Dave on the River Kwai

One of the great things about travelling without a set itinerary is the amount of pleasant surprises that you encounter along the way.* For instance did you know that the river kwai and it's historic railway bridge and related WWII historical site is located in Thailand? I didn't. But I was pretty excited to find out that it is just a short two hours bus ride away from Bangkok in a sleepy but cool riverside town called Kanchanaburi.

The movie The Bridge on the River Kwai is a classic Gerhard favourite and even though none of the filming of the movie was done in Thailand and the wooden and bamboo bridge that the forced labour of WWII prisoners of war built in the movie and then later blew up looks nothing like the current concrete and steel bridge (Kanchanaburi is an actual place after all so the bridge was rebuilt after the war), it was pretty cool to see.

I'm not going to lie to you, I made a video of myself walking across the bridge whistling the renowned "Colonel Bogey March" that is forever associated with the movie and goes something like:

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Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whooooo. Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoooooo-whoo-whoo-whoo. Whoo whoo. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-who. Whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-who-whooooooooooooo. (repeat)

Unfortuately the video is about 10 minutes long so is both too big to upload and too long to be particularly entertaining (10 minutes of me whistling is pretty much unwatchable even if it is in picturesque Thailand on an historic bridge) but it features some interesting moments like:

1) Me side-stepping other tourists who were hanginging out on the bridge (it is pretty much the only tourist attraction in the town**)

2) Me whistling slightly quieter whenever I would pass said tourists in an effort to not get their reaction in the video but also in the hope they wouldn't notice what an immature idiot I was being.

3) Right at the moment I crossed the bridge and was about to dramatically emphasise it by zoomig in on the historic Japanese rising sun emblem on the bamboo watch tower they put on the opposite side some dutch tourist comes up to me and asks me if I know any good hotels or possibly somewhere to have dinner.

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4) Almost as soon as I told the dutch guy to 'F$%! off and stop ruining my kwai river bridge whistling video'***, the guard started blowing his whistle indicating that the train was coming. I mean it was near perfect timing, which was lucky because train and bus schedules and schedules in general are more just suggestions in Thailand so I couldn't have planned it that well. So I ended up getting the train crossing the bridge in the video as well which also took an excruciatingly long time since it had to slow down or stop often to allow all the aforementioned tourists hanging out on the bridge to get to the saftey platforms.

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Once I get back and edit it I think I can probably turn it into a pretty entertaining 2-3 minute clip. Too bad you already know the best bits.

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Right. Kanchanaburi itself is a generally relaxing place (though if you stay too long a slightly boring one). In particular, the guesthouse I stayed in had a massive riverside garden and hammocks and deck chairs which was great for,you know, relaxing by a river in a hammock for instance.

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The city is also a great jumping off point for doing activities like elephant riding, rafting down the river or checking out the Tiger Temple.

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The Tiger Temple has an awesome sounding name conjuring up images of tigers and monks living on a mountain-top, but is actually just a zoo. And not even a very comprehensive zoo with just a few animals other than tigers.

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Although there is a temple thee it isn't particularly historic, is made of poured concrete with pillars tall enough to allow the monk's 4x4 pickup to be parked underneath and had a satelitte dish so the monks can presumably keep up do date with news from the dali lama or just watch the Simpsons in HD, whichever strikes them.

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It also wasn't so much on a secluded mountain top as it was in a field. The field was secluded though. Although by secluded I mean inconveniently located in the middle of nowhere requiring a long and expensive journey from Kanchanaburi. Speaking of expensive, I didn't mention the outrageous entry fee of about 500 bhat. Which may not seem like much (it's about GBP 10) but this is Thailand and, I thought was supposed to be a temple, but I guess satellite upkeep, 4x4 fuel and insurance and tiger food is pretty expensive these days.

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This brings me to the tigers. Real live tigers (although not particularly ferocious as they are prone to sleeping during the heat of mid day and are kept well fed and are used to the attention that hundreds of visitors a day bring).***

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The tigers weren't near the temple though. For saftey purposes they were in the viewing valley a few hundred metres away where, for the price of admission, you could line up, hand one yellow shirted unsmiling worker your camera, where another would hold your hand and lead you around to where the various tigers were sleeping, while yet another would be sure to stand directly behind you so that you have an authentic yellow shirted tiger temple employee in all your photos of authentic, aweomely powerful, amazing, full grown, giant tigers who are sleeping.

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There was also an authentic monk there but you had to pay more for him to appear in your shot.

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Still though, tigers are cool. Especially big ones with big pointy teeth who even with their chains on and sleeping could easily rip your face off so being up close is a thrill and something you couldn't really do in a westernised country.

More adventures of Thailand to come....

Photos 1) Bridge on the River Kwai. The real one. Not the fake movie one. Which was blown up at the end anyway in a great movie ending. 2) DG crossing back over the river. Note the bombs that they placed on either side to emphasize the authenticity of the WWII site. 3) Some guy riding an elephant. 4) DG at the 'Tiger Temple'

*Incidently one of the worst things about doing that is missing out on stuff that would have been easy enough to see 'if only I had known sooner'

**That is if you don't count internet cafes, massage parlours and the awesome tree fort bar that I got ridiculously drunk at with my two Sedish friends Matilde and Emma on 'bring your own vodka night'

***Actual words 'sorry mate I can't help you out I just got here this afternoon myself but most of the restaurants and stuff are on the other side'

****Also, allegedly, they are not drugged according to the volunteer english speaking staff. Did you get that? A tenner a head AND you don't even have to pay your staff. These monks must have gone to Harvard Business School or something.

New Beard's Eve - Because All Good Beards Must Come to an End

Some people loved my beard. I know because they would say things like "Hey, love your beard!" or "Great beard man." Other people had not so much love for the beard and they would say things like "Your beard is silly"* or "Dude, your beard is getting a bit out of control".

In fact, towards the middle of December, once I passed the 4 month milestone I had to agree that my beard was starting to look a bit er..unkempt. But I was allowing it to become so because I had already determined my exit strategy from bearded life. I decided to host a new year's eve beard shaving party at my parents house near Toronto where I had scheduled a 10 day stopover for the holidays on my way from Argentina to Bangkok.**

In early November I set up an event page in facebook for a new year's eve party and, so people might feel more involved, invited anyone who wanted to to grow a beard which they could likewise shave off on what I was calling 'New Beard's Eve'.

The main reason I set it up so far in advance was that I was due to be travelling in South America and specifically trekking in the Andes for a few weeks ending in mid December which I figured might be a bit late to schedule a new year's eve party. Since I also knew that access to the internet would be sporadic and I wouldn't be able to answer questions and generally keep up the hype I appointed Matt as administrator of the event in my absence. Initially he was less than enthusiastic***, but once he came up with the title 'Beardministrator' which he could use when referring to himself in the third person (eg. 'The Beardministrator would like to remind everyone...etc.) he was ok with it.

