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Message Colin & Liz On TourForty Countries in Three Years 2005 to 2008Colin Dyson and Liz WatsonDysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 1

Copyright © 2010 Colin Dyson & Liz WatsonThe moral right of the author has been asserted.Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.Matador5 Weir RoadKibworth BeauchampLeicester LE8 0LQ, UKTel: (+44) 116 279 2277Email: books@troubador.co.ukWeb: www.troubador.co.uk/matadorISBN 978 1848763 050British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.Typeset in 11pt Sabon by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UKPrinted in the UK by Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing LtdDysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 2

ContentsIntroduction viiPart 1 West Africa 1Spain Morocco Mauritania Mali Burkina Faso Ghana Part 2 East and Central Africa 19Kenya Uganda Democratic Republic of Congo Tanzania Malawi Zambia ZimbabwePart 3 Southern Africa 33Namibia Botswana Zimbabwe Mozambique Swaziland Lesotho South Africa Part 4 South East Asia 79 Borneo Malaysia Cambodia Thailand BruneiPart 5 North and Central America 104USA Mexico Belize Guatemala Honduras NicaraguaCosta Rica PanamaPart 6 South America 153Colombia Ecuador Peru Bolivia Brazil UruguayParaguay Argentina ChileAcknowledgements 308DysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 3

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IntroductionOur holidays were an important part of our lives. We both worked increasingly longhours over our 16-20 years post university careers, but we made sure that we used everydays leave to go away somewhere new. Our family and friends would probably say thatwe had already seen a lot of the world having enjoyed fabulous holidays spanning mostof the continents. We always had a yearning to have a trip for longer than the standard two weekspossible to take from work and would think how lucky young people are nowadays tohave gap years to do just this. We discussed the possibility of having a career break backin the year 2000. We visited a few travel exhibitions and got quite excited about takingtime out to try new experiences. However, we were derailed from our plans by Colinbeing offered a more exciting work challenge in London, so we had four years of life inthe capital which we lived to the full enjoying weekend escapes back to our country homein a beautiful Northamptonshire village.In the summer of 2004 our thoughts again turned to seeing more of the world, but ourdiscussions made us think about what we were giving up – our families and friends, a funlifestyle in London and our dream home in Northampton plus the concerns aboutwhether we would be able to get decent jobs upon returning. When the decision wasn’ta definitive ‘yes, let’s go for it’ Liz said to Colin ‘why wouldn’t we do it now?’ We hadour health and we were at an age when we could cope without home comforts. If we leftthis trip until we retired who could predict if we’d be well enough or bold enough to takeon such an adventure. With family illnesses on both sides of the family it made us realiseDysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 5

that we shouldn’t put off living for the moment. Yes, it was scary to walk awayfrom our comfort zones, and there was an awful lot of planning and organisationto do in a relatively short period of time, as well as the countless times that wethought that we could be making a huge mistake. We didn’t want to do a mad dash around the world on a one-way ticket, sodecided to concentrate on certain continents, our thinking being that we could‘do’ the easy places of North America, Australia and New Zealand when we haveretired. We also decided that getting involved in some voluntary work would stopus becoming travel weary and give us some new life experiences. We had enjoyed a couple of fabulous holidays in Africa and this vast excitingcontinent had a big pull for us, so this was to be the focus of the first year. Bychance Colin stumbled upon the website of a UK charitable organisation, SabreTrust, which was advertising for people to join a lorry that was driving from theUK to Ghana where it would deliver school and building supplies to a village wherethey were building new classrooms. We then decided to join an organised overlandtrip through East Africa which would take us to regions we were keen to visit forwildlife and scenery. We thought we might buy a camping vehicle in South Africato travel around the whole of Southern Africa for six months with the aim ofselling it, but Colin found a company in Namibia who were prepared to do a longterm hire of a fully equipped and insured vehicle at a reasonable price. We alsodecided to organise another stint of voluntary work. Having decided a wildliferelated project would be good after the building and children of Ghana, we founda Rhino Conservation project in Swaziland which sounded fascinating. Back in 2000 at one of the travel shows, we had talked to Raleigh Internationalabout opportunities to work as staff on one of their youth developmentexpeditions. The girl we chatted to said ‘we’re always desperate for builders andaccountants’ without knowing that was our backgrounds so we had mentallyDysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 6

logged this. We got in touch with them again and got ourselves on a selectionweekend at the end of November. Wading through a freezing cold lake in justunderwear and running around a Sussex forest in the middle of the night didn’tput us off entirely, but did make us realise that we should apply for an expeditionin a warm country. It just so happened that Borneo fitted these criteria andstarting in January 2006 fitted perfectly with our plans. The expedition was to lastthree months which gave us a month to visit a few other places in Asia brieflybefore the final leg of our tour – Central and South America. This seemed so faraway we did very little research on this.We had a very intense last few weeks at home visiting family and friends andgetting the house and flat emptied and ready for tenants. Liz regretted agreeingto work up to just two weeks before we set off and there were times in those lasttwo weeks when we started to panic – we really didn’t feel prepared for this atall... what were we thinking of? Actually, this was to be the hardest part of ourtrip. Well, as we sit here four years after we set off, we can safely say we have noregrets. To sum up, it was the best experience of our lives. We have seen someamazing sights, landscapes, flora and fauna, but more importantly we have metsome of the most amazing people, both locals in the countries and othertravellers. It really gave us a whole new perspective on life and made us realisethat we will definitely be travelling again to new destinations – we’ve worked outthat we still have another 80 countries in the world to visit! The chapters that follow are based on the ramblings that we emailed to ourfamily and friends every few weeks of our travels and this book is our keepsakeof a wonderful three years of our lives. We dedicate this to all the people thatmade our trip so memorable.DysonPrelimsNEW_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:59 Page 7

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The Big Yellow Lorry February 2005: MoroccoWE’RE SAT IN AN INTERNET cafe just off Jemaa El Fna in Marrakesh. It’s hard tobelieve we’ve already been away a week. The chaos of the two weeks leading to ourdeparture thankfully seems a distant memory now, although I am still havingdreams about packing boxes and Colin is still laughing about seeing the man incharge of the rubbish tip wearing his clothes after our seventh trip!Last Saturday morning (19th) we dropped off my car at my old company inLuton, so wew were now carless and keyless for the first time in over 20 years. Weflew to Malaga and caught the bus down the coast to Algeciras, a very unattractiveport near Gibraltar.The following morning we had the romantic idea of a slow ferry crossing ofthree hours to appreciate the first part of the trip leaving Europe and seeing Africa.After a two hour delay, then an hour’s delay getting into Tangiers port followed bybeing told that we couldn’t get off the boat because we’d not had our passportsstamped on board, which took a further half an hour to sort, we finally arrived inAfrica. Next time we will take the one hour hydrofoil!After a night in Tangier we caught a train toRabat. It turned out to be quite a civilised city, and wespent much of our time wandering around themedinas. It didn’t matter what food Colin ordered inhis best French – he always ended up with a cheeseand ham sandwich.The following day on the train to Casablanca wesat with two Moroccan ladies who just grinned at usand told us they only knew two English phrases‘Thank you’ and ‘Adios’! We spent the rest of the dayin Casablanca, a big fume filled city with a veryimpressive mosque by the sea. In the evening Colinmanaged to watch a football match on television in thehotel, this is likely to be his last for some time.2DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 2

On Thursday morning we met our home for the next six weeks – the bigyellow truck which is carrying building tools, educational books and other itemslike sports kits to donate to a school in Ghana and some schools in Mauritania.There are only five of us on the trip – Simon the driver, Neice an Aussie girl who’dbeen working in London and a timid 18 year old boy Charlie. It is really a goodjob that there are only five of us because the cement mixer donated by Bob fromour village is taking up half the truck! For those who don’t know there was quite a story behind this. A group of ourneighbours were sat in the local pub one evening and decided that it would be anice idea to sponsor or twin up with an African village and they asked if we couldlook out for potential villages on our travels. The Monday before we set off, ourneighbour Leslie popped round to say they’d actually managed to hook up withan organisation already operating in Ghana and they were now collecting itemsfor them to load on a yellow truck that was leaving Aldershot the next weekend.We pointed out to her that we would actually be on that very truck. So we’re nowsharing our transport with a load of equipment from our village. Bob the newly named mixer is doing well (although we were told he was anightmare to load onto the truck) and we will let you know his progress throughWestern Africa. Simon has already had to bribe a Moroccan customs official witha game of Operation to get the mixer into the country!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | THE BIG YELLOW LORRY3ABOVEView across RabatDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 3

Bob’s Bumpy Ride March 2005: MoroccoAFTER SPENDING THREE DAYS in Marrakech we headed out towards the AtlasMountains. We were camping in the mountains and it was extremely cold, wetand even snowing. We regularly woke up to a frozen kettle! Tip- don’t believe Colinwhen he tells you that you don’t need a warm sleeping bag in Africa. We arewearing all of our clothes in bed each night and have had to buy very attractivetracksuits to sleep in. Colin’s is Hugo Boss- it is even spelt correctly! Our waterbottles for the desert have been converted to hot water bottles.Simon selected a scenic back route through the Atlas Mountains. The roadsoon became a narrow dirt track snaking up the side of the mountain. The scenerywas absolutely stunning as we passed through some isolated Berber settlements. Aswe progressed the road got narrower and narrower until eventually we got to apiece of road where it was so narrow we couldn’t stay on the road and get past thejutting out rock face. Whilst trying to squeeze through, the window next to Bob(the mixer) got smashed and showered him in glass. As we couldn’t turn aroundthe only thing to do was to alter the camber of the road by shovelling earth andstones from one side of the road to the other and sledge hammering theoverhanging rock. After nearly an hour we got the truck through. Further up the mountain much to our horror the track got even narrower –Colin had to keep jumping out to make sure we could just about stay on the roadand avoid the overhanging rocks – by this time the truck had suffered even morescrapes down the side. As we were driving along, parts of the road were collapsingunder our weight and rocks were falling down the mountain side. On at least twooccasions we lost the back of the truck with one of the back wheels hanging overthe edge – me and Bob turned to religion at these points. Thank goodness for fourwheel drive, locked differentials and Simon’s expert driving. On the secondoccasion we smashed the underside of the truck damaging the suspension andripping off the storage units. Thankfully the local kids, who had taken to followingus, picked up the bits of the truck and the broken cooking stove that had tumbleddown the mountain side. What we thought would be a nice three hour drive took4DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 4

us all day and we were all well shaken (not stirred in Bob’s case)by the time we reached Ait Benhaddou. The following day was a bit calmer. We visited the site of AitBenhaddou, a city built out of mud which is very photogenic andhas been used as the backdrop to number of films including theEnglish Patient, The Jewel in the Nile, Lawrence of Arabia andJesus of Nazareth. Most of the outside of the truck was now inthe passenger area with us! Colin and Simon spent the eveningrebuilding the suspension. The next day we set off nice and early for the Todra Gorge tosee it in the morning light. Not long into the journey there was abig bang and the truck veered across the road – we’d had ablowout. We spent the next two hours changing the wheel beingwatched by a herd of camels.Unfortunately Simon had a family bereavement and neededto arrange to fly back to the UK for the funeral, so we returnedto Marrakesh so he could sort out his arrangements. We werequite happy to have an extra couple of nights there. We then wentnorth east to some waterfalls where it rained non-stop. Colin gotbeaten at pool by Neice – his excuses were...rain, smoke from thefire, angle of the table and no chalk for the cue – he was basicallyjust beaten by a girl.We then headed to Safi on the Atlantic coast in search of warmer weather. Enroute we stopped to help a jack-knifed lorry which again turned into majorentertainment. At one stage we had thirty locals, six donkeys, two mules and ababy watching us. Taxis and motorcycles kept pulling over to drop people off sothey could watch the show, but none of them offered to help Simon and Colinshovel rocks under the wheels. Next stop was Essaouira which is a beautiful fishing port and the sun wasshining. Simon headed back to the UK on Sunday evening with Charlie who foundthe whole experience too much. We’ve basically got four days of chilling in the sunwith good seafood until Simon returns on Thursday night. You’ll be glad to hearBob’s window was also repaired so he is warm and cosy again ready for thedesert. Simon’s departure didn’t go smoothly as the customs at Marrakesh airportwouldn’t allow him to leave the country as he had entered the country with atruck and they assumed that he must have sold the truck. So to cut a long storyshort, Colin had to drive the truck to the local customs office where we expectedit to be impounded until Simons return. After a bribe of a few baseball hats andt-shirts the customs officer let us keep the truck on the basis that he kept theownership documents and we provided a receipt for the campsite for the week.Colin’s first three point turn in a nine ton truck was carried out on the edge ofthe harbour wall – thankfully successfully. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BOB’S BUMPY RIDE5ABOVEAit BenhaddouDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 5

Sand, sand and more sand (and flies...) March 2005: MauritaniaWE’RE CURRENTLY IN NOUAKCHOTT (capital of Mauritania) at a very snazzy air-conditioned internet cafe which is playing a porn movie on the TV at the side ofus, so don’t expect much input from Colin on this update. We are now runningapproximately two weeks behind schedule, but we’ll get to that shortly.Simon returned to Essaouira with a new truck mate – Harry from LeightonBuzzard. He’s going to be teaching music at the school in Ghana. The following daywe set off down the coastline of Morocco and into Western Sahara, which isofficially still part of Morocco. Although there were some nice stretches of coastlinein Southern Morocco, most of the journey consisted of barren desert. The road gotprogressively quieter in fact we probably only saw about twenty vehicles on the daywe reached the Mauritanian border. Even so there were still plenty of checkpoints –I’m sure some of them were in view of each other – but it provided us with theentertainment of Simon practising his charades with an impression of Bob the Mixerwhich consisted of pretending to use a trowel and a stirring motion.We rough camped for this part of the journey, spending one very smelly nighton a sulphur field, but also stopped at a Bedouin campsite which served camelstew – it was delicious. During this part of the journey we only broke a spring onthe truck. Colin and Simon spent the evening in a local town getting this fixedgiving out the usual baseball hats to the local kids which seemed to be everywherewhen we drove through the town the following day.We reached the Mauritanian border on Monday 14th, which started off withthe usual loss of baseball hats and t-shirts to the Moroccan immigration officials,then drove a further 100 yards to the Moroccan customs officials where we lostmore. We then had to drive 15km of no man’s land making sure we stuck close tothe markers in the sand as the rest of the area was a minefield! Upon arrival at theMauritanian side we had to provide not only our documents, baseball hats andt-shirts, but also biscuits this time. 6DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 6

The following day, with only grid references keyed into the GPS, we set offbouncing across the desert between sand dunes in the direction of Mauritania’sNational Park where the plan was to have a couple of days experiencing the desertand rough camping before driving the last 200km down the beach to Nouakchott.However, after about half an hour of going over not too rough terrain the truckstarted to make some strange noises and on closer inspection we found that thechassis had cracked and the cab was tilting back i.e. we had a serious problem!There was no way we could continue our planned route so we slowly made ourway back to the main road. Simon said the only thing we could do was drivestraight to Nouakchott where he hoped we could get the chassis repaired. Thisinvolved a 400km cautious drive on a major road of which very little was tarmac.Simon did his usual Good Samaritan bit andstopped to help two blokes in a van who’dbroken a wheel bearing and couldn’t get theold one out with the tools they had. They’dbeen parked up on the roadside for two dayswaiting for help! We arrived in Nouakchott early eveningand checked into a nice Auberge (guesthouse) which has now been our base for thelast week as the truck has been in a garagefor repair (for garage read back street). It’snow finally been repaired (although this isAfrican repairs) and we’re now hoping to geton our way tomorrow. Nouakchott isn’t the most exciting placeto be stranded, although it does feel more7LEFTA night spent beingsand blasted due tothe strong windsBELOWOur tracks in thesand before disasterstruckDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 7

like ‘real’ Africa after Morocco. We started to get a bit stir crazy, so hired a 4x4vehicle and driver (you can’t hire a vehicle here without a driver) and headed up tothe North East of the country for four days to the Adrar Plateau, famed for itsnice scenery, oases and ghost desert towns. We were joined for part of the trip bytwo Americans, Stacey and Roland, whom we met at the Auberge. They werecoming to the end of two years of travelling and were very adventurous andworldly wise for Americans. We spent a night at a lovely oasis sleeping at the sideof the stream in a narrow gorge. We also had a night at Ouaidaine, an ancient forttown, and then a day at Chingetti which is just as you’d picture a desert oasis scene– a few palm trees with nothing else but sand dunes for as far as you could see. 8RIGHTBeautiful oasiscampsiteRIGHTThe view from theOld French ForeignLegion Fort atChingettiDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 8

Timbuktu and Beyond April 2005: Mali and Burkina FasoWE FINALLY LEFT NOUAKCHOTT on Saturday 26th March and started a five daynon-stop drive to one of the most remote places in the world, Timbuktu, twodays on tarmac and three days off road following donkey cart tracks from villageto village. As we progressed the temperatures began to hot up reaching mid 40’sin the shade! It wasn’t very comfortable being bounced around and listening tothe sound of thorn trees scratching the sides of the truck as we followed thenarrow trails. Bob was doing a lot of complaining, squeaking and groaning withevery move. After three days we stopped at a village near the Mali border to dropoff some football kits (shame some poor African kids are going to have to runaround in a Watford Town kit!) and school books with the village elders. Whilstat the village we joined the locals queuing for water at the well. It was a strangesight watching locals standing in line with containers, some tied to donkeys andin the middle of it all a big yellow truck.The customs at the Mali border were particularly expensive – not only theusual baseball hats and t-shirts, but also an Alan ShearerBlackburn Rovers shirt too! Also along the way we hadour usual encounter with locals who’d broken down.One lot we stopped to help had been sat at the side ofthe track for four days, killing a goat for food. We gavetwo of them a lift to the nearest village.We finally arrived in Timbuktu in the Sahara Deserton Wednesday evening. After four nights of roughcamping you can imagine how pleasant we smelt but thecold beer had to come before the showers. We had twofull days in Timbuktu. It was incredibly hot during theday so we had to do a lot of chilling in the shade, but wedid an evening camel ride into the desert dunes and hada tour of the town visiting the mud mosque, museumand European explorers’ houses amongst other things. It9DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 9

was an interesting experience to be there, but a couple of days are all you need toimagine what it must have been like in the past. Big camel trains of up to 300camels do still come into town having carried salt from the north of the Sahara,but not at this time of year.The following day we had another long day’s drive to Mopti crossing the riverNiger on a ferry. We had brought along with us a local guide from Timbuktu,Baba. We stopped just outside Mopti at a town called Sevare. The temperatureshad been unbearable that day.The next day we went into Mopti which is at the junction of the River Nigerand Bani River. It is a very lively port town. In the morning we had a wanderaround the town which had markets and a mud mosque. Late afternoon we wenton a boat trip down the river and watched the life on the banks – people washing,swimming, cleaning goats, cleaning motor bikes and cleaning clothes within yardsof each other in the river. We stopped and had a walk around a nomadic villagewhere we each had a child hung off every finger asking for cadeaux (gifts)constantly. It was lovely drifting back to the town as the sun set. Neice boughtchicken for tea that night. We thought she was joking when she said they were liveuntil we found them running around in the back of the truck! I am sure we usedmore energy in preparing them than we got from eating the scrawny things.The next day we set off to Dogan country. We had added a French Canadiangirl, Catherine, to our trip for a couple of days as she was having trouble with herlocal guide and wanted to get away but felt uncomfortable travelling by herself.We stopped at a town to stock up with provisions. Then we visited a couple ofvillages where we were introduced to the local chief and offered a tour round the10RIGHTMopti on the River NigerABOVELiz on her deserttransportDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 10

village in return for cola nuts. I (Liz) was really struggling in the heat now, feelingvery drained and unable to quench my thirst. Our drinking water gets to thetemperature of tea by the afternoon and cold drinks were hard to come by as wasany food that hadn’t been regurgitated by flies first.Due to the heat we used to sleep at the side of the truck and would alwayswake to a group of locals just sat staring at us, no matter how remote ourlocation. They would then watch us get up and have breakfast. On this particularmorning Colin broke the record with a crowd of twenty five while he cookedbreakfast and made them cups of tea to which they all pulled a face as it was notsweet enough for their tastes.After breakfast we had a tour around the old Dogan settlement on the edge ofthe escarpment. From here we could look back down into the village and watchthe village life with ladies pounding millet and drawing water from the wells. Wedrove on a little further and sheltered under a big mango tree to have a doze fora couple of hours. We also had 75 locals watching us sleep! After Simon made groundnut soup we set out for a hike up the escarpment toa village where we would spend the night. I’d still not been feeling right and to cuta long story short, I collapsed just short of the top and couldn’t get up again. Ilost consciousness and had to be carried up to the village where Colin and Simontreated me for heat stroke. As I’d still not come round by 10pm they arranged totake me to the local hospital two hours’ drive away. For hospital, read dirty roomCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | TIMBUKTU AND BEYOND11LEFTLooking down onone of the DoganvillagesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 11

with no running water in the hospital building or toilet. There was a well in thegrounds and a longdrop toilet 100m away that you could smell from the building.I finally came round at 2.30 in the morning attached to a drip (not Colin!) with avery tired and worried looking Colin wartching over me. He had spent his timeagreeing to give the hospital a donation if they treated me and had run around thevillage waking up people to get needles and drip fluids. Thank goodness he’d donethe first aid course before we left. The following morning I was visited by threegoats and two donkeys. The doctors said they’d checked and confirmed that I hadnot got malaria but I had got guardia which would have contributed to the heatexhaustion. Simon decided we should head back to the nice refuge at Sevare fortwo full days so I could get my strength back.Feeling better (but still a bit shaky) we set off to Burkina Faso. Late afternoonwe crossed the border. The Burkina Faso Immigration Officer (man in a hut withmotorbike, bed, desk and untuned radio that was driving us mad) had run out ofvisa application forms and we had to help him write out our own forms beforecompleting them. He was painfully slow at checking and rechecking everything. Alocal bus turned up distracting him and then at five o’clock he rushed outside andstood to attention to take down the national flag, ably assisted by a man wearinga Man U shirt. Two hours later we finally got away to rough camp for the night ina nice remote spot. In the morning we opened our eyes to agroup of ten children and a goat herder withabout 100 goats. The children waitedpatiently for our breakfast remains and theirexpressions were priceless when we gave thembaseball hats.We had a four hour drive into the capitalcity. The change between Burkina Faso andMali was very noticeable, suddenly we wereon paved roads and the towns had a morestructured feel. Even the vehicles looked inbetter condition which was a surprise to us asBurkina Faso is the fifth poorest country inthe world, however with the best namedcapital city ‘Ouagadougou’.12DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 12

We made it... Bob arrives at BrenuApril 2005: GhanaWE FINALLY ARRIVED at Brenu School in Ghana on 18th April. It has taken us along time to complete this update as there is no electricity at the school, nevermind email, and it’s been quite a trek to the nearby town where the internet isincredibly slow. After leaving Ouagadougou we had a couple of nights rough camping oneither side of the Ghanaian border. We had quite a delay getting through theGhanaian customs because they were straight and not open to ‘gifts’ (apart fromtwo of our reading books that the official said ‘I want to read these’ and walkedoff with them). After a lot of debate about our incorrect paperwork, theyrequested a full list of everything we were carrying on the truck, so they now havean entry of ‘Bob the Cement Mixer’ in their records.We had a welcome stop at Mole National Park complete with swimming pooland cold beer. There were warthogs grazing around and baboons casing out thetruck and untying the ropes holding things in place. The camp overlooked acouple of waterholes where elephants came to drink and play. We had a gamewalk in the morning and got quite close to the elephants, although the rangerdidn’t seem very keen to tell us anything about the wildlife.The next night we stopped at the Boabeng Fiena Monkey Sanctuary. We sleptby the truck under the mosi-net, where we were rudely awoken at 2.30am by acoach load of Ghanaian Christians arriving. They then proceeded to wake usagain at 5.45am when they got up to pray, dance and clap their hands – way toomuch for us before a cup of caffeine. We were actually disturbed before this by abig cockerel that crowed less than a metre from our heads at about 4.30am – likethe African people, the cockerels can’t tell the time! We had a nice walk in theforest where the monkeys hung out, this time with a very good guide. Themonkeys were very cute – Colobus and Mona – and the locals even have a monkeygraveyard where they bury them with headstones.We then continued on to Kumasi, a large lively town, where we stopped in a13DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 13

Presbyterian Mission. The town had an amazing market that covered most of thetown centre and ran up along the main railway line. Every time a train comesthrough they have to move. From here we just had a morning’s drive to Cape Coast(west of Accra), then on to Brenu, our final destination on this leg of our travels.It really is an amazing spot to be spending some time – a completely idyllicsetting – a palm fringed golden beach with crashing waves, with the schoolbuildings set by the beach. The village is on one side of the school and a beachresort on the other. As you can imagine a lot of our time has been spent in theresort, which is pretty basic, but has all we need – a bar and good food. It is alsoa good hiding place from the kids who aren’t allowed in there!We are staying at a guest house in the centre of the village. We only haverunning water if the local ladies/children living there carry water on their headsfrom the well to a tank on the roof. As volunteers we’re expected to do four or fivehours a day helping in some way on the building works or around the school. When we arrived, it was quite obvious that the building works started byprevious visitors had ground to a halt and the new school foundations lookeddecidedly overgrown. Colin swung into action doing what he does best – tellingpeople what to do! On his first day he went around the old and new schools withAgri, the local Sabre helper, and did a detailed schedule of works, producing aprogramme which would never cope with African time-keeping. The new school buildings are on top of a hill just outside the village and havespectacular views over the bay. One building looks 99% complete, the work wascarried out by a local contractor on behalf of the government. They are currentlywaiting for the Government Officials to commission it, but we don’t know whatthey’re going to commission as it has no gas, electricity or running water, but wehave been told it could take 12 months!The new junior classroom block that Sabre is working on has been built up tothe foundations with one floor slab of three cast before we arrived. As the buildingworks needing to be done were all heavy groundworks, and with this being thehottest time of year in Ghana, we were wondering what impact we could have ina short period of time, but Colin has managed to do a deal with the local footballteam to provide labour to backfill the slabs in exchange for a football kit. He has14ABOVE LEFTThe first view of thevillage of BrenuABOVE RIGHTThe idyllic beach infront of the beachbar DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 14

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also employed local labourers at a cost of two pounds per man per day and evengot the local chief to sanction for us the use of the local ladies to carry sand fromthe beach on their heads. At one point there were up to 300 of them ferrying sandup the beach like a line of ants. Colin worked alongside them in the afternoonafter having shovelled up at the school all morning. Some of the ladies were doingit from 8am to 4pm with babies strapped to their backs. Colin also visited thelocal quarry for gravel required for the concrete. He was amazed to see familiesliving in the quarry making their living by taking the larger rocks quarried by themen, carried by children and bashed into smaller pieces by the ladies.The work has progressed well and another floor slab has now been cast, andthe final one should be in progress by the time we leave. Unfortunately, Bobdoesn’t seem to like the heat and refused to start – part of him has been sent forrepairs and will probably arrive back just as we’re leaving! It’s been very hardphysical work – they’ve been starting at 7.00am but even at this time the sweat ispouring off. It’s been frustrating at times (dealing with African promises andtimekeeping – one in five has a watch; one in twenty can tell the time!) but a greatexperience – I actually think Colin would love to stay on and get the whole projectfinished.While Colin’s been sweating it out on the building site, I’ve been sweating a lotaround the school. I spent the first three days helping Julius the librarian – whodoesn’t seem to like to let the kids into the library, let alone read any of his books– sorting out the boxes of books donated from the UK brought down in our truck.Funnily, most of them were ex library books of Leagrave School in Luton and afew Northampton library books. Neice and I then spent a few days doing somepainting in the old school buildings – Sabre is creating a table tennis room and anew office. A new volunteer Sarah turned up in our second week, and we havebeen ‘teaching’ in the Kindergarten. We thought we would just be classroomassisting, but the teachers have a big grin when we turn up and they promptlydisappear or go off ill. It has been quite an experience!The kids in the class seem to change daily and their ages range betweentoddlers (who should be in the Nursery group, but seem to merge with our kidsmid-morning) to 10 year olds. The children in Ghana call white people ‘Brunies’,so wherever we walk we get every child asking the following: “Bruni, what is yourname? Bruni, how old are you? Bruni, where are you from?’ You tell one kid, andthen all the others in the ever growing group ask you again – we had thoughtabout getting t-shirts printed with all our details, but they’d probably ask us whatthey said.The teachers at the school seem totally unmotivated. There seems to be a lotof classrooms without teachers so the children are hanging around the beach, orthe teachers pull their desks outside the class and let the kids cause havoc behindtheir backs. The Headmaster can be seen most days asleep at his desk! Theclassrooms are very basic with no electricity or water – and the children of allage groups seem to drift in and out of the class unchallenged. We even get goatsCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BOB ARRIVES AT BRENU17DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 17

wandering into the lessons! The kindergartenclasses seem to vary in size from 70 (when theother two teachers become scarce) to 30.It’s been really hard for me (Madam Lizbet)and Sarah (Madam Sailor) to know what to dowith the children. When you ask the teacherswhat we should be covering they just shrug andsay ‘whatever you want’ which isn’t a great help.The teaching at the school tends to be a lot ofgetting the children to repeat lists over and over(alphabet, months, days of week etc), but it’squite obvious a big proportion of the kids don’tactually understand what they’re reeling off –they’re just reciting it parrot fashion and if youvary the order of a list they blankly stare at you.Also the children are disciplined with the stick,so when us Brunies turn up, they know we won’thit them, so they do literally run riot around the class and won’t sit down until thelocal teacher comes in and whacks a few of them.The first day had been almost four hours of a play session rather than anyteaching, and you can laugh about some of the things that happen, but after overa week of doing this, you really start to worry about what future these kids havewith the lack of education that we’ve witnessed.At the same time, although the children are incredibly naughty, we’ve had somelovely times with them – one thing they do like to do is singing and it’s a funnysight to have them all singing Zippity-doo-daa or Agadoo giving it their all withactions!In our first week, we were summoned by the village Chief for a meeting. Wetook him a bottle of spirit and two bars of Imperial Leather as our greeting gifts– he looked quite pleased! We had to talk to him through his linguist – apparentlyit’s not the done thing for Chiefs to talk direct to anyone.Last weekend in the village there was a funeral. Funerals in Ghana are hugeaffairs. They put up posters around the local towns and even get t-shirts printedwith pictures of the deceased. There is normally 1,000 people living in Brenu –over the funeral weekend this swelled to 3,000! We had to vacate our guesthousefor a few days – there were 200 extra people stopping there in place of us six (thereare only four bedrooms and one toilet). Guests started arriving on the Thursdayand were still partying on the Monday, leaving the village on Tuesday. We escapedfor a couple of days up the coast to a lovely spot called Green Turtle Lodge andchilled by a beach bar watching the most enormous thunder storms we’ve everseen.18ABOVETwo cheekyschoolboysDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 18

