller coaster ride, with sick bags thoughtfully provided.
The tiny plane circles around each giant figure on the ground, so that we get a look from both sides of the plane, and when it does, that’s when the pressure in your head builds and you feel a little dizzy. We fly over green fields, the bare rock of mountains, the dry paths of the summer rivers frozen on the desert plain.
The lines are certainly impressive. I marvel at the perfect symmetry of the giant spider, of the hummingbird’s tail, the spiral of the giant monkey’s tail, the long, snake-like neck of the flamingo. I wonder about thee ancient culture that put so much effort into these giant figures that they certainly couldn’t appreciate the way we can, from the air. Why are they here?
When we land, Leo pulls up and we’re off further into the desert along a bumpy dirt road towards the Cahuachi pyramids – a giant Nazca ceremonial complex where they used to go solely for religious purposes. Along the way we stop at another burial ground, where the ground is covered with bits of ancient cloth, hanks of human hair, fragments of pelvises, shattered skulls, human tibias. Some of the bones are laid out is strange patterns, and when I ask Leo for an explanation, he tells me that the grave robbers are local farmers who also come here and mess around with the bones. I’m amazed that they’re not superstitious, that they’re not concerned that the aggravated spirits of the dead might come after them. “In the mountains – yes. But here in the coast, we don’t care.” He does mention the story of a tourist who sent back a human hand because he kept having nightmares, but even some of his friends have human skulls at home because they believe that they guard the house against evil spirits. When they try to persuade Leo to pick up a human skull, he tells them: “I don’t need a skull guardian. I have a dog.” Even I would think twice about pocketing a skull from a foreign land; as much as I’d like to own one, I’d rather not disrespect the local dead.
Out of the forty-four pyramids at the Cahuachi site, only one is uncovered; the rest remain hillocks in the desert. The uncovered ceremonial pyramid is being renovated and restored, adobe bricks being added to crumbling, wrecked walls to make up for the damage done by El Niño a few years back. While it’s under renovation until next year, we can’t get too close, though when Leo speaks the guy guarding it and tells him that I’m a journalist, he lets us walk right up to the site. Nearby, there are some holes in the ground. “The Nazca used to use them as coolers, to store food.” Only small and skinny people could be lowered into the holes; yours truly would get lodged in the middle, courtesy of the spare tyre.
These pyramids get us onto the subject of the Egyptian ones, which prompts me to say that the latter was built using the slave labour of my ancestors and I end up giving Leo an abridged version of the history of the Jews. We discuss discrimination in Peru; as an indigenous person, he himself would be subject to discrimination if he weren’t a self-taught linguist and guide. He tells me of two journalists in Lima – one European-looking, one indigenous, who went to a nightclub; the indigenous one was turned away and since the whole thing was secretly filmed, the club had to pay a hefty fine.
I tell Leo more about my work and he eagerly offers to assist me with my research. He’s got no work all day, his wife’s been in Lima for the past six months, and he’s alone. He knows good places to eat, so I offer to buy him lunch, and we stop by “Los Amigos de Miguel”, a cevichería south of the centre. Leo’s great: he introduces me to the chef/owner, who gives us ceviche on the house, topped with tasty sea urchins, we plough through seafood-fried rice and Leo tells me that the place (which is pretty full) gets absolutely packed on Sundays because Miguel’s had a loyal following for a decade and because ceviche is thought to be a hangover cure. Best of all, this awesome place is in none of the guidebooks because the other writers clearly didn’t have the benefit of a true insider’s wisdom. Ha!
I learn new food terminology. I already know of ‘leche de tigre’ – the fish juices with chilli and lime juice. ‘Leche de pantera’ is similar, but with scallop juice from black scallops. Leo tells me that both are supposed to improve one’s performance in bed. There’s salsa on the radio; Marc Anthony is singing, and Leo tells me that he’s a great dancer, and that he recently embarrassed his son at a disco. His son told him that ‘old people were not supposed to dance like that’. “He’s jealous,” Leo grins.
