Losing it in Latin America

This is my last day in Rio, and while I don´t feel that I´m finished here yet, it is time to move on before carnival. This city is quite unique and certainly somewhere I´d like to return, but as carnival is coming the prices get extortionate so I´m heading down the coast to a smaller beach resort called Florianopolis, which will make my escape to Argentina easier after carnival (and before the bank account bottoms out).

Saturday was the day of the Rolling Stones gig on Copacabana beach – what can I say? I´ve been to more concerts and festivals than I can remember, but this was something else! The atmosphere of the city was buzzing from the moment I woke up, and just got more frenzied as the gig approached. Apart from a pretty scarey moment when we got caught in a massive panicking crowd, we eventually got down the beach and were still reasonably close, but with space to enjoy it. I can´t really rattle on about it anymore, but here´s a link to the BBC site which has a few pictures to give you an idea.

Sunday was obviously a little more chilled so we spent some time on Ipanema beach watching the peaches – I didn´t pick up my book once 🙂

After the beach there was smaller festivities going on all around, with street parades, a band playing outside a music shop and bars overflowing as the city prepares itself for the run up to carnival. The vibe here is incredible, but escape I must, so more later.

First of all, an apology to the person I accused of hacking into this site and wiping out my journal last week. The site was having problems and lost all my content whilst also asking for a mail address and name from the first person to view it since. This lead me to draw the wrong conclusions and for that I´m very sorry – I owe you many drinks and grovelling on return. The people who run this site restored everything and now (hopefully) all is good.

OK, onwards. So São Paulo was good, a little too good at times, hence the difficulty escaping, but escape I did. Myself and three other guys took the bus to Rio de Janeiro where we were going to check out an apartment. First port of call was obviously the bus station, and what a shitty introduction to the city that was, but what´s new. We took a taxi to the apartment to find it was actually across the bay from Rio in a place called Niterõi. The apartment was nice enough, the area fairly affluent and safe and after the bus station sketchiness we were glad to take it.

The weather has been fairly bad since arriving here but it´s improving. We started the weekend looking out at heavy (I mean really heavy with full-on thunder and lightning) tropical storms so we spent the weekend drinking beer, playing poker, cooking food and being lazy, not a bad thing. The only mission accomplished was to find a tout selling tickets for the football on sunday. We found one, we bought the tickets, we just weren´t sure if they were genuine.

Come sunday and we headed off to Maracanã stadium for the Rio state cup final between Botafogo (the local team) and Americã (some place elsewhere in the state). I´ve never been much of a football fan and usually only watch the big tournament matches with England playing, but I´d promised myself, and Erika, that I would go to Maracanã and watch a game because it´s supposed to be crazy down here, so if I only do it once, it should be here.

From the moment we got on the bus it became pretty clear which team we should be supporting – it had to be the local team Botafogo. The tickets worked and we walked in to find this massive stadium slowing filling with fans. It´s quite a sight, especially for the uninitiated. The first half was fairly poor with ´Fogo conceding a goal and not much else happening – not all I´d been expecting. Then the second half kicked off and we proceeded to put three consecutive goals in the net, each time involved a complete frenzy all around, fireworks going off, mexican waves, beating drums and strangers all around shaking my hand, arms all around cheering and jumping around. Even this cynical fecker couldn´t help but be caught up in the buzz of it all. Not sure I´m about to start obsessing about Bristol City or anything, but I think I finally understand.

Tuesday we came over to Rio, to Ipanema to be precise (next one along from Copacabana). I´d had enough of the apartment in Niterõi, it was too far from Rio and pretty dull on the whole. It took me a day or two to find a hostel with room as everywhere was booked for the weekend due to the free Rolling Stones gig, but I finally found somewhere nice and moved in yesterday. Still trying to track down my friend Omar who I met in Guatemala, but meantime I´ve met quite a few people and think this was a good move. We´ve got the beach within a couple of blocks and it´s a fairly safe area as it goes here in Rio. The city has a worldwide bad reputation for crime, but it´s the same as most big cities, use some sense, careful at night, don´t be flash with your cash. Once you get comfortable here you realise how beautiful and vibrant a place it is. I think this weekend with the massive gig is going to be a blinder, they´re expecting between 1.5 and 2 million people, which I think will beat all records. If I survive I´ll let you know how it went.

Courtesy of Marco Noguti

I´ve been having a blinding time here in São Paulo, Brazil. The nightlife is so good it´s hard to escape. In fact last week I was on the verge of taking up an offer of work teaching English amongst other things, but I was talked out of it by a London geezer and persuaded to follow him and his posse to Rio. Next week we get a free Rolling Stones gig on Copacabana beach, which should be interesting if only to witness the defiance of medical science by Keith and Mick. 