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‘Jambo’ from East AfricaMay 2005: Kenya, Uganda and the Republic of CongoWE’RE NOW IN KENYA, EAST AFRICA where the locals call us Mzungus instead ofBrunis, on the second leg of our tour having just visited the mountain gorillas, butwe’ll come to that later.We finished at Brenu on 7th May, so the last full day there was my birthday.Sarah and I went along to class to find most of our usual kids were on watercollection duties, so we had to supervise the Nursery group for an hour or two – theusual chaos abounded. Unbeknown to me, Colin had organised a birthday cake forthe children and he turned up with Harry mid-morning to dish it out. What startedas a reasonably orderly line soon turned into a scrum containing most of the school.When it had all been handed out, we had tearful children saying they’d not had apiece despite the fact they had crumbs all around their mouths!Colin managed to finish the second classroom floor slab and organised atopping out ceremony, having a few beers with the labourers who had been helping,and we left the site ready for casting the final slab. The next job after that wouldbe the making of blocks for the walls which is a bit different to back home whereyou go out and buy them. The good news is that Bob the mixer was finally up andrunning on the last day – it was dirty fuel that was causing the problem. Bob helpedwith the final slab and will play a key part in the making of blocks.That evening we all had a final meal at the beach bar together – Colin hadorganised yet more cake and Agnes (the beach bar owner) and Esther the Sabrerepresentative sang Ghanaian songs.We were sad to leave the next day and we made our way by coach to Accra, thecapital of Ghana. We were very impressed by the smart modern air-conditionedcoach in comparison to some of the other wrecks we’d seen on the road – howeverit spluttered to a halt on the outskirts of Accra and we were all told to get off andfind our own way into town, now that is what you call service!Three days later we were on a flight across to Nairobi in Kenya to join the ‘BigGreen’ overland truck that we’re currently travelling on. We actually set off onColin’s birthday (15th) with both of us hoping that the imodium would hold things20DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 20

together for the day! It’s typical that the most expensive place we had stopped atto date tried to poisons us. The sides of the truck roll up so we get great views andthe real ‘Africa in your face’ experience. Best of all we’ve got a truck cook,Wycliffe, who is the best camp cook ever! It’s like being on holiday.We initially headed north into the Masai Mara National Park where we werelucky enough to see plenty of game – lions, elephants, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest,zebras, hyenas and lots of antelope type things. On one of the evenings we visiteda Masai Village, but it had gone dark by the time we got there. We had to squeezeour way between the cattle that had all been brought into the compound forprotection and ended up with a lot of fresh manure in our sandals! A group ofMasai warriors entertained us with their dancing and when we got dragged up tojoin in we entertained everyone.We left the Masai and drove for the next three long days through Uganda viathe capital Kampala, to Kisoro in the south west corner. The scenery wasunexpectedly stunning and the people very friendly. We felt like royalty constantlywaving as all the locals shouted and waved to us from the fields. Kisoro was ourbase for visiting the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo(formerly Zaire). On our way into town we crossed an old UN airfield which hadbeen used as a refugee camp during the Rwandan genocide period in 1994. Thearea on this border has had a lot of upheaval with refugees escaping from troublesover the past few decades in Uganda, Zaire and Rwanda. There are still RwandanTutsi Rebels living in the hills of Congo.Friday was the big day for the trek to see the mountain gorillas – it was veryexciting crossing over the border into the Congo. From there we had a half hourCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ‘JAMBO’ FROM EAST AFRICA21LEFTLion having buffalo for dinnerDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 21

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drive up very rough roads to the Park Nationals des Virungas which spreads intoRwanda and Uganda as well. The scenery was absolutely stunning – steep hillsideswith patchworks of crops and a chain of dormant volcanic mountains. We trekkedfor about an hour to reach the denser forest area, entering the forest along narrowtracks carved out by two men at the front with machetes. We were alsoaccompanied by armed guides to protect us from the human types of guerrillas.After nearly an hour we came across fresh gorilla dung and the guides informedus that we had crossed through their last night’s nest – it was very exciting. Thensuddenly right in front of us were two gorillas sat in the sunshine, what anunbelievable sight! We followed them deeper into the forest and kept catchingglimpses of other gorillas in the undergrowth. Then sat under a tree was thesilverback – he was an awesome sight – and he sat there patiently while we clickedaway with our cameras only a few feet away from him. The only time we had to bewary was when the baby gorillas came towards us to have a closer look – we had toquickly back up so as not to upset the family and also to avoid contact as humangerms could be fatal for gorillas. There are currently only 300 of them left in theworld – all in this region. We were allowed to follow the gorillas for an hour and justas our time was coming to an end, we found the group in a clearing. The Silverbackwas sprawled out on the ground, arms behind his head, one leg across the other. Helet out a huge smelly fart – we all had to hold back our giggles! The silverback satup and stared right at us before lying down again to do some nit-picking, buttscratching and poking in his ear – he was after all just a normal bloke. We all felton a complete high as we walked back – it definitely exceeded our expectations andwas a truly fantastic experience that we will never forget.We travelled back down towards the border, stopping to watch some Pygmyvillagers singing and dancing at the side of the road, then onto a local market thatCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ‘JAMBO’ FROM EAST AFRICA23DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 23

was just a sea of bright colours. We finally crossed back over the border intoUganda having had an amazing day.En route back to Kenya we had a couple of days chilling by Lake Bunyonicamping right on the lakeside. We visited a very sad village that has been ravagedby Aids with only old people and orphaned children left there now. Uganda has oneof the highest rates of Aids in the world and seeing the effect it was having on thesociety first hand was devastating.Our last stop in Uganda was Jinja, where some of the group, including Colin,spent the day white water rafting down the Nile. I decided I didn’t want to spendthe day underwater which was a good decision because they went down somefairly full on rapids usually upside down! I had a very pleasant few hours quadbiking with a guide around the local villages and along the banks of the Nilewhere I watched Colin’s raft hit the ‘G-Spot’ rapid, then watched the group swimout from under the raft being swept down river trying to catch up with it again.Back in Kenya, en route to the capital Nairobi, we stopped for the night in aremote village. It was the evening of the European cup final and Fletch, one of thelads on the truck who was a keen Liverpool fan asked around the village if therewas a television. To his amazement he found one and agreed a price for a groupof us to watch the match. It was a very surreal experience watching the game aftermidnight due to the time difference, in a mud hut with the man’s family sleepingon the floor between us and the television. What a result though -if you don’tremember Liverpool were losing three nil and came back to win on penaltiesagainst AC Milan. The Kenyans looked a bit bewildered at the scary sight of anAussie guy kissing the television.24ABOVECrossing theequator DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 24

Kenya to Vic FallsJune 2005: Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and ZimbabweWE’RE NOW IN WINDHOEK the capital of Namibia about to embark on our nextphase travelling in our own vehicle which is exciting. Colin has just found outthat someone has cloned his credit card and is currently on the phone trying tosort out the dodgy transactions in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and the OpenUniversity Milton Keynes- they have spent £7,000 in a week! We’ve had a great few weeks on the overland truck covering about 4,700kmfrom Nairobi to Victoria Falls. The group consisted of five Kiwis, three Aussies25LEFTKudu in theNgorogoro craterDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 25

and little Maria from Ecuador. Over the first few days we watched many animalsjust going about their lives in the Serengeti and the Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania.As we have never seen a leopard in the wild, this was to be our best opportunity.On the second day we did see a leopard tortoise which is one of the small five andon the final day we saw a leopard’s tail hanging from a tree as the rest of him sleptout of view for a number of hours, what a tease. The highlight for us was seeing thousands of migrating wildebeest headingnorth towards the Masai Mara in Kenya. We saw several herds stretching into thedistance as far as the eye could see. We parked up and watched them gallop acrossin front of us. There had been a lot of rain prior to our visit and we had a coupleof heart stopping moments when our landrover driver lost control in the mud andwe did a few pirouettes. On one occasion we seriously thought we were going toroll and be part of a meals on wheels service to the lions.After a long day’s drive we arrived in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, wherewe caught a ferry across to Zanzibar. We had a couple of nights in Stonetownwhich we absolutely loved. There was a great food market area in a park near theport where you could get fresh seafood and Zanzibar pizzas – a bit like pancakesfolded over filled with meat, onions, chilli and an egg. Even better they didchocolate and banana ones for afters! We also ate at a place called Two Tables,which was literally two tables in someone’s house. For £5 they served us a sixcourse meal of local food which was delicious. During the first day we did a SpiceTour where they took us to a couple of spice plantations and we got to see how thespices and fruits we know (cloves, peppercorns, lemongrass, nutmeg, pineapple,papaya to name a few) are grown which was surprisingly interesting.Colin and I, and Phil (one of the Aussie chaps) decided to hire motorbikes tospend two days touring the rest of the island (me as pillion with Colin). We wereamused when Maria, who is only 19 and tiny, said she’d like to come with us. WeRIGHTThe plains of theSerengeti 26DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 26

assumed she’d think better of spending time with us three old duffers, as she didhave a tendency to stay out dancing until the small hours while we are normallytucked up in bed snoring. Despite the fact she’d gone to bed at 5am, she turnedup to come with us. We were horrified to see that she couldn’t actually ride amotorbike, despite assuring us that she had a bike back in Ecuador. She fell offhalf a dozen times in the practice session and was too small to even pick the bikeup. The thought of her on a road with chaotic traffic scared us to death.Eventually the motorbike owner said he’d only let her take a Vespa, but herpractice laps on this didn’t fill us with confidence either – we thought we weregoing to have a disastrous two days as we set off two hours later thanplanned...but how wrong we were.We decided to head to the far south end of the island first, then head back upto the attractive East coast resorts for the first night. Despite being a bit wobbly(particularly when waving with both hands to the locals and causing the localmales to stop in their tracks ogling at her low cut strappy top- this is a devoutMuslim country) Maria was actually doing well. We decided to have a drink anda bit of lunch at the Southern point. We sat admiring the view of the bay withcrystal blue waters and local fishing boats, but decided we’d carry on as plannedto the East. As we started the bikes, the clutch cable on our bike snapped. Wephoned the hire company who said someone would be with us within the hour,which made us laugh as we were at least two hours away from the town. As thehours passed, we realised we weren’t going to make it to the East coast so Philwent across to the beautiful lodge across the bay and managed to negotiate a verygood rate on the bungalow rooms which overlooked the sea. Back at the bar weenjoyed the sunset with a few beers and listened to the barman and another localhave a punch-up and shouting match about taking us on a dolphin trip thatevening. As we got ‘more relaxed’ we joked about the mechanic probably turningup without the tools and parts. When he finally turned up he surpassed even ourexpectations by having no parts, no tools, no petrol in his bike to get home or anymoney! Colin lent him some money and he went off on Phil’s bike for the partswhile we carried on drinking and enjoying the gorgeous sunset. An hour later heCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KENYA TO VIC FALLS27BELOWNot a bad spot tospend an afternoon /evening waiting for the bike to berepaired.DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 27

returned and repaired the bike. Colin thanked the mechanic and told him to driveback carefully as the roads are very dangerous in the dark. When we waddled awayfrom the bar an hour later we saw the mechanic still sat on the wall smokingsomething fragrant with the barman – so much for the safe drive home!Back at the lodge, Maria had gone to bed early (probably terrified at thethought of sharing a room with a 41 year old Aussie!) and we ordered dinner andmore drinks. We had the lodge virtually to ourselves and had a lovely eveningeating fresh seafood and chatting to the manager. We had agreed with the barmanto be taken out by a local fisherman first thing in the morning to swim with thedolphins. We set off at 7am and were told the dolphin tour would take one and ahalf hours, so two hours later when we were still heading out to sea we werebeginning to think it wasn’t going to happen. But then two fins appeared near ourboat and the fisherman shouted to get in quick. Colin and Phil jumped in withsnorkel and mask and the dolphins swam right in between them – less than a metrefrom them.Back on dry land we set off again on the bikes this time aiming to get to thenorthernmost resort which should have been a bit livelier for Maria. We reacheda section of dirt road which was great for us on the trail bikes, especially in the bigdeep puddles that covered the road. On one of them Colin and I went first and thewater covered the wheels. When we looked round, Maria had gone completelyunder water on her Vespa! Luckily she was never short of locals keen to help herget back on and start her bike – in fact a few kept up with her on their pushbikesjust to help her again!Our next entertainment was that we were nearly out of petrol, so we called in ata petrol station only to find that they had no power and couldn’t serve us petrol fromthe pumps. When we asked where we could get fuel, we were told that it was possibleat a village 10km up the road. As we pulled out we just checked what the petrolstation was called, but were told that there was no petrol station, just ask for Omar!We had a little trouble finding the village as there were no road signs, but Omarappeared from a hut and took us to his lock up where we filled up. We continued intoa little village nearby for drinks where we had the whole village out looking at us.We thought we would make the North in good time as we set off on anotherpiece of dirt road, but all of a sudden Maria’s Vespa cut out and refused to start.We tried everything, but it just wouldn’t fire up. It was now getting late in theafternoon, so Phil took Maria on his bike to see if they could find a hotel orsomewhere that could help us. Colin and I waited with the bikes and were joinedby a local who spoke no English, but just smiled and shrugged and kept uscompany. It seemed like a long time before Phil reappeared (we’d now been joinedby another non-English speaking local who seemed to have a cunning plan, butwe couldn’t understand what he was suggesting). Phil had found a guest housethat was actually closed but they said they’d put us up for the night. We still hadthe problem of how to get the Vespa 4km along a bumpy road, but then as if bymagic Maria appeared with a man in a van and they loaded it on and transportedit back for us. 28ABOVEPhil and Colin onthe bikesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 28

We couldn’t believe our luck as the guesthouse was right on a beautiful whitebeach and the rooms were basic grass huts. The owner said his daughter wouldcook for us that night and he had cold beer. We’d died and gone to heaven! Thebike rental mechanic showed up a couple of hours later and changed the sparkplug and everything was OK. The owner’s daughter turned out to be a fantasticcook and we were treated to blue marlin steaks and heaps of delicious vegetables.We ended the evening by sitting around a log fire on the beach listening to thesound of the bushbabies in the trees.Back on the mainland we had two long days driving to get to Malawi and ontoLake Malawi. It’s hard to believe it’s a lake as it has sandy beaches and waves, andyou can’t see the other side. The lake is actually 535km long by 120km wide andis the largest lake in Africa. We had been told the Malawian people are some ofthe friendliest in Africa and they didn’t let us down – we seemed to wave non-stopfrom the border to our first campsite at Chitumba. Colin and I decided to go on a village tour with a few others from the groupwhich took in the school and a visit to the local Witch Doctor. In the morning wewere taken to find Washington, the local guide and part-time teacher. We met theheadmaster and another teacher and they told us about the school and thechallenges they have – not dissimilar to Ghana. There are 702 pupils at the schoolwith only six full time teachers and two volunteers. The government provide thetext books, but the school struggles to provide exercise books and pens etc. Therewere also quite a high number of orphans attending the school, largely as a resultof AIDS. We were told that the present government in Malawi have had a veryCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KENYA TO VIC FALLS29LEFTAnother break-down – anotherlovely placeDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 29

vigorous campaign on Aids and the numbers contracting it are actually fallingunlike most other African countries where it is on the increase. The headmasterwas after donations of money, books, pens and clothes. We went into a couple ofthe classrooms – first a junior class and then a senior class where we had a chanceto chat to the pupils. I have to say they looked better behaved than the classes Iwas involved with in Ghana.We then went to see the village Witch Doctor. When we arrived at his hut therewas a very large group of children and other locals. We had introductions and heperformed a few dance numbers while the women and children clapped alongsidea couple of drum players. Before he did this he had snorted a powdery substanceout of a bottle which certainly seemed to make his eyes roll when he wasperforming. We were then allowed to ask him questions through Washington whoacted as the interpreter. Colin’s first question was “What is that stuff you’resniffing?” The answer was that it is something that clears and opens his mind – suresure! (This is a term all Malawians seem to say when you ask them a question.) Hethen passed round some of his medicines – some to help various illnesses, some forsingle people to find a partner, some to help married people stay together, andeven viagra. He also had a potion to bring you luck, which Colin pointed out didn’tseem to have helped him as he was still living in a mud hut. I have to say they alllooked exactly the same to me. We were asked if we wanted him to do ourpredictions for the future – apparently he only tells you good news, but we decidedwe’d rather not know any good news!We continued down the lake to Chintheche . On the way there we stopped at atown called Mzuzu for a couple of hours which had a great local market sellingeverything from clothes to vegetables to rats on stick kebabs. The next morning we were all feeling pretty fragile after a heavy night of punchserved in a cool box that was delicious but lethal. Colin and I with just a coupleof others managed to make it for a village tour. We had a walk through the localvillages where the main work is as fishermen and the main crop they grow iscassava. We carried on to the local senior girls boarding school, where even thoughit was a Sunday there were lots of girls wandering around and doing their washing.We then passed the junior section of the school and went into the headmaster’soffice for a chat about the school and signed the visitor’s book. The assistantpastor joined us and took us down to see the old church built by a Scottish30ABOVEThe Witch Doctorwith a clear mind!ABOVEMeeting the children at theschoolDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 30

Missionary and showed us the new church that was being built. There was aservice going on when we got there and we felt a bit awkward when he took us inas we were only in shorts and t-shirts, not exactly our Sunday best. We tried tohide at the back, but then suddenly realised the Clergyman was calling us all tocome up to the front and introduce ourselves to the congregation! We each tookit in turn to tell them our name and where we were from.We had planned to go scuba diving in the afternoon to see the tropical fish inthe lake, but the diving was cancelled due to the water being too rough. I decidedto go horse riding instead and Colin ended up taking a boat out from the resortto snorkel around an island. The water was lovely and clear and he saw lots ofdifferent coloured cichlids, just like you see in the displays in the garden centresat home.The horses we rode were beautiful – very well kept and schooled for trekking.We spent about two hours riding along the village tracks with the odd trot andcanter here and there, and ended up at a beach resort where we took off thehorses, saddles, got into our bathers and then took the horses into the lake whichwas great fun.We hurtled through Zambia over the next two days without really stoppinganywhere, so we can’t say we saw too much of it. We ended up at Livingstone onthe Zambian side of Victoria Falls and went on a Sunset (booze) cruise – it waslovely watching the sun go down on the Zambezi and watching the wildlife on thebanks (elephants) and in the water (hippo/crocs), but not so nice trying to avoidCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KENYA TO VIC FALLS31LEFTVictoria Falls infull flowDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 31

the drinking games that were being forced on us – we’re getting too old for thatgame! We weren’t too old to move everyone’s tents around later that night.The next day we crossed the Zambezi into Zimbabwe and the town of VictoriaFalls. We had been to Victoria Falls eight years ago and it’s a bit of a shock to seethat the once thriving tourist resort has become a ghost town. The hotels,restaurants and shops were all decidedly empty and the local hawkers had a senseof desperation in their pleas for you to buy their curios. It must be extra hard asthey have had such good times only to have all of it taken away from them. As oneshopkeeper summed it up “Once every day was a Saturday, now everyday is aMonday”. We heard that only a couple of weeks before we were there some localshanty towns were wiped out and the curio shops raided for foreign currency,which seems to be the theme all over the country. Eight years ago the exchange rateto the pound was 60 zw$. Now the official bank rate was 18,000 zw$. The blackmarket rate was 30,000 zw$! We had a few fun times exchanging money in ‘travelagencies’ and curio shops trying to avoid the tourist police.That said, we actually had a really enjoyable five daysthere. The falls looked magnificent as they were in fullflow and you could see the spray from them wherever wewent. We did a scenic flight in an ultralight plane, which isa bit like a microlight but the passenger sits next to thepilot rather than behind. It was a beautiful sight and wewere flown past and over the falls just as the sun rose.We did a horse riding safari which was terrific. Againthe horses were lovely, and we had nearly four hoursweaving around bush trails. The normally aggressivebuffalos let us spiral in really close to their herd, and thetimid gazelles and bushbucks let us walk up really close. Itwas quite exciting tracking the elephants – they can detectthe smell of humans, so we had to be on our guard if theycaught wind of us. One lonely male did trumpet at us and we made a hasty retreat,but we got a really good view of one at the side of the road. Our guide gave us lotsof interesting facts too, such as Impala can eat a type of plant to make themselvesabort if the rainy season hasn’t arrived or they can prolong their gestation period– that’s what I call muscle control!After saying goodbye to the rest of the group who were continuing on the greentruck, we caught an Intercape bus from Livingstone all the way through toWindhoek – it was a 20 hour journey, but the bus wasn’t full and it was a verysmooth trip. We pick up our four wheel drive Toyota on Monday, so we arespending the next few days here getting bits and pieces sorted. Windhoek is a verycivilised African city, so we’re getting our fix of modern shopping malls, good foodand of course South African wine.32ABOVEFlying over the fallsat dawnDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 32

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A Drive on the Wild SideJuly 2005: Namibia and BotswanaWE’RE NOW IN MAUN IN BOTSWANA, having spent our first two weeks in Tommy theToyota. Tommy is a hilux four wheel drive with high ground clearance and a fewmodifications and with a tent on the roof. We had a couple of days testing him outaround Windhoek and getting stocked up with essentials – wine, beer, snacks andother stuff like food before setting off towards Botswana. We had an easy border crossing into Botswana and headed towards the CentralKalahari desert with Tommy carrying over 200 litres of fuel, a complete range ofspares, two spare wheels, 50 litres of water and 12 litres of wine... you can’t betoo careful!We planned to camp at a nice safari lodge on the way to the National Park. Weturned off the main road and the sign showed it was 70km away. The road wasbasically a sand track the whole way, and we only passed one building after sixkilometres which unbeknown to us at the time was the lodge reception where weshould have paid.It took about two and a half hours to reach the lodge which turned out to berather basic and overlooked a small waterhole. The camping ground was aboutanother 20 minutes drive away and was just a clearing with a toilet and a logburning shower. We had the place to ourselves and decided to return to thewaterhole for the evening. We arrived back at the camp in darkness, went to bedand all was going well until we were woken up by a pride of lions. What startedas a fairly distant roar got closer and closer. We were both huddled in the middleof the tent, thanking God we were on the roof, but I wasn’t convinced that thelions wouldn’t climb up the bonnet. I stayed awake rigid with fear while Colinproceeded to snore (and fart) very loudly – not even that scared the lions off andthey played in the campsite for a couple of hours. It sounded like there were cubswith them too, but we weren’t brave enough to open the tent flap! We had plannedto leave early in the morning, but decided we’d stay in the tent until it became light.We had a further 100km drive bouncing along sand tracks to get to the park34DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 34

entrance gates where we saw a couple of vehicles leaving, andthese were the last people we saw for three days and 600kmof driving. The park was billed as being a real wildernessexperience and it certainly was. The sandy tracks were not asbad as the drive to reach the park, and we would come to bigopen dry pans with springbok, wildebeest, giraffe, gemsbokand jackals to mention a few. There were lions in the park,but with high pale yellow grass we couldn’t spot them,although I’m sure we must have driven within a few feet ofsome. We had two nights there at different camps. Thedesignated campsites were basically clearings with the luxuryof a long drop toilet. My wine consumption droppeddramatically for these few days – there was no way I wasgetting up for a pee in the middle of the night! We would get up before sunrise anddrive to the local waterholes with a hot drink to watch the animals have theirearly morning drink and did the same at sunset with a cold beer. The thing that struck us was the sheer isolation while we were there – we can’tthink of anywhere else we’ve been where we’ve not come across other people forsuch a period of time. Imagine driving in the UK for over 400 miles without seeinganother vehicle.Our next destination was the more visited areas in the North of the country.We stopped at a very nice campsite in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.The security guy said we could camp and pets were included – by this he meantelephants and lions that frequently wandered through the camp at night. Thatevening we did a night game drive which was a fabulous experience. We saw quitea few nocturnal animals (bushbaby, spring hares, and genets) as well as hundredsof zebra and wildebeest. The rains were very poor this year (following last year’sgood rain which meant a lot of baby zebra/wildebeest had been born) and it wassad to see them struggling to get water – we could see a large number of themweren’t going to survive. We also saw lots of elephants by the waterhole and wefollowed them back to our camp. They didn’t keep us awake though.We continued north through Maun and onto the west side of the OkavangoDelta Panhandle for a relaxing few days. The first campsite we stopped at was runby an English couple and as we were checking in the bloke’s mother called fromEngland to say London had won the Olympic bid. Fantastic news – they put ontheir satellite TV and we watched a bit of the celebrations in London – it musthave been an amazing atmosphere – how could things turn so dreadful less than24 hours later?We spent a day and a night at the Tsolido Hills, a World Heritage Site, wherewe did a nice walking trail looking at the ancient rock paintings, although wehave to admit we weren’t impressed with some of the drawings – we could havedone much better! Instead of wild animals outside our tent that night we hadthree skinny stray dogs with big hungry eyes – they ate more than we did forCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | A DRIVE ON THE WILD SIDE35ABOVEThe main road of theCentral KalahariNational ParkDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 35

dinner and I don’t think they wanted us to leave in the morning – one kept lyingin front of the wheels.The next two nights we stopped at a campsite on the Delta doing a full day’smokoro trip. A motorboat whizzed us out into the delta, where we swapped intothe mokoros on an island and spent a very relaxing few hours drifting through thenarrow channels in the swamp lands. We had a game walk across an island, butonly saw tracks and dung. It was after this we heard the dreadful news about theLondon bombings.We’re now back in Maun for a couple of nights so we can stock up for ourdrives into Moremi and Chobe National Parks.36BELOWOn the mokoros inthe OkavangaDeltaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 36

Pussy Cats and ElephantsJuly 2005 : BotswanaWE SET OFF FROM MAUN at 5.15am in the morningto get to Moremi National Park as near to sunriseas possible. We had a good days game drivingaround the park and saw quite a lot of gameincluding eight lions that were lying in the grassabout a kilometre from one of the campsites. Itwasn’t easy finding our way around the park –they don’t like to give you easy to follow signs andthere are always lots of tracks that aren’t on themap. As we had been told all the park campsiteswere fully booked we had a long two hour trekback out of the park to reach the campsite we’dbooked. The barman at the camp recommended agood game viewing area next to the River Kwaiwhich lies between Moremi and Chobe nationalparks and being outside the reserves we wouldn’thave to shell out on park entrance fees. So the next day we got up before sunriseand headed off. As we left the campsite Colin spotted big pussy cat prints in thesand on the road heading the same way as us. He joked “there’ll be a lion sat inthe middle of the road any time now”. He was right – there in front of us was abig male lion swaggering up the middle of the road like he’d had a great night out.He sauntered along in front of us for about 10 minutes just stopping to sniff theodd bush here and there and have a quick squirt to mark his territory. Heeventually wandered off into the bushes. We were just thinking what a wonderfulsighting that was, when a group of eight lions walked out in front of us andcrossed the road – we couldn’t believe our luck and we hadn’t even reached themain area yet. 37DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 37

