August 2010 Archives
Back in Rio de Janeiro at the end of yet another epic Overland journey: this time it was a six month trip around South America that covered Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela. A great mix of passengers: some nice, some nasty, some just plain weird - in other words, a normal trip on an Overland truck! A great bunch of new friends made, that I am, as usual, very sorry to leave, but hope to see again further down the road. This is one of the most difficult things in the life of a long-term traveller: finding some great new friends, spending a short time with them, then never seeing them again. I hope at least to visit a few of my friends in Australia, though, having just booked a place on the EOE truck for their 28 week journey from London to Sydney, the Odyssey, in 2012.
I haven't been Blogging much lately. One reason is the very long drive days on a Dragoman truck in South America these days. Whatever free computer time I did have was taken up with working on my new Freelance Travel Photography Pro-Photo Sales website: GnomePlanet.com, which, as I wrote the whole website by hand, and bearing in mind that the whole project is PHP/MySQL based and uses a database to generate content, took quite a bit of time to do! Most of the code was written whilst I was in Quito for 12 days between trips, but I have spent much time on it since, whenever there was an AC power socket available in the evenings.
The other reason I haven't been blogging is a mental one: a feeling that if I want to post a blog, its got to be a good one, with lots of well-written content and some stunning photos. Other people do post short Blog entries, with just a paragraph or two of text. Perhaps I should try this too. What do you think? You might be wondering where all the photos are, too. I've been taking a lot as usual: the main reason for coming to South America was to take more photos for my travel photo portfolio, and to submit to my photo agency: Lonely Planet Images. Examining, sorting, and preparing them takes a long time, though, and so I won't be looking through them until I get back from my next trip in Africa. For now, you'll just have to make do with a few tasters in my GnomePlanet Photo of the Month section.
Its now time for a bit of news, filling in some of the gaps since my last Blog from Lima. We lost some of our passengers and gained others there, as Lima was one of the joining and switch-over points. I finally got to travel with some great people who had been mirroring us in a truck of their own, all the way from Rio as well. The main highlights on this section for me were the towns of Banos, Cuenca, and the Rio Verde. Back to Chan Chan, but I find it had to get enthusiastic about adobe walls, no matter how old they are. More interesting was the section of Amazon jungle that we visited in Ecuador, with its lovely forests and wildlife. You can read a little about it here. Its a big, empty region out there. The trees are very beautiful.
As a traveller, I prefer the western side of South America to the east, which is generally more expensive, more 'first world', with greedier people and more violence. The last is not exclusive to the east though, as I found out when staying in Quito for two weeks, in a very pleasant hotel in the Old City area. There, the shops and restaurants are all shut by 7pm, and it is unwise to wander about after that if you have more than 10 dollars in your pocket. It is necessary to carry 10 dollars though, to give to the muggers if you are attacked! I met a few people who were attacked or threatened whilst I was there: pepper spray attack, mobile phones stolen, and even one guy who was held up by the taxi driver who's cab he was travelling in, and relieved of all his money!
I played it safe by only venturing out during the day, eating my main meal of the day at noon, and then buying picnic items to consume in my hotel room in the evenings. I found a wonderful vegetarian restaurant: Govindas, on Esmeraldas 853, not far from the Plaza Del Teatro. They do a set lunch for just USD1.80c, which changes every day, has a wonderful mix of dishes, and is always 3 courses. Very tasty, very nice, with friendly people as well. My Hotel was the Hostal Quito Cultural, Flores N.4-16 Y Chile, Centro Historico, Quito 170102. Telephone: (593)(2)2288084. I booked through the HostelBookers website. I had a lovely time there, and only paid USD13-50c per night, which included a nice breakfast of toasted cheese sandwich, omelette, juice and coffee. The hotel was clean, and the staff very friendly and helpful.