I do believe I’m getting a crush on my guide. Though I'm stereotypically attracted to tall, dark and handsome, Leo’s adorable – only two or three inches taller than me, and physically a cross between Gandhi and a diminutive Leonard Cohen. I’ve been listening to Cohen too much lately. He’s also sixty-five, which is a new record for me, unless you count Mr Cohen himself, who’s seventy-five and counting. Just goes to show that there’s no such thing as ‘too old to be attractive’.
When we go over to Leo’s house after lunch to feed the remnants of our lunch to his beautiful Samoyed, Princessa, wonder if there’s scope for anything to happen. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it. It’s not really a house - it’s a collection of rooms scattered inside a gated property amidst bright pink bougainvillea and cacti. One of the rooms is his study, where he demonstrates a tape player that predated cassette tapes; he learned to use it when he worked in a language school in Lima, and he taught himself English and Italian because he couldn’t afford to go to university. His English is certainly very good and he does language practise at home every day. We go into his bedroom and end up watching “Charmed” on cable. It’s actually pretty funny.
I keep shuffling towards Leo along the bed, but know full well that I’d never try anything unless unequivocally given a green light by the other party. I settle for sitting a couple of inches from him and enjoy the sweet melancholy of being hyper-aware of the nearness of someone I cannot have.
The spell is broken by the arrival of one of his wife’s church friends who’d come to wash the off-white Princessa and Leo and I head off to the Museo Antonini, an excellent museum which houses artefacts found at the Cahuachi site, put together thanks to the efforts of the Italian archaeologist. For other visitors, the experience must be a lot duller than mine; I have the benefit of Leo’s knowledge, and he’s really passionate about his work. He talks me through the Nazca pottery, the household tools, including hairbrushes made with cactus needles, the collection of trophy head skulls, the foreheads pierced with small holes, with ropes running through them…
Leo seems happy to hang around, so to finish off, he walks me around the centre, showing me the best places for street food, such as the anticucho lady who’s always in the same spot, always overrun with customers and always gone by eight o’clock, the chicken joint that’s always full of locals, the best Chinese food place in town…We end up in the jugería by the market, and I order a surtido especial for both of us – a potent concoction involving several different fruit, condensed milk, egg, black Cusqueña beer, honey and algarobina. It’s surprisingly good and so filling that I’m gonna skip dinner.
Leo tells me that his wife, a Chilena from Santiago, wants to move back to Chile to be with her family, and that he doesn’t want to because he wouldn’t find work there (there isn’t exactly much in the way of archaeological remains near Santiago and he’s too old to be a trekking guide) and we get onto the subject of Russia and the standards of life there.
I’m very sorry to bid farewell to Leo. He thanks me for the lovely day and I wish I had more time here and more money to spend on his guiding services. I’ve made a good friend here and it sucks to have to move on.
The evening’s a bit anticlimactic: bus timetables, hostels, eateries. My research here is done. I hope to be able to come back here for work – next year, or the year after.
On to Huacachina tomorrow…
The ‘airport’ is a large waiting room where about ten different flight companies are represented. The Nazca Travel desk is conspicuously empty; two years ago, they had a fatal crash, after which the company changed its name until this year’s fatal crash. The other companies have no fatalities to their names.
Though we’re pretty much the first ones there, several groups go before us, because they’ve either paid through the nose or booked the flight weeks in advance. Since there’s no public phone, I sweettalk the lady at the check-in desk into letting me use her phone to call Leo and arrange for him to meet me at the airport after the flight so that we can go straight to the Cahuachi ruins.
The four or us pile into the tiny six-seater and then we’re off, rising rapidly above the parched ground. I almost chickened out of flying, since it doesn’t have the same attraction for me that it once did, but I am so glad I did this! The pussy way out is to go up the observation tower instead, from where you can see the outline of a giant tree and part of a lizard, but it can’t compare to flying over the lines. The flight last half an hour and we follow the pattern on our boarding cards – first the giant whale, then some giant triangles, then the monkey, and so on. The ride isn’t particularly bumpy, though when we hit the air pockets, our stomachs drop our from underneath us; it’s like a long and picturesque roller coaster ride, with sick bags thoughtfully provided.