The track seemed to peter out at a river. Colin got out and had a look – wecouldn’t tell how deep it was, but it looked like the only place to cross so we gotourselves ready to go, putting Tommy into low range four wheel drive and lockingthe rear differential. We nervously entered the water and the water lapped up overthe wheels, which was fine, but then the bonnet dipped sharply and went rightunder water! Thankfully Colin kept his head and remembered his four wheeldriving course tips (the best Christmas present I could have got him!) and despitehaving me screaming a few choice four letter words he powered us back out andup the other bank. We sat on the other side with our hearts pounding. It was goodto find out that Tommy was waterproof! The crocodiles were probablydisappointed though.We followed the tracks along the side of the river and found a waterhole with anenormous crocodile sunning itself. The scenery was beautiful and we saw lots ofbirds, hippos, zebra and giraffe. As we stopped to watch a big troop of baboons wenoticed a few other vehicles in the distance so we drove over to see what they werelooking at. Just as we pulled up 10 lions walked out of the bushes – five lionesses andfive cubs of varying ages. They walked right past us, then over to the river and wewatched them swim across. When they had disappeared out of sight, a lioness anda handsome male lion appeared. They wandered around the vehicles for a shortwhile before settling under the shade of a bush. We sat and watched them for sometime. The male kept close to the female at all times, and then had a quick pounce onher – Colin was very impressed with his performance which lasted all of 15 seconds! We had a good chuckle at this point when an elderly American in the safarivehicle next to us kept shouting “look at the huge herd of camels”. We all lookedround, but we could only see giraffes – he must have said it three times, but no-onehad the heart to correct him.38DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 38

It was only 10 o’clock and we’d seen over 20 lions all at close range. Wecontinued to follow the river and saw lots more hippos, kudu, impala andwildebeest. We also had a couple of good close up elephant viewings. As weretraced our steps we agreed it was probably the best game viewing we had everdone in one day. We had to go back through the river again, but at least we knewwhat to expect this time so it wasn’t quite so scary.Our next venture was into Chobe Park. It was nearly a two hour drive to getto the entrance gate along sandy tracks – they don’t want to encourage too manyvisitors to their parks! Chobe is famous for its huge number of elephants, but wedidn’t see any for the first hour or so. We saw lots of ostrich, zebra, wildebeest,warthogs, reedbucks, impala and giraffes galore. We finally drove past a loneelephant at the side of the road, and from then on we would see them regularly.They seemed very unbothered about us driving past so close to them. We watchedone violently shake a tree to get the seed pods to fall to the ground for it to eat. We arrived at Savute campsite just before midday, where they said they werefull, but could fit us into a reserve site which suited us fine. We found a nice shadyspot and had lunch accompanied by hornbills that tried to steal our sandwiches,some noisy francolins that pecked around our feet and some cute squirrels thattried to climb up us and sat on my seat. To cap this, an elephant strolled past. Thetoilet block at the campsite had been fortified against elephants with huge thickreinforced walls. A German couple came over and asked us if we’d seen the 22lions that had killed an elephant just up the road from the campsite. Savute isfamous for its big prides of lions that hunt elephants. We jumped into Tommy,drove a kilometre up the road and after a bit of searching we found the lionsslumped under various trees and bushes. It looked like the kill had actuallyCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PUSSY CATS AND ELEPHANTS39DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 39

happened yesterday – quite a lot of the elephant had beeneaten. One lioness actually had half her body wedged intothe elephant’s stomach. The lions could hardly move astheir stomachs were so full. Some were literally lying ontheir backs with their legs in the air and you could almostimagine them saying “why oh why did I eat that secondhelping of elephant?” There were several cubs in the prideand we could drive up pretty close to watch them all.We went back to see the lions at sunset. The kill was very close to a waterholewhere the elephants come to drink and it was packed when we arrived. As we satwith a cold beer, we didn’t even notice a huge elephant until it walked within afew inches of us. Thankfully, the elephants here seemed very relaxed – it is theherds with young we had to be more careful with. The lions looked a little livelyas the day cooled down and a few of them started heading towards the waterhole.We thought this could be interesting, but I think the lions decided there were fartoo many elephants to compete with. We drove back to the campsite and had aquiet night, feeling secure in the knowledge that the local lions wouldn’t belooking for fresh meat that night.The next morning at sunrise we drove to the waterhole again. There was nowonly one elephant there and one of the male lions. The other lions were stillconcentrated around their kill, and we watched the cubs playing in the morninglight.That day we had a long drive to the Chobe River Front. The tracks were very40ABOVEWe wished theywouldn’t sneak uplike thatRIGHTAn elephantsundownerDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 40

sandy for the first stretch, then very hard and corrugated for the second part. Weaveraged 10 miles an hour. The park campsite on the waterfront also had somespaces, so we checked in for a night. Again we’d seen no elephants on our driveto the camp, but we’d seen plenty of evidence of their presence – piles of dung andtree destruction. We went out for a game drive late in the afternoon. The riverlooked beautiful and we saw lots of birds, warthog, zebra, bushbuck and roanantelopes. Still no elephants though – until we rounded a corner and there in frontof us were huge herds of elephants coming out of the trees in all directions. Theyall made their way down to the river and many of them crossed over onto theNamibian side (without passports!). We could see hundreds of them. Onebreeding herd was coming out of the trees just in front of us – we kept ourdistance as they had lots of young with them. On our drive back to camp wefound ourselves right in the middle of a large herd of buffalo that was also makingits way to the river. We got a bit surrounded, but thankfully they weren’taggressive like others we’d met in Kenya.When we got back to the campsite two blokes had nicked our camping spotwhich we weren’t impressed with – we didn’t ask them to move as they’d got theirtents set up, but they did come over and apologise. One was American/Italian(Alex) and the other was Turkish (Igan). We would keep bumping into them in thenext few days.The next morning we decided to drive round a loop that was supposed to bethe home of a herd of puku, which are smallish antelope that are only found inthis region. The track started off ok, but there was no sign of any puku. We wereadmiring the scenery alongside the river when Tommy suddenly sunk into thesand. Colin tried all methods to free it up, but we just got further buried up to theaxles. In the end he had to use the hi-lift jack we’d brought along as anafterthought to raise up the back of the car and pack our firewood under it. Therewas no-one else in sight, so if this didn’t work we could have a problem. I was justglad we were in an open area which didn’t have any lions around (as far as weknew). Thankfully Colin managed to fire the vehicle out of the soft sand. Wecarried on being a lot more cautious on the sandy sections and we even managedto find the elusive puku who obliged us with some good photo posing. On ourroute out of the park we saw a magnificent herd of sable run across the trackdown to the river.We decided to stay the night in Kasane and had been recommended the ChobeSafari Lodge. It was a very nice place on the river and had a good campsiteattached to it. We booked a three hour river cruise that afternoon. We were puton the dinkiest little boat, but it was much quicker than the big boats and couldwhiz us into areas to view wildlife close up. It was a wonderful experience. We sawbeautiful birds, stacks of hippos in and out of the water (we got scarily close tothem in our little boat), and the main attraction was viewing the herds ofelephants that were drinking and grazing by the river and crossing through theriver in front of us. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PUSSY CATS AND ELEPHANTS41DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 41

The next day after stocking up with provisions, we had a 300km drive to Nata.Even on the main tarmac road we saw elephant and ostrich. We had encounteredroad blocks. One was for foot and mouth where we had to wash our shoes indisinfectant. They asked if we were carrying any meat products. Colin asked ifthese weren’t allowed and they confirmed this, so he said we hadn’t and we madea sharp exit – there was no way we were handing over our beef or sausages we’djust bought! We were also asked to stop at a road safety checkpoint where a verydeadpan lady told us the main cause of accidents, much like the UK, with perhapsthe added danger of big animals, and they gave us an info pack complete with twocondoms – we’re not sure how that helps with safe driving?We visited the Nata Bird Sanctuary which is supposed to be famous for its largeconcentration of birds. Unfortunately there was very little water in the pans andthe flamingos were so far out we couldn’t see them. We only saw about four otherbirds, one of which I think ended up in Tommy’s grill when Colin was driving abit fast – oops!The following day we drove through the middle of the Makgadikgadi Pans to42ABOVEA beautiful sunseton the Chobe riverDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 42

stop at Lekhubu Island. Although it was only 120km from Nata it took us nearlyfive hours. We just followed sandy tracks and used our GPS to find our way there.We only saw one other vehicle on the way there. Kubu Island is a magical place –it is basically a rocky outcrop in the middle of the pan and is covered with twistedbaobab trees. We camped up on the edge of the island and had a walk aroundadmiring the scenery. Late afternoon, a couple of other vehicles turned up, one ofthem being Alex who told us (tongue in cheek we hope) that we’d stolen his spot!We let him set up camp with us – mainly because he said he had some nice wine.We enjoyed a fabulous sunset and sunrise – the colours on the rocks and treescontrasting with the white of the salt pan were amazing.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PUSSY CATS AND ELEPHANTS43LEFTDriving on the saltpansLEFTEerie baobab treeson Kubu IslandDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 43

ZimbabweJuly 2005: ZimbabweWE CROSSED FROM BOTSWANA into Zimbabwe on 22nd July fully loaded up withfuel as we had been informed that there was no fuel in the country and it was illegalto import it. On the way to the border post we passed several petrol filling stationswith big queues of vehicles, mainly Zimbabwean, with people filling anything thatwould hold petrol.We had a reasonable passage through immigration and customs, although theZimbabwe Customs Official was particularly unhelpful. She wanted to know theexact date we intended to leave Zimbabwe, and when we asked if she had acalendar she helpfully snapped “I am not here to tell you when you’re leaving ourcountry, you should know that yourselves”....Thanks. It was quite amusing thatnearly everyone in the queue stank of petrol. One thing we noticed was that theofficial bank rates had doubled since we were at Vic Falls – that is to say the zw$had been devalued by a further 95% in just four weeks.Needless to say, the road towards Bulawayo was pretty quiet except for pickupswith huge drums of fuel on the back. We had a brief drive into Bulawayo, whichactually looked like quite a bustling city. Lots of the street names were named afterBritish towns – we had to do a quick U-turn to avoid Luton Avenue!We headed about 40km south of Bulawayo to Matopos National Park. Theentry fee to foreigners was pretty steep at £18 for the two of us compared to £1 forlocals, but it was worthwhile as the scenery in the park is absolutely stunning withamazing rock formations which looked even better in the late afternoon sun. The next morning we went for a drive around the parks Game Area – we werethe first visitors for a number of days. There wasn’t a great deal of game to beseen, although we did see black and white rhinos. The guard was very impressedon the way out, as he said that most visitors needed a tracker to find the blackrhino – we were lucky as it just ran out straight in front of us before charging offinto the distance.From here we headed North East towards Gweru to spend a couple of days at44ABOVEWe know how torough it!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 44

Antelope Park, a private game reserve, which had beenhighly recommended by other travellers. We weren’tdisappointed – it was a lovely place set by a lake. Its mainactivity involved a lion rehabilitation programme. We hadn’trealised that lions are actually becoming an endangeredspecies in Africa – we’ve seen so many on this trip weactually thought they were quite common, but theirnumbers have fallen from 250,000 to just 17,000 in the pastdecade. A lot of the problem is poaching, but they have alsobeen affected by a type of Aids virus which has made themsusceptible to all sorts of diseases, some contracted fromdomestic dogs.The thing to do here was walking with the lions. Severalof our group in Vic Falls had done it there and had come back with bites andscratches as mementos, so I was particularly nervous about this. Matters weren’thelped when we overheard the volunteers who worked there discussing a problemlion (Amy) who had taken to pouncing on the punters. My knees were knockingearly the next morning as we stood there having a safety talk stating thatwhatever you do, don’t show any fear or they’ll attack you. Then the good news– there were two sets of cubs – one lot were just four months old, but we wereallocated to the 17 to 20 month old cubs (?) one of which was Amy. Before Icould run away, we were marched up to the enclosure where we caught sight ofAmy, Amber, Arthur (sisters and brother) and Elsa. They looked huge – evenColin admitted he was a bit taken aback. They opened the gates and one of themcame straight for me, but thankfully just rubbed herself against me like a pussycat. After all my worries they were actually quite docile, particularly Arthur whohad to be dragged along. Amy didn’t pounce on anyone, but she did keepwandering off on her own and wouldn’t do as she was told. The volunteerswould observe the lions’ behaviour, the idea being they can tell if they will begood hunters, which Elsa would as she was very alert, or a good mother, whichthey hoped Amy would be as she had such a minute attention span, and as forArthur....bless him. We walked with them for just over an hour and had chancesto stroke them and have photos taken. It was actually a great experience and I’mrelieved I didn’t wimp out.We continued on to Harare to spend some time with Rebecca, whom I was atAston University with many years ago, and her husband Hudson and childrenChristopher (4) and Tommy (17 months). They have recently moved into a verynice house that they have built on the north side of Harare, within a housingestate around a golf course and a totally electrified fence. It felt a bit bizarre –once you were through the security gates it did feel a bit like the Truman Show –neatly manicured gardens and immaculately laid out roads which differedconsiderably to places on the other side of the fence. A certain Robert Mugabehas a property on the estate – it was built and paid for by his mates the ChineseCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ZIMBABWE45DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 45

and has a very tasteful (?) blue pagoda roof. We were told that having moved in hehad realised that some of the neighbouring houses overlooked his grounds. Theywere visited by an official who told them how much the house was worth (in theiropinion), given a cheque and asked to leave!Rebecca and Hudson were great hosts. They let us mess up their new guestaccommodation, fed and watered us (with food and wine prices rising daily I don’tknow how Rebecca copes with her household budget), provided us with fuel, gaveus Zim currency at non-official rates and showed us around Harare. We in returnwound up their children and ruined everyone’s routine!Although the country’s economy is in meltdown at the moment, Harare stillactually felt like a thriving bustling modern city on the surface. For the peopletrying to live there it’s another matter. Rebecca and Hudson told us stories of howpeople on non-indexed linked pensions couldn’t afford to buy a bottle of cokewith their retirement lump sum. Many of their friends are leaving the country asprospects dry up and schooling standards slide. Hudson has his own CorporateFinance business and Colin enjoyed a couple of visits to local businesses with himwhere he learnt about the problems they are facing. The first was to a Rose Farm,so Colin now knows everything about how to grow roses commercially. One oftheir biggest problems was staff that are currently being paid less than 50p a dayand lived in the areas that have been flattened by the current regime. They nowhave to move back to the country as they have nowhere to live in the city. Thebulldozers arrived at their homes but didn’t have sufficient fuel to do the work, sothe army/police gave them all sledgehammers and stood over them while theyknocked down their own homes. One of their other big problems was inflation,which was 30% in the month prior to us getting there, and is running at 250% perannum. The second was a visit to a concrete prefabrication company (only Colin couldfind this exciting!) where they told Colin that on the Friday before his visit they hadtried buying cement and were refused. They went back on the Monday and the46ABOVE LEFTTickle a bit lowerABOVE RIGHTElsa taking Liz for awalk.BELOWRebecca and LizDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 46

cement had gone up 77% in price! Colin suggested perhaps they could look atmodular homes for the rebuilding of homes programme at which point theylaughed saying it didn’t exist. The photographs in the daily papers of the buildingprogress are of the same house from different angles and the last thing you wantto do is to be involved in anything the government’s doing. Either they won’t payyou or if you’re doing well they’ll take the company off you and give it to one ofMugabe’s cronies.Over the two weeks we talked to a number of people trying to understand thetownship clearance policy. In everybody’s opinion there is no policy and a numberof different suggestions for the events were given – Mugabe was trying to spruceup the city to impress the Chinese to get more money out of them; as retaliationto the people in the towns who didn’t vote for him last time – the townships wereseen as a threat politically, so they have been forced back into the country; andfinally it was the army flexing their muscle to show Mugabe that he needs to lookafter them. Hudson and Rebecca speculate that Bob may not be the one in controlanymore, but nobody wants to be seen as the one in charge of such a mess.The Land Reform Programme seems to have been a complete farce as the landconfiscated has been given largely to his political friends and his wife. We had anexample of this when we went out for dinner with Hudson and Rebecca’s friends,where the guy had lost his farm purely because it had a nice house attached to it.It is now being lived in by a member of the Government.During our stay we took ourselves off for a couple of days further south in thecountry to Great Zimbabwe (the remains of a medieval city) and stopped atKyle Recreational Park which is another stunning place on a lake. We had twonights, one in a campsite and one in a self-catering chalet and we were the onlypeople staying at both places. How these places can keep going we just don’tknow.Hudson’s father is a senior partner at Deloitte and Touche in Harare. Theyhave the use of a holiday cottage in Eastern Zimbabwe and they kindly arrangedfor us all to go there for their bank holiday weekend. It was at a place calledTroutbeck in Nyanga, and wasn’t far from the Mozambique border where wewere heading to next. It was in a beautiful setting, by a lake and with scenic hillssurrounding it. We had a lovely couple of days having walks, rowing on the lakeand horse riding. We left them and drove to the border at Mutare where we crossed intoMozambique.It was during our time in Harare we heard the tragic news that Harry, the 19year old who travelled to Ghana with us, had died as a result of malaria which haddeveloped after he returned to the UK. We still can’t believe it – he was a lovelybloke. There was a big funeral held for him in the UK last week and they held amemorial service for him at Brenu. It has actually meant that I don’t need to nagColin to take his malaria tablets. I’ve developed one worrying side affect fromthe larium – my hair is falling out! I just hope it doesn’t get to Colin’s state.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ZIMBABWE47ABOVEHoliday cottage inNyangaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 47

Paradise Found in MozambiqueAugust 2005 : MozambiqueAS SOON AS WE CROSSED OVER the border into Mozambique it felt like real Africaagain after the ‘white man’s Africa’ of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Therewere lots of locals walking down the middle of the road, and the road wouldperiodically disappear.We headed straight to Beira which is about half way down the country and thesecond biggest city in Mozambique. We could see the Portuguese influence in thearchitecture in the town – there were some beautiful old colonial buildings, butmost of them were in a great need of repair. It reminded us very much of Havana.It was the first time we’ve been too hot during the night since picking the vehicleup – we weren’t complaining.We headed off towards Vilankulo, having an overnight stop at a beach locationcalled Inhassoro which was about a 470km drive. The road conditions varied frombeing quite reasonable to nonexistent or even worse having more potholes thanroad which Colin had a job dodging.We woke the next morning to the most stunning sunrise we’ve seen so far, andafter a nice long walk down the beach wowing at the brightly coloured starfishthat had been washed up, we drove the 100km to Vilankulo which is the base fordoing boat trips out to the paradise islands on the Bazaruto archipeligo. Colin gotoverexcited as we arrived in town and saw a sign for unleaded petrol. Weimmediately got pounced on by the street boys who all hung onto the back of thecar and demanded a reward for showing us where the petrol station was. Theyclearly weren’t satisfied with the pen I gave one of them and we had to lock thedoors quickly as they eyed up everything in the car and on us! We booked a threeday island dhow trip that set off the next day and spent the night at the municipalcampsite which had a great location by the sea. We bought a kilo of fresh prawnsfrom a guy on the street which were delicious.It was a beautiful day as we set sail and the water was crystal clear. It took usmost of the morning to reach Bazaruto Island, the largest one, where we jumped48ABOVECamping on thebeach at BeiraDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 48

off and had a walk up a large sand dune which gave us stunning views of thesurrounding sea, sand bars and islands. After having lunch on the beach wecontinued on to Two Mile Reef where we did some snorkelling. The coral wasn’tthe best but the marine fish were beautiful. We ended the day by sailing toBenguerra Island where we stopped at Gabriels Lodge, the only cheap andcheerful option on the islands. We slept in basic grass huts and spent the followingday exploring the island.The final day we sailed to Magaruque Island which was another stunningplace. We did some excellent snorkelling just off the beach. The strong currentmeant we could climb in at one end of the beach and it would carry us down thereef through shoals of fish. After a lovely seafood lunch we moved round toanother bay for more snorkelling, before sailing back to Vilankulo. We spent the next day in Vilankulo before continuing our journey toInhambane with a stop at a beach resort called Morrungulu. The campsite waswonderful – on the edge of the most pristine white sand beach, with the campingspots under big shady palm trees. That evening we managed to buy a huge pieceCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PARADISE FOUND IN MOZAMBIQUE49ABOVEA view across theBazaruto archipeligoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 49

of barracuda steak from a fisherman on the beach which we barbequed – it wasdelicious.We could have easily spent more time here, but having realised we should haveallowed for more time in Mozambique we pressed on to Inhambane, another arearenowned for its beautiful beaches and diving. We stopped at Tofo which is themain resort for backpackers and divers. The campsite had a great beach bar on topof a dune overlooking the beach and the music in the evenings was great. It wassuch a nice relaxed place. As neither of us had dived for over eight years wearranged a refresher course.The diving course was excellent. We had a South African dude called Dylanteaching us and his laid back manner made it easy for us to remember what to do.We followed this up with a shallow reef dive in the bay called Clownfish Reef. Thedive was absolutely beautiful – the water conditions were perfect – warm and clear,and the fish stunning. We did see the Nemo type Clownfish as well. We spent therest of the day chilling out and that evening had a nice walk down the beach fromour backpackers bar to another beach bar. We woke the next morning to a pretty cool and overcast day, which was a reliefas if it had been another beautiful day we wouldn’t have been able to drag ourselvesaway. We had a long day’s drive to a campsite just outside the capital Maputo andheaded into town early the next morning. We decided we should find beds for thenight in town rather than camp, but the two backpackers places were full so weended up checking into a small hotel – luxury! We spent the day wandering around50DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 50

the streets of Maputo. It’s not a pretty place, but had quite a nice buzzy feel to it.Our final destination in Mozambique was the Maputo Elephant Sanctuarywhich is a couple of hours drive south of the city. We had an entertaining ferrycrossing to get out of the city. Just when you think they couldn’t possibly fitanything else on the ferry they manage to squeeze a lorry and 4x4 vehicle on! Theelephant reserve would have been impossible to find without our 4x4 drivingbook. There was no sign and the Park HQ was down a three kilometre sand track.When we signed in we could see no-one else had entered the park for a numberof days. It was like being back in Botswana again – the tracks were deep sand and quitehard going, and as there were no signs we had a lot of guess work on which trackto follow next. At one point Colin had to get his axe out to chop away a tree thatwas blocking the track. We did see the most humungous snake ever sliver off thetrack into the reeds. Colin had thought it was a log until it moved – it must havebeen 20 feet long with a foot girth. The campsite consisted of a clearing under the trees behind the dunes ontothe beach. The beach was a wild stretch of white sand, with a huge dune at oneend and crashing waves. There was nothing else there other than a small shackwhere a park warden sat – he was a happy little soul who couldn’t speak a wordof English and just grunted at us.We had the whole place to ourselves for two days. We had some lovely walksdown the beach and sat on the dune with our books admiring the scenery. Therewere some beautiful birds in the park and we had a genet wander into ourcampsite at night. The afternoon before we left, the happy warden appeared withCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PARADISE FOUND IN MOZAMBIQUE51LEFTOnly our footprintson the beachDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 51

two other blokes. One spoke English and asked if we could drive the warden backto the HQ the next day as he was ‘sick in the head’! We picked him up the nextmorning and he did look dreadful – he sat still staring straight ahead for the wholetwo hours it took to reach the entrance gate.From here we drove straight to the border with Swaziland. We went through arelatively newly opened border at Goba, which was very easy as it was so quietand the border officials were very pleasant. Swaziland immediately felt totallydifferent again with good smooth roads, and the first big town we reached,Manzini, had shopping malls and big supermarkets. We are now spending a fewdays at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary which is in the picturesque Ezulwimi Valleynear to the capital of Mbabane. It is the sister park to the Mkhaya Game Reservewhere we will be spending the next three weeks as Ecovolunteers. Mlilwane is alovely place – there are none of the Big Five so we can wander freely aroundwalking trails looking at the wildlife. Yesterday morning we did a lovely two hourmountain bike ride around the park. There are a lot of semi-tame animalswandering around the site – ostrich, nyala, impala and warthogs come right up toyou. The warthogs are real characters but we have to keep an eye on them as theyraid our storage boxes as soon as we turn our backs. Today we are going to visit the Reed Dance Festival which is being held locally.Basically, young virgin maidens from throughout the Kingdom spend the weekcutting reeds to present to the King. They only wear reed skirts and a bit ofjewellery and after the presentation they dance for the King. Colin thinks thatwatching topless virgins jiggling up and down will be very culturally enlightening,however I have different views myself!52DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 52

‘Yebo’ from SwazilandSeptember 2005 : SwazilandWELL, AT THE TIME of our last update we were off to the Reed Dance Festival. Itwas an awesome sight – we couldn’t get over the number of maidens that tookpart in it (not convinced they were all virgins mind you). We were told that lastyear 50,000 girls took part and we could well believe that there were as manyagain this year. Colin remembers it as ‘the day I saw 100,000 boobies!’ There werelines of girls stretching as far as the eye could see. It was a bitterly cold day which53LEFTThe day Colin saw100,000 boobiesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 53