Not only was he ok with it he took to it like a duck who was growing an awesome beard would to water ( basically such a duck would take to water the same as a normal duck but would be more cool due to his wicked beardedness). In the 20 days that I was offline trekking in the Andes, he continually hyped up the event and generally raised the 'beardthusiasm' to incredible levels. Not only had he and my other brother Steve started growing beards but so had my good friend Sean from high school.

There were now going to be four of us shaving off our beards on New Beard's Eve. And the lads were exchanging notes about how their beard growing was coming along and transformed the event from just a vague concept that I came up with one day while wondering how long I should keep my beard, to a ligitimate 'Event' that now even had an acronym: NBE.

Evidence of the enthusiasm include the following magazine covers:



and:


And to top it off, my bearded breatheren****had even gone so far as to order NBE hoodies that even said 'STAFF' on the back and VIP shirts for the ladies which all came out on Christmas morning after I unwrapped mine.


Having a custom made NBE hoodie really fired me up and looking back it's hard to say which was more fun, the final planning stages or the actual event.

Planning was excellent becuase it gave us a chance to flex our creative muscles a bit. Like creating the Beard Trivia Game or Jeap-Beard-y using the latest PlayStation 3 quiz game that lets you upload your own Q and A like: Q: "Who wrote the line: To Beard, or not to Beard, that is the question?" A: William Shakesbeard. We came up with 31 more just like it!

We also created the Great Hall of Beards featuring great beards of history so people would know they entered the right house:

There was also the NBE Guest Orientation packs which included a fake beard for all those who did not or were incapable of growing their own beard:

The fake beard came with graphical instructions for how to wear it similar to the lifejacket instructions on airplanes. "Don't forget to secure your own beard first before helping others."

The night itself was really good fun and I got to catch up with great friends who I don't see that often. Not eveyone could stay late due to the fact that their small children require a lot of attention and have more enthusiasm for the snack table than the official NBE Beard Shaving Centre but it was nice to see them all the same. Still, I declare that NBE 2008/2009 was a big success. As a group we went from looking like this:

to looking like this:


Passing through various stages like this:

this:


and this:


Until the result was four clean shaven "gentlemen".*****

I would like to point out that for me, growing a beard while travelling was easy and fun and all part of the adventure but I think it took real guts for Matt, Steve and Sean to start growing beards in Mid-November with the sole objective of shaving on NBE all the while still working and living their 'normal' lives. Thanks guys! It was a fun night, and going from this guy:

to this guy:


on NBE wouldn't have been the same without you.

In the end my 2008 beard travelled with me through 8 countries and lasted from August 15, 2008 until the wee hours of new year's eve which, if you're counting, and I am, is 140 days assuming you count Friday August 15th as day 0 which I do. Whatever the count, it shattered my 2007 Project Chabal/Beardvember beard which only made it to 67 days but was still pretty impressive.

The clean shaven adventures of Dave continue. Next stop: Bangkok!

Photos: 1)DG having just applied mousse to the beard to y'know make it stylish and whatnot. 2) Hanging out chez Gerhard with a nice xmas nogg doing some light beard related reading 3) Matt taking care of some last minute Beardministrator business. 4-5) Magazine covers made by the Beardministrator 6) Beardthusiasm at its best with the new NBE shirts. 7) Sean and Matt in the 'Great Hall of Beards' that's Darwin in the background Al. Samuel de Champlain was the other one you couldn't guess. Excellent guess on Czar Nicolas though. 8) Matt demonstrating proper fake beard technique. 9-10) The beards before and after. 11-13) The 'durings' 14-15) more before and after.

*Sounds better when coming from a Malagasy girl in french 'votre barbe est drole' or something to that effect.
**Some may not consider this to technically be 'on the way' but it was the way that I took
***I think his initial reaction was something exactly like 'Wait a minute, how did I get to be administrator. I am not a beard Curator by anymeans I am still a beard noob. I am only 3 weeks and 1 day into said beard and it does not warrant any kind of administrator privlidges. oh.. I;m off to climb a mountian.. can;t talk now have great bearded adventures to take part in. well yer not the only one thats busy.. in fact as you have so previously pointed out you are probably the least busy as you are on yer vacation'
****Matt came up with that handle. Further evidence of his outstanding performance as Beardministrator.
*****Technically 3 since Matt didn't finish the job until the next morning and was actually passed out sleeping on the couch while we were saying final goodbyes to our beards. But hey, as Beardministrator he's entitled to do what he wants without people giving him grief about it eh?

The Search for the Valley of the Moon

After nearly 10 days of essentially doing nothing except hanging out and drinking wine (albiet in a few different and very scenic locations like Bariloche in Pategonia) and finally getting a doctor to give me the all clear on my feet, which I had started to worry about because they were still numb after 2 weeks since the summit, which, call me crazy, just didn't seem right, I thought I'd get out and actually do something.

The Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) provincial park* boasts, as you would expect, moonlike terrain, but also some of the world's most well preserved dinosaur fossils from the triassic period. Though the fossils aren't actually there now so I didn't get to see them. It seems that sometime between when my guidebook was last updated and when I was there they moved them all to a museum in Buenos Aires or somewhere that get's a bit more traffic than out of the way desert park. I'm also led to believe that there is a lot of other really interesting stuff about the valley but since the tour was in spanish I missed a lot. Anyway this story is about the journey to get there and back which was much more eventful than the actual park visit.

After leaving the doctor's office in Mendoza with my new foot xrays I headed to the north of Argentina to San Juan, a kind of blue collar town with nothing much happening and no real reason to go there other than it's near the Valley of the Moon. Well 'near' is not exactly accurate. It turns out it is about 350kms south-south-west of the Valley of the Moon but looks much much closer on the map I was using for trip planning.

As a result of it's 'proximity' to the park, San Juan my not have actually been the best place to base myself for this excursion but there I was. Did I mention that there's not much happening in there? And also that it's hundred's of kilometres away from the main tourist attraction? I did. Oh Ok. well it also has the very weird distinction of being a desert town that is super hot yet prone to violent thunderstorms and heavy rainfalls that from time to time flood the roads.***Since there's not much going on, there's not many people there so unlike other places I'd visited, the hostel was empty and I was doing this tour solo.

The lady at the hostel was friendly but ultimately unhelpful and so a quick internet search indicated that it would be cheap and easy to rent a car. It turns out it was neither,but, by 10:30am I was behind the wheel and doing my best to hold up the map to navigate and shift gears and drink a McDonalds coffee** at the same time.

Once I got my bearings and was 85% confident that I was going the right way (I at least knew from the GPS that I was at least going the right direction - ie. north-ish) the fuel light came on. Even though I find starting from the rental company with an empty tank quite annoying and inconvenient at least this gave me a chance to take a few mins to consult my my properly while not also driving and stuffing my face.

Back on the open road I was feeling good and started making some time. With a little luck I could be there by 1:00, do the tour and get back before it got dark.****It was outside of the cities that I saw the most evidence of the previous night's rainfall. There were very large puddles in the desert that sort of remined me of the Cayman Islands post-Hurricane Ivan puddles that never seemed to go away, but in general the roads were clear.

