That bloody squirrel...

So back on the road again with my travels, though less travels this time, and more roads. Mexico City from Guadalajara was my last destination and, well, I´m still here. I´ve taken some nice photos too, but they will have to wait a few more days.

My travels here started with my sister and her boyfriend. We left on Thursday night for a Friday morning arrival, and our feet barely touched the ground between then and their departure on Sunday for better(/worse) things ie work.

We arrived, negotiated the packed rush hour metro with oversized bags (by no means feat, which included a few angry locals) and arrived at our hostel. We dropped off our bags, and then were on to it, fitting in as much Mexico City as we could.

Day 1: We started with breakfast, then moved on to nearby and massive Chapultepec Park. Walked a little bit, then continued on down the massive boulevard, past some Paris-esque roundabouts to the Berlin-esque Angel of Independence statue - a stunningly gold topless angel on a big concrete post. From there we Metro-ed to the Zócalo, a Madrid-esque square, surrounded by some old Government buildings, and some old places of worship. These included a tilting cathedral (due to the sinking nature of Mexico City - very common to see them spilling in all directions) and some remains of the city the Spaniards crushed in order to make way for Mexico City. Then onwards on our madness after lunch to Léon Trotsky´s old pad. He was exiled from Russia after being wanted for opposition to the Stálin regime. He eventually ended up in Mexico, working hard on political stuff with people like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and then was assasinated in his own house on the second attempt by some other artists. From there we went to the nearby "Blue House" where Frida Kahlo spent many of her later years. It had many paintings and artifacts of herself and husband Diego Rivera.

Day 2: North, to Teotihuacán, the well preserved ruins of the massive city present during the Mexican classical period. It includes two massive pyramids for the Sun and the Moon, as well as many other fascinating features. I got sunburnt, expecting rain as it is the rainy season. On the way back we dropped by a cathedral for the Virgin Guadalupe (the Mexican version of the Virgin Mary) and saw a 15 year old girl having her birthday celebrated in front of many onlookers. Fifteen is a big age for girls here, and is thus treated. Every year over three days in October about eight million Mexicans drop by the cathedral too as part of some sort of pilgrimage.

Day 3: After a couple of unmentionable incidents the night before (incidentally a Saturday night) I met my sister and co. outside Chapultepec Castle. It is now a museum, but was previously home to Maximillian, some Austro-Hungarian guy who wanted to rule over Mexico. He was suitably removed in due course. Half the museum is for special exhibits - we saw some Buddhist stuff there. Then it was bye times, and I continued my perusement that afternoon, this time of the fascinating and huge Museum of Anthropology, which is nearby-ish.

So I was on my own (except for the friends I had at the hostel where I was staying) in a massive city once more (previously being in Sao Paulo. Both cities are roughly 20 million, give or take a few mil, and ensuring it is known that Mexico City is generally considered larger).

On the Monday I slept in, then took another walk around the Historical Centre, starting again at the Zócalo, but this time taking things more slowly. I went into the Presidential Palace, which is on the Zócalo, and as far as I know houses the Executive Wing of the Mexican Government. There were some amazing Diego Rivera murals on the walls. Then I went into the leaning Cathedral I also mentioned before, and prayed that it didn´t fall and my head, nor on the heads of all those also inside. I then walked some more, and ended up in the Legislative Chamber of the Mexican Government in a different part of town, not completely by accident. At the musuem in the same building I asked if I could see it. Through shaky English they thought I said "sanitários" (toilets) rather than "Senators", so on my way we took a detour to the bathroom. We eventually worked it out, but I am still undecided whether there´s much of a difference. Needless to say one of the rooms was cleaner, but that could be because the Representatives or "Deputies" are on summer holidays at the moment.

Yesterday I did more walking. I walked around the Pink Zone (Zona Rosa), which is a cultured area with many shops and cafés. There is also a Ripley´s Museum of believe-it-or-nots, and a wax museum, but I decided against paying for those. Instead I bought a stack of CDs, to help me nurse my squirrel wounds.

