On the Road again. . . SOON!

It's been an age since I published the last entry from Peru in 2016. Wasn't sure I'd be able to find the blog again, but Blogger hasn't asked for my password so far, so maybe I'm all right. I hope I'll be able to find my password in Safari when I'm using the new laptop on the journey. 

So, not overexcited yet, as the trip is still three weeks off and I have a heap of bookings and other preparations to make, but the last time I left the country was 2019 when the Clingon and I spent a month in Chile and Argentina, most of it in Patagonia. 

We arrived back in Australia on the first of February 2020, having seen news of the progress of COVID-19, interspersed with the news about demonstrations against the government, every time we watched the news in Chile. I remember very clearly returning from the airport in Sydney in an Uber. The Clingon and the driver talked dismissively of the virus, saying that more people were dying of other diseases but they didn't get the press coverage. Then, of course, you know the story. In March 2020, the then (thankfully, not incumbent!) PM prohibited Australians from leaving the country and most of those Australians out of the country were not able to return. So began more than two years of restrictions of movement, during the first year of which, some Sydneysiders (including us here in Bayside local council area) were not permitted to leave the area. We were allowed to travel up to 5 kilometres from our homes, but that was it. 

I taught classes online, which was awful and something that I never want to do again. 

However, back to the precursor to the trip. . . During lockdown most people cooked more (restaurants were closed) or ordered more take-away deliveries. Most people drank more alcohol, including myself. Most people gained COVID kilos. I'm still trying to shake mine. And we all watched more movies and programs on the video streaming services such as Netflix, Stan, Google, etc. Among other shows, I watched "Shetland", a series set in the Shetland Islands of Scotland, and fell in love with the landscape and Jimmy Perez, the police chief played by Douglas Henshall. 

However, finally we were freed from travel restrictions a couple of months ago, and I decided to use up a QANTAS voucher that I was unable to utilise to go to South Africa in 2020. Well, the value of the voucher is almost nothing now because of the increases in airfares due to the increase in the price of petrol and the great desire of the national carrier to claw back some of their financial losses over the last few years. 

Never-the-less, after paying $2,400 more for the privilege, I will leave Sydney for London, and from there I will train it or drive to spend time in Northumberland, Edinburgh and the Scottish highlands and islands. I aim to reach the Shetlands by putting the rental car on ferries, through the Orkney Islands and then on to Shetland. 

So, best get going now. Got to book my car and accommodation for Edinburgh. Talk later. Please leave a comment, if you've got the urge. I will love hearing from you, especially when I've left home and am on the other side of the world.  

Peruvian Exit 21/07/16

After Alex's bout with dysentery, my travel plans changed. Cusco and Machu Pichu had to be scrubbed and I returned to Lima from Puno. I hated Lima, but it is at sea level, so no soroche for either of us: no panting breathlessness, no headache. 

Plenty of noise pollution, though. Car alarms serenade the streets all day and night; cars and buses blast the air constantly with their ear splitting horns. Taxis  blast possible clients, even if we are walking in the opposite direction on a one-way street. Alex happened upon a part of Milleflores one day where a sign listed the fine for using the horn unnecessarily; a policeman was writing tickets. The street was silent. 

Plenty of noise, white sky, carbon monoxide, but no soroche. No joy in walking the streets. Everything is so far from everything else that you risk lung cancer if you go for a long walk; and you risk being deafened by the sound of the car horns. 

But I found something lovely to do here, and that was to walk the Malecon, which I did a few times. I also had a wonderful lunch in La Rosa Náutica yesterday. 

Leaving Arequipa

The Cruz del Sur bus left just over an hour ago. Carlito had dropped us at the bus station. Alex is on a bus to Lima, with his soroche and his diarrhoea. We just had an announcement that the servicios are only for urination. Not sure what where you're supposed to deposit your poo. 

We spent two days in the area we're going through now and the final day I had a headache I couldn't shake. I was breathless and panting as I am again now, I discovered as I walked down the back to the servicios. Everyone tells us that we have to become acclimatised to the altitude, but I was still breathless when I returned to Arequipa after having already spent three days there and at higher altitudes in the Colca Valley. 

I'm sorry to have split with Alex. He's turned into a good travelling companion. I miss him already. 

Arequipa: Rarified air and Colonial Grace

I'm getting over, or perhaps just acclimatized to my breathlessness. I woke earlier than I have been lately, this morning, and walked down to the Plaza de Armas to try and get some action in a gentler light. Well the shadows were slightly less harsh than the midday black holes we experienced on Saturday, but I realize I'm going to have to set the alarm to get out in the really soft light just after sunrise. I was in luck, though, because I caught a military parade to celebrate the independence of Latin America from Spain. 

Now Alex seems to be suffering from the altitude sickness which I have just about recovered from. He's sleeping it off in the room now while I write down here in the lobby. 

  

We met Carlito from Carlito's Tours this morning and his guide, Juan is picking us up at 7.30 tomorrow morning and taking us on a private tour to Colca Canyon. Looking forward to shooting the condors and other wildlife we find. This Peruvian adventure is looking up so much since Las Islas Ballestas. If I'd been well enough to keep the blog in Lima, I'm afraid it would have been a miserable screed, full of complaints, but in Arequipa I'm up, happy and healthy, and getting a handle on the rest of the trip. 