So when I came up over a little rise to see a "puddle" spanning the road I didn't really give it too much consideration other than to take my foot off the gas but it turns out that "small river breaching the road" would have been a better description for this particular "puddle" and I thundered into about 1 1/2 feet of water at about 120kmph. Nothing like crashing into a surprise body of water at high speed to get your heart pumping! It wasn't just the noise (kind of a whoooomph sort of sound) or the fact that my car was now covered in brownish water (even the roof), but suddenly I smelled fuel. That can't be good I thought. I was right. I started to lose power. The car wasn't responding to my desire to get away from that puddle and continue on my journey as fast as possible as if nothing had happend. I did manage to get most of the way onto the shoulder and for a while just sat there. trying to restart the car.

"Maybe it just has water in the engine and needs to dry out?" I theorized noting that on a hot day in the middle of the desert drying out the engine would be something I could accomplish without a lot of effort on my part other than opening the hood. So I did. Everything looked normal. Nothing was particularly wet. But then the water had come in from the bottom so who know's. Anyway I decided to give it 10 minutes and try restarting it. You know in case my water theory was correct. It turns out it wasn't correct and it also turns out that 10 minutes is a really long time to be sitting on the side of the road in the desert staring at your watch.

So I tried starting the car again. Same result. Which is to say nothing happened. Hmm, this could be more serious than I thought. I better put my hazard lights on. Since no passing cars were stopping to help me out. I thought I would get down on the ground and really suss things out for myself. So I looked underneath the passenger side of the car around where the fuel tank was to see if I could at least figure out why there was still a very petrol like smell coming from the car.

Now, as you may have guessed, I'm no expert when it comes to being an auto mechanic but I'm pretty sure that the fuel line is supposed to be attached to the fuel tank in order to, y'know, get fuel to the engine. Well it wasn't anymore. The metal piece where the fuel line attaches to the tank had sheered off when I drove through the "puddle" and was now dragging on the ground (or I guess it was actually resting on the ground since, as a direct result the car was no longer moving).

"Well at least I know what's wrong" I thought. Immediately followed by "Wait. How does knowing what's wrong help. I'm not going to be able to fix it and am still stranded in the desert." But knowing what the problem was still felt comforting for some reason.

Anyway, so I'm stranded in the middle of the desert approximately 1/2 way between my starting point and my destination and I start waving at cars to stop and call a tow truck. Two problems: 1) I don't know the spanish for "I stupidly drove too fast through that puddle back there and broke my fuel line. Can you please call a tow truck?" and 2) no one is stopping anyway. The second one is getting to me more than the first. After a while a car going the opposite direction does stop and I convince them, I think, to inform the police checkpoint that I passed about 20kms back that there's a stranded motorist. This makes me feel better and I stop waving people down.

Since I'm a bit bored I start inspecting the damage. Looks like it's pretty clean. The two halves fit together perfectly. If only I had some electrical tape or some crazy gule.....wait a second. I've got both. Miraculously, I brought my 1st aid kit with me. Something I would have had very little likelihood of needing. I didn't bring my glasses. But I brought band aids, electircal tape and crazy glue.****Now, I was under no illusions that this would fix the problem. But I thought there might, just might, be an outside chance that I could fix the problem for long enough to get to a service station. No, I was wrong. I couldn't. It would have been really really awesome if I could have. I'm talking MacGyver awesome but no it wasn't happening.

Although...while I have the crazy glue out, I might as well have another go at fixing my prescription sunglasses....

Just then, a transport truck pulls off the road and stops behind me. He saw the hood up and my flashing lights and just stopped. All by himself. I was trying to fix my glasses and waiting for the cavalry to come save me from the police checkpoint who, I'm sure by now have been notified and will probably be sending out search and rescue helicopters any minute.

The trucker, gets out and approaches me. What happens next is awesome! Not only have I figured out the spanish for my fuel line is broken and as a consequence my car is in an undrivable state (I just point continuously underneath the car until he looks there. But before he can even look he lights a cigarette. Um....not so wise with the leaking fuel and all...I tried to say but mostly my eyes just widened waiting for the impending explosion.....phew.

So I'm going over my options with this guy. And by going over my options I mean that he is talking quite a bit in Spanish and I don't know what the hell he's on about. I'm thinking "best case scenario I can get him to call a tow truck" but deep down, having driven through 189kms of desert villages already I'm not overly optimisitc. So then just as I think I understand him that he wants to give me a ride to the next village, which I'm not super keen on as it would mean leaving my rental car and it's 7,200 peso deductible in the middle of the desert, he pulls ahead of me hooks up my car to a 10ft strap, gives me extremely explicit instructions (which I somehow understand perfectly) to be very careful on the brakes especially on the down hill parts, and starts towing me.

This has me freaking out. A minute ago I was worried about leaving the car and now i'm illegally (I assume) towing it behind a big rig and trailor. I've got a great video of it but it is about 15 mins long so is too big to upload from internet cafes. A lot of it has me saying things like "Holyshitholyshitholyshit" and "I'm so scared right now, not of dying but of messing this up". Funny that I wasn't so scared as to put down the camera and steer with two hands....

After 20mins or so of stress we pull into a "garage" (which is basically a shack in the middle of the desert with some wrecked cars and oil drums around it). The truck driver explains what's wrong and miracle of miracles the mechanic claims to be able to fix it. This is outstanding. 20mins ago I was trying to fix my car with electrical tape and now I've got someone with a jack and blocks and parts and know how with his head under my car.

Well, he tinkered around under there for a good hour, periodically getting out to get a part or see if I was comfortable sitting in the sun and would maybe like some shade. Who are these mystery people. 1st a guy stops without me asking and rigs up a towing system for a stranded motorist that could seriously damage his truck and therefore his livelihood and then the mechanic is more concerned that I'm comfortable than he is with the vehicle. Absolutely incredible. If you are going to break down I highly recommend the Argentine destert.

Whn he asked me to start the car and it actually started....the feeling....indescribeable. Maybe exhilerating would do it justice but I don't think that's quite right. It was that but it was mixed with relief and excitement as well. Unfortunately he recommended that I turn right around and go back to San Juan and get it fixed properly. And maybe if it was my car and I was from Argentina and could see the Valley of the Moon any time I want then I would have but as he seemed to do a kickass job of fixing what I was confident was the only problem I figured why not continue on.

So I did. And this is what the valley of the moon looks like:

I had arrived at 4:50. 10 minutes before the last tour of the park started. I arrived in time to see the red ridge that looked like they should have named it the "Martian Valley" and then to see the really cool moonscape and generally drive around a really cool valley very very carefully, stressing out over just about every bump, hoping my new fuel line system wouldn't let me down.

It didn't. But because I got there at 5. I was leaving to return back to San Juan at 8:00. Just before it got dark.