The tiny plane circles around each giant figure on the ground, so that we get a look from both sides of the plane, and when it does, that’s when the pressure in your head builds and you feel a little dizzy. We fly over green fields, the bare rock of mountains, the dry paths of the summer rivers frozen on the desert plain.
The lines are certainly impressive. I marvel at the perfect symmetry of the giant spider, of the hummingbird’s tail, the spiral of the giant monkey’s tail, the long, snake-like neck of the flamingo. I wonder about thee ancient culture that put so much effort into these giant figures that they certainly couldn’t appreciate the way we can, from the air. Why are they here?
When we land, Leo pulls up and we’re off further into the desert along a bumpy dirt road towards the Cahuachi pyramids – a giant Nazca ceremonial complex where they used to go solely for religious purposes. Along the way we stop at another burial ground, where the ground is covered with bits of ancient cloth, hanks of human hair, fragments of pelvises, shattered skulls, human tibias. Some of the bones are laid out is strange patterns, and when I ask Leo for an explanation, he tells me that the grave robbers are local farmers who also come here and mess around with the bones. I’m amazed that they’re not superstitious, that they’re not concerned that the aggravated spirits of the dead might come after them. “In the mountains – yes. But here in the coast, we don’t care.” He does mention the story of a tourist who sent back a human hand because he kept having nightmares, but even some of his friends have human skulls at home because they believe that they guard the house against evil spirits. When they try to persuade Leo to pick up a human skull, he tells them: “I don’t need a skull guardian. I have a dog.” Even I would think twice about pocketing a skull from a foreign land; as much as I’d like to own one, I’d rather not disrespect the local dead.
Out of the forty-four pyramids at the Cahuachi site, only one is uncovered; the rest remain hillocks in the desert. The uncovered ceremonial pyramid is being renovated and restored, adobe bricks being added to crumbling, wrecked walls to make up for the damage done by El Niño a few years back. While it’s under renovation until next year, we can’t get too close, though when Leo speaks the guy guarding it and tells him that I’m a journalist, he lets us walk right up to the site. Nearby, there are some holes in the ground. “The Nazca used to use them as coolers, to store food.” Only small and skinny people could be lowered into the holes; yours truly would get lodged in the middle, courtesy of the spare tyre.
These pyramids get us onto the subject of the Egyptian ones, which prompts me to say that the latter was built using the slave labour of my ancestors and I end up giving Leo an abridged version of the history of the Jews. We discuss discrimination in Peru; as an indigenous person, he himself would be subject to discrimination if he weren’t a self-taught linguist and guide. He tells me of two journalists in Lima – one European-looking, one indigenous, who went to a nightclub; the indigenous one was turned away and since the whole thing was secretly filmed, the club had to pay a hefty fine.
I tell Leo more about my work and he eagerly offers to assist me with my research. He’s got no work all day, his wife’s been in Lima for the past six months, and he’s alone. He knows good places to eat, so I offer to buy him lunch, and we stop by “Los Amigos de Miguel”, a cevichería south of the centre. Leo’s great: he introduces me to the chef/owner, who gives us ceviche on the house, topped with tasty sea urchins, we plough through seafood-fried rice and Leo tells me that the place (which is pretty full) gets absolutely packed on Sundays because Miguel’s had a loyal following for a decade and because ceviche is thought to be a hangover cure. Best of all, this awesome place is in none of the guidebooks because the other writers clearly didn’t have the benefit of a true insider’s wisdom. Ha!
I learn new food terminology. I already know of ‘leche de tigre’ – the fish juices with chilli and lime juice. ‘Leche de pantera’ is similar, but with scallop juice from black scallops. Leo tells me that both are supposed to improve one’s performance in bed. There’s salsa on the radio; Marc Anthony is singing, and Leo tells me that he’s a great dancer, and that he recently embarrassed his son at a disco. His son told him that ‘old people were not supposed to dance like that’. “He’s jealous,” Leo grins.