Colin insisted added to the occasion. The poor girls had to stand around for hourswearing just a wrap around their waists as we were shivering under four layers ofclothing. They first had to wait to present their reeds to the King, then they hadto make their way into a big parade field and once they were all present, had towait for the Queen Mother and King to arrive, then they danced for them. Thenext day they had to do the dancing bit all over again and at the end of it the Kingselected one lucky maiden to be his new wife (he’s currently got nine, but his fatherhad over 60!).On the Monday we headed off to the Mkhaya Game Reserve which was aboutone and a half hours drive from Mlilwane. The reserve was established to protectSwaziland’s endangered species and works alongside two other parks, Mlilwaneand Hlane, which are owned by the King in trust for the people of Swaziland. Itsparticular emphasis is on the rhino and it is one of the main centres in the worldfor the conservation of white and black rhino. The reserve is run by Mick Reilly.His father Ted was instrumental in setting up the conservation park of Mlilwaneand was asked by the King to oversee Hlane, both of which had been devastatedby poaching in the mid 20th century.We spent the next three weeks working as Eco-volunteers at the reserve. Wewere expecting to do anything from fence patrols to monitoring the animals, butI think we did pretty well for the variety of activities we got involved in during ourstay. It was a very tough three weeks. We knew we were expected to do a lot ofwalking, but some days we would be walking in the heat for up to eight hours. Fora start our Eco Camp was a lovely tented camp in the middle of the reserve. Thiswas six kilometres from the main house where we would often have to start theday’s activities at 6am – this would mean a 3.45am wake up, followed by walkingthe first hour or so in the dark through the reserve. There were no big cats in thereserve (although there is supposedly a leopard, but no-one has seen it for a numberof years – just its tracks are spotted now and then), but there are plenty of rhinos,elephants and buffalo which wouldn’t be great to bump into in the dark!We were accompanied by a ranger at all times. For the first 10 days we had a guycalled Lucky who was very good, but walked incredibly fast and kept telling meand Colin that we are ‘old and slow’. The second 10 days we had the usual ecoranger Siyabonga who was cheeky chappy. They even gave us Swazi names – I wasSiphiwe and Colin was Temba which in English mean Given and Hope. Our fellowvolunteers started with Pascale a chic French girl, Bart a 6ft 9in Dutch guy andJamie a fellow Brit. Pascale and Bart left during our second week and we werethen joined by Roze, a sweet young Dutch girl and Teresa from Madrid whoseemed a bit horrified by camping, cold showers and long drop toilets.Here is a summary of what we got up to:Foot patrols – we often went on foot patrol around the main section of the parkwith our ranger. This usually involved walking all morning in search of animals,and our ranger would radio in our sightings to the safari vehicle taking the payingguests. He would let base know where the rhinos had been spotted and any54DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 54

observations about their condition. We were amazed at how close we could getto the white rhinos. They would let us get within a few metres of them andalthough they kept a close eye on us, they didn’t seem unduly worried. The samecouldn’t be said for the black rhinos. They were much harder to find, as they tendto live in wooded areas, but as soon as they got wind of us they would getaggressive and we would have to bid a hasty retreat. We were told to climb the firstavailable tree if chased – thankfully I never had to put this to the test, as being theslowest runner and having never been able to climb trees I didn’t rate my chancestoo much. The nicest part of these patrols would be the part where we sat in theshade of a tree late morning by one of the waterholes where the animals wouldvisit. In the heat of the day the white rhinos would visit for a drink and roll in themud to cool their skin down. We had one fabulous day when we were watchingfour pairs of rhinos and we could hear a lot of rustling from the bushes. Then aherd of 15 elephants appeared for a drink and wash in the water. It was quiteamusing watching one of the small rhinos standing up to the elephants. Mucking out the Rhino Boma – there was a boma (animal pen) about half anhour’s walk from our camp where animals in transit would be kept before beingCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | “YEBO” FROM SWAZILANDDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 55

moved on or released into the reserve. When we arrived there was a big male whiterhino called Enkatasi staying here. He had been brought from another reservewhere he had been fighting with the dominant male and had got injured. It wasplanned to release him into an area where he could become the dominant male, butthey were holding him in the boma until his wounds had healed. Each day wewould visit the boma to muck him out and give him fresh food and water. Hewasn’t the most grateful of creatures and would find great sport in charging thepoles of the enclosure that separated him from us. Colin became an expert atshovelling rhino poop – a sight all his ex-colleagues would have enjoyed! I had thenicer job of putting in fresh hay and cleaning the water trough. We all felt a bitnervous about the day he’d be released when we’d have the chance of bumpinginto him walking around the reserve, but he was actually released at the end ofthe second week we were there and it was lovely to see him on one of our last walksambling freely around in search of the ladies.Relocating two white rhinos – we assisted in moving two younger male rhinosfrom a boma near the main house to the boma near our camp. This involved Mickdarting the first rhino. After five minutes we all went in to assist in directing a verywhoosy rhino towards a trailer, whilst keeping an eye on a very upset rhino whodidn’t know what was happening to his mate. The first rhino unfortunately keeledover with the drug. Apparently rhinos are susceptible to low oxygen counts and thisrhino did not want to get back on its feet. Ten of us could not budge its two ton56RIGHTRelocating twowhite rhinosDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 56

body. Mick administered an antidote to the tranquiliser while Pascale was givenan electric cattle prod to use on its rear – we thought she was enjoying using thisa bit too much! We eventually got it on its feet and had to drag and push it ontothe trailer. We then repeated the process on the second rhino who wasn’t sedatedquite so heavily. Later we watched them being released – they ran straight out ofthe boma looking mighty happy. We actually spotted them a few days later withEnkatasi – the three boys out on the pull!Catching Bushbuck – we spent a day catching bushbuck from a farm a fewkilometres down the road. The bushbucks were doing well here, but they weren’ton protected land and would be vulnerable to poaching, so Mick was going to putthem into a newly opened section of his reserve. We had to erect a series of netsand fencing in the wood to drive the buck into them. Colin and I were given thejobs of beating (rattling empty beer cans with stones in – the first beer cans wehad handled in two weeks as the eco project was dry!). We had to walk in a lineacross the woods – not easy as it was dense thorn trees – and flush out the buckwho would run towards the nets where other rangers were waiting to grab them.Once caught they were sedated and put in crates ready for transporting back tothe reserve. It was a long slow day – we had left our camp at 4.30am and didn’tget back until 9pm. We actually managed to catch 10 bushbuck and one red duikerwhich we were told was a good result.Catching hippos – we spent an afternoon helping to finish off the constructionof a hippo trap. About half an hours drive from Mkhaya there was a pondcontaining 12 hippos. They had become a nuisance to the locals as they wereeating the sugar beet crops so Mick agreed to remove them. He had arranged forCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | “YEBO” FROM SWAZILAND57DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 57

half of them to go to reserves in South Africa and the rest would be going to Hlane.They had put electric fencing around the pool so that the hippos had nowhere tograze other than coming into the enclosure where we hoped to capture them. Theyhad been getting used to coming in here for hay for several weeks now. All we hadto do was wait for them to walk in, then shut a big steel door, herd them into atrailer on the other side and attach it to a lorry – sounded simple! Mick told us that these were his least favourite creatures and they were theworst to handle. You can’t sedate hippos as they react badly to drugs and oncedarted tend to run back into the water and drown. This method of capture hadnever been tried before so we were quite excited that it was happening while wewere there. We had to go to the capture site just before sundown and checkeverything was in place. We then had to retreat up the road so that the hipposcouldn’t smell us when they came out to graze shortly after sunset. Mick waitedin a hide near the water so he could pull the rope to close the door. The first nightwe waited and waited. The wind kept changing direction and Mick said theyseemed to sense danger and weren’t entering the enclosure. It was a freezing coldnight and none of us had brought enough clothes to sit out in so we were all frozensolid at 4 am when Mick decided to call it a day. We went back the following night, with more clothes, food and blankets thistime. We were all dozing when we heard the door crash down at about 10pm. WeDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 58

rushed down to find he’d got five hippos in there. There was a lot of crashingabout and we prayed the construction of the enclosure could stand the strain offive mad hippos crashing against it – at two tons a piece there was 10 tons beingpushed against the door. Colin had to stand on the side of the fence ready to slamthe door shut. He said it was a shocking sight watching the hippos climb on eachother and bite each other. They had no regard for each other at all – there wasblood and poop everywhere. As they were stood on each other their heads wouldcome up over the top of the enclosure – one snap from those jaws and you’d behistory. It took two hours to coax each hippo from one end of the enclosure intothe trailer. We breathed a sigh of relief when the last one was in. A lorry waswaiting to take four of the hippos straight off to South Africa. They wereswitched into a different transporter and taken back via the boma at Mkhaya todrop off the fifth hippo. It was 3am when we got to the bomas. We had to checkthe sides were secured – the aggression we’d seen with Enkatasi was nothingcompared to a hippo. Unfortunately two hippos ran off the truck into the boma,so we had a frantic 15 minutes trying to get one of them back onto the truck. Thetwo hippos slammed themselves into the poles of the boma and into each other.It was a horrible sound hearing their flesh slam against each other and they hadblood all over their heads. Finally one walked back into the truck and we slammedthe door shut and somehow secured the remaining one in the boma. It was stillsmashing itself into the poles and was charging at Enkatasi who was in anadjoining pen. She broke three telegraph poles with her head and snapped half hertooth off. It was 5am when we got back to our camp that morning. We had awelcome couple of nights break from the hippo capture to give the remaininghippos a chance to get their courage up again to feed in the enclosure. We returnedon a further three nights to capture three more in total.Controlled fires – we had to do a couple of stints controlling fires that hadbeen started. The first was during the day, when a large piece of land was set onfire to burn off the dead grass before the rains. It was scary to see how one matchCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | “YEBO” FROM SWAZILANDDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 59

could set such a huge fire going. We had to stand on the edges of the fire with firebeaters and ensure that it didn’t spread over the boundaries. We also had to do asimilar exercise during the night. Someone had deliberately started a fire on theboundaries of Mkhaya and on a neighbouring farm. We were dragged out of bedat 10pm to go and assist with controlled fires to make a fire break to stop this firespreading. It was 2am when we got back to camp with lungs full of smoke andstreaming eyes.Weeding – Mkhaya had bought a piece of land from the adjoining farmer, butbefore animals can be allowed access all alien vegetation needs to be removed.Twice we had the back breaking job of weeding out a problem plant calledlanterna that strangles other plants. We worked with the labour team. It is a neverending job – it seemed to us that the plants were growing back as quick as theyweeded it out and the piece of land in question is 400 hectares!The scariest thing we had to deal with was travelling on the back of Mick’slandcruiser. He would squeeze up to 24 people in and on the back of it and thendrive down the main road at dangerous speeds with us all hanging on for dear life.We only had one person fall out though – luckily we were only going slowly at thetime!All in all we had a great three weeks. The Eco Camp wasespecially nice and we felt really close to the wildlife there.We took it in turn to cook on the fire in the evenings andhad to order our food supplies once a week. Many animalswandered into and through the camp. In the evenings thebushbabies would make a racket in the trees above us.They would often fight in the trees and after muchgrowling and grumbling there would be a scuffle whichoccasionally resulted in one of them being thrown out ofthe tree and landing with a thud! A genet cat would hangaround the area behind the camp fire. We also had afeeding area for Sunis – these are an endangered smallantelope, which are very shy. Our most memorable visitwas by two white rhino, Gas and Simanga, who we’d seen in the river bed earlierin the day. They decided to have a look around our camp and with their badeyesight came right up to the tents and gave them a nudge, then proceeded to checkout the camp fire area and ended up eating the Sunis food, as well as paying a visitto the toilet! They came back through the camp during the night and used Teresa’stent as a scratching post. She had to re-erect her tent the following day.60ABOVELook – a scratchingpost!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 60

Kruger and ZululandSeptember 2005 : South AfricaCOLIN’S SISTER LOUISE, her husband Tony and Madeline(8) and Ben(6) arrived lateevening at Mlilwane after a heck of a long trip from Houston via Amsterdamand Johnnesburg. We spent a day at Mlilwane to give them a chance to recoverand let them have their first close encounters with the game in the park. Louisehad a very close encounter with a warthog that obviously took offence to herpink pyjama bottoms! Colin eyed up their Landrover camping vehicle with atouch of envy.61DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 61

The next day we headed off towards Kruger Park in search of the Big Five, butunfortunately we didn’t get there that day. After stopping in Mbabane to stock upwith food, Tony was having trouble with the Landrover’s gearbox. About an hourout of town going up a very steep hill (the scenery in North Western Swaziland wasstunning) the gearbox finally died. We did the very British thing of pulling off theroad and had a picnic surrounded by an increasing group of school children whoBen and Madeline played with. The hire company said they would get areplacement vehicle out that evening, so we used the good old Lonely Planet tofind somewhere to stop that night. As had happened in Zanzibar after ourbreakdowns, we couldn’t believe our luck when we pulled up at the lodge in anature reserve near Piggs Peak. It had incredible views and they gave us a lovelycottage to stop in. The replacement vehicle eventually arrived in the morning so wewere back in business again. We entered the massive Kruger Park at the south end through the Malelane Gate.We had three nights in the Park stopping at Lower Sabie, Satara and Lebata restcamps. Louise and Tony had brought walkie talkies for us to use so we couldcommunicate between the two vehicles which were superb. We saw a big variety ofgame, but not the big cats that the children were desperate to see. We booked asunset game drive from Satara Camp and at last we found a small pride of lionswhich came right up alongside the vehicle. We did see a few more lions from theOlifants Camp which is high up on a hill. We spotted a young female lion chasinga group of waterbuck in the valley, but she was only playing as it was too hot for abig chase. Tony’s Landrover got charged by an angry elephant and we had someother great close viewing of large numbers of elephants coming down to drink inthe river in the Lebata region. We also saw the largest herd of buffalo I think we’veever seen on the morning we left the park. I think we were all exhausted by the timewe left the Park – the kids had done really well to cope with early mornings and longhot days in the vehicle. Their favourite animals were the velvet (vervet) monkeys –they particularly loved it when one got into the Landrover and stole some food. We now had a couple of days to get Louise and family back down towardsJo’burg from where they were flying on to Cape Town. We headed towards theBlyde River Canyon stopping in a monstrous holiday camping resort that night –it was like Butlins but surrounded by the most stunning mountains and with62DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 62

sunshine. The next day we had a very scenic drive through the Blyde River Canyonwhere we could stop at various view points with names like Devils Window andGods View. We stopped for a pancake lunch at Pilgrims Rest, an old gold miningtown, before heading to a farming town called Lydenburg for our final nighttogether. As we pulled up at the campsite Colin checked to see if it had aswimming pool for the kids. The gateman said ‘yes, we have two pools’. What hefailed to mention was that neither had any water in!We were woken early the next day to the sound of rain and thunder rumbling.The others had to be off by 7am to catch their flight. After they’d left us we hada champagne breakfast.…only kidding ! We are actually really missing havingLouise and Tony read Harry Potter to us before bedtime each evening.Our next destination was the St Lucia Wetlands, a World Heritage Site on theEast coast. We had a stopover to break the drive at another hideous resort, but ithad thermal pools that I thought would be nice. Little did I know that Colinwould have us attached to rubber rings being hurtled down a cold rapids runinstead.The weather turned overcast and cool the next day and it was actually rainingby the time we reached St Lucia. We met up with Jamie, who’d been at Mkhayawith us, on his birthday. That was the night Bolton Wanderers won their UEFACup match so Colin was in a good mood. We were up early the next morning fora humpback whale watching trip. Going out to sea on the boat was exciting as wehad to ride over giant waves in a big powerful boat which required hanging ontight. The sea was very rough so we had to hold onto our stomachs as well, butwe got some great sightings of the whales. It’s mating season and a female waslying on her side slapping her fins saying ‘come and get it boys’ and they wereapproaching from all directions. On the way back to shore we also saw flying fish– it was amazing how far they skimmed over the water. Getting back onto thebeach was also exciting – the boat was driven fullspeed at the beach and slid to a jolting halt.The weather had come good again, so weheaded up through the National Park to CapeVidal, a beautiful beach with high sand dunes andcrashing waves. We spent a day here enjoying thesunshine and walking up and down the beach. Wecould even see whales in the distance out at seafrom the beach.We then drove up to Sodwana Bay which isfamous for its dive sites and boasts the mostsoutherly coral reefs in the world. We did twofabulous dives and although the visibility wasn’tthe best, the fish and the coral were stunning. Wealso saw manta rays and moray eels. Even morespecial, we were joined by a friendly five metreCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KRUGER AND ZULULAND63BELOWCape VidalDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 63

long whale shark which we swam with. As we were preparing for the second divewe saw its large dorsal fin appear next to the boat and then it stuck its head out asif to say hello and check us out. We all jumped into the water quickly and itbrushed up against me and kept following Colin around in the water. Even thoughit only eats plankton, it was still a bit unnerving due to the size of its mouth. Afterwe’d come up from our dive it appeared again and Colin took the opportunity tosnorkel with it again.We had been told by several people that the Hluhluwe Imfolozi National Parknearby had excellent game viewing opportunities for the Big Five and as we stillhadn’t had a proper look at a leopard, we were drawn towards it. Again theweather had suddenly turned from being gloriously hot and sunny to cold, windyand rain. We got off to a great start in the park – as soon as we got through theentrance gates we saw loads of giraffe, zebras, wildebeest and three white rhinos,with one a tiny calf. It all went a bit downhill from there. We did see quite a varietyof animals, but no cats again. We weren’t allowed to camp in our vehicle so wespent the night in a permanent tent in the park. It was a fabulous set up – evenwith its own outdoor kitchen and en suite. It was just a shame it was so cold. Inthe late afternoon we had impala, nyala and kudu all grazing right outside the tentand we were joined by a hyena. We went on another night game drive, but spenttwo and a half hours shivering on the open safari vehicle to see lots of impala andhyenas. We had one last try at spotting leopards the next morning, but think we64RIGHTLooking at Durbanfrom the pier DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 64

were both ‘gamed out’ by now. At least we have a good reason to come back toAfrica to see leopard in the future.We headed back to the coast towards Durban. On leaving the game park wedrove for several hours on a dirt road. With the rain it had become like an ice rinkand we had a few scary moments. On one particular hill we met a car slidingbackwards down the hill, but thankfully with Tommy in four wheel drive wemanaged to slide our way to the top of the hill. There were also no road signs sowe had to depend on locals for directions – it is always fun when each person youask tells you the opposite to the person before. The weather has continued to becool and drizzly which is a shame as the beaches are lovely with big surf. We hada night in Ballito, a beach resort just north of Durban before heading into thecity. There are no campsites within a 25km radius of the city, so we are sleepingin our rooftop tent in a backpacker’s car park which is actually not too bad. Onthe way into town we visited the Natal Shark Board centre which had lots ofinteresting displays on sharks and netting in the area. We have got our fix of big shopping malls and busy city streets again. We hada day in central Durban which has a bad reputation for crime, but we managedto walk around a fair chunk of it with no problems. We went around VictoriaMarket – a big Indian Market, and visited the Apartheid Museum which hadsome interesting and shocking displays on how the blacks were segregated andtreated in the city. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KRUGER AND ZULULAND65DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 65

Lesotho and the Garden RouteOctober 2005: Lesotho and South AfricaAFTER LEAVING DURBAN we had a couple of days travelling down the coast visitingexotically named places like Margate and Ramsgate, before heading inlandtowards Lesotho. We entered the country by driving up the Sani Pass. Only 4x4vehicles can travel up the gravel mountain pass at the South African border postas the road twists its way up to 2,865m. We were incredibly lucky with the weatherthat day and had clear views back into the valleys. At the top of the pass we wentthrough the Lesotho border crossing (man in a shed) and visited the Sani TopChalet, which at 2,874m makes it the highest pub in Africa.Setting off from here we were amazed at the contrast with South Africa. Theroads in this part of the country were gravel and the houses were all basic hutswith no electricity and the main form of transport seemed to be the Basothoponies. The terrain is very mountainous and although very beautiful in thesunshine would be very harsh in the cold and the rain. The locals wore big woollyblankets all of the time. It actually reminded us a lot of Tibet. We were back tohaving all of the children running to the side of the road and shouting ‘give mesweets’ or ‘give me money’.We stopped at the Molumong self catering lodge – a very basic cottage lookingout over a scenic valley. We watched sheep shearers in the village, still shearingwith hand shears. We had the cottage to ourselves that night and had only candlelight and the company of five naughty kittens. We took the night watchman somefood out at 8 o’clock but we couldn’t wake him up!The next day we set off on a two day pony trek with a local guide called Jacob.Colin’s pony was called Trigger and mine was Mashai. Again we couldn’t believeour luck with the weather with clear blue skies. We wound our way down and upsteep valleys, passing villages and farmers ploughing their fields with ox drawnploughs. The ponies were incredibly sure footed and we were amazed at the steepslippery ground they made light work of. We spent the night at a villageoverlooking the Orange River which had the most breathtaking views. We were66ABOVEWinding our way upthe Sani Pass DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 66

the guests of the local Chief (the General as he likes to be called) and his family.His wife Alice was the Headmistress of the local school and we had a veryinteresting evening chatting to them about Lesotho. They had a very extendedfamily to care for. As well as five biological children, two of whom still lived withthem, they were looking after a grandchild (who cried each time she saw Colinand me – not used to white people!), a couple of children of a relative who wastoo ill to care for them, three local boys who had stopped at the village one dayand had never gone home, and very sadly a little orphan girl from the school. Atthe age of three (a couple of years ago) her mother had died of Aids in May, herfather died of Aids in June, the Grandmother who was caring for her and herbrothers died in September, then her two brothers died in the November probablyfrom malnutrition. The next morning we walked the four kilometres to school with one of thedaughters who teaches there as well. The school buildings were actually prettygood in comparison to others we’ve seen in Africa. We went back and picked upour ponies and trekked back to the lodge. En route we passed a school just as allthe children were finishing for the day and we had a huge group escorting us forquite a way.The following day we decided to head out through one of the southern bordersback into South Africa. We had the choice of a very tough 4x4 route or stickingto the main roads (dirt tracks) which we thought would be quicker and easier.We had locals hitching lifts with us all day which was a godsend, as I’m sure wewould have never found the right way with no sign posts anywhere. Betweenhitchers we did get ourselves onto the wrong road and after driving down and upa very scary narrow ‘track’ ended up in a village surrounded by locals. We endedup giving a lift to an old man, who we hadn’t realised had a few personal hygieneproblems until he was sat in the car with a big grin on his face. He didn’t speaka word of English, but without him we’d have never guessed which way to go. Wehad him with us for a couple of hours – thankfully the weather was still goodenough to keep all the windows open! COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | LESOTHO AND THE GARDEN ROUTE67BELOW LEFTTypical Lesothovillage BELOW RIGHTSchool children joinus on our ride DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 67

After dropping him in a village, we picked up an old lady – not smelly andspoke good English – who got us to a town we’d not planned on going to but atleast we knew where we were at last! The road had gone over a couple of incrediblepasses which made the Sani Pass look like a breeze. The old lady in the back hadher head in her shawl – I thought at first she was sleeping, but I think maybe shedidn’t want to see where we were going as we slid down rocky roads with thecamber tilting us outwards towards a steep drop. The scenery had been gob-smacking all day though. We came to a border post and cut back into South Africa.We ended up stopping at a self catering chalet in the town of Matatiele which wasa bit of real luxury – DSTV on a Saturday meant only one thing – Premiership –and as luck would have it when we tuned in Chelsea v Bolton was on. Colin’s joywas short lived when he saw the score though!We headed back to the Wild Coast and on to Coffee Bay, a very chilledbackpackers haven. The first evening the backpackers gave us free oysters andmussels with vodka sprites – it was so windy on the hilltop the drink blew out ofthe cups. We did a fantastic coastal walk to the Hole in the Wall – a place aboutnine kilometres away with a big hole in a rock formation just off the shore. Thatevening we visited a local shebeen with a few others from our backpackers. Thisis basically an unlicensed drinking place for the locals and was a great laugh. Wehad to buy our drinks through a wire cage in a type of off-licence room. The beeronly came in 750ml bottles. We were then taken into the public bar which was anempty room with a juke-box and a couple of benches around the edge. The locals,who looked like they had been in all day, started to dance and tried to drag us ontothe dance floor, while we all clung to the wall trying to down our beers as quicklyas possible for Dutch courage, but had no choice in the end. One local young bloke,who defied gravity by staying on his feet whilst so under the influence wasparticularly impressed with Colin’s dancing technique. He kept shaking his hand68BELOWLiz with her newdrinking buddiesRIGHTThe wild coast DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 68

and patting him on the back.Another woman drank a wholebottle of brandy while we werethere and was asking us all to buyher another one.After a night at Cintsa furtherdown the coast we travelled backinland again to the Hogsbackmountain resort. It’s a lovely littleplace nestled in a rainforest withwonderful views and severalwaterfalls. It is claimed this iswhere Tolkien was inspired towrite the Hobbit. Thebackpackers we camped at wascalled Away With The Fairies.We were still riding our luckwith the weather – it had pouredwith rain non-stop all morningon the way there but as we were driving up to the place the clouds were liftingbefore our eyes. We did a walk to some waterfalls in the forest. On the way backwe stopped at a pub for a bit of refreshment, and met a couple from PortElizabeth called Bruce and Jane. We hit it off with them over a few drinks andarranged to do a longer walk with them the next day. The weather was perfectagain and we did the most wonderful five hour walk around four waterfallswhich took us into the forest and up onto viewpoints. The trail ended at ourbackpackers and we found ourselves in the bar for an afternoon session. Brucehad some terms – right this is TFO (the final one), which became ATFO(absolutely the final one), to AATFO (another absolutely the final one) and soon. Thankfully they were staying somewhere else and had to go back for dinnerotherwise it would have got very messy.We headed back to the coast via Port Elizabeth to Jeffreys Bay, a surfersparadise, but there were no waves while we were there. We did see a fishermancatch a small shark off the beach though and saw Southern Right Whales fromthe beach. We also had a night at Cape St Francis, before heading to TsitsikammaNational Park. This is a stunning park on a beautiful stretch of coastline withthe most huge waves crashing in, all backed by forested hills. We found a perfectcamp spot next to the sea and went for a walk up to a viewpoint. By the time wereturned the heavens had opened and after sitting in wet clothes in our vehiclefor two hours with wind and rain lashing against us, we decided maybe it wastime to upgrade to a log cabin – good move as the rain continued most of thenight. We stayed on another day and did some more nice walks and moved intoa sea view cabin which was a real treat.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | LESOTHO AND THE GARDEN ROUTE69ABOVEViews down thevalley fromHogsbackABOVEA cooling waterfall inthe rain forestDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 69

We’re now working our way down the Garden Route. We’ve had a couple ofnights in Knynsa, a lovely little town around a lagoon. Yesterday we went mountainbiking on some forest trails which took us to a viewpoint where we sat watchinga whale and her calf for over an hour. It was also the most scenic spot Colin hasever repaired a puncture. 70RIGHTThe stunningcampsite ofTsitsikammaRIGHTScenic coastline onthe Garden Route –the perfect spot tofix a punctureDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 70

Whales, Wine and White SharksNovember 2005: South Africa and NamibiaAFTER LEAVING KNYSNA we headed inland to Outdshoorn, the ‘ostrich capital ofthe world’ being its claim to fame. Once upon a time it was ostrich feathers thatmade them the money but now it’s meat and leather. Anyway we did lots ofostrich things – I sat on one and stood on their eggs (thankfully I didn’t breakthem or fall off them) and Colin rode one (the Frankie Detori of the ostrichworld!). We also ate plenty of them in various different forms. While we were there we also did a trip where we were dropped at the top ofthe Swartburg Pass at 1,600m with bikes and then cycled the 53km back to town.A lot of it was downhill, but the wind cruelly picked up against us and we had topeddle quite hard to get downhill. Part of the way back we stopped at the CangoCaves which were very impressive. We did an Adventure Tour where they tookyou quite deep into the cave network and we had to crawl along on our handsand knees through low narrow passages, and even climb up a four metre highchimney. I had to be pulled by Colin from above and pushed from below by ourguide!From Outdstoorn we drove straight to Gordon’s Bay on the outskirts of CapeTown to catch up with Colin’s sister Sara and family. They were staying withsome friends who had recently moved down from Angola. Their house was in afantastic spot high on a hill overlooking the bay, with Cape Point in the distanceand the Stellenbosch (wine country) Mountains behind.We had a day out with the family and drove down the Cape Peninsularstopping to see the penguins at Boulders Bay and then going right down to theCape Point.The following day, we went with Sara and Jovica on a wine tasting tour whichwas a lot of fun. We visited four vineyards. We all started off quite sensibly andgot into a system of rating the wines out of 10. The first vineyard’s wines(Lievland) were nothing special, but things improved at the second place, Fairview,which had a nice range of wine and selection of cheeses to taste. We started to get71DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 71

into our stride here. By the third Jovica was really motoring now, but he got a littleupset when the lady ticked him off about going back for more tastings than hewas allowed. In the meantime Sara was laid out on a bench flagging a little! At thefinal vineyard (Boschendal) there was no stopping Jovica who drank his fivetastings in breakneck speed, then polished off a spare set! We had a very whoozytrip back to Gordon’s Bay.Colin dropped his sister and family off at the airport early the followingmorning, and we made our way back east to Hermanus which is where theSouthern Right Whales come to calve in the main bay. You can view the whalesswimming right past close to the land. From another bay we went out on a boatto dive in a cage with White Sharks. We had quite a few sightings of sharksalongside the boat. Unfortunately the visibility in the water was very poor so whenwe were in the diving cage we really only saw shadows going past. However, we didboth have some close encounters when sharks turned right in front of us andthrashed around. It was at these moments we hoped we’d not left a limb hangingoutside the cage!We carried on around the coast and visited Cape Agulhas, the most southerlypoint in Africa, before heading inland once again to the Route 62 wine region ofMontagu, Robertson and McGregor. We did a little more restrained wine tastinghere – partly because we didn’t realise most of them didn’t open on a Sunday. Aftera night in the scenic hills between Ceres and Tulbagh, we headed back to CapeTown.We have to say, we absolutely loved Cape Town. We camped a few nights outsidethe city, and spent a few nights at Mandy’s who I’d also been at Aston Universitywith. She lives in a house that looks straight up at TableMountain with her partner Mick and two angelicchildren Kate and Aiden. We did all the usual tourist stuff – went up TableMountain, hung around the Waterfront, lunched atCamps Bay, did a boat trip to Robbens Island (where wehad an interesting tour of the prison with an ex politicalprisoner), shopped, and visited the interesting DistrictSix museum which gave another good example of thedreadful decisions that went on under apartheid.We were taken to Llanga Township, the oldest one inCape Town and walked around with a resident guide andvisited township initiatives such as craft centres, aresource educational centre and a preschool. We looked72ABOVEBozic family withLiz at Cape PointABOVE CENTRE ANDRIGHTColin’s sister andbrother in law enjoysampling the localwineBELOWTwo Oceans meet atCape AgulhasDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 72

inside an original workers’ hostel which now houses 16 families in just sixbedrooms (three families to a small bedroom with one single bed per family). Wesaw work being done upgrading these properties and new dwellings being builtto give families more space and privacy. We also had a look in one of the shacksin the shanty area of town. The current government have committed to rehousingall those in townships within a timescale, but looking at the extent of what’s tobe done they have a huge challenge. Unemployment in the townships was runningat 65% therefore there are a lot of downbeat men hanging around with littleprospects and alcoholism is a big problem. We sensed that if things don’t start to change more quickly redressing thedifferences between the conditions that the whites live in (big neat houses in niceareas of town) to where the blacks/coloureds live (virtually all in townships) thecountry is in for a rocky few years. We get the impression that Mandela is still ahugely respected calming influence saying change needs to be ‘slowly slowly’.Once he’s not around any longer we can see there being a push for quicker changewhich could lead to uprisings.After leaving Cape Town we headed up the West Coast which had somebeautiful areas and was much less developed than other coastal regions we’d visited.We spent three nights at Cape Columbine, a very rugged campsite set by the sea nearPaternoster. Crayfish season had just started and we got some good seafood there.We also saw humpback whales swim past the campsite just off-shore.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | WHALES, WINE AND WHITE SHARKS73LEFTTable Mountain fromthe water frontDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 73