Courtesy of Fabio Panico (Flickr)

Well after much travelling I´ve made it to Brazil and loving it. I had such a boring wait in mexico city airport, where until you checked-in you couldn´t find a seat anywhere and the boredom levels rose to the point where I ended up mailing Stuart and Annie with a long rant. They took it well, thankyou both! 

Anyway, flew via Venezuela and Bolivia and then into the heaving metropolis that is São Paulo. I only knew this city from school geography studies of favellas and poverty, so it surprised me to find a pretty cool city awaited me.

Thought I´d only stay for a night or two but it´s looking like it´ll be a week, really have to stick around for the weekend as that´s when the nightlife really kicks off, and that´s what the city is known for.

I´ll try to write more soon about this place and get some photos up again as it´s been a while, but I´m too busy staring at the Brazilian women at the moment so probably be a few days, once I´ve managed to pick my jaw up off the floor and roll my tongue back in. Until then…

Well not much to report, other than having a lovely time on the mexican beaches of the pacific coast – it´s all sun, sea and sand in every orifice. The British girls that have been my companions for the last week or so have all departed now, so it leaves me with a day or so to chill here before heading back to Mexico City to catch my flight to Brasil.

The end of last week, and the weekend were spent in Zipolite, a bit of a hippie beach village with random naked people at the nudey end of the beach. This is all very well, but when the girls turned round to find one unsavoury character brazenly masturbating while watching them you can´t help but think the place is full of ol´dirty bastards. Speaking of wankers, I managed to fall asleep in my hammock, covered by a blanket all apart from my face, only to wake in the night to find that the mozzies have had a damn good feast on my forehead. The next couple days were spent resembling The Elephant Man, a mistake I hope not to repeat!

Monday we moved on up the coast a little to Mazunte, which is even smaller and less commercially developed than Zipolite, which is saying something. The water is warm and beautiful, and unlike the deathly riptide in Zipolite, you can swim here without fear of being swept away. I think Zipolite actually means ´beach of the dead´ due to it´s strong currents that regularly take peoples lives. On a lighter note, Mazunte means something like´come forth and multiply,´ though it doesn´t refer to the naked hippies, but to the turtles that come here in their thousands each year to lay their eggs. Went to visit the turtle aquarium and saw many different species and sizes – they send their love.

If all goes to plan I should be in Brasil by Monday so I´ll say adios for now, and write again when I´m in the southern hemisphere.

Last week I came to the conclusion that it´s pretty difficult to get cheap flights to South America. The reality is that not many people can afford to fly in SA so there are fewer flights and therefore those that are available are fairly expensive. My plan of coming to Mexico City and waiting for a cheap ticket from a cancellation didn´t work out, it´s not something that happens much over here. So I got to the end of the week having explored many options only to realise that the best deal was actually booking through the hostel I´ve been staying in. This still works out considerably cheaper than what I was offered back in England, so it´s all good.

However, I couldn´t book my flight until I sorted out one other small matter, that of being ever so slightly illegal. My 90 day tourist visa ran out sometime last week, so I needed to get to the immigration office to plead stupidity or whatever, then try to blag an extension. My 90 days started when I first entered Mexico, and having been out of the country and back in again recently, my passport was stamped as ´double entry´ (get your minds out of the gutter, mine was here first) so it didn´t get renewed, it just kept ticking. I´ve got to say any illegal activities I´ve commited in the past have been more fun than this situation.

I couldn´t do anything over the weekend so Monday morning I went to the immigration office only to find a scene straight out of Terry Gilliam´s Brazil, all paperwork and rubber-stamping authoritarians. Despite fearing torture by rubber stamp, or at the very least fines and extra money to extend the visa, I came out a free man, with 15 days extra visa and no money paid – Lady Luck must´ve been sucking my cock, which is more than some poor fucker in an equal position in a British immigration office would be able to say!

The long and short of it is that I´m flying to Sao Paulo at the end of next week, after heading down to the coast of Oaxaca for 10 days of beach time in what promises to be a chilled out hippie haven, a million miles from the smog and madness of Mexico City. First stop (and possibly the only one if it´s that good) is a small beach village called Zipolite, to catch up with a couple of girls I met here in the city. Then I may check out Mazunte further along the coast, who knows. I wanted to go down there on the way back from Guatemala but ran out of time before xmas, so I´m looking forward to this.

For all those complaining of cold weather in the UK, it might come as some consolation that it´s been pretty cold here over here the last week or two, in both Guanajuato and Mexico City. However, I´ll try to write again sometime soon telling you how feckin´ hot it is at the beach – I might be a bastard, but at least I´m not an illegal bastard (anymore).