I do believe I’m getting a crush on my guide. Though I'm stereotypically attracted to tall, dark and handsome, Leo’s adorable – only two or three inches taller than me, and physically a cross between Gandhi and a diminutive Leonard Cohen. I’ve been listening to Cohen too much lately. He’s also sixty-five, which is a new record for me, unless you count Mr Cohen himself, who’s seventy-five and counting. Just goes to show that there’s no such thing as ‘too old to be attractive’.
When we go over to Leo’s house after lunch to feed the remnants of our lunch to his beautiful Samoyed, Princessa, wonder if there’s scope for anything to happen. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it. It’s not really a house - it’s a collection of rooms scattered inside a gated property amidst bright pink bougainvillea and cacti. One of the rooms is his study, where he demonstrates a tape player that predated cassette tapes; he learned to use it when he worked in a language school in Lima, and he taught himself English and Italian because he couldn’t afford to go to university. His English is certainly very good and he does language practise at home every day. We go into his bedroom and end up watching “Charmed” on cable. It’s actually pretty funny.
I keep shuffling towards Leo along the bed, but know full well that I’d never try anything unless unequivocally given a green light by the other party. I settle for sitting a couple of inches from him and enjoy the sweet melancholy of being hyper-aware of the nearness of someone I cannot have.
The spell is broken by the arrival of one of his wife’s church friends who’d come to wash the off-white Princessa and Leo and I head off to the Museo Antonini, an excellent museum which houses artefacts found at the Cahuachi site, put together thanks to the efforts of the Italian archaeologist. For other visitors, the experience must be a lot duller than mine; I have the benefit of Leo’s knowledge, and he’s really passionate about his work. He talks me through the Nazca pottery, the household tools, including hairbrushes made with cactus needles, the collection of trophy head skulls, the foreheads pierced with small holes, with ropes running through them…
Leo seems happy to hang around, so to finish off, he walks me around the centre, showing me the best places for street food, such as the anticucho lady who’s always in the same spot, always overrun with customers and always gone by eight o’clock, the chicken joint that’s always full of locals, the best Chinese food place in town…We end up in the jugería by the market, and I order a surtido especial for both of us – a potent concoction involving several different fruit, condensed milk, egg, black Cusqueña beer, honey and algarobina. It’s surprisingly good and so filling that I’m gonna skip dinner.
Leo tells me that his wife, a Chilena from Santiago, wants to move back to Chile to be with her family, and that he doesn’t want to because he wouldn’t find work there (there isn’t exactly much in the way of archaeological remains near Santiago and he’s too old to be a trekking guide) and we get onto the subject of Russia and the standards of life there.
I’m very sorry to bid farewell to Leo. He thanks me for the lovely day and I wish I had more time here and more money to spend on his guiding services. I’ve made a good friend here and it sucks to have to move on.
The evening’s a bit anticlimactic: bus timetables, hostels, eateries. My research here is done. I hope to be able to come back here for work – next year, or the year after.
On to Huacachina tomorrow…
Day 72 - Nazca.
Day 72 – Nazca.
Nazca has figured in my imagination for many, many years. As a kid I read not just the Nancy Drew mystery involving the famous Nazca lines, but also a book where some unspeakable evil uses the lines as a portal into our world, and it’s up to an intrepid boy to stop it – for the life of me, I can’t remember what the book was called. And now I have made up my mind to fly over the lines in spite of my reservations about dinky little airplanes.
Am awake at 5am because I’m cold (Cruz del Sur provides crapulous little blankets), and because the air-con’s been switched off. If there’s one thing I enjoy more than stewing in my own bodily gases, it’s stewing in the bodily gases of a dozen strangers.
Watch the sun slowly rise over the bare mountains which look blue at dawn. The bus negotiates hairpin bends as it descends into the valley. The landscape here is parched, dotted with the odd cactus. It reminds me of the land around Arica in Chile.