Remember my glasses? I didn't. So the drive there which, was supposed to take about 4 hours took me about 6.5 to get home. Partly because the line markings suck and it was another dark and stormy night and partly because up in the desert the Argentines don't bother to fence in their livestock so around seemingly every corner my high beams were lighting up a horse or a cow in the middle of the road. Soon I started seeing cows and horses even when they weren't there.

To compound matters when I got back to the city I immediately got lost. Even though the city is a reasonably straightforward rectangular grid it has three layers of encircling roads and at 2 in the morning after stressing out about horses on the road for 6 hours it's not nearly as easy as it looked on the map the next day.

When I returned the car I was just about to tell the guy about the problems I had but he went on and on about how I wasn't returning it with enough fuel and actually accompanied me to the pumps where I put about 3 bucks worth in to get it to the level of his satisfaction. Remember I picked it up and had to almost immediatly get fuel. I was very disappointed in him and so forgot to mention that his fuel line was currently held together by a rural desert patchwork of miscellaneous parts and ingenuity.

Nothing is ever easy is it? But it makes for a good story....

Photos 1) The landscape, and cactuses in particular reminded me of the roadrunner cartoons. So I took lots of photos. 2) Bariloche. See I told you it was nice. 3) Fuel line detached. 4) Car getting fixed in desert lot. 5-7) The valley of the moon.

*Actual name of the park is Ischigualasto and valle de la luna is just a part of it but I mean c'mon I can't even pronounce it so I'm not going to bother writing it either. Except for just now. But I actually copied and pasted it from wikipedia so didn't actually write it per se. Anyhooo, back to the blog.

**Proper take away coffee houses just haven't reached some corners of the globe yet unfortunately

***BTW don't listen to wikipedia on this one. It says that San Juan has lots happening with all kinds of culture and whatnot as well as noting that "very little rain falls in the region". Normally I don't have a bad thing to say about wikipedia and rely on it heavily but it got this one wrong. At least as far as a weekend in late December 08 goes when I was there.

****In my haste to get going I had forgotten to bring my eyeglasses which I need for important things like watching tv and driving at night.

*****What can I say, along with some other stuff that really is what is in my 1st aid kit.

********That's like CAD 2,500 or something

Mt Aconcagua Expidition: Summit Baby!

So back in 2001 when I went on my then 'epic' 6 week trip in South America I went to the foothills of the tallest mountain in the Americas, Mt. Aconcagua which peaks out at 6,962m or (23,841ft). I've got a good photo of it but it was so long ago that it was not taken on a digital camera so it's not featured here. Anyway being there and then meeting some people who tried to climb the mountain whet my appetite for summiting and when I found that there was an opportunity to join up with an expedition group and still be able to be back in Canada for Christmas I signed up immediately.

Not having any experience with high altitude I opted to go for the expeditions 'Extended Acclimitization Plan' (EAP) which saw me and two experienced German climbers begin our trek 2 days earlier than the rest of the group. We made it to the first camp at 3,100m with no issues other than the fact that I was a bit sick and needed to use the toilet constantly. The safety measures in place in the park were impressive but even though we had to visit the doctor daily to have our blood pressure and blood oxygenation levels* checked and discuss our general health, I conveniently forgot to mention that I was having trouble staying hydrated due to the fact that all the water I was drinking was finding it's way immediately back out.**

Even though I felt crappy (no pun intended) and did not enjoy any of the excrutiatingly long 8 hour hike up to the actual base camp Plaza des Mulas (4,300m) I got a full night's sleep once there and enjoyed the 'day off to acclimatize' the next day by augmenting the rock wall around my tent.

The next day saw the rest of the group arrive which was good because I had little in common with the two 50 something year old german dudes and one of them didn't speak English so communication was also difficult. We were now 14: Dave, Jan, Letitia, Dennis, Simon, Steve, Pascal, Cedric, Bernard, Walter, Caesar, Ricardo, Dieter and Helmut. Nationalities spanning the globe.

With lots of down time we spent a lot of time BS'ing in the food tent, just hanging out in our respective tents, playing cards***( in particular a game called Shit Head which Dennis was particularly bad at) or just waiting to be fed all with an upbeat attitude about the task ahead and lots of laughs now that there were some people in the group who both spoke English and had a sense of humour.

Once our acclimitization period was over at Plaza des Mulas we had 6 straight days of torture, well 7 if you count day 0. Tuesday the weather went bad and it snowed and the wind blowed and sleep was difficult to come by especially because part of acclimatizing meant drinking 5 litres of water per day which meant waking up at least once a night to go pee.

Wednesday we set off with full packs**** for the first of three high altitude camps Plaza de Canada (which we just called camp 1) and for the first time since Madagascar I was carrying a heavy load up a mountain. Believe me my legs let me know it the next day. The snow and wind started to blow on the way up the mountain and even though I would have been warmer I opted to let my beard warm my face instead of my bandana which was absolutely disgusing smelling having been absorbing sweat for two weeks or so since last being washed.

The high altitude camps meant no more meal tent so we ate our meals, either outside if the weather was good or, except for camp 1 when the sun came out, huddled up inside our tents.

Thursday and Friday saw the same crappy weather with snow falling and wind blowing and the two nights at these camps were probably the worst. It was -15 degrees outside not counting the effect of wind chill and even once I was warm and cozy in my sleeping bag my breath would condense on the outside of my sleeping bag or my pillow making them wet and disgusting and ultimately would condense on the ceiling of the tent, freeze and then when the wind would blow, would fall back down on me as if it were snowing inside the tent!!! Very unpleasant to say the least. It makes it really hard to get enthusiastic for a day of trekking when you've only had a couple of hours sleep and your pillow is wet. That said, the higher we went the more scenic and panoramic the views became, though my photos are few due to the fact that it was too cold to take off my gloves to opperate the camera or just too cold to be bothered leaving the tent altogether.

Saturday was summit day. On Friday night, our first night at camp 3, there was some concern whether or not the weather would be good enough to make an attempt on the summit. The wind was howling and it was freezing (exact temperature unknown but 'F'ing Freezing!' seems about right) so at 5:00am when our guide awoke us to let us know we were going to depart for the summit at 6:30am, it was hard to get up for it. Also, in the course of getting ready, I found that the outer shell of my trekking boots were frozen solid and I had to struggle for 15mins just to get my boots on, as a result I was delaying the group and getting stressed everytime the guide said 'c'mon guys, we're going'. Once I finally got my boots on I still wasn't ready and had to fill my water bottles which was met with a frustrated groan and eye roll from the guides. Then I had to find my ice axe, which wasn't where I expected it to be. So rather than panic and look all around for it I just said 'forget it' and went without it. The only one to do so I noticed after surveying everyone else's packs but I knew from discussions with others that there was only a slim chance of needing it anyway.

At about 6:50 or so we finally left and I took up my position near the back of the pack just, cause that's the way I do it, I don't like to feel like I'm being pushed and like to trek at a slow yet continuous pace.

As we were trekking I noticed that there weren't as many of us as there were supposed to be, Steve and Caesar were not in the group. When added to the fact that Bernard, Dieter, Helmut and Dennis had already turned back at various stages we were only 8 making a run at the summit.