Oh yeah, that bloody squirrel. A few seconds on his part for a wasted morning on mine. Bastard. All I was doing was innocently sitting in Chapultepec Park after lunch (and before my Zona Rosa experience) eating some scrumptious popcorn from one of the literally hundreds of vendors in the park. Then that bloody squirrel came up to me. I had noticed the squirrels before, and how I thought they were unusually brave when it came to approaching humans for food. Indeed, I had observed one not less than half an hour ago eating right out of the palm of someone´s hand. Still, I thought if I ignored that bloody squirrel it would eventually go away. Meanwhile, somehow a crowd of expectant summer-holidaying families had gathered around me, expecting a show I guess of me feeding that bloody squirrel. But I wasn´t going to give in. Then, out of nowhere, from its perch beside me, that bloody squirrel leaped onto my partially-exposed leg, and then off again, as in some futile attempt to get at the scrumptious popcorn (even though I had accidentally dropped some by my feet that it could have easily gone for, had it a brain larger than a nut). And with that, that bloody squirrel left me with some scratch marks, and a morning mission today. After negotiating the mainly Spanish-speaking health system here I am left with a sore arm, but reassurance that I will get neither rabies nor tetanus. Incidentally, squirrels don´t transmit rabies to humans, but nevertheless you should wash any wound for atleast five minutes in soapy water before disinfecting it with some alcohol-based solution. And also, tentanus injections are free, even for foreigners.

Next major stop is an awesome jazz gig this Friday night, which I am very excited about (also in Mexico City, hence why I´m stuck here). It is featuring jazz piano Great McCoy Tyner, and also Ravi Coultrane. Then on Saturday back to Guadalajara, where I will probably go from to a beach town nearby (so to speak) sometime next week.

Hasta luego!

Announcing my candidacy

The other thing I promised to tell you about in a previous post was how I was keeping myself busy in Guadalajara. Most of the time, hangin´with my sister of course, but the rest of the time I was on the internet, catching up with emails and the state of the world. Although I would have liked to have done this on some big American talkshow, this will have to do for now.

I am announcing that I am running for Parliament in 2008 for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand as a list only candidate.

More to come on this in due course, but in the meantime you can become a supporter of me on Facebook. The page is still in its infancy, but sign up now to become one of my first supporters! Then you can keep up to date with further developments in the 2008 election campaign.

As always I´ll keep you posted, and talk more in future about why I´m running.

My next move

So I don´t leave you in the dark about my next move, and so you don´t wonder why I´ve had a posting frenzy and then gone quiet I again, here is my next move:

I´m going to Mexico City tonight with my sister and her boyfriend. They are staying their until Sunday afternoon, but I am staying longer. Not sure how much longer, but after Mexico City I will probably travel elsewhere before returning "home" to Guadalajara. Perhaps Guanajuato is on the horizon.

So that´s my next move, and I´ll blog about it in due course my avid readers.

Should developing nations be doing more to become sustainable?

As promised yesterday, getting back into the issues with a new poll (finally). This weeks is about developing nations.

Over the last two and a half months travelling around Latin America I have seen first hand what some (admittedly overall realitively wealthy) developing nations are like in regards to the environment. Brazil, for example, has a reasonably strong Green Party, and is a world leader in production of ethanol-based "biofuels", or "agrifuels" as the European Greens insist they are called. However, it is also one of the worst offenders in deforestation in the world, behind, only, perhaps, Indonesia (if memory serves me correctly). Although there were signs of an increasing environmental awareness (demonstrated by some advertisements playing up on people´s want to do something for the environment), there were many signs that Brazil was far behind my experiences in New Zealand, which I believe still has a long way to go as well. Plastic was one of the things that pained me most. Plastic bags handed out with everything, even if you were buying a single bottle of water. I learnt pretty quickly how to say "No bag thanks" in Portuguese. I also endured very strange looks from a supermarket bag-packer when I gave her my own reuseable bag (yes, you should take them travelling too). They also use plastic cups for everything, including beer, and piles paper napkins at all but maybe the fanciest restuarants (I´m assuming, as I never went to one that fancy). There were streets that looked like rubbish tips, and especially in busy cities, people handing you fliers at every corner. Furthermore, a city like Sao Paulo had public transport, it seemed, more out of necessity, rather than out of a Government preference for the more sustainable option. Cycling is a bit of a death-wish, and cars always have priority over pedestrians. You often need to be fast to cross the road.