At the bus terminal, I come across the ‘vultures’, described by fellow travellers: persistent touts who try to persuade passengers to go to their hostel, join their tour. Their tactic is to provide cheap rooms and overcharge like mad for any tours, so for a flight worth $60, you might pay $100. The Walk On Inn where I’m staying sends a car to pick me up when I call them, and I immediately set out to explore the city. My first thought is to try and organise a tour of the nearby archaeological sites today, then the flight’s booked for tomorrow morning, and then I can get out of town in the afternoon.
Nazca is dusty, but sunny and cheerful, the streets of the centre lined with colourful two-storey residential buildings and shops. Pass a bustling fruit market on my way to the main Plaza. Since it’s just past 8am, not many places are open. Make my way along Bolognesi, the main drag, checking the places on my map. Pop into Alegría Tours at the namesake hotel, since it’s been recommended in all the guidebooks.
The guy at the desk points me to a small middle-aged man. I introduce myself, flash the Rough Guide to Peru and Leo the guide immediately talks to the girl taking tour bookings, telling her that since I’m a guidebook writer, I should come along for free. She refuses to book me on the tour at all, saying that it’s a private group, and tells me to come back in the afternoon. Leo furtively takes me aside and tells me to wait at the Ovalo – the roundabout a block away. A minute later, the minibus pulls up and Leo motions for me to hop inside, explaining to the group that I’m an illicit passenger.
We drive out into the sun-bleached desert near Nazca, to the Chauchilla cemetery, one of the town’s biggest attractions after the Nazca lines. Nazca’s a bit of a one-day town; most people come here to fly over the lines, then maybe fit in one of the nearby archaeological sites in the afternoon, and then they get out of town by the evening, flying on to Cusco, catching a bus to Arequipa…
First, there’s a modern cemetery, used by local farmers. The colour of the crosses signifies the age and gender of the dead: white for children, black for married adults, blue-green for teenagers and light blue for single women. There’s an awning made of woven dried cane for buses to park under, and a path marked with white stones leads towards the uncovered tombs. Leo explains that the tombs have been looted at will by numerous grave robbers, who’ve come here to look for pottery and gold to sell to tourists on the black market. The plain is scattered with human bones and shards of pottery.
The uncovered tombs are under similar cane awnings, and Las Trancas, the community now in charge of the cemetery, has carefully arranged the surviving mummies in the pits along with their belongings, and has carefully placed the loose skulls and bones in the pits as well. Leo explains that the men had shoulder-length hair, the women had hair down to their waists, and the chiefs had the longest hair of all, so we all guess the gender of the mummies, sitting in their pits in foetal positions. These are all Nazca mummies, dating back to 400BC – 800AD. They all sit, facing east, because the Nazca used to worship the sun. Leo tells us that he’s surprised, because even yesterday some of the pits didn’t have mummies in them; this means that whoever had them in their back yards is now returning them.
“The Nazca mummified everybody – rich, poor – and everyone was buried in the same cemetery with their belongings, to be used in the next life.” A child mummy sits next to a mummy of a parrot – a beloved pet. Some of the mummies are missing their heads. Some have mortars and pestles next to them, which the women would have used for cooking. One male mummy is so wrapped up in textiles that he looks like he’s wearing a puffa jacket. I’m into mortality and human remains, so am loving the cemetery.
Moving on, we stop at a pottery workshop, where the family uses traditional techniques and museum catalogues to create replica Nazca and Moche pottery, up to and including the use to paintbrushes made of replica baby hair. The whole process is interesting, and I end up getting a Nazca plate for my parents. I don’t think they’d appreciate the explicit Moche pots which feature every type of sex imaginable – from anal to bestiality. The Moche were big on fertility.
Since prospecting for gold in the nearby hills is a good way for Nazca residents to earn money if they haven’t learned any trade and are only capable of unskilled labour, we visit a gold processing workshop also, where the guy in charge demonstrates the scale models of the equipment they use and then we go out back to where salsa is blaring from the radio and several young men are balancing on wooden boards on top of giant metal cylinders, moving from side to side to crush the rock underneath. They keep it up for a few hours, and that, combined with five days a week in the hills, is how they make maybe $200 a month.