Later, when reflecting on the trek over a few beers, we were all of the same opinion that our primary guide, Pablo, did not do his best to motivate the group and seemed insistent on convincing people to turn back as we reached certain milestones. For me he asked me how I was doing, I said "tired but fine' as, other than heavy breathing I was not suffering at all from the effects of high altitude and had no symptoms of altitude sickness or any other discomfort other than being tired from lack of sleep and having tired legs from 4 straight days of steep mountain ascent. Reminiscent of the Malagasy mountain guide when I climbed Pic Boby, he wouldn't let up though, "How are your legs?" "Don't forget you have to come back down too" "We only have a certain amount of time to reach the summit"*****. I think in his efforts to talk me down, he inadvertantly motivated me to keep going just out of spite. Never underestimate the power of spite.

By the time we broke for lunch at about 1:00pm there were only two of us left, and I felt sure that Ricardo, who had earned the nickname La Machina, (due to the fact that he was fit and built like a tank Argentinian rugby player) would continue on with me but before I knew it he had turned around and was heading down the mountain with Pablo, the last of our group's guides and I had joined up with another group who I had never met before to make the final 3 hour ascent towards the summit.

From the photos you can tell that it was a beautiful sunny day and my legs were surprisingly holding up very well considering I'd never before undertaken such a physically demanding activity. With Pablo gone I could turn off the spite and just turn off in general and, like a robot, follow the person in front of me step by very, very slow step.

One hour into the final ascent we could see the summit. It looke really close. Like a couple of hundred metres away. But still two hours of trekking. Head down. One foot in front of the other. Don't forget to breathe.******

Finally, I made it! I mean I actually made it. On December 6, 2008 at about 3:50pm Andes time I reached the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas. It was really wierd that it wasn't a more emotional reaction. No sense of pride or even sense of relief. Just a matter of fact "I made it". The weirdness was compounded by the fact that, after a couple of weeks of talking about it with the group I was the only one there and had no one to high five or likewise congratulate. Seven years after I had originally been awe inspired by Mt. Aconcagua and the Andes in general I had no more emotional reaction than if I had just cycled across London to pick up my awesome goggles. 'Yup I'm here. Guess it's time to turn around and go back." Which I did. Though I did take some time to take and pose for some kickass photos if I do say so myself!

So I said 7 days of torture, that's only 5. Well to pariphrase Newton, "He who goes up a mountain must come down". My feet were hurting. I was tired. Exhausted even. In general I'm a slow trekker and even more so on the downhill due to not wanting to further tweak my wonky****** left knee. Trekking downhill was very slow but when I got down to the base camp there was a heroes welcome for the 1/14 to summit and hamburgers and coke. All of which were welcome.

That night we celebrated our experience and our last night on the mountain with champagne, beer and....whatever it was we had for dinner.

That night my lips exploded. Apparently my beard is unable to protect my lips from harsh sunlight at high altitude continuously reflecting off the snow into my face as I look down carefully placing every step for 8 hours up and 4 hours down on a bright and sunny summit day. That made Monday equally crap as i had to hide my lips from the sun and coddle my aching feet for the 8 hour hike down from base camp to the park entrance.

I assumed my feet were hurting due to wearing my boots too tight and really cinching on the crampons because I had taken the precaution of wearing all 4 pairs of my wool winter socks so I couldn't have frostbite right? Well, sort of. It turns out I had mild frostbite and when I went to the doctor a few weeks later because my toes were still numb, something I didn't think was consistent with 'boot squeeze' or whatever you want to call it, the doctor said that i had "no problem" and that I should regain feeling in my toes within 2-3months. Yes that says months.

Anyway it appears that success has it's price. Luckily around Mendoza and in Argentina generally red wine flows like a river and at about $2 a bottle so 'medicating' myself as I slowly recover was really quite pleasant.

Photos: 1) Summit Baby! 2) View from the toilet 'window' 3) View of the summit at sunset, awesome tent wall in the foreground 4) Dinner at high altitude camp 1 5) Freezing cold sunset 6) View from the summit. 6,962m. Waaaaay above the clouds. 7) Oh Ya! I made it! 8) Group photo, middle guy who made it to the top 9 + 10) Success has a price 11) Enjoying the medication

*I still don't know what this is, something like the higher your number, the fewer breaths you need to take to get the same amount of oxygen in your blood. Though how this is measured by cliping a sensor to your finger and not actually drawing blood, I'm not exactly sure.

**My logic was that, from experience, this is a temporary condition and I didn't want to be prevented from continuing up the mountain for something that would go away in a couple of days.

***Which I luckily remembered to bring but only because I had lost my bank card and had to go rummaging through my bag that I had earmarked for storage while we climbed the mountain for my mobile phone to cancel it only to find my cards there too

****Full meaning all of our personal stuff, not counting food and tents which were carried by the guides/porters.

*****Alluding to my 4 straight days of being one of the slowest in the group

******Don't forget to apply sunscreen to my lips should have also been on my mind.

*******Tweak and wonky both being proper medical terms for my condition

Gettting to Chile and Celebrating Beard Day 100

Getting to Chile

So from London after a lovely break to sort through my Madagascar photos while watching Columbo on the couch at my former flat and catching up with friends, notable for the Friday evening repeated attacks on my 94 day old beard by J-Fo, I began my official "trip round the world" that left from London to Santiago Chile (via Zurich of course) on November 17, 2008 and returns from Stockholm to London on March 31, 2009.

Well I luckily made it to Chile. You see I barely made my flight. I'm talking minutes or maybe even seconds at the check-in-desk to spare here. Here's what happened:

During my travels in Madagascar I had been listening to a few audiobooks (Catch 22) and lectures from the teaching company on random topics* and some standup comedy. A lot of the time I use my ipod is at nighttime to help drown out ambient noise (like dogs fighting and annoying Malagasy music on taxi brousses) and find that people talking does a better job than music. So while I had some couch/internet time when I was back in london I searched out as many audio books and lectures that I could find to add to the collection. The only problem was that with all the new stuff I now exceeded my 80gigs space on my ipod and had to now select individually the tracks that I wanted to keep. The reason this was such a problem is that I had left it til 2:30pm on the day I was supposed to catch a 6:40 flight from Heathrow to synchronize my ipod. 2 1/2 hours later at 5:00 I had to shut it down the syncronizing process at 50% and make a mad dash for the airport at rush hour.

Since you already know that I made it I'll spare you all the details:

Details like 1)how I was sprinting so fast with my 15kg backpack**that a lady on the Hammersmith and City Line to Paddington offered me a stack of tissues because I was sweating so much. Or that I missed the 5:25 Heathrow Express by one minute***.

Or that 2) my dead all out sprint to terminal 1 was for naught as, despite what my ticket said, Swiss Air actually flies from terminal 2.

Or that 3) another all out sprint from T1 to T2 caught 4 police officers off guard as I charged between them yelling over my shoulder, sorry, I'm late for my flight.