Brazil is similar to Venezuela and Mexico from what I´ve seen. Except cars are bigger in Venezuela and Mexico, presumably because the two countries have lots of oil. Speaking of oil, and turning to other developing nations, the US Government in particular is pointing at countries like India and China for their skyrocketing emissions when nations are debating what to do about lowering emissions. They are also being partially blamed for record-high oil prices due to their increasing thirst.

The argument over consumption of oil though boils down to an important point. Developing nations are still significantly (and very significantly in many cases) poorer than developed nations, and as such have a lot more poverty. Lower incomes = a lesser impact on the environment through less use and wastage of resources. So even if attitudes to the environment are probably overall behind (though not necessarily that far behind) developed nation´s attitudes towards the environment, per capita developed nations still have far less of an impact on the environment than developed nations. Their priorities lie with economic growth far ahead of environmental protection. Shouldn´t they be allowed to develop so they are on par with developed nations, and can the world cope with the increased use of resources? Do developed nations have any liability for the damage already done, and to help distribute resources more fairly?

These are some of the issues in a very complex one. So with the above (and more) in mind, please vote in this weeks poll.

(The photo with this post was taken in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela. It is a national park in which only indigenous people are allowed to live, and was outside a settlement that tourists have to walk through to get to one of the many waterfalls in the areas. It is a sign meant to demonstrate how long it takes different types of rubbish to break down.)

While I´m at it...

...I thought I might finally continue with the tradition that I started when I started this blog, and get the whole poll thing rollin´. So this is my last poll. It had the longest ever running time of about a month, and, well, the people (15) have spoken. I am loved. And, authentically, the stuff at the bottom of the poll is in Spanish as I am in a Spanish-speaking country. Nice. Next poll up soon.

Travel musings. Yes, I´ve had a lot of time to think lately

I think, after so long travelling and just recounting my journey, it´s about time for some philosophical musings, if you will.

So it seems I´m anti-tour. I went on the 42 day Rio to Caracas tour two months ago with that mindset, and still appear to have it. Once you have a position it´s sometimes hard to change it. So why do I take this position?

Firstly, I guess, I´ve grown up with romantic ideas of what travelling really should be. Hitchhiking, roughing it on a very tight budget, stretching out of your comfort zone to make you quite a lot more tough and worldly in your outlook. But, because of it all, having great experiences and doing amazing things. Perhaps more like Motorcycle Diaries. Quite far from what I did, and far from the norm of travelling in this age. The world is much smaller now.

Touring is very padded, even on the cheapest and most basic ones like I did. Everingthing is pre-organised for you, so the sense of adventure is diminished. And you can do things for cheaper, but you would end up taking a lot longer going to the places you can on a tour because you´re more or less making it up as you go. Tours give you a lot more security (especially for a young, lonesome traveller as myself), but you can easily end up hangin´with all the whities, rather than adventuring out as much. However, that can happen anyway I suppose, at a hostel. But at least your not stuck with the same people if you don´t want to be or don´t like them. Then again, it´s up to you what you do, and I made some great friends on my tour. I found, though, that tours seem more based on going to the destinations, doing the best activities and quickly moving on. This can get tiring and old after a while.

And now, to step back further. Travel. What´s that all about. Seeing amazing new things, meeting new people, getting to know new cultures. Excellent times, and very addictive. Also, in these busy times, taking a break to recharge one´s batteries.

At the start of my tour I started reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracey Kidder (and highly recommend it). But it put me to shame. It is a real life account of a doctor called Paul Farmer who has devoted his life to curing patients in very poor countries, and trying to stop the inequalities that make countries like Haiti (his true home) so poor, when the US is so grossly wealthy. It made me resolve that future travel I want to do with more purpose. I like to have concrete reasons for going to places. These range from helping local people to going to Global Green congresses, to seeing family. So I guess on this current trip I´ve had the latter two purposes, among others.