We then drove North to the Cederberg Wilderness Area and stopped in anotherfabulous campsite nestled at the foot of the mountains. We did a few half daywalks which were very scenic but quite tough as the temperature had risen sharply.Crossing over the border into Namibia we headed to Fish River Canyon thesecond largest canyon in the world. As it was 38 degrees in the shade being summerhere the walking trails are shut. The Canyon was stunning though and we visitedseveral viewpoints before continuing towards Luderitz.Luderitz is right out on a limb by the coast. It’s a strange colonial town builtup on the back of the diamond mining which no longer exists so you have towonder why the town is still here and what purpose does it serve. Colin thinksthere’s been a bit of inbreeding here.74ABOVECamping at CapeColumbineRIGHTFish river CanyonDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 74

Namibia and BlightyDecember 2005 : Namibia and EnglandWELL WE’VE NOW BEEN BACK in Blighty for a week and a half and are still feelinga bit dazed and confused. To leave the 35 degrees heat of Namibia and arriveback to zero degrees at Gatwick at 5am on a Sunday morning was not our bestexperience this year.A quick summary of what we did after leaving Luderitz goes like this:We drove to Sossusvlei and had a couple of days enjoying the spectacularscenery of the desert and big orange dunes again (we’d been here five yearsearlier). We visited the famous Dune 45 for both a sunrise and sundowner. It’sincredibly hard work to climb the dune but well worth it for the views of thesurrounding dunes and to watch the colours change as the sun falls or rises. We’d made a decision that rather than take it easy for the last week, we’d drivenon-stop right up to the Angolan border to visit the Epupa Falls. On the way wehad a night at the nearest town, Opuwo and from here arranged a visit to aHimba village. We drove a local community guide called KK, who was quite acharacter, to a fairly remote village well off the main roads. He had to askpermission for us to enter the village. The Himba are keen to keep their traditionsgoing, which means not allowing their children to go to school where they wouldhave to wear modern clothes and learn new cultures, so many tribes do not wantcontact with westerners.We had a fabulous couple of hours in the village. It was mainly women andchildren there as the men were off grazing cattle and goats elsewhere. The ladieswere beautifully turned out wearing only leather skirts and jewellery. They covertheir skin with ochre, a red powder they grind from sandstone mixed with oils.They aren’t allowed to bathe, so they just rub on more of this mixture whichprotects their skin. We sat around chatting with the ladies via KK. They werekeen to know how we managed not to have children as most of them had a largenumber. One, who looked like she was only in her early twenties said she hadseven children and was very taken with the idea of the Pill! The men could marry75DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 75

as many women as they could afford (cost = several cows per wife) and KK saidthey could marry any age of woman as long as they were younger than him. Heeven said they occasionally married girls as young as two which disturbed ussomewhat, but he said the older wives would look after the child. As we left thevillage we gave them gifts of mielie maize, tobacco and candy.Epupa Falls was a three hour drive from here and was an absolutely wonderfulplace. The Kunene River is the border between Namibia and Angola and the Fallsare a series of cascades down the river. We camped at a community run site rightnext to the falls under the palm trees. We had a couple of nights, doing some walksdown the river spotting crocodiles. There were some pools at the top of the fallswhich you can sit in and it was a great place to watch the locals swim, wash andplay. The children’s favourite game though was to plait my hair.We drove back down to Etosha National Park where we had a couple of nights atthe Okaukuejo Campsite which has a wonderful floodlit waterhole where you can76BELOW LEFTCamping by theKunene RiverBELOW RIGHTLiz getting amakeover by thelocal kidsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 76

watch game all night long if you wish. We saw six black rhinos on both nights thatwere joined by zebra, giraffe and best of all a herd of over 30 elephants with threetiny babies. We saw a few lions on our game drives and had a scary encounterwith a lone male elephant who thought it would be fun to chase our vehicle downthe road. Colin had to slam Tommy into reverse and drive with his foot to thefloor praying another vehicle didn’t come round the bend. Our hearts werepounding at the thought of six tons of flesh chasing us. It took us half an hourto get past the beast when he finally got bored of terrorizing us. We also saw ourfirst kill at a waterhole when we were leaving the park. A springbok slipped intothe water and as it was climbing out a little jackal grabbed its throat and that wasit. We couldn’t believe how quickly it happened.We headed back to Windhoek feeling more and more distraught that we weregoing to have to hand Tommy back – we even debated whether we should do aThelma and Louise, but finally brought ourselves round to packing up all ourbelongings and returning him.We’ve not had much time to relax since we returned to England. We foundthat Raleigh had failed to tell us about the website with all the expeditioninformation on it. The first thing I spotted was that Field Base Staff (including theaccountant) have to fly out a week earlier than the project staff, so we’ve had tochange our flights and are now going out to Borneo (Sabah) on 10th Januarywhich has lost us a week of time we thought we had. On top of this we have tohave a couple more jabs and get medical forms and insurance etc sorted. It has been a bit hard to lift ourselves after having such an awesome time inAfrica and to start thinking about Central and South America. However we metwith a couple last night who spent a year and a half travelling in Central andSouth America and that has now got us quite excited about all the amazing placesyet to see and things we must do.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | NAMIBIA AND BLIGHTY77DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 77

Anyway, we couldn’t have imagined when we set off in February that we wouldhave such a fantastic trip through Africa and that it could all run so smoothly. The10 months flew by, but we have to say when we landed back in the UK it felt likewe were returning from a normal length holiday.78ABOVEVisitors to thewaterhole at sunsetRIGHTA beautifulJacaranda treeFAR RIGHTPacking up Tommyreflecting on awonderful tenmonthsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 78

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Bean Counting and Building in BorneoJanuary 2006: Sabah- Raleigh International expedition 06AAS ROLLERCOASTER RORY, our Country Director/Expedition Leader, likes to say, wespent the first four weeks climbing up to the top of the first section of therollercoaster and as from the Friday before last when 13 Malaysian Venturers (17-25yr olds) followed by 82 predominantly UK Venturers on Saturday arrived we aredue for 10 weeks of ups and downs as they take part in ‘life changing’ experiences. We came here to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah (what used to be part of Borneo) aspart of the advance party of expedition staff who would be mainly based atFieldbase, the idea being that when the project staff arrived nine days later, we alllooked like we knew what we were doing. Colin mucked in helping Logistics sortout kit and stores, helped the medic count drugs, helped me count my shop stockand did a lot of DIY on the Big Brother house that is Fieldbase (from sorting outno water supplies – not great when 26 people are living here – to rat catching – yeswe have another member of the house – Roland and presumably his extendedfamily). Colin used his cunning and guile with the water problem and put ahosepipe in next door’s tank when they were out! I did get my illusions shattered about working here. I was expecting Fieldbaseto be in a remote area, working in rustic buildings, sleeping in tents, doing ourown cooking and strictly no alcohol. I was almost disappointed when we got hereto find we’re living in a residential suburb and I’m working in an air-conditionedoffice with all mod cons. It’s only a five minute walk to a local shopping plazawith a few nice bars, eateries and, if this is not enough, town is only 20 minutesaway with everything you could want. The other Fieldbase staff include Nina (ex-events organiser for HSBC) who is80DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 80

the Deputy Expedition Leader, Cat (a sports physio) who is running the admin sideof things, Becs (ex BBC communications) who is the PR officer for the expedition(lots of lunches and press calls darling), Alex and Hannah looking after Logistics(a truly dreadful job as far as I can see – buying, sorting and issuing food and kit),Andy – our token male who’s taken over from Colin – who looks after the vehicles(three Landies), and finally a medic who will be based here all the time. For theadvance staff this was Lou, an Army nurse with great stories to tell. Then there isour leader Rory who is ex Army and a really nice guy. It’s a pretty tough job gettinggeared up for two expeditions a year, training two sets of staff as well as schmoozingwith the local dignitaries and companies to get projects off the ground and fundedand that’s before making sure the 90+ young people and 27+ staff all get back ona plane safely at the end. Nearly forgot to mention the most important person atFieldbase – Lolita the cook/housekeeper from the Philippines who really is an angel.The remainder of the staff turned up from 20th January. These include a further12 Project Managers (PMs) ranging from backgrounds of MOD, trek leaders,events organisers, and a primary school teacher, plus a further three medics. Wethen went into more heavy training including health and safety, radiocommunications training, tool safety (from Colin) and two days spent at a JungleCamp learning jungle camping skills. This basically involved trekking into a jungle,having to set up a basha (hammock between two trees with a tarpaulin over it),digging long drop toilets, eating beanfeast (gives you terrible wind!), understandingthat you’ll never be anything but horribly sweaty all of the time, getting eaten byCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BEAN COUNTING AND BUILDING IN BORNEO81LEFTRaleigh staff readyfor expedition 06ADysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 81

mosquitoes, and finally understanding why a rainforest is so named, and why it isimportant to put your basha up properly – yes I got soaked when it rained all night. The day after we returned to Fieldbase, Rory told all the PMs which projects theywould be running and who with. It was no surprise that Colin got perhaps the mostchallenging Community project – building a library in a remote village (KampungRita) in the North of the country. His co PM is Rosie, a very pleasant 27 year oldfrom Cornwall who’d done Raleigh as a Venturer in Ghana three years ago. Colin and Rosie (and all the teams) had to do a full recce of their projects overa three day period, then report back to Rory with a project plan (timings, work tobe done, transportation, budgets), a full risk assessment, a CASEVAC plan (how toget a life threateningly injured/sick person to safety), and an environmental andcultural impact risk assessment. Colin and Rosie were taken to the village by a localwho works for Sabah state libraries. They were the first white people to have everstayed in the village, spending the night in the village longhouse which sleeps 170people, as well as their dogs and other animals.A quick summary of the other Raleigh projects:CommunityKampung Saguan – building a Kindergarten; Bata Puteh – assisting building an eco camp by the Kinabatangan River. Environmental Danum Valley – an area of very important rainforest where Raleigh will behelping to upgrade paths and facilities at the field centre;Imbak Canyon – virtually unexplored pristine rainforest (less than 200 people haveever entered it) where Raleigh will be helping improve infrastructure and facilities.Adventure A 12 day trek and path clearing across the Crocker Range; a five day Padi diving course with some marine research; finally climbing Mt Kinabalu (4,095m) Asia’s highest mountain.The Venturers basically do three weeks on each phase covering Community,Environmental and Adventure. Most of the Venturers have had to raise funds to gethere (or get Daddy to pay) and are here as part of a gap year. The Malaysian HostCountry Venturers don’t have to raise nearly so much money with five comingfrom Sabah and the other eight from the Malaysian Peninsular. Then we have fouryoung blokes from a Youth Development Programme in the UK called Motiv8.They are all colourful characters, two of them turned up smoking cigars. On theinduction I was going through a diving form with one and on the medicalquestionnaire where it asked about previous head injuries, he asked if ‘beingbottled over the head in a pub’ counted. With a lot of the other boxes ticked (drugs,alcohol etc) I said he might have to see a local doctor to get the go ahead.82DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 82

I’m having to be a proper beancounter again. Looking after the day to dayfinances isn’t too hard, but I’m having to get to grips with looking after lots ofpetty cash which has been a bit of a nightmare with staff and venturers giving andtaking money at a furious pace. My other duties include sending cashflow reportsback to the Head Office in the UK and requesting funds. I also have to run shopsfor the staff and Venturers at the induction and changeover periods, as well asrunning a Bureau De Change for them. Having just done my first stint of this Ifound it very stressful!Now the expedition is up and running we have to man the radios 24 hours aday at Fieldbase. Once a week I have to field all radio calls from 9am to 9am thenext morning which means a night sleeping next to the radio which has all sortsof strange noises coming through it from weird music to Morse code. The sitesall have to radio in reports each evening, then do a radio check first thing in themorning. So far we’ve had lousy comms with Colin’s site so haven’t got a greatdeal of information on how things are going. I should imagine his biggest problemat the moment is will they be able to get the building materials delivered on time,rather than on Sabah time which is pretty similar to African time. Each Sunday evening the Fieldbase staff have to do a Radio Raleigh Broadcastto all the sites where we give them news, local stories, celebrity gossip, salaciousgossip from the project sites and play music requests. The biggest news on all ofthe sites since they got going on Thursday is the amount of rain that’s fallen – it’sbeen non-stop and there have been flood warnings in several places. It has takenthree days for one group to reach their destination due to the rivers beingimpassable and bridges being swept away. In a few of the other sites the teamshaven’t been able to do their planned work due to areas being under water, sothere’s a heck of a lot of wet, mosquito bitten, leech sucked people out there.We’ve already got a young Scottish girl recovering at Fieldbase who’d developeddiarrhea and vomiting after the first day of her diving course. She has so manybites on her she looks like she’s got the pox.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BEAN COUNTING AND BUILDING IN BORNEOBELOWEveyone ready for theRollercoaster ride!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 83

Kampung RitaFebruary 2006: Sabah - Raleigh International expedition 06AWELL, I MANAGED TO WANGLE a trip up to Colin’s project site on Valentine’s Day.He had been a little treasure and had arranged for flowers to be delivered toFieldbase in the morning which actually arrived when I was on radio duty and hisgroup were calling in – unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to thank him as we lostthe signal.Kampung Rita is about three hours easy drive from KK and is 15km off themain road. It really is a fabulous place for him to be based. The village consists ofthe main longhouse, the chief’s house, a community hall and a church. When wearrived (I was with Nina and Cat) his group greeted us with an arch of palm leavesand coconuts. They had got their living quarters set up fantastically (well youwouldn’t expect anything less of Colin) by transforming what was a rundowncommunity hall into a dorm/living area for the group. They had painted it, builtwooden frames to hang their hammocks, and shelves for all of their provisions.They had also dug a long drop in the woods complete with modesty screen andeven a loo seat – the longdrop is called George – I’m not sure why. They all lookedslightly sheepish when a couple of local ladies turned up with a wheelbarrow fullof their laundry – so much for roughing it!When they had first arrived there had been torrential rain resulting in waterand mud flowing down the hill into the community hall. Two girls in the group hadburst into tears and more tears followed when they all got covered in mud. Thegroup spent their first two nights sleeping in the chief’s house while they gotthemselves sorted. By the time we arrived they had cleared the ground where theywere to build the library and had pegged out the building.Nina, Cat and I were given a tour around the village, then Rosie, Colin’s fellowProject Manager had cooked us all pasta with a sauce and garlic bread which washeaven (we’re starting to get a bit bored by rice now). We were then invited to thelonghouse where the villagers gave us some newly harvested rice and a few other84DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 84

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dodgy looking bowls of food – we were all so full after Rosie’s meal we struggledto eat everything and were worried we looked rude. The villagers then performedsome traditional Rungus (that’s their tribe) dancing for us. We were then askedto join in and dressed up in local costumes and jewellery. It was a lovely night andfelt quite special to be their guests. After it was finished Nina, Cat and I slept in the chief’s house – basically asmaller version of the longhouse built out of wood on stilts. We thankfully gotquite a nice breeze flowing through it, but didn’t get too much sleep due to someloud snoring (not me for once!), and cockerels who think dawn is 3.30 in themorning followed by a chorus of dogs.The next day it was one of the venturers (Sam’s) 18th birthday. The rest of thegroup had arranged a surprise barbeque on the beach. Yes, in addition to theiralready idyllic location they’re near a beautiful unspoilt beach. Colin took him offwith Nina to the nearest town to use a phone while he did more deals with thebuilders merchants and the rest of the group got their gear sorted for the beach.Unfortunately, we had to set off back to Fieldbase at 1pm and they were lategetting back, so I didn’t get a chance to see the beach. Cat and I did get shown theriver where they bathe each evening and we had a welcome dip to cool off. On theway back we were given more fresh coconut milk to drink by a family who weresupplying the group chicken for the beach – they were plucking it and choppingit up as we arrived.There are lots of young children in the village who are constantly hangingaround the group – some are quite cheeky. The older children are away atschool. I’ve heard on the radio in the past couple of days that the group havebeen giving English lessons in the village and visiting the local school. Thegroup has also been given bead making lessons by the locals. Back at Fieldbase on Thursday (my planned day off) we had a bit of dramawhen one of the trekking groups called in – a young girl had fallen five metresoff a narrow track and had injured her back and couldn’t walk. Thankfullythere is a medic trekking with the group, but they decided she needed to beairlifted out of the mountain range which meant she had to be stretchered twokilometres down a tough trail to a village where the helicopter could land.Thankfully she hadn’t done any serious damage and she had a few days withus recuperating. The day she left, we got a call from the second trekking groupasking for one of their venturers to be removed from the group for safetyreasons. He is one of the Motiv8 lads and had lost the plot a bit when theystarted the trek and had got very aggressive. So we’ve now got him staying withus. He’s actually a really nice guy – we thought he’d be like a caged animalhere, but so far he’s been quite happy cleaning the landrovers and doing oddjobs.I’ve been talking to Colin and his group on the radio the last couple of days –they have started referring to Colin as ‘Big Papa’ and ‘Hitler’ – sounds like they’vegot him sussed!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KAMPUNG RITA87DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:55 Page 87

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Having listened to all of the fun and adventures that the groups had on theirfirst phases, I am really looking forward to escaping the routine of Fieldbase andbeing an accountant. I have been told that I am going to Danum Valley, one ofthe environmental projects for the next three week phase.I am now gearing myself up for the hectic few days of project changeover andgetting myself ready to head off to the rainforest. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | KAMPUNG RITA89DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 89

The Rollercoaster is Coming to an EndMarch 2006: Sabah - Raleigh International Expedition 06AWE’RE FAST APPROACHING THE END of the expedition. Colin has just two days beforethe opening ceremony of his library, and on Sunday everyone will be back in KKfor handing back kit and final parties.I had a great three weeks at Danum Valley. It’s probably the most luxurious ofRaleigh’s project sites – a Raleigh group constructed a camp there two years ago,complete with covered kitchen, permanent hammocks and even showers andwestern toilets. It was just a five minute walk from the Field Centre where there wasa rest house with comfy chairs and tea/coffee on offer – a great place to while awayfree time and meet the scientists who have research projects going on at Danum.I was with 15 venturers (four of whom had spent the first phase with Colin,but they didn’t seem to hold it against me) and two young project managers. I wasbasically there to provide a female, motherly presence, how depressing is that? Theaverage age was probably 19 but they did make me feel about 100 at times. They90DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 90

were a nice group of venturers though. The project managers have to do one toones with them at the start, during and end of the phase to learn a bit about them,find out what they want to get out of the project and check they’re achieving thisand we have to write a report on each of them at the end. I had five people, themost challenging of whom was one of the Motive8 lads. He was a colourfulGlaswegian and a bit of a drama queen, always thinking he had malaria. Hewould look quite disappointed when I took his temperature and it was normal. While we were there our project was to build a trail alongside a river thatconnected up to another trail that the scientists used. It was quite tough work inthe heat, having to chop back vegetation, dig out roots and level out the path, butwas quite satisfying as we saw it progress each day. Saying that, we only tendedto work mornings at first, and would be back at camp for lunch with theafternoons free for relaxing which usually involved swimming in the river, chillingin the rest house and often playing volleyball or some other sports activity lateafternoon – really tough!We also got to help several scientists with their projects. Our (well the girls)favourite one was a cute little chap called Jake who was from Belize and was doingsome research at Cambridge University. We helped him collect bugs, measure outplots, and check leaf litter – he was so enthusiastic about it all which made it veryinteresting. I also went out at night to catch frogs for some Austrian scientistswhich was good fun, but incredibly difficult. You can hear them ribbiting allaround but trying to spot them and then pick the slippery little devils up wasanother matter. There were some nice trails to walk on our full days off, and wealso had a talk from the Head Scientist who works for the Royal Society whichwas very interesting learning about how logging of this rainforest is having a hugeknock-on effect on the environment and wildlife – it took me back to my daysCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | THE ROLLERCOASTER IS COMING TO AN END91DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 91

doing geography and social biology at school. We saw quite a bit of interestingwildlife including Asian elephants on the road to the centre, lots of red leafmonkeys, and regular visitors to our camp were Porky and his wife Porketta, twobearded pigs that raided our supplies most nights. They even ate someone’s medicalkit and wash bag. We all got leeched to bits too. Once you’ve had a couple ofleechings you don’t get so squeamish about pulling them off and all the bloodinvolved. We had a league table going with different points for different parts ofthe body – one point for legs/arms and up to 20 points for….I’ll let you use yourimagination.On the way back to changeover at Kota Kinabalu, our group got to spend anight at one of Raleigh’s community projects by the Kinabatangan River. It’s aMuslim Community and we were treated to cultural dancing and food laid on forthe Raleigh group’s last night. It was back to sleeping on the floor of an old goatshed and using a longdrop down a slippery hill which made us appreciate what aholiday park Danum is.Changeover is basically a 36 hour period where all seven project groups comeback to a resort just outside Kota Kinabalu, where they are debriefed by Rory, havemuch needed showers, particularly the two trekking groups who will have justcome from climbing Mount Kinabalu, and enjoy two nights in a bedroom. Thefirst evening the groups have to perform skits on their experiences over the pastthree weeks, then the next morning after breakfast they are told which groupthey’ll be in next and it all starts again. The poor Project Managers get very littlebreak, as they have to meet and brief the new team, then sort out supplies, toolsand rations for the next three weeks, as well as finish off writing the VenturerReports for the completed phase. I have to run a shop, with some help from theProject Managers, hand out people’s valuables, as well as changing money andtraveller’s cheques. It’s a manic few hours on both days, and I also have to sort outthe Project Managers with funds for the next phase, and collect back their returnsfor the last phase. The first coach rolls off at 6am the following morning.Colin was particularly tired after his first phase due to being up partying in thelonghouse until four in the morning. He showed off his legendary dancing skillsand managed to put his foot through the floor! He had a much more challenginggroup for the second phase. They didn’t get on as well as the first lot, and thenthere was the infamous venturer, a Motiv8 boy from Bristol. He is 18, but looksabout 12 and is a real challenge. In his first phase in the rainforest he had to beisolated with 24 hour watch from the rest of the group after verbal abuse andthreatened physical violence. Colin and Rosie had to watch him constantly. Hewould nearly always be up to no good and when asked not to do certain thingswould come out with a stream of obscenities. He claimed he was ill and had to betaken to a local hospital, then decided he wanted to leave, so Colin called his bluffand said he’d arrange to have him removed. This shocked him a bit, and funnilyenough he decided to stay. He also nearly managed to saw off Colin’s finger whenColin was showing him how to use a saw safely!92DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 92

Despite all of this, the library building was making good progress, althoughColin is claiming they are behind schedule and will be working flat out to getit finished for Friday. He is also not being helped with some of the buildingmaterials on the project.When Colin rejected some wood because it was so outof shape he was told this was all he could have. He pointed out that he wouldnever accept wood of such a poor standard in the UK, but the guy pointed outthat you could only get dodgy wood in Malaysia because all the good stuff isshipped to Europe – point taken! Saying this, his venturers are still managing to go to the local school, church,pick rice and make beaded jewellery. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | THE ROLLERCOASTER IS COMING TO AN END93DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 93

Out of the BubbleApril 2006 : Sabah and CambodiaWELL, COLIN DID GET HIS LIBRARY finished for the first opening ceremony attendedby HSBC who’d stumped up RM30,000 (£5,000) for materials. It nearly killedColin getting it there. His last group of venturers were as lazy and unpractical asthey could possibly be and he had to bully them all the way, but the result was apretty impressive looking library. The end of expedition was as manic as expected. As the coach from KampungRita rolled back into the changeover hotel, all the girls ran off the coach towardsme and told me that I must be a saint for putting up with Colin – things wereobviously tough in those last few days! The final skits had some great micky takesout of some of the staff and one lad did a pretty good impression of Colin goingon about how fantastic Bolton Wanderers are and how good he is! The auction of promises from the staff, raised over RM6,500 which goestowards funding the host country venturers. Colin’s double bed on the beach raisedRM500 and was a big success – two girls actually took it and there were a lot ofpeople wishing they’d bid for it. He literally assembled a four poster bed on thebeach, complete with mosquito net. The Venturer party was in a beautiful locationat an unspoilt white beach fringed by palm trees and bath warm sea water. Therewas a mass of food which the staff had to barbeque and as predicted the venturersmanaged to get their hands on alcohol from a local smuggler who took them downthe beach to where he had a cool box stashed full. The venturers had also beenallowed into Kota Kinabalu the day before and seemed to be drinking heavily fromtheir water bottles!We bade them all farewell the next day and breathed a sigh of relief. Roryseemed genuinely pleased with how it had all gone. Only one venturer had beensent home early – a Motive8 lad was caught drinking alcohol in a Muslim village.He’d already been caught out for drinking at the second changeover and Rory hadno option this time. To be fair to him, he’d probably had a lot less to drink than94DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 94

the ‘posh kids’ who were much more cunning. The Motive8 lads just couldn’thelp bragging about it.I actually think the staff were worse behaved than the venturers at the end.Rory had asked us not go into town the first night the venturers were on the loose,but all but four of us ignored him (I’d got way too much accounts work to do toface it with a hangover so had wimped out) and there were a lot of very fragilelooking staff (including Colin) wandering around in a daze for the next couple ofdays. On the day that most of the staff climbed Mt Kinabalu, I went with Colinup to the second library opening ceremony, which was attended by a SabahGovernment Minister and the Head of the State Library Service. It was probablya bigger ceremony then the original one, and the nice part was that about 10venturers had made their own way there to see the finished building. Several ofthem had stayed the night before and had obviously drunk plenty of the localmaize wine. The number of venturers swelled to over 16 the following day(including one of their mothers) and we heard there was quite a party for the nextcouple of days. One thing Colin hadn’t made quite clear to me until this point wasthat he’d promised we’d go back to put a second coat of varnish on the floor!I still had to finish off the accounts the day after this which was tough aseveryone else bobbed off to the resort while I was still counting money. I couldn’tget my figures to balance at the end, but the good news was I’d got more moneythan I thought I should have which went into the Home Countries Venturers fund!There were a lot of bemused staff wandering around the five star hotel whenwe finally got there. After nine weeks for many of them living in hammocks,bathing in rivers and using long drop toilets, it was a big shock to the systemhaving huge aircon ensuite rooms and a big pool. Seventeen of us went on to Sipadan for three days of diving. It’s billed as atop three dive site in the world and it certainly lived up to expectations. We didthe most awesome dives ever. Sipadan is basically a mountain under the sea andfrom the beach you can swim out a few yards and the sea bed falls away 600mbelow you – it makes your stomach flip as you go over the edge. We dived deeperthan we’ve ever done before, but the visibility was crystal clear and the coral andmarine life was just gobsmacking. We had turtles gliding past, countless reefsharks around us, huge shoals of glistening jackfish and two metre longbarracuda. We did eight wonderful dives there and felt well and truly relaxed atthe end of it.The staff group dispersed in several directions. Colin and I caught a bus tothe Kinabatangan River which was a very entertaining journey – the express bushad double the number of people compared to seats and as soon as it set off it hadto stop to fill up with petrol. Then at the next town the bus pulled into a Kwik-Fit tyre depot and decided to get several of the bald tyres we’d driven on for thefirst three hours changed. They didn’t get anyone off the bus and left the enginerunning for the hour and a half we were jacked up! We felt we were really backtravelling again. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | OUT OF THE BUBBLE95DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 95