Or that 4) the guy at the check in desk had to check with his supervisor who in turn had to check with her supervisor to see if 6:10 was too late a check in time to let me on the flight. "Ok but he is the last one" was the consensus that I was grateful to hear.

Actually that's quite a lot of details for someone who was leaving out the details. Sounds like something I would do.

Anyway, so I got there and after accidently tipping the taxi driver the equivalent of GBP 20 due to an exchange rate misunderstanding I arrived at the Chili Hostel (play on words deliberate) http://www.ajihostel.cl/ which was a really social place where I met lots of fun people.

One of the fun people was a guy who worked there named Alvaro, a big fan of Rush, which I can't say helped endear him to me but since they are Canadain it fostered conversation about music and in general. Alvaro is a bit of a metal head. Or if not a metal head then definitely a hard rocker.

Anyway, on beard day 100, which happened to coincide with the hostel's Friday nigt bbq, Alvaro broke out the hard liquor, a Chielan firewater called Pisco and then took me and Randy, a guy from the states who is about 10yrs my junior with the energy of a guy about 20 yrs my junior, on a random tour of hard rocker type clubs where the people where scary looking and the music was hard rock (though due to Pisco related memory loss I don't remember any actual songs that we heard).

In general, though much is hazy, beard day 100 celebration was a roaring success and saw me get back to the hostel sometime between 5:30am (the time stamp of the last photo) and 6:30am when Randy scaled a wall and climbed through a 2nd storey window ****to let me in the building because no one was answering the door.
The major issue with the beard day celbration, other than it was to celebrate 100 days of an awesome beard which is less an 'issue' and more a statement of fact, was that I had a 7:51am bus ticket to Mendoza (7hours away across the border into Argentina) already purchased for the next day so waking up at 10am I scrambled around as fast as possible to make it to the bus station in time to catch a bus that would see me arrive in Mendoza before dark.*****

After a healthy breakfast of a double whopper with cheese at BK, I still had about 1/2 hour til the next bus left at 1:30pm so I decided to look through my bags and take inventory of my stuff. Hmmm.....where are my GBP 200 brand new never been worn prescription ski goggles. They should be here. or here. or here. Crap! Crap, crap crap crap crap. I must have left them at the hostel. Damit. there's only 15mins left now til my bus leaves. Decision time....do I say "forget them" and continue on? or forget the bus ticket (after all I was going a day early for my mountain tour anyway) and go back and get them? I can't very well leave them just to get value out of this bus ticket. Guess I'm going back to the hostel for another night.I was greeted with an amused smile from the girl at the desk and sure enough my goggles were there. My pride was nowhere to be found but I had a quiet afternoon and used the time productively to send an email to Mom and Dad informing them that I had planned a kickass Beard Removal Themed party for New Year's Eve at their house if that was all right with them. I was calling in New Beard's Eve and during my mountain expedition it would take on a life of it's own.

Photos 1) Nothing to do with arrival in Chile but I just find it interesting that a guy named O'Higgins was such a great Liberator of Chile that he has the main st named after him. Mental note to wikipedia Chilean history and find out what's up with that? 2) Mi amigo Alvaro and his buddy who's name I don't remember one of the rocker clubs in Chile.3) Me and the official beard calendar. 4) DG and Randy taking a "when in rome" attitude and getting into the spirit of the local rocker clubs.

*The best one being History of Roman Empire which I originally downloaded in April when I went to Rome but revisited in Madagascar due to lack of selection

**Despite now carrying winter weather clothes I still managed to ditch a lot of stuff that I was carrying around Madagascar. Nearly 9kg worth which really helped for the sprinting through airports.

***26 mins from Old st to Paddington is pretty good at rush hour I thought after the fact.

****Before I could even finish my response "No way man I'm way too drunk for that" to his question of who should climb through the window? his feet were already hanging out of the window.

*****Normally I would opt for the overnight bus but since it arrives at 4 in the morning I decided against it.

Madagascar 8 - La Dernier Chapitre

Ok so I´ve left Madagascar and am now in Chile. Big deal. I´ve got a couple of unaccounted for weeks on the blog so instead of writing a chapter on each event (which would be amazing but time consuming) I´ll sum it up with a paragraph on each.

Parc Ranomafana

Amazing park. Greenest place in the whole country with lush rainforest and beautiful waterfalls and rivers along with lots of lemurs and a nice campsite. As I arrived in the middle of the night on a taxi-brousse it was an amazing awaken to the sight of mist rising off the rainforest and birds chirping. That´s right birds. Going tweet-tweet. Not roosters cock-a-doodle-do-ing or dogs barking just nice tranquil bird song. The main problem then was that the hotel was in the village and the parc, my destination, was 6.5kms away. According to the guide book it was a slightly windy road but I figured it must follow the river or something like the road near the hotel so I thought I'd walk it. It turned out to be entirely uphill. Lucky thing I was in training for Aconcagua climb and I had just made an awesome "On-the-go" playlist by selecting 2 songs titles beginnig with each letter of the alphabet. I arrived at the park in the middle of Lenny Kravitz´s "Lady". 13 songs. Not bad time considering it was all uphill. The well deserved honey rhum (a bit on the sweet side though if you ask me) went down a treat and was still in time to tour the park and see some lemurs. The brownish ones.

Ambositra ("Boringtown, Madagascar)

If boredom could be exported and capitalized upon then Ambositra would be the richest town in the world. The guide says something like "all the fresh mountain air you can gulp" and that made me think that since I was going past there anyway, why not stop for a couple of nights and check it out. Except for the scenery and the half decent although seriously difficult mountain biking there is "rein chose a faire la."*

I tried and tried and tried but I just couldn´t make the "woodworking captiatl of Madagascar" interesting. Sure, the little wooden trinkets are hand made but so are pirogues and bricks and just about everything else in Madagascar where labour is cheap and the zebu cart represents cutting edge technology. I think it was a good eye opener for me and reinforces why I am not a writer for guidebooks. If I were under Ambositra I would write "this town sux. Don´t go there. Ok sure. If you really really really think woodworking is interesting and want to buy some mass produced trinkets carved and assembled from wood then stop by for lunch on your way through, but by all means don´t go out of your way". One thing that was cool was that I could pitch my tent in the yard of the hotel for only 2 euros a night and there was a baby tortoise sharing the yard with me I named him Georges because the Malagasy lady and child who welcomed me either didn´t understand me when I asked them his name or they ignored me.

28 Hours in a Taxi-brousse and the Search for Nosy Mistrio

Madagascar is ridiculously huge. So if you want to see the north and you are currently in Boringville, you either need to fly there, (rubbing fingers and thumb together indicating that it's a bit pricey) or suck it up and take to the road. 1,200kms is a long way to go on windy mountain roads at the beginning of the rainy season but in the end after leaving Snoozetown at 9:00 on Thursday I got to, where I thought I wanted to go, at 1:00pm on Friday, Ambilobe, gateway to the north and where the streets are paved with, well, nothing.