After dropping me off at the Ovalo again, Leo makes plans to meet me for a private tour in the afternoon for ‘a reasonable price’.
Stumble upon the Cevichería El Limón, a lime-green place full of locals which does superb ceviche and seafood-fried rice. The World Cup is unavoidable.
“I’m a freelance guide. I work for several different companies, but today I’m free,” Leo tells me. We go off to the Paredones, the area on the outskirts of Nazca where the ancient Cantayoc aqueducts are located. I’m expecting something like the Roman ones in Spain, but they turn out to be stone spirals in the ground, leading down to the water. “It used to be possible to go from one aqueduct to another, but since the last earthquake it’s been forbidden.” They are still being used for the irrigation of the nearby fields.
A guy dressed in a robe with feathered headgear is leading a gringo couple around. They descend along one of the spirals to the water, where the shaman instructs the girl to wave her hands above the outstretched palms of her partner. Leo tells me that some credulous people believe that the aqueducts possess some kind of mysterious energy. As far as he’s concerned, the shaman is a charlatan who’s ripping off the couple.
He points out a desert plant with huge spikes, which local farmers plant around their fields as natural barbed wire, the carob trees which the goats and the pigs love, and whose pods are used to made algarobina – a sweet chocolaty liquid. We then go up a dusty little hillock to look at Las Agujas – The Needles. I’m expecting some tall, thin rock formations, but they are, in fact, long, thin triangles etched perfectly into the desert plain by the Nazca. Why? No one knows, just like no one really knows why they etched the giant figures of animals which can only really be appreciated from the air.
As Leo walks me around the Paredones ruins – where the Inca ruler stayed when visiting the area – he points out the pits dug all over the landscape. “These were also done by grave robbers. Since the rich and the poor were buried in the same place, they keep digging until they find a mummy buried with gold or pottery.” As we look down into the ruins, a small feathered head with round yellow eyes pops up – it’s a desert owl. I’ve never seen owls which are a) out during the day and b) which dig holes in the ground. Nearby is a burrow where it must live.
When Leo drops me off, he offers to take me the Cahuachi ruins the next day after my flight provided he’s free. “It’s best to go in the morning because in the afternoon the wind picks up and there may be a sand storm.” Debate rejecting his offer in favour of Cerro Blanco – the world’s biggest sand dune that looms beyond the town, and a hot destination for sand boarders. Hot literally; the girl at reception informs me that a trip to the dune involved a 5am start and a three-hour uphill slog. Next time, perhaps. Call Leo and confirm tomorrow, making up my mind also to stay another night.
In preparation for tomorrow’s flight, I go to the Maria Reiche Planetarium at the posh Nazca Lines Hotel. Maria Reiche was a German mathematician who devoted her life to studying the Nazca lines, and the show at the small planetarium discusses her theories and proves to be rather interesting. She believed that the lines were a giant astronomical calendar and that several of the animals are aligned with various constellations – the giant monkey with the Big Dipper and the giant spider with Orion. As for the straight lines and triangles which cross the plain, she claimed that they were aligned with the sun’s rays during the solstices. Her explanations are more credible than those of various fruit loops, one of whom suggested that the lines were created by aliens as landing strips for their space craft. The presentation ends with a look through a telescope at the moon and at Saturn and the Sikh family remains behind to take photos, while I go for one of the worst meals of the trip so far – lacklustre pizza at the Los Angeles restaurant.
Nazca has figured in my imagination for many, many years. As a kid I read not just the Nancy Drew mystery involving the famous Nazca lines, but also a book where some unspeakable evil uses the lines as a portal into our world, and it’s up to an intrepid boy to stop it – for the life of me, I can’t remember what the book was called. And now I have made up my mind to fly over the lines in spite of my reservations about dinky little airplanes.