But that leads into the fact that travel is very resource intensive by it´s nature. Carbon emissions are a big one, even if you do a lot of land based travel whilst at your destination. (Incidentally I looked into travelling by cargo ship, which produces far far less carbon emissions, from Canada to NZ on my way back, and it turns out it is much more expensive than flying, even though/because it takes like a month). Other things range from food-related waste if you eat out a lot, and room cleaning if you´re shifting hotels a lot. It depends how you travel. It´s also a very difficult balance to strike between helping local communities with your business, and ruining their local environment with your waste and travel, even if it is unintentional. It´s important to remember, especially as a New Zealander, that you have a magnificent backyard, and an excellent way to clense the soul is to use that backyard sustainably. It is far better for the environment, and get´s you closer in touch with what you loose out on living in the city (ie. go tramping!).

So, before this gets too long, I will sum up this mish-mash of thoughts. Not many people have the money to travel internationally, and there aren´t enough resources in this world to sustain the current style of travel. So if you´re lucky enough to do it, enjoy it as I am, but don´t forget the true cost, and be conscious of trying to travel as lightly as possible. Also learn from it, use it to develop your worldview. There are many other reasons to travel, other than just to see things and do activities, you just have to find them, and judge their merits for yourself.

I´m having a great time and learning about what developing nations are like. New Zealand is still very much my home, but maybe next time I travel I´ll be doing it very differently.

(The picture with this post was taken between Copacabana and Ipanema beaches in Rio de Janeiro. Although it looks like it´s raining in the background, it was a very sunny day. That´s smog).

The last hurrah

For the last hurrah of the tour I was on (for a total of 42 days in the end) we went to the beach. It was on the Carribean coast, and was very nice. Above is sunset after we arrived on the doorstep of our hotel.

The town we stayed in was called Santa Fe (unrelated its namesake "venue" in Wellington). It was another small finishing village with the familiar story of people from the outside discovering how nice it is, and then tourist numbers gradually growing. The tourist industry is still in its infancy though, with only a few hotels and restuarants. This means it still has the remote charm, and is still very cheap. Our hotel even came with lots of little crabs walking around the rooms.

With the one full day we had there myself and several others went on a snorkelling trip. It was a great day, and only cost about NZ$15 each. Fantastic. It was on a local fisherman´s boat, who seemed to do both snorkelling trips and fishing, though not at the same time.

Firstly we went to the snorkelling spot, which was a shallow reef between two islands. The water was very clear, and there was a rocky outpost with an abandoned building on it. After getting used to the breathing apparatus arrangement I saw colourful fish of all sizes (though not too big), and coral of all shapes. Then, on the way back to the boat I struck it lucky. A little octopus on the sand at the bottom, oozing it´s way along. Even the GAP tour guide (that had accompanied us the whole trip) who was from Venezuela and had done a lot of snorkling in his time had never seen one.

After snorkling we went for some more creature-spotting. We saw some smelling sea birds on a large rock, and then continued to some more open seas. I was distracted watching some birds diving, when there was some "ooohs" and "aaaahs" coming from my fellow passengers. What could possibly be so enchanting? Dolphins! A group of them, some big, some small. They were leaping out of the water and performing syncronised swimming for us. The little ones even made it all the way out of the water. We got pretty close to them several times, and they looked white as they dived underwater. Man dolphins are cool.

After all the excitement we made it to the above beach. The red boat is ours (not the fancy white one). There we had a nice lunch - I had calamari - and then sat away the rest of the day, looking at crabs and iguanas. Then it was back after a great day, and such a damn good price.

The next day we left for our final destination - Caracas. There we had our last supper as a big group (though we had already left two behind at Santa Fe) and attempted unsuccessfully to attend a volleyball game between, ironically, Brazil and Venezuela. Brazil won. The next morning our "dad"/tour guide was gone, and slowly all the others followed. I stayed one more night, with a group of four others (and luckily I managed to change my flight to 30 June as my leaving day to Mexico, otherwise I would have been stuck alone for a couple days. Although my impressions were different, many people said Caracas can be a bit of an "ass crack"; very dangerous at times. Where we went in Caracas there was always a good atmosphere though, but a lack of alcohol outlets - due to the fact we were in town. Just bars and stuff).

So the tour was over, and to my new good friends I said goodbye. It was a damn good experience, and I got to go to many places I otherwise wouldn´t have made it to on my own, with no local knowledge and very very little language. I still don´t like tours however. I felt too isolated from the local culture, as it was so much easier just to hang out in the group. Some of the other things felt too padded too. There are other reasons, but I will go into them in more detail in a future post. Although I will try and avoid tours in future, I had a damn good time and am glad I did it.