Peruvian Week

For some reason, I haven't had the time or perhaps the inclination, to keep up the blog since leaving Cartagena. It's true that I hate Lima, and it sucked the energy out of me. It's not a pleasant place for walkers: a sprawling congested constant flow of traffic; hard to cross every street because no one stops at pedestrian crossings unless there's a policeman there directing the traffic. And it's hard to breathe the carbon monoxide soup of air. But after getting back from Cartagena, I became violently ill just after a rather tasty lunch at the La Paz cafe. I don't think that lunch made me ill because the symptoms started coming on just after leaving the café. I think I was sick before that, possibly a result of something I ate or drank in Cartagena. 

That Tuesday morning we'd booked a three day tour to the south, going to Ica, Huacachina and Las Islas Ballestas at a travel agency we passed that morning. By 5.00 p.m. that day, I didn't know whether I'd be able to travel on a bus for the necessary hours with the violent diarrhoea and the projectile vomiting that had taken over my body. Alex walked back to the travel agency to ask whether we could put off the departure for a couple of days, perhaps to Friday, until I was well enough to travel. 

By the time he'd arrived and started negotiating, I had thrown up my lunch and evacuated my bowels completely, and I was feeling a lot better. Eddy, the travel agent, said that we couldn't leave on Friday because bookings were so heavy for the weekend, but we could go on Monday. That decided me; I was not going to spend one day longer than necessary in Lima. I wanted to flee as far away as possible. I told Alex to cancel the postponement. I would travel the next morning, at 7.30 as per the original plan. 

Cartagena

Friday 1/07/16

In Colombia already without a single post from Peru. Will have to catch you up on Peru later. 

Me encanta a Cartagena. Beautiful colonial buildings, tropical flowers, hot, hot, hot and steamy. Breyner sent a message to say he's on his way. 

Went for a walk on the wall last night just after sunset, ate a meal of coconut rice and drank a pina  colada that was much stronger than it tasted, and I was awake at 1 am, worrying that I hadn't left a tip in the restaurant. 

The streets were packed. Most tourists seem to be Spanish speakers, probably from other countries in South America, I'm guessing. The locals are the descendants of the colonisers and African slaves. Wish I knew a little more about the history. I think a trip to the museum is in order today. A little research to do now. 

Breyner arrived this morning (Saturday 2/07/16) and we visited the Gold Museum and the Museum of the Inquisition, and had fish for lunch. Grace to arrive tonight. 

Not a Team Player

This is difficult to try to express, and it will shock some especially in Australia, where we're known for our sporting prowess, right down from the recently deleted PM. It seems, after all this time and all these years, that I'm not a team player. I wasn't on team Australia, and I'm not going to be on any other team, either. If I go out of my way for someone, or something, it's because it's deserving; not because it tries to condemn me to death by Powerpoint.

I have played on a couple of teams in the past: I was on netball teams between the ages of 14 and 16. One was the Magpies. I was never a star player--arse too close to the ground--but it was a bit of fun on Saturdays. I never took it seriously. I knew who to throw the ball to, of course.

My team wore the black box pleats with the white short-sleeved blouses underneath, and they were my friends. We didn't win too many games, or at least I don't remember them, or the losses either. I'm assuming that's because we didn't set the world on fire. I remember the girls, though. I liked them and we shared some adolescent moments. I haven't seen most of them for forty years, but I remember them, and some of their secrets, and the fun we had together.

But I'm too old for teams now. I'm a team of one, just trying to get through this life as comfortably as possible. I'm not going to try to score goals so someone else gets the glory cup. I don't care about the cup. I never did.

I'll run (and I mean that metaphorically these days) for the ball, and throw it in the right direction--if I can remember which one that is--if the light is right, and it's interesting and fun. But don't expect me to get excited about the competition. I'll play the game, put in the game hours, but I'm not fronting up to the awards ceremony. What do those awards mean to me?

Today, an HR wonk showed me an extract from the series, "The Office" (Season 2 Ep. 2). It proved the adage that satire is always short of the mark because the target never gets the joke. It was this one.  (Just fast forward through the conversation between Dawn and the girl who's interested in Tim.) HR  used "The Office" to ask, with a straight face:"What could David have done better?" "How could Keith have prepared for the interview?". The point is, the premise is laughable, or would be if it wasn't taken so seriously. Keith puts in the hours. The Man is not paying for treasure. The man pays frugally for time, and makes a profit out of it, else Keith would be out of a job. Why make Keith jump through hoops. They employed him to do the accounts so he does the accounts.

Why should anyone else demand to know what Keith sees as his good or bad qualities. What's that got to do with the employment contract? Will the Man give Keith a raise if Keith convinces him he has very good qualities indeed? Keith wasn't employed because of his self knowledge but for his accountancy skills. Suddenly, though, it's it's an expectation that he should be able to talk about himself to be acceptable in the position. Isn't that like changing the rules after the whistle blows?