Am awake at 5am because I’m cold (Cruz del Sur provides crapulous little blankets), and because the air-con’s been switched off. If there’s one thing I enjoy more than stewing in my own bodily gases, it’s stewing in the bodily gases of a dozen strangers.
Watch the sun slowly rise over the bare mountains which look blue at dawn. The bus negotiates hairpin bends as it descends into the valley. The landscape here is parched, dotted with the odd cactus. It reminds me of the land around Arica in Chile.
At the bus terminal, I come across the ‘vultures’, described by fellow travellers: persistent touts who try to persuade passengers to go to their hostel, join their tour. Their tactic is to provide cheap rooms and overcharge like mad for any tours, so for a flight worth $60, you might pay $100. The Walk On Inn where I’m staying sends a car to pick me up when I call them, and I immediately set out to explore the city. My first thought is to try and organise a tour of the nearby archaeological sites today, then the flight’s booked for tomorrow morning, and then I can get out of town in the afternoon.
Nazca is dusty, but sunny and cheerful, the streets of the centre lined with colourful two-storey residential buildings and shops. Pass a bustling fruit market on my way to the main Plaza. Since it’s just past 8am, not many places are open. Make my way along Bolognesi, the main drag, checking the places on my map. Pop into Alegría Tours at the namesake hotel, since it’s been recommended in all the guidebooks.
The guy at the desk points me to a small middle-aged man. I introduce myself, flash the Rough Guide to Peru and Leo the guide immediately talks to the girl taking tour bookings, telling her that since I’m a guidebook writer, I should come along for free. She refuses to book me on the tour at all, saying that it’s a private group, and tells me to come back in the afternoon. Leo furtively takes me aside and tells me to wait at the Ovalo – the roundabout a block away. A minute later, the minibus pulls up and Leo motions for me to hop inside, explaining to the group that I’m an illicit passenger.
We drive out into the sun-bleached desert near Nazca, to the Chauchilla cemetery, one of the town’s biggest attractions after the Nazca lines. Nazca’s a bit of a one-day town; most people come here to fly over the lines, then maybe fit in one of the nearby archaeological sites in the afternoon, and then they get out of town by the evening, flying on to Cusco, catching a bus to Arequipa…
First, there’s a modern cemetery, used by local farmers. The colour of the crosses signifies the age and gender of the dead: white for children, black for married adults, blue-green for teenagers and light blue for single women. There’s an awning made of woven dried cane for buses to park under, and a path marked with white stones leads towards the uncovered tombs. Leo explains that the tombs have been looted at will by numerous grave robbers, who’ve come here to look for pottery and gold to sell to tourists on the black market. The plain is scattered with human bones and shards of pottery.
The uncovered tombs are under similar cane awnings, and Las Trancas, the community now in charge of the cemetery, has carefully arranged the surviving mummies in the pits along with their belongings, and has carefully placed the loose skulls and bones in the pits as well. Leo explains that the men had shoulder-length hair, the women had hair down to their waists, and the chiefs had the longest hair of all, so we all guess the gender of the mummies, sitting in their pits in foetal positions. These are all Nazca mummies, dating back to 400BC – 800AD. They all sit, facing east, because the Nazca used to worship the sun. Leo tells us that he’s surprised, because even yesterday some of the pits didn’t have mummies in them; this means that whoever had them in their back yards is now returning them.
“The Nazca mummified everybody – rich, poor – and everyone was buried in the same cemetery with their belongings, to be used in the next life.” A child mummy sits next to a mummy of a parrot – a beloved pet. Some of the mummies are missing their heads. Some have mortars and pestles next to them, which the women would have used for cooking. One male mummy is so wrapped up in textiles that he looks like he’s wearing a puffa jacket. I’m into mortality and human remains, so am loving the cemetery.
Moving on, we stop at a pottery workshop, where the family uses traditional techniques and museum catalogues to create replica Nazca and Moche pottery, up to and including the use to paintbrushes made of replica baby hair. The whole process is interesting, and I end up getting a Nazca plate for my parents. I don’t think they’d appreciate the explicit Moche pots which feature every type of sex imaginable – from anal to bestiality. The Moche were big on fertility.