That concludes that section of my trip - a little late, but now it is done. I have had a good week in Guadalajara, Mexico hangin´with my sis, and keeping myself busy with other things. But more on those later...

The falling angels and sandalias

I hope you enjoyed the pretty pictures of my last post – and so I’ve included some more for your viewing pleasure. Above is the “Angel Falls”. It is the highest free-falling waterfall in the world at 976m, with an uninterrupted drop of 807m.

From the last place I blogged about, Ciudad Bolivar, I forked out a pretty decent sized wad of cash to get on a small plane for an hour. Twas quite fun, with beautiful views of rivers, trees and mountains. After a sharply-banked turn we landed safely in Canaima, a small town that seems to be half tourist resort now.

In Canaima airport we were met by our guide – Freddie, though of course he had a real name, which was in his native tongue. It meant something about running with fire. He took us to the lodge in which we weren’t to stay that night, then we were lead to a motorised canoe. (Oh joy. More pain in the backside from hours of hard seats). The five people (including myself) from my tour were joined by an Italian, Brazilian and Columbian couple. We were all there to brave the rain and high prices to see the natural beauty of the area, climaxing with the incredible “Angel Falls”.

At first it wasn’t raining, but the changeable skies of the start of the wet season were looking ominous. Four hours in a canoe. After walking around the rapids, and stopping for lunch and a swim, it started raining pretty much straight away. It rained hard, and barely stopped. My new jacket, for a second time (the first being in the Amazon) was proven to be not so waterproof – though it was a lot of rain. There were many rapids along the way too, which were difficult to navigate, and made us wet anyway. Between the clouds we got peeks of the beauty of the area – massive cliffs with hundreds of waterfalls. And just as we were near our camp, the clouds parted. We saw the side of the “Angel Falls”, and then it was gone again.

We arrived at our “cabin” to discover someone had forgotten to put in walls and decent toilets. This was no matter, but I wouldn’t call it a cabin, unlike he who sold us the tour. We ate like kings and associated important people, and slept in hammocks.

The next morning we awoke with the sun. That’s right, sun. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Down by the water you could see a golden “Angel Falls”, lit up by the sun. After breakfast we climbed to the viewing point, and already they were being hidden intermittently by clouds. It was very beautiful and spiritual to be next to such an awe inspiring sight.

The guide told us how the “discovery” of “Angel Falls” by Jimmie Angel about 80 years ago had ruined things for his people. They have their own name for the Falls, and a legend about how they were formed. They are very important and spiritual for the people in the area.

After the morning of awe (and luck at clouds not ruining our experience) we were back in the ass-wrenching canoe for our downstream travels. Though it seems to be nice when we got up, sure enough it was raining again by the time we were on the river again. Wet for the second time.

We got back near Canaima, and did the other highlight of the trip. We crossed the top of a waterfall so that we could go behind it on the way back. It was pounding next to us, in our hovel in the rocks that allowed us to walk through. Then we were back to the beautiful lagoon, which is fed by a steady diet of waterfall (above), to go back the next day.

And where do the sandalias fit in? Well, day two was a dark day for jandals (or flip flops for those who don’t speak kiwi). Firstly, in a river crossing, one of the fellow tour people lost her jandal. The river fed straight into the main river, and we got into the boat straight afterwards, so the guide got us to have a look for it. It was to no avail, and the others in the boat sang out “sandalia!” to mourn the loss of an old friend. Then, another sandalia deathtrap. The waterfall crossing. I had taken mine off, but the person in front of me left hers on. Just then, a cry for help – another jandal sailing away! Quick witted and heroic, I did the only thing a man could do, and dived for it. Splashing water and manly movements ended in probably one of the greatest rescues this summer, and you wont find this one in cinemas. But after the struggle was over, I turned around, and what should I see, but one of me sandalias sailing down the waterfall. “Noooooooooooooooooo!” I screamed. Somehow I let this one slip out of my fingers, and it was gone. May God have mercy on my sole, and all right-footed jandals.

Disclaimer: The above story about sandalias may have been edited for dramatic effect.