I spent a nice weekend in the beautiful little colonial town of Guanajuato, set on the side of a hill with narrow winding streets, sweet little parks and squares where musicians and assorted street performers did their thing. Saturday night was a big one, going out with a group of mexicans on a weekend break from Mexico City. After a bar or two we headed to a club in the town centre and proceeded to dance and drink the night away with a bottle of tequila. Sunday, no surprise, was a pretty subdued and unproductive day!

I didn’t manage to do either of Gwyns suggestions, visiting the mummies or the little town of San Miguel, but it was a nice place to stay all the same and I certainly could’ve spent more time there. However, as a friend Tim that I’d met in Mexico City at the start of my trip was about to fly home on Tuesday, I headed off Monday afternoon for Mexico City again.

I’m now back in the hostel where I started, trying to sort out a flight to get my arse down to Brazil. It’s like coming home again, in a way. I was greeted Monday evening by Tim, Alex who works the bar and Luis, the big friendly security guard who I’d befriended here last time. I’m not exactly doing a lot of sightseeing this time around, but as ever I’m propping up the bar and meeting lots of nice people once again. The next time I check-in should be with news of my impending flight down to South America, the prospect of which is giving me itchy feet and butterflies in my stomach, symptoms that I’m sure Doctor Booze will cure while I’m hanging around waiting to go.

After my birthday we got a bit of culture in visiting a museum with lovely murals on the ceiling (Gwyn you need to comment what these were and by whom as my memory is shot and it´s all or mostly your fault), before heading off to Puerto Vallarta for New Year.

Lovely mural that is probably more significant than I´m making it sound

Puerto Vallarta was beautiful, a resort town set on the pacific coast with cobbled streets and a big beach, and thanks to the efforts of Sarita and Gwyn we landed ourselves the perfect apartment. We had a long weekend there, celebrating the new year in the company or G & S´s friends, taking in local towns, nice restaurants and even a car repair garage (not part of the plan). One night I even managed to pull a mexican girl, which just goes to show that my spanish must´ve improved a little, though I think I still come across as a retarded child – maybe it was just sympathy!

View from our apartment in Puerto Vallarta

This last week since coming back from PV has been really nice with Monica and Daniel coming back with us to stay in Guadalajara. The following two photos are of a place we visited on thursday, not far from Guadalajara. Very scenic, very nice, apart from the dead dogs we saw on route!

Lake Chapala

Mural on the school wall in the town of Ajijic, on Lake Chapala

And so, after a fantastic couple of weeks in the company of Gwyn and Sarita (and friends) I finally had to say goodbye and headed off this morning, before they started charging me rent. I´m now in a place four hours west of Guadalajara called Guanajuato. Lovely.

Sorry if I´ve been a bit vague of late, I was close to giving up this blog nonsense as it was becoming a chore and my memory has taken a set-back of late (!) However, these last few posts bring me up-to-date again. So apologies if they´re lacking in substance, I´ll try to stay on top of it again now and bore you senseless with more regular updates again.

Monday I left Guatemala and went across the border into Mexico, stopped in San Cristobal once again for a couple nights before making the long trek over to Guadalajara. After two bus trips, conversations with a Zapatista rebel sat next to me on the bus and around 24 hours of travel I finally made it to Guadalajara.

Fountain in the centre of Guadalajara

Xmas was a blur of drinking, sightseeing, markets, bars, British comedy shows and bowling (!) with my old friend Gwyn.

Kingpin Gwyn

Sarita had returned to LA for a few days so it was very much a boys xmas, though we had to behave on xmas eve as we’d been invited to one of Gwyn’s friends Jose’s family house for dinner. Xmas eve is a much more family orientated affair here in Mexico, with hardly any bars open, quite a change to England.

A pair of happy buttocks!

Sarita returned on my birthday so we hit the town. One bar served cocktails called ‘happy buttocks’ of which Gwyn and myself drank quite a few. Gwyn remembers us entering the bar quietly talking politics and culture, then exiting the bar shouting about female ejaculation – happy buttocks indeed! The night ended with a traditional act of smashing a pinata, for which I adopted the persona of a crazed madman, much to the disturbance of Gwyn (and myself in the morning when he played back the video!)

The Tweetie Pie Massacre, disturbing!

Merry xmas to anyone reading this.
Just a quick one to say I’m still alive and I’ve made it to Guadalajara in Mexico, staying with my amigo Gwyn. I’ve been slack with the journal the last couple weeks so I’ll add some post-dated entries over the coming week, as well as more photos, just as soon as I can remember what I’ve been doing.
I raise a glass to you all and say cheers for xmas.
Lots of love and a pound coin sellotaped to your non-existant xmas cards,
xx Ed