Since prospecting for gold in the nearby hills is a good way for Nazca residents to earn money if they haven’t learned any trade and are only capable of unskilled labour, we visit a gold processing workshop also, where the guy in charge demonstrates the scale models of the equipment they use and then we go out back to where salsa is blaring from the radio and several young men are balancing on wooden boards on top of giant metal cylinders, moving from side to side to crush the rock underneath. They keep it up for a few hours, and that, combined with five days a week in the hills, is how they make maybe $200 a month.
After dropping me off at the Ovalo again, Leo makes plans to meet me for a private tour in the afternoon for ‘a reasonable price’.
Stumble upon the Cevichería El Limón, a lime-green place full of locals which does superb ceviche and seafood-fried rice. The World Cup is unavoidable.
“I’m a freelance guide. I work for several different companies, but today I’m free,” Leo tells me. We go off to the Paredones, the area on the outskirts of Nazca where the ancient Cantayoc aqueducts are located. I’m expecting something like the Roman ones in Spain, but they turn out to be stone spirals in the ground, leading down to the water. “It used to be possible to go from one aqueduct to another, but since the last earthquake it’s been forbidden.” They are still being used for the irrigation of the nearby fields.
A guy dressed in a robe with feathered headgear is leading a gringo couple around. They descend along one of the spirals to the water, where the shaman instructs the girl to wave her hands above the outstretched palms of her partner. Leo tells me that some credulous people believe that the aqueducts possess some kind of mysterious energy. As far as he’s concerned, the shaman is a charlatan who’s ripping off the couple.
He points out a desert plant with huge spikes, which local farmers plant around their fields as natural barbed wire, the carob trees which the goats and the pigs love, and whose pods are used to made algarobina – a sweet chocolaty liquid. We then go up a dusty little hillock to look at Las Agujas – The Needles. I’m expecting some tall, thin rock formations, but they are, in fact, long, thin triangles etched perfectly into the desert plain by the Nazca. Why? No one knows, just like no one really knows why they etched the giant figures of animals which can only really be appreciated from the air.
As Leo walks me around the Paredones ruins – where the Inca ruler stayed when visiting the area – he points out the pits dug all over the landscape. “These were also done by grave robbers. Since the rich and the poor were buried in the same place, they keep digging until they find a mummy buried with gold or pottery.” As we look down into the ruins, a small feathered head with round yellow eyes pops up – it’s a desert owl. I’ve never seen owls which are a) out during the day and b) which dig holes in the ground. Nearby is a burrow where it must live.
When Leo drops me off, he offers to take me the Cahuachi ruins the next day after my flight provided he’s free. “It’s best to go in the morning because in the afternoon the wind picks up and there may be a sand storm.” Debate rejecting his offer in favour of Cerro Blanco – the world’s biggest sand dune that looms beyond the town, and a hot destination for sand boarders. Hot literally; the girl at reception informs me that a trip to the dune involved a 5am start and a three-hour uphill slog. Next time, perhaps. Call Leo and confirm tomorrow, making up my mind also to stay another night.
In preparation for tomorrow’s flight, I go to the Maria Reiche Planetarium at the posh Nazca Lines Hotel. Maria Reiche was a German mathematician who devoted her life to studying the Nazca lines, and the show at the small planetarium discusses her theories and proves to be rather interesting. She believed that the lines were a giant astronomical calendar and that several of the animals are aligned with various constellations – the giant monkey with the Big Dipper and the giant spider with Orion. As for the straight lines and triangles which cross the plain, she claimed that they were aligned with the sun’s rays during the solstices. Her explanations are more credible than those of various fruit loops, one of whom suggested that the lines were created by aliens as landing strips for their space craft. The presentation ends with a look through a telescope at the moon and at Saturn and the Sikh family remains behind to take photos, while I go for one of the worst meals of the trip so far – lacklustre pizza at the Los Angeles restaurant.
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