We stopped in a rustic riverside camp on the bank of the Kinabatangan Riverfor two nights and did some lovely early morning and late afternoon river tripswhere we saw lots of the funny looking probiscus monkeys, as well as lot ofmacaque monkeys, and even a wild orangutan. The bird spotting was incredibletoo, with lots of hornbills and beautiful coloured kingfishers. We also did somejungle walks where we saw some unusual creepy crawlies, including a big blackscorpion the size of a hand.From here, we made our way to Sandekan where we visited the Sepilokorangutan sanctuary. It was very touristy, but we had a great viewing session whereabout 10 orangutans visited the feeding platform .They came swinging in on someropes from out of the jungle. We flew back to KK for an evening and hired a car to drive back to KampungRita to finish the flooring for them. We had a nice 24 hours in the village, beingforce fed with rice and noodles and given Kampung Rita coffee (maize wine). Weonly just managed to get the floor rubbed down and varnished before dark. It doeslook a lot better for this, but I can’t say the same for my blistered hands andhousemaid’s knee I ended up with. The Chief was apparently too scared of Colincoming back to change something on the library, but his brother told me that Colinis a legend to Kg Rita – I’m not so sure, but the kids do seem to say hello with aBolton accent and his picture hangs in the library to hopefully terrify them intokeeping it in good condition!We dropped the car back in KK, and then caught a bus to the Mt KinabaluPark where we spent a night before starting the climb. As we thought about theprospect of walking 8.7km continuously uphill into altitude we did wonder howwe had come to be here when there were other options in Sabah such as lying ona paradise beach. We weren’t blessed with good weather on the first day and afterjust 20 minutes the rain started and continued for the rest of the day obscuring96BELOWTired but elated toreach the summitfor dawnDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 96

any nice views which would have lifted our spirits as we panted our way up sixkilometres of steps and steep trails to reach the overnight accommodation hut.Having left 30 degrees and 95% humidity, the 10 degrees was a bit chilly especiallyas we were wet through, so we sat shivering most of the evening before retiring toour unheated room. We had to get up at 2am to start the final climb to thesummit. My lungs felt like they were going to explode and it wasn’t easy climbingin the dark. The worst bit was a steep section where we had to pull ourselves upon ropes, but after that the last 1.5km was just a grind. We made the summit(4,095m) just as the sun was rising and thankfully the cloud lifted for a shortwhile for us to take photos. The walk up had been hard, but the walk back downwas just plain painful! With legs getting increasingly tired each step down hurtsyour knees and toes. The last couple of kilometres were torture as my legs seemedto be bending in directions they shouldn’t have been. However we did feel quitea sense of achievement, it being our first (and probably last!) mountain climb,but it was a week later before we stopped walking like disabled chickens.We left KK the following day and flew to KL (Kuala Lumpar), a big moderncity and we only spent a couple of nights there to see the Petronas Towers and geta fix of big modern shopping centres. We stopped in the middle of Chinatownwhich was good fun and bustling so we now have a small range of designer rip-off merchandise acquired from the market there.We then flew on to Phnom Penh which was back to the chaotic Asia we’veexperienced before – tuk tuks, cyclos, scooters and vehicles all driving at eachCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | OUT OF THE BUBBLE97LEFTPetronas Towers DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 97

other and somehow just missing. We had to sharpen up again pretty quickly, as thetaxi driver taking us from the airport to our guesthouse insisted that ourguesthouse had shut but not to worry, he’d take us to another one. ThankfullyColin was on the ball, and directed the taxi driver to the correct street after hetried dropping us off at another place now insisting it was the place we’d bookedbut had changed its name. Surprise surprise we found that the guesthouse we hadbooked only a couple of days ago was still open under its original name! The next day we caught a hot, sticky bus with no view from the window (whythey had to put big black stickers over the windows, I’m not sure) to Siem Reap,home to the Angkor Wat temples. We stopped in the Ivy Guesthouse right in themiddle of the Old Market area. We spent four days being taken around the sitesby Mr Ron on his tuk tuk which has been wonderful. We’re very templed out now,but they are amazing structures. On my 40th birthday we got up at 4.30am to seethe sunrise at Angkor Wat, came back into town for a full English breakfast, beforeheading out of town to see the last lot of temples. In the late afternoon we wentto a temple on a hill to watch the sunset with a view of Angkor Wat, but thunder98DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 98

clouds kind of spoilt the effect. In the evening we went for dinner at the ForeignCorrespondents Club in Siem Reap which was very nice indeed, so all in all I hada pretty memorable 40th birthday and I’m not feeling too depressed about thewhole situation, apart from having Colin gloat that I’m now in the same agebracket as him!We went for a boat trip around a floating village on our last morning, andfinally had a chilled afternoon. It’s incredibly hot in Cambodia at this time ofyear, so we can’t do too much running around without melting. We caught a busback to Phnom Penh where we’re having a couple of days exploring the city andvisiting the Killing Fields. We’re having a splurge for my birthday and arestopping at the Raffles hotel. It’s a nice old colonial hotel, but it doesn’t feelquite right spending so much money on a room and it’s hard to negotiate the tuktuk drivers down on price when they know where you’re staying. After therelative prosperity of Malaysia, it’s brought us back down to earth seeing thenumber of street children here. It’s tough having a continuous string of smallcute children pleading with you to buy postcards, books, jewellery etc for justone dollar, so we’ve been taking the fruit provided in our hotel room to handout to them.99DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 99

Thailand and Back to British SummertimeMay 2006: Thailand, Brunei and EnglandWE HAD A GREAT LAST WEEK of this leg of our trip. We had the most fabulous timein Thailand with Phil, his new wife Joy (who was already expecting – quick workPhil!) and both their families. We had met Phil the previous year in Southern Africaand found his sense humour to be on our wavelength. We met Phil and Joy in Bangkok. They had been married in Sydney back inMarch, but had come to Thailand to have a traditional Thai/Chinese wedding withJoy’s family. Phil’s parents who are 80 and had never flown before or left Australiacame over. They both have health issues, but were fantastic, having to recover fromthe nine hour flight very quickly, getting stuck into everything. We had a day and a half sightseeing around Bangkok, taking in a river trip andthe Grand Palace which we’d forgotten was so spectacular. Colin and I had aninteresting ‘stag night’ with Phil. We went to Patpong, Bangkok’s famous red lightdistrict, after dinner one evening. When we got there we found all the bars wereclosed due to some Buddhist festival. A tuk tuk driver said he could take us tosomewhere serving alcohol, and we ended up on a very dodgy looking back street.We were ushered into an even dodgier looking establishment which consisted of arow of girls sat on a stage and very seedy western men eyeing them up – yes wewere in a brothel. We sat in a corner and nervously nursed our drinks with Phil andColin straining their necks watching what was going on. By the third drink wewere a bit more relaxed, but decided it might not be the best place to hang out toolong as the clientele wasn’t getting any better. Back at the tuk tuk rank we finally agreed a price with a young lad to take usto our hotel. As he set off he did a wheelie down the road, sparks were coming offthe back of the tuk tuk where the bumper dragged on the floor. He drove like amaniac not bothering with red lights etc. It was all good fun, but Colin wasconvinced that we were going completely in the wrong direction. Phil wasn’t100DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 100

worried, saying he was sure we’d end up at our hotel. We did end up at a hotel butnot ours. We then had a bit of a battle with the driver who wanted paying fortaking us to where we didn’t want to be, before he took us back to where westarted. After more negotiations we ended up in a different tuk tuk, but with thesame driver assisted by an even younger looking boy. We were taken at GrandPrix speeds ignoring lane discipline and traffic lights. We even got stopped by thepolice where we thought our driver might get had for being too young to drive orfor being under the influence of some illegal substances, but he was eventuallyallowed to go on his way, and we were glad to be dropped off in one piece at ourhotel.The wedding ceremony took place a couple of hours drive out of Bangkok inthe district of Ratchaburri where Joy is from. The day of the wedding we were upat 4.30 in the morning and were taken to Joy’s parents’ house for the weddingrituals. It was all very symbolic, and Phil admitted even he didn’t understand allthat was going on, but it was fascinating to watch. At the start he had to collectJoy from upstairs in the house and some of us had to put barriers of gold chainsin his path, so he had to pay us to cross them. Joy and Phil then had to eat aceremonial breakfast, before joining nine Buddhist monks for an hour or so ofchanting and rituals. The monks were given gifts and food before they left. Philthen had to give a dowry to Joy’s parents which consisted of an agreed amountof gold and cash. The deal was that they would give Phil and Joy a proportion ofthis straight back and the rest is kept as a type of security for Joy in the futureshould anything happen. There then followed a session of relatives and friendsgiving money gifts to them in return for a cup of tea. The wedding party thenmoved on to a local restaurant where a meal consisting of many dishes was served,with each dish apparently having a significant meaning – it all tasted good to us.There were no wedding speeches – the guests just ate and left.The day after the wedding was Colin’s birthday. We were taken on a tour byCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | THAILAND AND BACK TO BRITISH SUMMERTIME101DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 101

Joy’s father and sister to the famous Floating Market, visited the Second WorldWar memorials and had a look in the interesting Burma Thailand railway museum.Then on to a monastery that has become a bit of an animal rescue centre for tigers.After being terrified at walking with lions in Zimbabwe the previous year, I washaving heart palpitations at the thought of getting close with enormous tigers, butthey were very sleepy – the public see them in the heat of the day, presumably afterthey’ve been fed, but it was lovely seeing them up close and personal. After this wewent to visit and walk across the Bridge over the River Kwai, before heading backtowards Bangkok, enjoying one last amazing meal with Joy’s family, then back toour hotel in Bangkok. As a birthday treat Phil organized for him, his sister, herfiancé and me to sing Happy Birthday over the karaoke machine in the hotel forColin. I don’t think the diners in the restaurant were too impressed with ourperformance.The following day we flew back to Kota Kinbalu. It felt strangely like arrivinghome – familiar and tranquil after Cambodia and Thailand. We enjoyed a coupleof very relaxed days, including one spent on a nearby island, Manukan, where wesnorkelled and stopped the night in a very nice chalet. We couldn’t put it off any longer, so finally we set off towards London on 20thMay. We found a lone Venturer in the departure lounge. He was a nice little chapand kept us amused with what he’d learnt on his trip – mainly how to get areplacement passport after you’ve let your mate fly off with your original one andhow to replace lost airline tickets which had presumably gone off in anotherdirection with a different friend.102DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 102

We had seven hours in Brunei between flights and ended up doing a four hourcity tour which was surprisingly worthwhile. We visited the huge mosque with 28carat gold minarets, the national museum, had a look at the outside of the palacewhere we learnt that there were five aircraft hangars holding the royal family’s8,000 cars, and finally had a trip down the waterways and a cup of tea in a localshouse. We also learnt about the King’s brother who has blown billions of dollarson booze (forbidden in Brunei), women and gambling. We can safely concludethat the Sultan may be the world’s richest man, but money doesn’t buy you taste.When we took off from Dubai, our second stop, at 1.30am it was 39 degrees.When we arrived at Heathrow at 6.30am it was a glorious….10 degrees. Wehaven’t really defrosted since being back! We’ve had a week catching up with ourfamilies and two weeks trying to get those niggly jobs done like tax returns (notthat there’s much to put on them!) and I’m trying not to look too closely at howmuch we’ve overspent in the last 15 months. Next stop Houston where we will bestaying with Colin’s sister Louise and family to start the next leg of our adventure.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | THAILAND AND BACK TO BRITISH SUMMERTIME103DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 103

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Introducing Frank & BettyJune 2006: North AmericaWELL, WE’RE FINALLY ON OUR WAY again. We had a frustratingfive weeks in Houston trying to get everything we needed, asbuying a vehicle and camper has been much harder than we’dimagined. The distances around Houston are vast so it takesages to view anything. We’d seen a nice two wheel driveautomatic campervan on our first outing, but we’d got it intoour head that we needed to go for a four wheel drive dieselvehicle so that we could tackle any rough roads that we mightencounter.We finally decided we should go for a pickup truck onwhich we’d put on a slide-on truck camper, which is a unit thathas a bed, kitchenette, table and, all too important at our age,a toilet. Well Texas isn’t the place to find anything small andcompact. The camper dealers could sell us a vehicle or towable unit that couldhouse 10 Mexican families, but couldn’t help us with a teeny truck camper, so wehad to go back to searching on eBay. We found a couple in the Houston area whichwere either too big or too naff. One lady had completely decorated everything(down to the toilet seat) in Coca Cola furnishings. In the meantime we bought aheavy beast of a pickup truck on eBay from a fast talking dealer Frank in CorpusChristi which is about four hours drive from Houston, just a short drive here. It’sa three-quarter ton Ford pickup, and we’ve named it Frank in the salesman’shonour.We then found a camper unit on eBay that looked just what we needed – theonly trouble was it was in North Florida, so we had a 14 hour drive to get thereto look at it. It wasn’t in quite as good condition as the owner had led us tobelieve, but after the mission we’d had to find it we decided to take it. We took a couple of days to drive back to Houston to test everything out –105ABOVEIntroducing Frank &BettyDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 105

most things worked but it needed a damned good scrubbing. We also namedthe camper unit (yes, I know we’re sad) – with Frank the pickup it could onlybe Betty (Some Mothers Do ‘Av Em). We still had niggling doubts aboutwhether we’d picked the right vehicle though as it’s a big lumbering thing todrive and Colin’s rickety old knees are feeling the strain. Anyway, to get us to thispoint had taken two and a half weeks and we’d planned to be on our way withinthree. We were surprised at how little Texans know about what is south of theirborder. When we explained that we were going to Central and South America theyassumed that we meant California and Florida. Getting insurance for Mexico andthe other countries wasn’t too hard, but the policy to get us from Guatemala toBrazil took a couple of weeks to be approved. Kitting out the inside of Betty wasa fairly cheap process – bedding and kitchen equipment are incredibly cheap inthe US, but we kept finding more work that was needed on Frank & Betty to getthem into a usable state. In the meantime, Colin was on a promise to do a few jobs around his sister’snew home, the main one being to build a patio. Louise had got the bricks, andwhat we thought would be a couple of days hard graft turned into over a weeksworth. It’s so hot and humid in Houston at this time of year that Colin was havingto get up at dawn and work until it was too hot, he then carried on late into theevening when it was slightly cooler. He had some expert assistance from Louiseand me – we pointed all his brickwork. Colin’s nephew and niece, Ben and Madeline also kept us pretty occupied. Theywere doing a summer swim team, where they would train every morning fromTuesday to Friday, then on Monday evenings the team would compete againstanother local team. They were very intense evenings – over 200 children aged from5 to 16, with 70 races and often several heats. Madeline is actually a real star of herteam and nearly always won with an occasional second in her races. At the weeklymeets, Louise had to look after the young boys team, getting them to the pool forraces and keeping them occupied in between races. Tony acted as a stroke judge –if a child didn’t swim a particular stroke correctly they would be disqualified.Colin and I got roped in as timers. There would be three timers in each lane andthe middle time would be taken. It was all very serious stuff, especially if you hada pushy parent on your lane. In between sorting out our camper and the other bits, we did manage a fewtouristy/pleasure things. We went to watch a baseball game – Houston Astrosversus Kansas Royals. The stadium was really impressive, but the actual game ofbaseball is a bit dull, although the Astros got a good win when we were there. Wewent to the NASA Space Centre for a day. There was a shuttle being launched theweek we were there. We had a very interesting briefing on the team going up andhow they were preparing. We also had a night camping in a local state park to testout our new truck. The park is a great place and we did some nice walks spottingalligators, huge spiders and birds. We also joined in the 4thJuly celebrations with106ABOVESwimmer andTimer ready foractionDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 106

Louise and Tony’s friends albeit Madeline and Ben’s bikes were decked in unionjacks’ rather than Stars and Stripes!Another bit of entertainment was going to their church on Sunday mornings.Church is big business in America and their Methodist church had three Sundayservices with around 1,500 congregation in total – a few more than the five or six ourvillage church gets. The services are also a bit like concerts, with about 15 minutes offull on singing from the choir (some with amazing voices) and musicians at the startand end. Our favourite bit was the coffee and cookies after the service – yes, we arestill heathens, but we have to say that they have made religion appealing and enjoyablefor young people which is more than you can say about the church in the UK. Anyway, despite being torn over whether to stay in Houston a few more daysto see Madeline in the All Star swimming finals, we set off on Friday 14th July.Our insurance for Mexico started the next day and we needed a couple of daysto get to the border and sort out a few last things on the vehicle. We had a day inSan Antonio, where the Alamo resides. It’s got a lovely riverside area which makesa nice place for a few chilled hours. We then drove to Laredo, the border town,which had a surprising amount of shops and facilities compared to most of theAfrican ones we had experienced last year. It seems that each day somethingbreaks or collapses on Frank & Betty, so I’m thankful Colin is very practical, ashe has been spending several hours each day patching things up. We can’t waituntil we hit the rough roads! COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | INTRODUCING FRANK & BETTY107LEFTIn Houston before weset offDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 107

We finally made it to the Mexican border, which didn’t get off to a good start,as we drove over the new toll bridge into the Mexican side without stopping at theUS checkpoint and had to go back to hand in our departure cards. It seems theAmericans are so preoccupied with keeping out the illegal Mexicans that they arepretty relaxed about letting anyone out! The Mexican immigration and customs were some of the nicest officials we’vecome across. They spoke very little English, but were very jovial and seemedfascinated by the trip that we were doing and after spotting all Colin’s Africanpassport stamps insisted we show them where we’d been on their map of theworld. We had one nervous moment. We needed to get a temporary vehicle permitto take our car into Mexico and for this we needed the official car ownershipdocument. When we’d bought Frank we didn’t want to pay Texas state taxes onthe purchase price (over 8%), so Frank the salesman said we could get round thisby not sending the ownership transfer papers in. He was sure we could get by withthe paperwork he’d given us and made a couple of phone calls to verify this.Anyway, sure enough at the border they shook their heads when they saw ourownership certificate and said we needed a different licence plate document. Theycalled someone else in who spoke better English. Colin managed to concoct a storythat we couldn’t get this document as we weren’t resident in the US. They seemedto buy this and let us proceed. My only worry is, the other countries in CentralAmerica who are renowned for their corrupt officials at the borders will use thisagainst us and taking a shortcut may backfire later in the trip.We drove a couple of hundred miles into Mexico bypassing Monterrey as wedidn’t fancy tackling the traffic in Mexico’s second city in the rush hour and wecontinued to a town called Saltillo. Although it’s quite industrial it’s in an attractivelocation, surrounded by the Sierra Madre mountains. Being high up it is slightlycooler and fresher than Texas and it was also nice to see hills again. We had a walkinto the old quarter which had a few nice streets and an impressive cathedral. Alocal called Salvador got chatting to us and insisted on giving us a guided tour inreturn for a donation to an orphanage where he was helping out. The tour wasactually quite good. We parked up behind a hotel in town with a retired Texan couple in a big fifthwheeler (caravan). We had a couple of nice evenings with them. The first nightthey plied us with red wine and told us about their travelling experiences which isunusual for Americans and we went out for a meal with them on the second night.They gave us lots of useful tips on where to go in Mexico, including the place weare currently at, a lovely colonial city called Zacatecas. The architecture in theold town is stunning. We can’t say the same for the campground we’re in tonight– basically the car park of a large hotel which is next to a four lane road withlorries thundering past, coupled with trains going past regularly which shake theoldies Colin, Frank & Betty.108ABOVEApprehensive astomorrow we crossinto Mexico thatgreat unknown!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 108

Greetings GringosJuly 2006: MexicoWE HAVE HAD A PRETTY HECTIC TIME and have covered around 10,000km sinceleaving Houston, which has meant many long hard days driving, to get to wherewe are now, the Caribbean coast heading towards Belize. Anyway, after Zacatecas we stayed in the inland of Mexico and visited a coupleof other colonial towns which were also World Heritage Sites. The first wasGuanajuato which again was a wonderful little place. The historical centre of the109LEFTOne of the manysquares, GuanajuatoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 109

town was a maze of little streets in the bottom of a ravine and the main roads wentthrough tunnels under the town. It was much more geared up for tourists, but mostof the tourists were Mexicans, with just a few gringos wandering around. Wecamped up on a hill above the town and had quite a job getting Frank & Betty upthe narrow streets and around hairpin bends. We spent the afternoon and eveningwandering around the streets enjoying the small plazas as well as taking a funicularto a viewpoint which showed the wonderful colours of the buildings in the lateafternoon sun.From here we drove on to San Miguel de Allende, another small colonial townwhich is very popular with North Americans. It was fairly touristy with littlemarket areas selling souvenirs and silver which is mined in this region. The townwas based around a nice Plaza with a large cathedral and a central area shadedwith trees where the locals sat and watched the world go by.We headed towards the Pacific coast and stopped a night at a place calledPatzcuaro. It was pouring with rain for much of our drive there, but when wearrived mid afternoon we braved the weather and did a boat trip out to an island(Isla Janitzio) which was in the middle of a huge lake on the edge of town. It wasa half an hour boat trip and the island consisted of a steep hill up to an uglymonument with a jumble of shops, restaurants and houses. The thing to do is toclimb up the inside of the monument, but having queued about 20 minutes to dothis we can safely say it wasn’t worth it – you couldn’t see a thing. It continued topour with rain the whole evening/night and was still drizzling the next morning.We were relieved that Betty had passed her waterproof test. We pressed on to the coast and had a very scenic drive through the mountainson steep wiggly roads to get there. The countryside was very green and lush andfelt very tropical by the coast. As we approached the coast the rains came backwith a vengeance – at least it’s warm rain. We stopped the night in Zihuatanejo,a pleasant touristy little resort. We were just enjoying a cold beer as we watched ablanket of rain head towards us, which sent everyone running from the beach.Again the rain continued most of the night. We know we are travelling in the rainyseason, but we hoped this wasn’t how it was going to be for weeks on end.When we set off bound for Acapulco the next day the roads were flooded inplaces and there was debris everywhere. As the drainage systems clearly couldn’tcope with the level of rain we assume we had experienced abnormal levels. Theroad to Acapulco didn’t follow the coast very closely, but we did get one stretchwith good views of wild crashing waves and some surfers. We stopped for a coffeeto admire the view through the clouds and mist. We finally reached the outskirtsof Acapulco and had planned to camp at a beach area west of town, but as theweather still looked decidedly dodgy, we continued into town and found a securetrailer park just behind the main beach strip. We had a walk down the main drag which is basically tacky souvenir shops andbig hotels. The majority of taxis in Acapulco are blue and white beetles and theyall drive around like nutters, some watching a TV where once a rear view mirror110DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 110

had been! Sometimes you could only see a sea of blue and white cars dartingdown the road – I say darting, but the traffic was pretty terrible and it was slowgoing getting across town. We spent a couple of days in town to try and get morejobs done on Frank & Betty. We only had a couple of hours on the beach reallyjust to say we’d been on the beach in Acapulco. The water was actually prettydirty, hopefully just because of the bad weather, but I certainly didn’t fancyswimming in it. Colin forced himself to go in, but only lasted a couple of minutes. We had an incident that made us realise how badly we need to learn Spanish.A woman came up to us and we thought she was collecting money for the shadeand chairs we were sitting on. We thought she’d asked for 20 pesos, which wegave her, then she jabbered on a bit more, and when we told her we didn’tunderstand what she was saying she walked off. It was then we noticed she wasactually a tarot card reader! The real chair attendant then came over and chargedus 30 pesos! There was a constant stream of beach sellers going past, and it was hard toread or do anything, as every 30 seconds we would be saying ‘no gracias’. We sawone frightening way of making money. A young woman was walking between thetraffic at a junction. She was carrying a cloth sack which she opened out to revealbroken glass. She then proceeded to put this on the road and lie on it lifting herlegs in the air. She then got up and asked the drivers for money. I don’t think it willbe a long career especially as quite a few drivers here don’t stop for red lights! We went to watch the Acapulco cliff divers one evening. A group of them dive40m into rough sea in an inlet. I actually think their lead up before the dive looksas dangerous. They parade past all the spectators, scale down into the water andswim across to the cliffs on the other side. The water was rushing in with quite aforce and a couple did get swept in against the rocks. Then when they havereached the other side they have to climb up a near vertical cliff using their barehands and feet. The following day we drove back out of town to the nicer beaches on the Westof town (Pie de la Cuesta) and parked up in a trailer park right by the beach. Thiswas the nicest spot we’d stayed at so far. After stopping in some stunningcampsites in Africa last year, camping in Mexico hasn’t been so pleasurable. Theplaces we’ve stopped at have been generally run down with poor facilities, withthe parking area generally being on bare ground or even like a car park. Anyway,we had the park to ourselves and sat looking straight onto the beach under theshade of palm trees. We had a nice walk down the beach and enjoyed our first nicesunset.We continued east down the coastline the next day. It took us two hours to getacross town – there was no bypass around Acapulco. It then took us a further sixhours to get to Puerto Escondido. It sounded like a nice coastal resort to spendthe night, but we were bowled over by how lovely it was. We camped right nextto the beach again and in the morning woke up to the sights and sounds of thelocal fishermen bringing in their catch. The tables where they weighed and filletedCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GREETINGS GRINGOS111DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 111

the fish were just the other side of the fence. As well as a nice beach sweepingaround a cove, there was a pedestrianised street with bars, restaurants and shopswhich was lovely to explore. This was also the first time we had come across backpackers on this trip,presumably on their way to or from Guatemala. Although it was very touristy wedecided we’d have a full days chilling (for the first time) and stop another night. Wehad an afternoon just totally relaxing on the beach apart from constantly saying‘no gracias’ to all the sellers, the same ones who would walk past every fiveminutes. Watching the fishermen was entertaining in the mornings. They wouldbeach their boats and the local ladies would swoop on their catch, sifting throughit and grabbing what they wanted. Some even swam out to the boats as theyapproached.We packed up in the rain the next day and set off on another epic drive of sevenhours to Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ca). This was a bit of a detour, but one we’reglad we took. It’s a large city, but the historical centre was easy to walk around(another World Heritage Site), with very colourful painted buildings and Indianstreet vendors selling their woven fabric items and colourful pots. There were alsomarket areas selling the local delicacy of fried small grasshoppers. The town hadrecently been host to some anti-capitalist riots, following a strike by local teachersover pay and protesting that the State Governor was corrupt. Many of thebuildings had new graffiti. They were even selling DVDs of it – riot police, streetfires and tear gas. Just 10km out of town we visited the incredible Zapotec (don’t ask us whatthis means – they were just old!) ruins of Monte Alban. The site was on a plateauon top of a hill above the town with great views and impressive ruins. On the wayout of Oaxaca we visited a place called El Tule which claimed to have the largest112RIGHTMonte AlbanDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 112

living tree in the world. It’s a 2,000 year old Cypress tree and it was pretty big, 40mhigh and 42m around its trunk. A few miles further down the road we stopped ata town called Tlacolulu which has a very good Sunday market. It covered a largepart of the town and was more of a locals’ market. There were stalls selling fruitand vegetables, clothing, household stuff, and food stalls where you could buyyour piece of meat and cook it on communal grills to eat with tortillas. San Cristobal is in the Chiapas region of Mexico which is still fighting forindependent rights, so we did see a lot more military groups around the area. Itwas raining heavily when we arrived in the town and it didn’t look the specialcolonial town we were expecting. However we parked up in a boggy field behinda hotel, caught a colectivo (minibus) into town and soon started to enjoy thestreets full of brightly painted buildings, and we could just about make out thehills in the distance behind the low clouds. There were a lot of ‘hippy trippy’ typetravellers here. We wanted to visit some Mayan villages in the hills nearby wherethe Indian communities still live by their traditions and even speak anotherlanguage. We decided a guided tour would be the way to go if we were to learnanything and we had an excellent tour the following morning. We were taken toSan Juan Chamula and our guide Alberto gave us a very good insight into howthese people live and worship. The highlight of the tour was the church. TheMayan people do not follow Catholicism, but have their own form of worship.The church was very brightly painted on the outside, but inside was staggering.There are no pews, the floor is covered in pine needles, the worshippers come inand kneel down with offerings (usually sacrificing chickens) and they drink fizzypop (coke, sprite etc) or beer which is supposed to give them energy to ward offthe evil spirits. There is a lot of other symbolism in the layout of the church whichAlberto explained. We were taken to another village, San Lorenzo Zinacantan,where we visited a local’s house where they did traditional weaving and cookedtortillas for us, as well as giving us a sample of Posh, their homebrew lethal spiritwhich warmed the cockles. Before leaving town we called in at a Ford garage to see what they thoughtCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GREETINGS GRINGOS113BELOWThe church and localgirls San CristobalDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 113

about our steering which we knew was badly worn before we set off. They saidwithout being prompted that the ball joints were terribly worn. They could do thework for us the next day for half the price we’d been quoted in Houston, but as wewanted to get moving we thought we’d get it done in Cancun. Our next stop was Palenque. A five hour drive through some spectacularscenery brought us to the site of these amazing Mayan ruins. We stopped in afabulous campsite – there were other people there for a change, it had a nicebar/restaurant with good local music in the evenings and a big swimming pool.Howler monkeys made an eerie sound at night. The ruins were a 20 minute walkup the road and looked pretty stunning in their jungle setting.We headed to Cancun via Campeche then onto Chichen Itza, another stunningMayan archaeological site. Cancun was a bit of a shock to the system. The hotelzone is 16km of largely ugly hotels and shopping complexes, but we have to say thesea was beautiful and the beaches soft white sand. We had another shock at theprices here for food and drink – at least double what we’d paid elsewhere inMexico. We hadn’t realised that this area was hit badly by a category fourhurricane last October with millions of dollars of damage being done and therewas still a lot of rebuilding work going on.We finally got a bit of luck with our steering problem. When we pulled up atour campsite, we were introduced to Andy, a 22 year old American who’d done anautomotives degree and fixed up cars. He came over and checked out Frank and hesaid our ball joints were ‘f***** man.’ He said he could fix it no problem andarranged with Colin to go round the parts places the next day. Our luck faltered abit as no-one had the right parts, so they had to order them from Mexico City.Colin rated the chances of them (a) turning up in the next couple of days, and (b)being the right parts, as being negligible but we lived in hope. We had another unexpected visitor when we pulled up at the campsite – agorgeous grey and white kitten climbed out from under Frank. I’d seen it outsidea store we had popped into near the campsite to buy bread. He seemed quite at114RIGHTThe fabulousMayan ruins ofPalenqueDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 114

home with us, but as he looked in pretty nice condition we thought it probablywasn’t a stray and someone might be missing him, so we reluctantly took himback. We had called him Oxxo after the shop.We took ourselves to Isla Mujeres the next day. It is a 20 minute boat trip away,but another world away from Cancun. The island is only 7km long and we hireda golf cart which was great fun to tootle around in. There were some nice bays tocall in at and the sea was as turquoise as can be.The next day, against all odds, the correct parts arrived. Andy fitted them ina couple of hours, no problem at all. While he was doing this Colin removed theair conditioning unit from our back door which was way too heavy for the doorand was in danger of breaking it. We’d only used it a couple of times, and weren’tlikely to be able to use it anywhere else in Central America as there are few propercampsites with electricity. We asked Andy how much we owed him for his timeand he said he’d just take the air-con unit for the hut he lived in on the campsite– bargain! We’ve now come down the Caribbean coastline from Cancun. We called in atPlaya del Carmen which is a very nice touristy resort. We went scuba diving andhad a couple of good dives with great visibility, seeing some nice colourful coraland fish, and on the second dive saw lots of turtles.We have to say we’ve really enjoyed Mexico. The variety has been incredible –one day in a cool colonial town in the highlands, the next day sweltering by thecoast, and the colonial architecture and Mayan ruins have been stunning. Thelocals have been patient with our lack of Spanish and have been friendly andhelpful.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GREETINGS GRINGOS115LEFTNot a bad spot tocamp for a coupleof days DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 115