A short flight was necessary to get me to Caracas, to meet a new truck 'Carmen' with Paul and Jodie and a bunch of new passengers for the final 2 legs of the journey: Caracas to Manaus, and Manaus to Rio. The trucks used to drive through Colombia, and when I was here in 1991 I had a great trip through that country with Exodus and an old Bedford TK, but now it is considered not safe, and so the Overland trucks avoid it. I was considering this whilst reading that Caracas is the murder capital of the world, with an official tally of 130 homicides per 100,000 residents. That's even worse than Joburg, which up until now classes as the scariest place I've ever visited. Just how bad can Caracas be?! I didn't spend much time checking it out, and certainly didn't wander about with a camera - some photos are just too perilous.
The new Dragoman truck was based at the Hotel Catimar, an over-priced concrete monstrosity just 1 minute from a filthy beach, 5 minutes from the airport, and 20km from the town centre. The only vegetarian choice on the menu was spaghetti with tomato sauce (no cheese available) so I ended up catering for myself. This continued on through much of Venezuela, which is generally over-priced, but as I'd purchased one of those miniature army can openers in Quito, I was well provided for from local super-markets. I had to cater for breakfast as well, as unlike Brazil, the hotels of Venezuela rarely include it in the room price.
One of the highlights for me on the way to Rio was the journey down the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers on a local passenger + mixed cargo river-boat. As is normal, we mostly slept in hammocks on the middle deck, though we also had 2 cabins reserved by the group to keep their luggage in - this is essential where the average sleeper has no protection for his belongings. I wouldn't recommend anyone back-packing by themselves on these boats! Security apart, the journey was most interesting, and gave a good view of local life at the edge of the jungle, and at the many small ports that we stopped at along the way. Food on board was poor, with no vegetarian choice at all, but remembering the last time I had been in the area, I was well prepared with a range of small cans of black beans, sweet corn, and mixed vegetables. The weather was good for most of the time, and I was able to take some lovely photographs of the scenery and people.
The truck continued on a barge of its own, and we rejoined it, and Paul, in Porto Velho, for a journey into the Pantanal wetland area, to the capital Brasilia, and the Spanish colonial town of Ouro Preto, before finally reaching Rio de Janeiro once more, nearly 6 months and 30,000km since I'd left in February. You can see all the daily route maps for the entire journey at my GPS Blog page, where each day's journey can be overlaid on a road map or satellite image of the area. You might also like to see these two group photos taken in Ouro Preto, from my Facebook account: Group Photo 1 and Group Photo 2.
I've had a week to wander around Rio, and its amazing how expensive the city and the country have become. With the Brazil Reais at 2.73 to 1.00 GB Pound, it means that a once cheap destination is fast moving out of reach to the casual backpacker or impecunious photographer. I was pleased to see that just around the corner from my hostel was Rio's only Indian restaurant - I had been there previously in 1991, when there were only 3 Indian restaurants in the whole of the continent. I thought a curry at the RaajMahal would make a nice change from Brazilian food, so went to re-visit it, only to be stopped by the menu on the wall outside. Samosas were 21BRL per portion, and a vegetarian main course of potato curry was 52BRL. Rice was extra, of course, at 21BRL. The cheapest meal, with one drink, would not have left me much change from 35 GB pounds!!! A similar meal in India would cost less than 1 GB pound, and would, I'm sure, taste much nicer. Give me Old Delhi any day!
Am looking forward to my next visit to the UK, and a chance to see family and friends. Am flying back to London with TAM, which if the outbound flight is anything to go by, shouldn't be too bad. I've already got a window seat and a vegetarian meal arranged. By for now - I'll be back in a little while.
Before I go, I thought you might like to see this map of South America, made by me, which shows the approximate route taken on this Overland Expedition around South America. As you can see, the route covers two Dragoman Overland trucks: Rio de Janeiro to Quito, and Caracas to Rio de Janeiro.
If you want to see all of the daily driving routes from this trip, please visit my South America GPS Maps page.