Before you read this just remember one thing. I am an idiot. Also, language barriers suck.

The guidebook says that Nosy Be, while amazingly beautiful with world class beaches and diving, is also infested with vazahas, and the island even has direct flights from Italy and France to facilitate vazaha visits. No thanks. Not my cup of tea. The guidebook also says that Nosy Mitsio has even better worldclass diving and hardly any vazahas but it is hard and therefore expensive to get to. BUT, the guidebook map has a dotted line indicating a ferry that goes from Grand Mitsio Island to a mysterious place called Ampasanantenina.** People in and around Ambilobe generally agreed with this and so they dropped me at a place called Port St. Louis. Language barrier issue 1) Is this where I catch a "bateau" to Nosy Mitsio. Technically no. it isn´t but it was where I could catch a pirogue which for some reason is not considered a "boat" even though it floats and has sails and whatnot. Ok then, I´ll go to Ampasanantenina where the "ferry" goes. I knew something was wrong. There was no road to get to this place. Wouldn´t a ferry carry trucks and supplies and stuff? No there was a tiny zebu path and some very surprised children and villagers when I arrived. Luckily, the villagers were friendly and welcoming and let me set up my tent on the beach and it was only after 20 mins or so when they tried to get money out of me. Luckily again they are not that smart and after about 2 hours of negotiations I made them think they got me when in reality I scored a 75% off "boat" trip to the island. One catch, it leaves at 3.00am. For me, I had just travelled 28hrs on a taxi brouse, then 2 hours in the back of a pickup truck, then walked for 90 mins and forgot to eat or pick up extra water and now I was going to sleep on a strange beach in the middle of nowhere and no one knew I was there and then wake up and get in some dudes carved out canoe and sail 31kms offshore to the big island where I had no hotel reservation or even knew if there were even any hotels.

When I got there, the hotelier said, "sure you can stay here (though I don´t think he was expecting guests!) but there is a problem with the food. There is none." What? I said. Well what about water. I mean I haven´t eaten or slept in a while and just spent the first 6 hours of the day in the sun on a "boat". Nowe have no water either. Oh man I felt like crying. I think he could see the deflated look on my face he instructed a guy to climb a tree and get some coconuts and I tell you what that was the best coconut I´ve ever had in my life and maybe even the top beverage ever as well. After I was sufficiently hydrated we established that the problem with the food was not lack of existence but lack of variety which was a much much better problem when you are in the middle of the mozambique channel on a tiny island that you arrived on unexpectedly and unannounced. Hell of a beach though. The guidebook got that bit right.

That night, one of the staff at the hotel, a bit wasted and talking loads of crap, asked me if I was married. I said no. He said was I interested in Malagasy women. I thought he meant generally and I said that they were generally quite pretty and smilely and friendly and then he left and I forgot about him. A while later, after dinner once I was in my room I heard a knock, and so there is this guy with "my choice" of two local village girls.***I had to decline. It was just too weird. Also the 3 carb meal (spaghetti, with fries and a side of rice) combined with no sleep for nearly 2 straight days had me a little on the tired side. Maybe it would have been a night to remember, as it was it was quite memorable, but I´ll never know and I´m ok with that.

Communication problem 2) yes i would like to "plonge" meaning dive. But they also use the same word to mean snorkel. I don´t want to fucking snorkel. I want to dive so I add "avec boutaille" (with tank of air) but for some reason this also got lost in translation. So instead of being taken to the dive store. I was taken to a remote smaller island to snorkel where I felt quite lucky that they didn´t just leave me on it and take all my stuff. After explaining that under no circumstances was I going to leave all my bags and money with my priogue crew while I go snorkeling off a deserted island we headed inland.

Dave is a big stupid idiot: right so we sail all afternoon and get back to the mainland. Port St. Louis where I originally landed. It´s only 27 kms from Ambilobe. If it comes down to it I´m a hardened backpacker and I´ll walk it. (What? that is stupid! don´t be an idiot!) Oh look it might rain. I´ll just get my rainjacket out. That should help. (You are a retard) Ok I´m off I´ll just start walking by myself in rural Madagascar on the verge of darkness on a sunday when there are no taxis this should work out fine (It is a wonder you were´nt mugged and left for dead!). Right well anyhooo, long story short after a brief conversation with a complete physcho I managed to pay a ridiculous but worthwhile sum to a private taxi driver (guy with a car) and just as I got inside it started to piss down rain like I´d never seen before. And lightning. Holy crap the lightning. What great weather this would have been to walk 27 kms with over 30kgs of luggage. Theres roughing it and then there is being stupid. This was a million miles into stupid.

Result: Nosy Mistrio found. Dives completed: 0. Amount of stuff I had left:all (what a ridiculous miracle)

Diego Suarez

This place is like a proper city. Except for the number of old french expats with young Malagasy women****, the city makes sense and is tourist friendly with lots to do. While updating the blog I met up with Nero the poker instrcutor at the local casino and stopped in a couple of times to play. I also climbed my very first real rock face to a ridiculous height of 28m, hung out at the pool at the Grand hotel working on my tan and chilling out, mountain biked about 150kms, climbed French Mountain, would have taken windsurf lessons but a group of russians had booked months in advance for the time I wanted to do it and went on an amazing ATV excursion with my new ami and the coolest guy in Madagascar, Garcia.

Garcia welcomed me into his house for dinner 2 times and showed me the town and even introduced me to lots of ladies (he´s quite the ladies man you see) on halloween when I went out on the town dressed as, yes, Chuck Norris, even though no one else was celebrating halloween.

I ended up making the 1,200km trip back to Tana in time to hang out in the Capital on a Sunday when everything is closed and then got wasted and made my flight to France just in time to pass out and wake up mid flight with my first case of African traveller´s diarreah.

All good now though. Starting the climb of Cerro Aconcagua on Sunday, 6,962m (22,841ft) of Argentinian Mountain. I´ll wave from the top on Dec 8, 9 or 10 so have a look up.



*A phrase that I would repeat over and over while drunk and generally badmouthing Ambositra to my new Malagasy friends when one of them said they were going there. The enthusiam with which I trash talked the town was received with much hilarity and it became a running joke for like a week (ie. What´s going on? I don´t know but I hear there´s lots happening in Ambositra.)
**Amazing that I remembered the name as it´s been about 3.5 weeks now but I asked just about everyone I encountered if I was going the right way.
***He said they were 20 but who the hell knows.
****I still can´t decide whether to cheer them (nice work buddy!) or feel sorry for them (they{re only with you for your money!) I think the fact that none of them were ever smiling despite living in a tropical paradise with enough money to live like a king with a beautiful women on their arms has me leaning towards feeling sorry for them.

Madagascar 7 - Chooo-choooo! All aboard the FCE (Also known as taking the long way through Banana country to get to Parc Ranomafana)

I'll be honest. Originally I had no interest in riding in Madagascar's only passenger train the Fianarotsoa Cote Est (FCE). It's one of those things that they build up in the guide books as being a must do but I could see right through it. Or I could, until some people who had already done it sort of convinced me that it was worthwhile and since I didn't have an agenda anyway I figured I'd give it a go.