Panty Rippers August 2006: BelizeBEFORE WE LEFT MEXICO we stopped at Tulum, a small town on the coast withmore Mayan ruins in a beautiful setting. We were here primarily to scuba dive ina cenote. A cenote is basically an underground cave and this part of Mexico isfamous for them. It was quite an experience scuba diving in crystal clear but verycold water. We made our way through narrow tunnels and chambers, sometimessurfacing in an underground cavern. The rock features were pretty amazing withstalactites and stalagmites. We continued to Chetmal the border town and had a very easy exit out of Mexicoand entry into Belize. It was strange to have the officials speaking in English and ittook us a while to remember we had to say ‘thanks’ instead of ‘gracias’. We had tohave our wheels sprayed with disinfectant to enter into Belize and found it amusingthat the guy doing it splashed a tiny amount on three wheels then gave up, chargingus $5 for the piece of paper we needed to show customs. The customs official wasincredibly helpful explaining how we must hand in our vehicle permit when weleave, and gave us fantastic advice on where to park up safely in Belize City. It always amazes us how driving just a few hundred yards over a border canfeel so different. Belize is an ex British colony with a laid back Caribbean feel andthe wooden houses leaked reggae music into the streets. Another thing we had toquickly get used to was the short distances. The country is only 174 miles long by80 miles wide. I’m sure many Texans and Mexicans travel further to the shops!Our first port of call was Orange Walk which is the second largest town afterBelize City. We had driven through it thinking we were passing through a villageon the outskirts before realising that this was as good as it was going to get. Wehad walked around the centre, a five minute walk, hoping to find a cafe but therewas nothing. We had come to the town to do a trip down the New River to the Mayanarchaeological site of Lamanai. We arranged a tour for the following day and themanager said that we were welcome to camp up at the boat yard for the night. It116DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 116

was a lovely spot with a covered seating area to watch the sunset. They evenoffered to leave their office unlocked so that we could watch satellite TV but weweren’t tempted, although no doubt it would have been a different story if thefootball season had started.It was a lovely one and a half hours boat ride to the ruins and on the way there,the guide stopped to show us wildlife and birds. We passed a Mennonitesettlement. We knew very little about these people, other than we had seen acouple of funny looking white men in town the day before. They are very muchlike the Amish, but originated from Europe and came to Belize to escapepersecution after the Second World War. The men wear a dungaree type garbwith checked shirts and distinctive hats, while the women wear long patterneddresses and headscarves. Many shun modern technology, but quite a few now usemachinery on their farms. We were surprised to hear they make up over 10% ofBelize’s population. We were later told that they have a problem with inbreeding,which was quite apparent when you saw some of the younger ones!We climbed to the top of the highest temple which was 35m, to see over thetops of the trees with great views of the river and surrounding landscape.After this trip we continued a few miles down the road to a place called TheCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PANTY RIPPERS117ABOVEThe impressiveLamanai TempleDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 117

Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. Belize had suffered unusually high levels of rainin July and we had been told that the road to this village was under water wherethe lagoon had flooded its banks. We were grateful for Frank’s high groundclearance and four wheel drive as we couldn’t have got there otherwise. When wearrived at the visitor centre we were obviously the first visitors for a number ofweeks and were told that the first bus had only got through that day. They said wecould park up anywhere in the community and we settled on a nice spot by thelagoon. The sanctuary is famous for its bird life, and although we weren’t there atthe right time of year to see the migrating birds, we enjoyed a nice couple of hoursin the late afternoon watching the water birds with eagles swooping overhead. Thefollowing day we did a walking route out of the village. Although we didn’t spottoo many more birds, it was good to walk through the villages and see how thelocals lived, with everyone we met being so friendly.We drove a whole 20 miles to our next destination, the Bermudian LandingCommunity Baboon Sanctuary. Belize has abundant wildlife and it is nice to seecommunities getting into eco-tourism by clubbing together to protect the wildlifein their villages. The village of Bermudian Landing and the surrounding ones (withgreat names supplied by the British such as Scotland Half Moon and Double HeadCabbage) were once central to the transportation of timber from logging up theriver. A conservationist managed to convince them that they should protect theriverside habitat, not only to lessen the effect of annual flooding, but also to protectthe population of black howler monkeys, known locally as baboons. It’s been verysuccessful and the monkey population is around 2,000 now. There is a very goodWWF backed museum giving information on the monkeys, the rainforest and theconservation issues. One fact that stuck with us is that for every macaw (parrot)that is captured to become a pet, 19 die in the process.They allowed us to camp behind their visitor centre and we were given a guidedwalk around a nature trail where we got to see howler monkeys close up by feedingthem fruit. We don’t feel entirely comfortable with tourists feeding wild animals,but we have to say they are adorable creatures close up. The village was incrediblychilled and as we sat in the shade in the afternoon we had a stream of localsstopping by for a chat. One persuaded us to buy some of his cashew nut wine –not to be recommended. It looked like a sample and tasted even worse (I’mguessing). We also took our guide for a couple of drinks in the village pub. Wehad left Sol and Corona behind in Mexico to drink Belize’s Belikin beer.Most visitors come to Belize to go to the Cayes, a group of relaxing little islandsoff the coast from Belize City. We left Frank & Betty for four nights in the PortCustoms compound as recommended by the border customs officer, after a bit ofpaperwork and great reassurances from Martin the security officer, who said hisboss ‘would have his balls’ if anything happened to our vehicle. We headed to Caye Caulker, a small tropical island surrounded by bright blueseas and a coral reef near the shore. To be honest there’s not much to do on theisland other than swing in a hammock, so most people are out on the water during118DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 118

the day, diving, snorkelling and visiting other islands, but it gets quite lively atnight with countless bars and eateries. Our main objective here was to dive theBlue Hole, a round sinkhole out at sea 300m across and 120m deep. We bookeda trip which took us out on a powerful speed boat for the two hour journey to thesite. We passed some real Robinson Crusoe type islands, with just a couple ofpalm trees on a patch of sand in the middle of the ocean. The Blue Hole is astunning site from above, but from sea level you don’t get any perspective on it. Iwas pretty nervous about the dive as it is much deeper than anything we’ve donebefore at 42m, the water’s pretty gloomy due to overhanging rocks and to top itall, it’s full of sharks. Due to the depth we could only stay down for about 25minutes, so we basically just descended, swam through some stalactites and cameback up. It was pretty dark down there and we could see lots of ugly mean lookingbig fish and one large bull shark. We can’t say it was a totally enjoyable dive. It’smore of a tick in the box to say we’ve done it. The subsequent two dives aroundLighthouse Reef were far nicer, with beautiful coral, turtles and stingrays.Apart from this we had a day totally chilling on the island and hired bikes tocycle the whole way round, which took less than an hour. We snorkelled in Sharkand Ray Alley, where nurse sharks and stingrays visit the boats to be fed and wefloated in the water while they glided past. We met a very nice couple, Victoriafrom Barnsley and Siebe from the Netherlands, and we had a good time acquiringa taste for a local cocktail called a Panty Ripper, which is coconut rum andpineapple juice, whilst toasting our many dives.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PANTY RIPPERS119LEFTA Nurse Shark thatjoined us for a swim!ABOVEMain street on CayeCaulkerDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 119

Back on the mainland, reunited with Frank & Betty, we headed off down the coastsouth of Belize City. Colin had kindly passed on a stinking cold he’d got at CayeCaulker, so we were both feeling pretty rough when we reached the small village ofGales Point which sits on a peninsula at the end of a lagoon known for its manateesand turtles. On entering the village we were stopped by a colourful Rastafarian whosaid he could take us out on his boat which we weren’t convinced was seaworthy. Wesaid we’d think about it, but it was pretty expensive and as we were both feeling a bitjaded decided against it. We stopped for a drink at a place called Gentles Cool Spot,and got chatting to none other than Mr Raymond Gentle who suited his name andtold us lots of interesting things about himself and the village in his soft liltingCaribbean voice. They said we were welcome to camp there and Mr Gentle enticedus with details of his fruit wines, but we did get a bit put off when he said he’d taughtthe guys at Bermudian Landing how to make cashew wine! I’m pretty sure we could have had a great evening there, but we both felt weneeded a quiet evening to recuperate, so we said our goodbyes and headed downthe coast to another small Garifunan fishing village called Hopkins. It was prettyquiet there, being out of season, but we could see it was starting to be developedwith modern holiday homes which will kill the charm of this place pretty quickly.As I was buying some fresh fruit and vegetables, a Canadian lady pulled over andasked Colin where we were heading. She said we were welcome to park at herplace, Jungle Jeanies, where we could park on the edge of the beach. It was a greatspot, and we parked under a palm tree for the night enjoying the cooler sea breeze.After a leisurely morning we headed to Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary,the world’s first jaguar sanctuary. It was a bumpy six mile drive from the mainroad into the heart of the jungle. We set up camp on their heli-pad, and had 24hours there walking several trails, swimming in waterfall pools and getting eatenalive by all sorts of bugs. We didn’t see any jaguars, but on our early morning walkwe did see very fresh tracks in the mud. There are supposed to be about 70 jaguarsliving in the area, but they are rarely seen.We had a lot of rain overnight and the next morning we were worried aboutgetting stuck in the mud, but Colin somehow got Frank’s big bulk out. We had adrive around some other villages nearby and ended up in Dangriga, the main townin the region, but we decided to head back to our beach spot in Hopkins foranother night. That night we experienced a massive tropical storm. I don’t thinkI’ve ever seen such bright lightening, even with my eyes closed and under the coversI could see white light, and the thunder rocked the whole earth.We headed west aiming to get to the other side of Belmopan, Belize’s bizarrelittle capital. We stopped off at the Blue Hole National Park (a different blue hole)where there is supposed to be an azure blue swimming hole fed by an undergroundcave. When we arrived we were told it was the Brown Hole today after all the rain,so we had just a quick cold swim and we were on our way. Belmopan was a bit ofa joke as far as capitals go and once again we’d driven past it without realising. Ithas a population of just 8,000.120DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 120

A few miles the other side of Belmopan was Pooks Hill, a jungle lodge. WhenI was working at Danum Valley in Sabah, my Raleigh group helped a youngscientist called Jake who was from Belize. When I told him Colin and I would bevisiting later in the year he said we must call in at his parents’ place, as it was awonderful spot and they would be happy to see us. Pooks Hill is set in a stunninglocation, nestled in the jungle, with some Mayan ruins sat in the middle of it.The guest accommodation is made up of about 12 smart cabanas and there is anopen sided bar/communal area where guests can sit bird watching. Vicki, Jake’smother, arrived and instantly made us very welcome. His father Ray had gone ona last minute trip to England. There were no other tourists there (being out ofseason) so she insisted we stay in one of the cabanas and join her and Ben, thehead guide, for our meals. We did feel a little uneasy at getting so muchhospitality, as we’d really only intended to park in their grounds doing our owncooking. I felt a bit of a fraud seeing as I hardly knew her son. The first morning we got up at dawn to do some bird watching with Ben. Wewere lucky enough to see keel billed toucans which are theones with bright coloured beaks. That afternoon Ben alsotook us river tubing and swimming in their local river. Theprices of the tours they offered looked geared towardsAmericans, but Vicki offered us a caving tour at cost price toActun Tunichil Muknal caves. It was a fantastic trip. Wewalked the four miles from the lodge to the caves walking onjungle paths wading through rivers. We then had to swimthrough the entrance of the caves and then with headlighttorches waded and swam for about 45 minutes through thepassageways. We finally climbed up the cavern wall to a largechamber area where Mayans once carried out sacrificialceremonies. It was fascinating. There were the remains of potsthat they used to smash as part of the rituals, and the skeletal remains of foursacrificed bodies. The cave’s features were incredible, creating an eerieatmosphere. Vicki was an excellent hostess and she was a very inspirational lady, with lotsof energy and ideas of what she wanted to do. We thought that after three nightswe were pushing our luck, so we headed off towards the Guatemalan border. Wehad a night at San Ignatio, quite a lively little town geared towards backpackers.There was an English overland truck at our campsite which had come up fromPanama, and we managed to get some information on their routes and wherethey had camped before the driver polished off a bottle of rum. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | PANTY RIPPERS121DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 121

Learning the Lingo September 2006: GuatemalaWELL, WE HAVE HAD A CHANGE of roles on this update with me writing it and Lizthe editor. So those of you that know me well will be thinking at least this one willbe short and those of you that know me very well will be wondering to whom I’vedelegated it too! In Guatemala, from 1970 until 1996, civil war was responsible for over 100,000deaths with the same number becoming refugees in neighbouring countries. In2003 they had their second election in 40 years, which was contested by two gents,Mr Portillo, a self confessed murderer who promised to be tough on crime, citinghis murders as proof of his ability to defend his people and Mr Montt who hadpreviously lead a military coup in 1982 and in the run up to the election madesizeable payments to members of the defence force who had carried out manyatrocities during the civil war. He promised pardons to all those in the militarywho had carried out the crimes against their own citing that if they prosecutedthem there would be no military left!With this background we cautiously stepped into Guatemala onto dirt roads,passing a truck with a number of people hiding behind it holding pump actionshotguns. In fact pump action shotguns seem to be part of everyday life here. Eventhe trucks delivering water have a security guard carrying a shotgun riding alongwith the driver – in fact most delivery vehicles have a shotgun rider. I canunderstand it for beer (we are now drinking Gallo beer by the way) but water? Atnight Liz is often woken by the sound of gun fire while I continue to sleep, howeverone night I was woken by the sound of a mortar shell going off, followed by anexchange of machine gun fire. I took evasive action and pulled the sheets over myhead. Quite a number of men walk around the streets with a revolver on one hipand a mobile phone on the other. I do wonder how many shoot themselvesanswering the phone! The dirt roads gave way to newly tarred roads as we approached Tikal, in factfrom then on all the roads in Guatemala have been a lot better than expected.122DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 122

Tikal is one of the best examples of Mayan ruins in Central America. Uponarrival we organised for the following day an early morning tour. So at 4.30am weset off on an hours walk to the main temple which we climbed to watch thesunrise. The sky was clear with many stars and as dawn started to break all thehowler monkeys started up and the early morning mist rolled over the rainforestbelow us. As it became lighter the parrots and toucans started to make a racket,at which point the spider monkeys joined in. In all, the sounds and views werespectacular and eerie. The rest of the morning was spent visiting a lot of templesdotted around that part of the rainforest. Next stop was Rio Dulce where we parked up and caught a boat to Livingstonfor the night. Livingston is a really strange place. You can only get to it by boatand there is absolutely nothing to do there. The population of 8,000 are mainlyRastafarian of Caribbean origin, their ancestors being dumped there by pirateswho were being chased by the goodies (us Brits) at the time slavery was beingabolished. With having nothing to do but be laid back they spend their time takingor selling drugs. We were offered every type of drug possible except the one wewanted ……Imodium! (Pookshill revenge!) On our travels so far we have haddodgy tummies only twice – at the most expensive hotel we had stopped at inAfrica and the most expensive lodge in Central America – on the plus side it wasfree this time.The nicest bit of our trip to Livingston was the boat trip there and back. Theriver bordered rainforests, deep gorges and exclusive luxury weekend houses ofCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | LEARNING THE LINGO123DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 123

the wealthy Guates and foreigners. Rio Dulce has become the hiding place fromthe hurricane season for a lot of yachts (500) that spend the rest of the year cruisingaround the Caribbean. The yachts varied from one man dinghies to large crewedboats. We had an entertaining evening listening to the crews and owners swappinglong stories.The following day we drove to Antigua, an eight hour drive, getting ourselveslost in Guatemala City. After asking a local for directions he suggested we followhim and set off at ninety miles an hour weaving from lane to lane, but eventfullywe found our way out of the city.Antigua is a really picturesque medieval city nestled between three volcanoesand was to be our home for three weeks whilst we attended lessons at a Spanishschool. The day was spent interviewing different schools along with their familyhome stays, for two people and a truck. It’s very cheap when you consider we had124RIGHTA view of thevolcano across LakeAtitlan where wecampedBELOW LEFTThe colourfulSolola marketBELOW RIGHTA chicken busDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 124

four hours a day one to one tution plus three meals and lodging for seventypounds each per week. That sorted we set off to Lake Atitlan for a long weekend.We headed for the town of Panajachel on Lake Atitlan and parked in a fieldbelonging to a hotel right on the edge of the lake with an amazing view across thelake surrounded by volcanoes. The three days were spent doing a cycle trip to thenext village (it poured down), a boat trip around the lake (it rained all afternoon),and we visited a local market in the next town (again it rained in the afternoonafter a lovely morning). The highlight for me was the market day. For a start we got there by chickenbus – an old American school bus with go faster flames painted along the sideswith a collection of saints blocking the driver’s view, driven by alunatic who has never had a driving lesson or taken a test, at breakneck speeds around hairpin bends with one hand on the horn. It getsits name from one of the many items of cargo carried on or in theback of it. However I did feel safe as there were seven of us sat on thefour seats across – if we had gone over the edge I was so well wedgedin I couldn’t have fallen out!The market was a mass of colour with all the women intraditional costumes which varied in colours depending on whichvillage they are from. No matter what, these five foot high womenwith a basket on their head, a baby stuck to one breast and anotherstrapped to their back would barge us out of the way without anyproblems.Upon returning to the field where we were camped we realisedthat we had a problem. With all the rain over the past few days Frankhad sunk into the mud and to make matters worse the followingmorning a group of divers churned up the access road getting one oftheir vehicles stuck in the process. We took a run at it but sunk 20mshort of the gate. No matter how many bits of wood or dry grass westuck under the wheels we couldn’t gain any momentum. A lady whohad been swimming in the hotel pool came over in her bikini andg-string to help push and I showered her in mud just to complete thepicture! What pleasure! Well two hours later we did manage to betowed out of the field and head off to Antigua.We chose to study Espanol in Antigua because it was cheap andwe related to the Lonely Planet’s selling description ‘Antigua’sprofusion of language schools and drinking holes has made it amagnet for half-assed language students and serious cocktailswillers.’ However this has not been our view – when it is one on oneteaching there is no hiding place for the four hours and theafternoons were spent doing homework and in the evenings we werementally knackered. It’s a good job that Liz is already skilled atcocktail swilling.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | LEARNING THE LINGO125DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 125

During our three weeks at school we did a number of extracurricular activities.We climbed Pacaya, a live volcano. They take payment before you set off becausea number of tourists are either mugged or incinerated each year. We did get closeenough to the flowing lava to prod it with a stick (a man thing, sticks and fire!). Wevisited a few historical buildings and a coffee plantation which supplied Starbucksamongst other places.The first weekend was football focused. We watched Bolton v Middlesborough(0-0) in a bar. What a dreadful game. On the Sunday, or should I say Domingo, wewent to watch Antigua GFC v San Pedro (3-3) of Guatemala’s first division, whichwas great entertainment, both the football and the crowd. The drummers in thecrowd beat for the whole game. When Antigua were going forward it was thecharge of the light brigade and my favourite bit was the carrying off of anopponent’s player to the death march. We also learnt some new Spanish wordswhich made my teacher blush when I asked her for their meaning.The second weekend we visited a rustic lodge on an avocado farm half way upan extinct volcano, stopping in a tree house with the most magnificent views ofvolcanoes and a town in the valley.At the end of three weeks of studying Spanish it is safe to say that I have testedthe patience of my teacher and I am definitely not a natural linguist. I haveimproved my teacher’s English whereas Liz just gave her teacher a stinking cold.However Liz’s Spanish is quite good though, apart from getting some very strangelooks when she said that her hobbies include collecting dead fish which had beengiven names.126ABOVEClimbing the activePalaya Volcano DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 126

Holidays in HondurasOctober 2006: HondurasAS MUCH AS WE ENJOYED Antigua, it was great to be back on the road again withFrank & Betty. We headed straight to Chichicastenango, a small town in themountains, famous for its Sunday and Thursday markets. The evening before,Mayan traders start arriving from the surrounding area to set up their stalls, sowe wanted to stay there on Saturday night to see the build up. We parked up forthe night on the forecourt of the Shell garage – right in the centre of things, butnot the most peaceful of campsites as people were coming and going throughoutthe night. The traders arrived carrying big bundles of long poles which they usedto build their stalls on the narrow cobbled streets around the central square. Mostof them then spend the night sleeping under their stalls or in the surroundingarcade in the square. It was quite amazing when we had a walk around early thenext morning to see how much had been put up during the night. It’s a very touristy market, most of whom turn up on tour buses after 10am,but it’s very colourful and there are plenty of locals doing their shopping in themiddle of it all. As fascinating as the market, was watching the Sunday mass inthe church on the main square. Like churches we’d visited in Mexico, this was aCatholic church that was used for Mayan worship. The congregation was amultitude of colour all in their particular villages’ woven cloth and the air wasfilled with smoke from thousands of candles and from the incense being waftedaround. On the front steps of the church were many old ladies selling flowers,and a rocket launcher that would make me jump out of my skin each time theyrandomly set one off. We enjoyed a few hours soaking up the atmosphere of thetown before heading off again to try and find a place to spend the night beforecrossing into Honduras the next day.We spent the night in a hotel car park about an hour from the border and onceagain had a very easy border crossing the next day. We’d been emailed by aSlovenian couple we’d met at Lake Atitlan who are doing a similar route to us, soit was a help to know what they had experienced. We were given an official receiptwhich definitely didn’t add up to what they charged us, but we didn’t think it best127DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 127

to argue with them over a few dollars if it meant being let through with no hassle.Colin made it into the country before me, as they kept sending him up the road toget photocopies of photocopies of our documents. Colin also managed to checkthe premiership results in the customs officer’s newspaper. He looked a littleconfused about this unknown team Colin was looking for.Copan Ruinas, our first destination in the country, was only about 11km fromthe border. As always, the feel of the place is so different crossing that frontier intoa new country. Gone were the small people of Guatemala in traditional costumes,now we had ladies in much more casual and western dress. The countryside wasalso pretty scenic with green rolling hills.Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Central America. Although ithasn’t had the recent civil wars that its neighbours have had (Guatemala, ElSalvador and Nicaragua), it is a Banana Republic, and its largest export ispredominantly owned by the North Americans, so little of the monies earned fromthis stay in the country. As well as this, the country was totally battered byHurricane Mitch in 1998, which devastated the already fragile infrastructure andyou can still see bridges that have never been repaired and areas where the trees arestill stunted. Saying this, the North Americans have given them quite a bit ofassistance in road building as a ‘thank you’ for letting them use Honduras as abase to fight the contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, so many of the main roadsweren’t in too bad a condition, although you do have to watch out for the oddpothole that would swallow your vehicle. The main towns and cities here havemany North American chains that we’ve not seen since Mexico, such as OfficeDepot and fast food outlets. 128TOP LEFTFruit and vegetablesection of themarketTOP RIGHTA parade around themarket BOTTOM LEFTLife on the churchstepsBOTTOM RIGHTThe smoke from thelaunch of rocketshangs in the airDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 128

People visit Copan for the Mayan ruins, but the small town here is a lovely littleplace – white adobe buildings and cobbled streets, with a few touristy bars andrestaurants thrown in. We had a couple of nights here camping in two differentwater parks just outside town. The ruins were very impressive. I think this is thelast Mayan site we’ll be visiting on this trip. The structures on the site weren’t ascomplete as those we’d seen at Tikal and Palenque, but it’s the stone carvings andinscriptions on the temples and stelae (carved stone monuments) that made it sospecial. There was also a fabulous museum on the site. On the way into the mainarea, a whole bunch of scarlet macaws hung out in the trees. In large numbers theyare quite destructive as they rip leaves and branches off the trees.A scenic three hour drive took us to a small colonial Spanish town calledGracias. It was a sleepy little place, and although pleasant to wander around thecobbled streets, we felt like we’d seen all there was to see within two hours. Beingtoo late to set off anywhere else, we were forced into doing some much neededSpanish studying that afternoon.The following day we had a long but spectacular drive to a lake (Lago Yojoa)in the centre of the country. The first half of the journey from Gracias was onunpaved roads and it was probably the toughest driving we’ve had to do yet inCentral America. They are in the process of improving the road, but for now,after all the heavy rains, it was a rutted, and at times, a muddy mess. The roadwound its way up steep climbs with lush green scenery and great views back downinto the valleys. When we did reach the paved section of road it was nearly ashazardous, as we and other vehicles zigzagged between crater sized potholes.Our destination at the lake was a recommendation of the Slovenians – a MicroBrewery. What a great place it was. It’s run by a guy called Bob from Oregon whoCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | HOLIDAYS IN HONDURAS129LEFTA section of the ruinsBELOWLocal guys fishingand drinking on LagoYo j o aDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 129

is so welcoming to all his guests and to top it all, the beer was delicious, particularlyafter all of the gassy Sols etc. He brews six different beers – pale, amber, porter(dark), raspberry (my favourite), mango and apricot. We of course sampled themall – well it would be rude not to. He grows all his own fruit from which he alsomakes soft drinks (strangely I didn’t try all of those) and also grows coffee, but hegets his malt/hops from Stowmarket in England. From here we could go for walksaround the local village and an eco-archaeological reserve where the birds werestunning. We also had a row out onto the lake and visited some waterfalls.Next we headed up to the Caribbean coast. Most people head straight out tothe Bay Islands, about 50km off the coast, but we had a couple of days at a towncalled Tela first. Colin had a bit of a funny incident trying to ask if we could parkin a fancy resort’s car park for the night. We’d had a pig of a journey to get toTela through torrential rain, it was now dark, and we’d bounced our way for 40minutes up a flooded potholed road. We’d read that some other campervannershad stopped here. Colin went in and asked in his best Spanish if we could park up.The lady he’d asked looked at her colleague and said (in English) ‘did youunderstand a word of that?’ to which the reply was ‘no’, and then she said veryslowly to Colin ‘do you speak English!’ Now most people would have been quiteupset at such a put down, but Colin was happy to put it down to the fact that theirSpanish wasn’t as good as his. After all that, she told us that if we wanted to staywe’d have to pay the equivalent of the full price of a room – their policy hadobviously changed. The only saving grace was that she told us to try an oldbackpackers place just up the road, and the kind man there (Carlos) let us park up,use a bathroom, and plug into his electric for Lempira25 (60 pence).We drove further east along the coast to a place called La Ceiba where you catchboats or planes to the Bay Islands. We found a proper campsite here, owned by avery friendly Honduran lady and her French Canadian husband. They let us leavethe truck there while we visited Utila, the cheap and cheerful island. The BayIslands are supposed to be the cheapest place in the world to dive and do courses.On Utila we decided to do our Advanced Open Water, which to be honest doesn’t130RIGHTOne of a number ofsmall tropicalIslands near UtilaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 130

mean you’re a good diver, it just means you will be certified to dive to 30m andgives you a chance to try speciality dives. We did a wreck dive which we reallyenjoyed and Colin did some underwater photography. We also did a night divewhich was a great experience – the coral is more colourful under torch light andwe saw sleeping fish, a cute little octopus, and the iridescent sparkle of the micro-organisms. We’d really hoped to see whale sharks here, as they pass through ontheir migration in October. They were around, but we seemed to be destined notto see them on our dive trips. Utila was a great place to spend time. In total wehad six days on the island and did ten dives. In high season it’s a real party place,but at this time of year it was fairly quiet and mellow. The locals on the islandsare a fair mixture, much like at the Caribbean coast in Belize and Guatemala.Most speak English, although it’s the lilting Caribbean English where we couldonly pick up the odd words, much like our Spanish comprehension. Back on the mainland, we decided not to do as we had originally plannedwhich was to carry on eastwards along the coast and cut back down some remoteunpaved roads. After all the rain we thought this might be too tough a journey.Instead we backtracked down past Lago Yojoa and spent a night in a hotel carpark at a town called Choluteca just 40km from the Nicaraguan border.We’ve really enjoyed Honduras. It’s a very scenic country with friendly people.Most visitors tend to go to the Copan Ruins and up to the Bay Islands, thenstraight out, but there are lots of protected parklands both on the coast and inland.We have decided to give El Salvador a miss on this trip. Although it’s supposed tobe a worthwhile country to visit, we’ve heard some bad reports of getting vehiclesthrough their borders, both in terms of bribes and length of time, and we didn’twant to spend potentially a few hundred dollars for a short trip there.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | HOLIDAYS IN HONDURAS131LEFTSunset on the Islandof UtilaABOVEPhotos taken by thenewly qualifiedunderwaterphotographer(Colin)DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 131