I have a couple of problems with this train though:

First, It starts in a city that I had no reason to go to (other than to catch the train)* and ends in a city that I had no desire to go to** and that was a day's travel out of my way (to the extent that I had a "way" not really having a set travel itinerary and all).

The second problem I had is that is overhyped and swarming with vazahas. Actually that's two separate problems but one is a consequence of the other.*** In the description it notes that it traverses "some of Madagascar's most scenic countryside". Having already been here for six weeks I've seen a lot of the countryside and while I can't argue that the view from the train wasn't scenic, it was no more or less scenic than you can see in many other places (and how exactly do you rank whether one amazing landscape is more or less scenic than another anyway?)

It goes on to boast that it "offers the traveller magnificent vistas". Ok this may be true if you had a window seat (which I didn't) and it was on the north side of the train (nope again) then you could hang your head out the window and partake in some vistas and also block the view of all the other passengers such as those sitting on the aisle on the south facing side of the train (ie the side where there is just a sheer rock wall along which they built the railroad of which my view was splendid thanks).

The other descriptive words they use are "liesurely" to describe the pace (aka slow) and "lots of opportunity to enjoy the bustle of the 17 village stations as they come alive with the whistle of the train" (ie the train stops a lot).

As a result of this exotic sounding description the train is swarming with tourists. Not the young hip, bearded backpacker types that I like to socialize with (or non bearded in the case of girls) but the older french vazaha's who wear out of context adventure gear like those old photography vests and big hiking boots even though they now have digital cameras and are presently taking a train. They all go in the first class carriages. Wanting to distance myself from that kind of pre-packaged group travel I booked in 2nd class.

So to recap, the train starts in a city I didn't want to go to in the first place, travels extremely slowly and stops frequently and I can't see the vistas because I'm stuck on the aisle seat on the non vista side of the train having got up at 5:30am in time to get my ticket (oh yes that was the other thing I meant to complain about) and then arrives at a city that I don't really want to be in at night time with no hotel reservation.


Hmm, how did I cope with this situation. Get pissed I bet you're thinking. Well that would have been possible because as I said the train stops a lot. And actually, now that I think about it you could turn the FCE into an all day drinking game/pub crawl. If you had a beer at each of the 17 stops you would be pretty wasted when you got to Manakara (especially since beer comes in big 650ml bottles). But then if you saw the toilet in the 2nd class compartment the last thing you'd want to be doing is drinking more fluids. So no I didn't get drunk until I arrived.

Instead I took photos, lots and lots of photos. Photos of the train stopped, photos of it moving, photos out the window (once people got off at about the 5th stop so I could actually take in a bit of vista action) photos of people on the train, photos of people at the station, photos of chickens crossing the tracks and photos of the biggest most prehistorically huge bananas I've ever seen in my life. Then I switched to videos because hey why not capture some of the sounds as well? If I could have somehow captured the smell of the deisil engine it would really be a collection for the senses (the bananas taste the same so just eat a banana while you check this out for the taste sensation).
The other thing that helped me pass the time was expaining to the locals, especially the kids, how my gps works. Basically, despite having read the wikipedia article explaining how the gps works when I first got it, I have no clue. Malagasy children can't seem to sense BS though so I just started randomly explaining the things I did know (like how many kms were left to where the GPS map thinks Manakara is (it's 5kms from where it actually is btw) and filling in the rest with technical jargon and making sure to pronounce "satelite" with an appropriately authentic sounding french accent.
Once I had a few photos of the beard out the window I felt like the whole train journey was actually worthwhile. After all as long as I got one good keeper beard photo with the train in the background that I can use to encapsulate all of the travels of Dave and his beard and from that perspective I was right it was worthwhile. Hell it was worthwhile just to see those giant bananas.

But then I got to Manakara. Adrien, one of my group members from the Pic Boby ascent told me that it was worthwhile going there because it had a kind of end of the world feeling. Didn't sound all that great to me. I'd been trekking and taxibroussing around for the past 10 days I think some right smack in the thick of the world would be pretty awesome right about now.

Since I was pretty sure I didn't want to go there I had consulted the guide book and just figured I'd get the first pousse-pousse guy to take me and my bags to any hotel he could recommend that might have a room. We agreed the price up front but as I didn' have the correct change he decided to up the price to match the currency I did have (double) on the grounds that the first hotel that he recommended was full and he took me around the corner. I argued that I agreed the ridiculous price that he quoted in the first place on the understanding that he would actually find me a hotel and would therefore save me a lot of hassle but then he brought his kids into it and the hotel wouldn't make change for me so I had to suck it up and pay the man his £3.50. Consulting the guide later saw that there was actually a big article warning against the Manakara pousse-pousse drivers and how ruthless and relentless they were.

Even though a ride from the train station on the outskirts of town to find a hotel in the dark might well be worth way more than the price I paid in London or elsewhere in the world, in Madagascar I should have paid about £0.50 for it and it is the feeling of getting ripped off which starts to wear on you after a while and makes you stop returning peoples smiles knowing that they are almost always followed by some kind of request or scheme for you to give them money.**** I deliberately didn't take another pousse pousse ride just out of spite even though it would have been much easier. On my way out of town I walked with my pack the 4kms to the taxibrousse station passing pousse-pousse after pousse-pousse explaining them my distaste for their dishonest business practices and arguing that since I was generally younger, stronger and fitter than them it really didn't make sense for them to be carrying my stuff anyway. Photos: 1) Train leaving on time (ish) from destination 2) I like this one. You can't really see the red of the engine but you get the kid's head in the foreground looking out. 3) Why did the chickens cross the tracks? Don't know. In this photo they're more walking along side the tracks but it still seemed a bit risky if you're a chicken .4) This one didn't turn out so great partly due to my overwhelming enthusiasm for the pre historic bananas but it's the best one I have that really show's how huge they are. 5) A random one after the bananas were put down and lots of people got off the train at the rest stop and the kid was sleeping. 6) Self portrait out the window of a moving train with the left hand. Let's see you do that with an SLR eh? 7) Ok so Manakara does have a kind of end of the world/old west feel about it. It doesn't mean I'm ever going there again now does it? Just look how lazy those pousse-pousse drivers are! Also I've locked in photo number 5 for the beard chronicles and can save the rest of my train pics for the trans-siberian.



*After spending 2 days there because the Thursday train was cancelled I realized that I also had no desire be there either.
**This was reinforced after I was actually there and had no desire to be there.
***It is overhyped DONC it is swarming with vazaha's. Merçi Simon R. pour la leçon français.
****Actually I smiled but just a sarcastic smile often accompanied by an some english that I know they don't understand. What? don't understand eh? Well I don't understand Malagache so welcome to my world. No "argent" for you. BTW friends beware due to the lack of speaking english I have a lot of pent up sarcasm that will need to be released when I get back so by no means interpret that as me complaining or not enjoying my madagascar experience