Give Peace a Chance October 2006: NicaraguaAS WE APPROACHED THE BORDER between Honduras and Nicaragua, men swarmedthe truck and by the last 20m we had fifty hanging off every bit of Frank & Bettyall fighting to get their face into the windows, half wanting to change money, theother half wanting to be our guide through the collection of unidentifiable hutsstrewn around the field that was immigration, customs and numerous otherunimaginable departments for both countries. First job, exchanging the money Liz started the bidding on the rate from herhalf open window, then on my side I started the bidding against her highest bid.After a 25% increase we did the deal. Next Liz counted the money, checking forfolded notes and wrong currency, whilst I held onto our money until we were bothsatisfied. This still didn’t stop him chasing us five minutes later saying that we hadshort changed him, but we pulled out a schedule of all the notes we had given himand the total, at which point he slunk off. Second, after selecting and agreeing a price with a guide, we set off to a hut inthe middle of the field with what seemed a very large entourage. In the hut a manwearing a well worn red t-shirt who was part of our entourage went behind thecounter, took our passports from us, opened them and got the official to stampthem. So we had entered Nicaragua without leaving Honduras! Cutting a longstory short, the next hour was spent going from one hut to the next with the manin the red t-shirt doing exactly the same, getting us the required stamps and ouroriginal guide disappeared. Finally for the vehicle permit an official dusted off histhirty year old typewriter, slipped in some carbon paper and, using the same twofingers as I am using to do this, produced a vehicle permit (he could have donewith spell check!). At this point our hired guide turned up to collect his moneywhich we duly paid, much to the upset of the man in the red t-shirt who had doneall the work. The guide just laughed and walked off – ‘Welcome to Nicaragua’.Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere after Haitiwith 70% of the population living below the poverty line. This was immediately132DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 132

apparent as soon as we left the border when the road degeneratedinto potholes joined together with a bit of tarmac. Men andchildren select a small section of road, fill in the potholes with mudand stand there with their hands out for a donation. A bag of sweetslater, with Liz neglecting the driver who had been dodging all theseholes, we arrived in Leon.We first headed to a supermarket car park where we had heardthat you could camp for the night. The security guard said noproblem and then wanted a look around Frank & Betty saying thatone day it was his dream to do what we were doing. We left himand wandered the streets looking at the old colonial town and inthe evening we found a bar playing local music which was good funbut terrible singing. Upon returning to Frank & Betty at 10.30pm the guards hadchanged and the new one said that we couldn’t sleep in the truck. We had a goodrant at him, but he wouldn’t budge. So at 11pm we were walking the desertedstreets on our first night in the country trying to find somewhere to stay. The onlyplace we could find was a dormitory of a hostel, but by this time we were glad ofanything. The next day, after a bit of food shopping, we headed off to Volcan MasayaNational Park which has a live volcano that you can drive to the top of and peerin. It was an amazing experience if not a bit smelly with the sulphur. Whatamused me the most was the safety information – a board near the top told youto park facing downhill for immediate get away should the volcano erupt. Westopped the night in the park – it was nice getting back to nature after stoppingin towns for the last week or so. There were parrots, bats, large insects and ourguard with an AK47! On to Granada, a lovely colonial town with beautiful old crumbling buildingsbuilt alongside Lake Nicaragua. We spent two nights there taking in theatmosphere, sitting in the squares and people watching. We stopped in a hostelas the car park, albeit secure, would not have been pleasant.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIVE PEACE A CHANCEABOVEAt times it wassmoother driving onthe cart tracks at theside of the road thanon the road itselfBELOWWe appreciated thehealth and safetyadvice LEFTLooking into a smellysteaming volcano DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 133

There is a bit of an edge to Nicaragua at the moment. We put it down to theforthcoming elections on 5th November. Once, in Leon a young man in the streetstarted shouting abuse at us in Spanish (that was a waste of his time!) – somethingto do with us being gringos. In Granada a man came up to us asking for moneywhich we very rarely give, preferring to give fruit or the likes. Then he becameabusive and aggressive calling us gringo mafia and looking at his eyes he wasdefinitely on something. Anyway, he followed us all the way back to the hostelbecoming more intimidating.Back at the hostel that evening we were recounting the abuse story to aVenezuelan girl who we had bumped into a few different times during the courseof the week and she told us a great story. Being from Caracas (100 murders perweek) she’d had a gun put to her head eight times and her money taken. Nowliving in Amsterdam, a man had tried to pick her pocket and she had yelled at him‘but you haven’t even got a gun! Give me my money back!’ He was so startled thathe handed her back more money than he’d taken!The election candidates have their helpers driving around the streets with speakersgoing at full belt. One for the candidates has John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance ashis theme music. Along with pink posters and flowered banners they wave their AK47machine guns – well it is a start, mind you I’m not sure John would see it that way! ABOVELovely colonialbuildings ofGranadaBELOWA view of the islandof Ometepe fromthe ferryDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 134

Next stop was the Island of Ometepe, which is two volcanoes now mergedtogether to form an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake inCentral America. We booked accommodation based on a leaflet we had comeacross, left Frank & Betty in a hotel car park, caught a ferry to the island andhad a great two hour bus journey for 50 pence with all the locals. The bus doublesup as a delivery wagon/parcel carrying service. On hearing the horn, which wasconstant, people would run out and hand the driver a bag, or someone’s lunchbox or large items which were put in the back. We then progressed at a slow rate,not because of his speed, but because the driver knew everyone and took them totheir door even when he had just dropped off their neighbour. The finca westopped at was excellent, run by an El Salvador and Australian couple who hadmoved there two years ago. It was just twenty pounds a night for the two of usincluding food and drink, as well as fabulous views of the lake and volcanoes.We did a couple of lovely walks to some natural springs and along the beach.Once again I was Liz’s hero first answering her distress call as she showered witha scorpion and second stopping her from standing on a snake.Back on the mainland and after a two hour drive we arrived at San Juan DelSur, and after a further hour on a dirt track we arrived at a surfers’ hangout placeon the pacific coast. As you can imagine Liz and I fitted right into the scene. Wereversed Frank & Betty up to the edge of the beach, got out our chairs and openeda beer. By the way, Nicaraguan beer is OK but nothing special – Victoria and Tonaare the main ones. I had a good time being thrown around by the waves, well Lizdid, watching me do washing machine impersonations. At night we sat on thebeach watching shooting stars, drinking Liz’s cocktail special fromBelize, ‘PantyRippers’. In all a nice easy two days.Bright and early the next day (research done) we were ready for our nextborder crossing into Costa Rica. Described in one account we read as‘congratulations if you have got this far, then this crossing will be a piece of cake’.As we were pulling away from the beach a backpacker asked if he and his twofriends could have a lift back to town. He was still keen even after we told him thatwe only had room for one up front and two would have to go in Betty. We werenot that keen on travelling with two people in the camper, but at the same timewe knew that the chances of them finding another lift were remote. Anyway thethree of them, Jan from Switzerland, Aran from Australia and Kirsten fromAustria, climbed on board. Talking to Kirsten who was up front with us, theywere heading to the same coastal town in Costa Rica as us, so we offered them alift all the way, as long as the lads could handle being stuck in the back, which theyhappily accepted.Upon arriving at the border we asked them to take their rucksacks andthemselves through separately, as you never know what they could be carrying orthey could even be illegal aliens (Aran was from Australia after all!). As it wasLiz was already worrying about what they might have stashed in Betty.Anyway, we went through the usual rigmarole of a border crossing – fees toCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIVE PEACE A CHANCE135DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 135

pass through the town where the border crossing is, money exchange, vehiclepermits, compulsory vehicle insurance, vehicle fumigation, immigration andcustoms for both countries. Two hours later we were ready to leave and our guidewho had taken us from building to building to get the above sorted told us weowed him 20 dollars for a bribe he had promised to the police chief to stop themstripping the vehicle as they always do on the final inspection which took place afurther 200m down the road. Liz and I looked at each other and thought we hadnot come across this inspection before or read about it. So we jumped in the truckand drove off. As soon as he saw us he got out his mobile phone, we assumed todial his mate the police chief to ensure we got a thorough going over. Anywaymuch to our instinct and relief there was no further inspections – phew!A hundred metres the other side of the border our three new friends werewaiting for us and eagerly jumped on board, Aran holding a pack of cards and abag with a bottle in it, saying it will help pass the time in the back!The roads were the smoothest we had seen for a number of countries and thelongest we had driven without a police check. After nearly an hour a policemanstepped out into the road and stopped us asking for our passports. After inspectingLiz’s and mine he was struggling to find an entry stamp in Kirsten’s passport – herresponse was that she didn’t know that she needed one, at which point Liz and Ilooked at each other in horror! No matter how much she fluttered her eye lashesat the police officers they weren’t having any of it and said that we would have togo back to the border to get the three of them the required stamps.So an hour and half later we were driving past the same police officer only toohappy to show the stamps in all the passports and continue on to our destination.I was driving a bit harder than normal concerned that the light was fading, thepotholes were getting bigger and that we were starting to meet cars driving towardsus on our side of the road without lights on as they believe it saves their battery!As a rule, for these reasons and the fact there are no drink driving laws we neverdrive at night. Anyway, in my efforts to get there as soon as possible I neglected the‘comfort’ of our passengers in the back.Three hours later we arrived at our destination and I opened the back door tofind the two lads playing cards absolutely paralytic, having drank over half a 1.75litre bottle of rum. They both fell out onto the road and had to be helped to theirfeet. They started to tell us in fits of giggles how they opened the backdoor whilstwe had been driving, one holding the other by his trousers, while they had a peedown the road! They said or slurred that they owed us big time for the day’s adventures andinsisted on taking us out for a meal and a few drinks (tequilas) which was veryentertaining considering their starting level. We definitely arrived in Costa Ricawith a bang.136DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 136

Tortugas, lots of them!November 2006 : Costa RicaWEENDEDUPSTAYINGin Tamarindo for three nights. It’s a much Americanisedresort, with the main activities being surfing and watching the stunning sunsets.We met up with Jan, Kirsten and Aran again, and after several pitchers of beer,Aran and Colin decided they wanted to try surfing. Now Aran being a youngAussie I could understand, but as for Colin…. I was looking forward to somecomedy value (eat your heart out David Hasselhof). They booked a two hourlesson, while Kirsten and I sat on the beach patiently trying to get photos of themriding the waves. I may have had more luck with an underwater camera! Actually,to be fair, Colin did stand up for a few short bursts, but we could see that afteran hour they were both shattered. By the end of the second hour, they barely hadthe energy to push the boards back out, let alone stand up on them. Colin enjoyedit, but every bit of him was hurting afterwards.We carried on by ourselves to inland Costa Rica, our first port of call beingMonteverde, a beautiful cloud forest area. It was a very bumpy three hour drivefrom the nearest town. Considering Costa Rica is the most developed country inCentral America they have some of the worst roads. It was very scenic as wegradually climbed through coffee plantations and even got views back down tothe coast. The cloud forest lived up to its name, and we had quite a wet couple ofdays, but we did manage to do a nice walk in a reserve, where we walked overseveral very long and high suspension bridges.From here, we drove on to and around Lake Arenal, which has an activevolcano at one end of it. We camped in a field opposite the entrance to thevolcano’s national park. At night we could actually see the red lava flows tumblingdown the sides of the cone and hear the explosions of gas and rocks. The next daywe went into the park walking to some nice miradors (viewpoints), and followeda trail through some rainforest to old lava flows from previous eruptions. To easeour aching legs after all that walking, we spent a few hours in one of the hotspring resorts just outside La Fortuna, the nearest town to the volcano. This137DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 137

consisted of various hot pools, some a dangerously hot 160 degrees, and as it wentdark we sat in the hot pools and watched the lava flow on the volcano. Before we left La Fortuna the next day, we visited a very nice waterfall (LaCatarata de Fortuna), which involved a steep climb down (and back up!) a paththrough some rainforest. The water was very chilled and refreshing around thefalls. We had another incredibly scenic drive towards San Jose, the capital. We had to visit San Jose to register and pay for our turtle volunteer work. Westopped in our first proper trailer park for some time. It had been running for some30 years and had obviously originally been situated in a quiet suburb. Now it hadbusy noisy roads on both sides of it. One of the owners was a Californian lady,who said business was bad these days, with very few Americans travelling down intheir RVs. Most of their business came from occasional Europeans driving to orfrom South America like us. Colin became the best buddy to a semi-permanentresident at the park called Rock from the US. He and his wife seemed to live therefor six months a year – why they chose to park their trailer there we’re not sure,when there are endless beautiful places elsewhere in Costa Rica. Rock kept insistingthat Frank was the best model of truck ever built – we had to take this commentwith a pinch of salt as this was from a man who was driving a heap of a LincolnContinental. Anyway, being at the park gave us a chance to visit some swankyshopping malls and do a few maintenance jobs on Frank & Betty, the main onebeing to get the brakes sorted. They had been having a tendency to stick whichwasn’t very reassuring going down steep hills, when Colin would casually mention‘I’ve got no brakes at the moment!’ Our visit to the turtle project offices turned out to be a waste of time. We hadbeen told that we must pay the full balance owing in cash and that we wouldreceive training and an information pack all about the project. We were greeted byMaarten, a German working for the organisation, who first told us that we couldnot start on our intended day as the centre was full. The fact that we’d bookedour dates and had them confirmed several weeks ago meant nothing apparently. Hethen proceeded to tell us that we’d get all our training at the reserve and as heknew absolutely nothing about the project, we came away none the wiser. We’d selected our arrival date based on when the next arribada was due. Anarribada (meaning arrival) is where hundreds of thousands of Ridley turtles arriveat one particular beach to lay their eggs over a few days. No-one quite knows whythey do this, but it seems to coincide with certain phases of the moon. Ostional isone of only eight beaches in the world where this phenomenon occurs. So as youcan imagine we were none too impressed that Maarten told us we could try callingsome time the following week to see if any spaces had come up. We assumed if theplace was full, that an arribada was probably due, so we finally managed topersuade him to call the rangers at the reserve who said we could visit the reserveand help out if we found somewhere to park up nearby. We had a couple of days spare before we needed to be at Ostional, so we headedto the coastline to a lovely little resort called Samara. It was much less developed138DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 138

than Tamarindo and still largely inhabited byTicas, the indigenous Costa Ricans. Thecampsite was right on the beach and we had acracking spot looking out onto the lovely whitesand and surfing waves. There was anothertruck camper parked up there being driven bya couple of Canadians, Chris and Mel. Theyhad been parked up here for over two weeks. Idon’t think we could stay anywhere that long,but the two nights we had were definitely notenough. Colin hired a surf board to try andhone his surfing skills. His excuse last time hadbeen ‘the board was too small’, so he was alittle disappointed to find a bigger board madeno difference and he still spent more timeunder water than on top of the board. Wedeliberated over whether to spend more time here, but didn’t want to risk missingthe arribada.It was another really bumpy three hour drive, fording some pretty wide, deeprivers, to reach Ostional. Our initial impressions of the organisation didn’timprove when we got there. Maarten had given us the name of a lady to askfor, but she told us we weren’t working for her project and passed us on tosomeone else. The rangers spoke no English, and after a lot of hangingaround, another turtle researcher who spoke some English explained that therewasn’t a lot happening at the moment, the volunteers were waiting for thearribada which was expected two weeks ago. All he could say was it should behappening in the next week. It was now a Saturday and as Sunday was a day offat the refuge we decided we’d go away for a night and return the next eveningready to start.We drove back down to another beach area near Ostional called Nosara.We’d seen a sign for an English pub (the Red Lion!), so thought we’d call in thereto see if they could suggest anywhere to park up for the night. They were a veryfriendly bunch (mainly gringos) and one led us to a beautiful spot of beach wherehe said it would be safe to camp for the night. We had our first barbeque for awhile and just about finished it as the rain started. We’d left the hot barby standout for the night and when we awoke in the morning it had gone – our first theftof the trip. We returned to Ostional and met the other volunteers who came from aroundEurope, Canada, and the US. They warned us not to expect much in the way oftraining as most had been there two or three weeks and had received nothing.They also said they had been sat around with very little to do. They went onpatrols at 6am to count turtle tracks up the beach, came back for breakfast andthen maybe did a couple of hours beach cleaning. After 11am they basically satCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | TORTUGAS, LOTS OF THEM!139ABOVEThe turtles have suchsad wise faces DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 139

around the refuge. We’d planned to do three weeks here, but decided we’d pay forjust two weeks and see how it went.The following day we were up at 5.30am getting ready for the 6am patrol, whena ranger told us to get out on the beach with our cameras. The arribada had startedduring the night – talk about good timing! It was an amazing sight – the whole ofthe main stretch of beach was covered with turtles, some struggling up the beach,some nesting on the beach and others making their way back into the sea. Lookingout to sea we could see countless turtles being tossed through the big crashingwaves, then a little offshore there were the heads of thousands of turtles bobbingin the water waiting to come ashore. We were shocked to see the local villagers were already harvesting the eggs. Tous it just didn’t seem right that these poor turtles were using all their strength anddetermination to come out of the water, spend around 20 minutes digging a hole,a further 20 minutes to lay around 100 eggs, then yet more hard work covering thenest over, only to have a human almost physically move them out of the way anddig up the eggs. Before we arrived, we were under the impression that the locals hadbeen allocated a stretch of beach that was theirs to harvest and the rest of thebeach was off limits, however we were now told the deal was that they have 36hours from the start of the arribada to collect eggs, which they did from 5am to10am, then after this time they may collect no more. We couldn’t see quite how thisworked when they were still collecting eggs on the third morning. We were also toldthat they actually only harvested 1% of the eggs, but again this was hard to believe140RIGHTThe Arribada startsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 140

when you saw the endless sack loads of eggs being carried away. The researchersat Ostional actually said the harvesting helps the other eggs to have more of achance, as so many turtles visit the beach over the arribada that they end updigging up each other’s nests. Furthermore, there are so many nests that the heatin the ground stops eggs incubating, and the dead eggs in turn cause furtherpollution to the beach. We still couldn’t get our heads around why arribadas take place when so feweggs come good in the end. A statistic we were given later suggested 70 to 95%of the eggs laid were wasted through conditions not being right to incubate andpredators, which include vultures, dogs and poachers.After the excitement of seeing our first Olive Ridley turtles en masse, we nowhad to think about doing some work. A Costa Rican girl, Diana, gave us all atalk on the work we’d be doing and how to act around the turtles. Our first jobwas to set up two metre wide transects every 50m over 1km of beach. All throughthe night in two hourly intervals, volunteers had to walk down each transect andcount how many turtles were actually laying eggs within the marker posts. Thiswas not an easy job as often a turtle would be just digging a nest or covering a nestover and these didn’t count. Colin and I did these patrols twice. We weren’tallowed to use ordinary torch lights, with only red lights being allowed whichweren’t so easy to see with. We also had to ford a river to get onto the main sectionof beach. Through the night this got pretty deep, and was quite scary to cross inthe dark when it was full of turtles being swept along.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | TORTUGAS, LOTS OF THEM!141LEFTVillagers harvestingthe eggs at the side ofturtles laying eggsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 141

Our favourite job was counting the number of eggs laid and recording the timeit took to lay them. We had to find turtles that had nearly finished digging theirholes, lie down behind them and enlarge the holes that they were digging so thatwe could see the eggs falling. When the turtle had finished digging she paused a fewseconds, then the laying commenced. It was pretty hard to count the eggs whichdon’t always come out one at a time – often four or five seem to shoot out with apile of slimy liquid. The eggs look like ping pong balls and are surprisingly strong.There was quite a variation of number of eggs and timings. Colin had one that laidonly 41 eggs, while I had one that laid 168. Some fired out their eggs in 11 minutes,but my longest took 25 minutes. More turtles come onto the beach at night, so all of our patrols were at night.During the days we would wander up and down the beach looking for hatchlings(it takes approximately 65 days for them to hatch) and keeping a look out for adultturtles in trouble. The arribada lasted around five days, and towards the end theold and infirm turtles arrive. It is quite heart wrenching to watch these poor oldladies struggle up the beach often with deformed or missing flippers. When theydig, they don’t seem to register that they are missing a limb, and the sockets stillswivel around. We tried helping a few turtles by digging their holes for them withmixed results. As the numbers dwindle, the vultures are constantly on the lookoutfor eggs and hatchlings to eat, and start getting cockier with the turtles that arelaying. They even start pecking at them and we had several horrible incidents wherewe found they had pecked out the turtle’s eyes or were pecking an open wound onits side. A couple of times we helped injured turtles back to the water, thinking itwas better to have a chance to heal or even die in the water, rather than beingfinished off on the beach. We also found many turtles which had swallowed fishinghooks. They would have the fishing line hanging out of their mouth. Diana wouldtry to pull the hooks out, but often they were so imbedded it wasn’t possiblewithout doing further serious damage. Colin and I found a turtle that had just died by the water’s edge. Colin stoodguard from the vultures, while I ran back to get Diana who was keen to do anautopsy. The turtle was carried back to the refuge where Diana cut the undersideof the shell (carapace) off with surprising ease then worked her way throughpulling out the various organs. It was a bit grisly but quite fascinating. Half of thebody space was taken up with eggs at various stages of development. They wereheld in rows in tubes that looked a bit like paintball ammunition. The hatchlings were adorable. They generally come to the surface of the sandduring the night when it is cooler and there are fewer predators around both onland and in the water. They have a very challenging start to their life. Thehatchlings in the bottom of the nest push the higher ones out, and many of thebottom ones never make it out of the nest. Once out of the hole, they have to dryoff a little and their eyes open. They then make their way towards the sea drawnby the light of the waves. This is a precarious journey for such tiny creatures madeharder by footprints and adult turtle tracks in the sand that they have to climb in142ABOVEA Turtle diggingand then laying eggsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 142

and out of, as well as debris on the beach that they have to get around. Then theyhave the added hazard of seabirds and vultures snatching them, dogs picking themup and even crabs find them a tasty meal. This is nothing to the hazards they facein the water, where the poor little things are straight into a rough sea with a wholehost of fishy predators just waiting for them. One in every thousand makes it toadulthood – not great odds. We tried to do our bit helping them reach the sea byliterally babysitting them down to the water and guiding the ones who seemed tohave no sense of direction. It is a painfully slow journey sometimes, and it wouldbe tempting to pick them straight up from their nest and carry them down to thewater, but we were told their journey from the nest is crucial as it builds up theirmuscles for the endless swimming they’ll need to do. It also gives them a chanceto ‘learn’ the beach so they will recognise it when they return in 10 to 15 years timeto lay their own eggs.During the arribada, as well as collecting eggs, the locals make money fromtourists. For $7 tourists are shown a film about the community and the arribada.We watched it a couple of times and it gave a bit of a rosy view of how thevillagers care for the turtles – not the picture we got where they allow their kidsto sit on the backs of laying turtles or let their dogs dig up nests and eathatchlings. Then the tourists are given a guided walk onto the beach. Thevolunteers who spoke Spanish often had to work with the guides to translate backinto English for the tourists.By the Friday the arribada was sadly over and the beach looked empty with justthe vultures scavenging on eggs shells. Over the five days, it was estimated up toone million turtles visited the beach. We now had to go back to other tasks. Wedid a 6am patrol on the beach to count the number of fresh turtle tracks up thebeach from the previous night (individual turtles nest here outside the arribada)and record if a nest had been made. We also spent a morning doing a beach cleanwhich involved collecting litter and moving driftwood, which was a backbreakingtask. There was another group of researchers looking at the leatherback and greenturtles that also nest on this beach. These two types of turtles are criticallyendangered with only around 2,000 leatherbacks left worldwide. We helped theirteam build a hatchery on the beach, so that eggs laid could be relocated to thehatchery and given 24 hour guard. Once the hatchery was up and running we hadto do six hour shifts guarding the hatchery (6pm-midnight or midnight to 6am).It wasn’t the most exciting of jobs and got surprisingly cold sitting around for thatlength of time, but the stars were incredible with plenty of shooting and fallingstars.The refuge building was pretty luxurious and had extremely good facilities.Most of the volunteers slept in two dormitories, but as they were full when wearrived Colin and I were lucky enough to be put in a room usually kept for visitingofficials, which we hung on to until midway through the second week. There wasa cook, Yammy, who produced three tasty meals a day. We were a bit taken abackCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | TORTUGAS, LOTS OF THEM!143ABOVEIt’s a long crawl tothe sea and only onein every thousand ofthem will live to beadultsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 143

to be asked to cook all the meals on our last day when she was off – a bit dauntingcooking with limited provisions for up to 20 people. After rice and beans everyday (and most meals) I think everyone appreciated our spaghetti bolognaise. Despite having some frustrations at the lack of organisation on occasions, wedid have an incredible two weeks at Ostional. We considered doing a third week,but the work did seem to be drying up and as most volunteers had left or wereleaving within a few days of us, it seemed the right time to move on.We ended up heading back to Samara for a few days. We were quite surprisedto see Chris and Mel were still there making their stay over a month now. Colin didyet more jobs on Frank & Betty and we had a few drinks and some marathon cardsessions with the Canadians.We headed back to the noisy trailer park on the outskirts of San Jose to stockup on provisions before heading towards the Caribbean coast to TortugeroNational Park which is only accessible by boat weaving its way down a riverthrough the rainforest. We were incredibly lucky with the weather – it poured withrain on our way there and back, but we had a perfect sunny day there where wecanoed around the canals in the park. We saw plenty of wildlife – howler andspider monkeys, colourful lizards, fresh water turtles and birds. We also visited aninteresting visitor centre on turtle conservation work being done in this area. Therewere some depressing statistics on the declining visits from leatherback turtles andincreases in poaching.Back at the town where we had left Frank & Betty we got the terrible news thatPauline my stepmother, had passed away after losing her battle against cancer. Shehas been fantastic to Colin and I and we will sorely miss her. She and Colin alwaysteased each other about football, but she managed to get the final word in sayingthat when she had direct links to the boss above, don t expect Bolton to do so well!144ABOVELiz on beach patrol (not exactly BayWatch!)DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 144

Shipping from PanamaDecember 2006 : Costa Rica and PanamaWHILST LIZ WAS BACK IN ENGLAND for the funeral I based myself for the first weekback at the RV park in San Jose and set about getting a few jobs done on Frank& Betty. I had Frank serviced and the ball joints and the bearings on one of thefront wheel drive shafts replaced. Betty in the meantime had her cupboardsvarnished and her gas tank filled.There are two old retired American men living at the campsite. Rock who’sview on the world was to either nuke them or shoot them – Bush was a Hero!Mike on the other hand wanted to save the world. His caravan had been convertedinto a mini zoo and he was living in Costa Rica to get away from the ‘new’America and Mr. Bush. To say they didn’t get along is an understatement – theyeven argued on the one thing they had in common-dogs. Rock complained thatMouse, Mike’s dog, was undisciplined and had peed on his carpet outside hiscaravan. Mike retorted that he was well disciplined and had done exactly what hehad been asked to do.The second week I took myself off to an American resort town called Jacoabout two hours from San José. On the Saturday night I went into the town centrein search of a bar showing football, preferably English but beggars can’t bechoosers. I found one showing Costa Rican football, pulled up a stool and ordereda beer. Within a couple of minutes a lady came and sat at the side of me and toldme that I was guapo (handsome). Of course I corrected her and told her I wasmuy (very) guapo. She agreed with this and the relationship was going very welluntil she stood in front of the TV to get my attention. The relationship endedvery quickly after this. In fact I moved bars and found myself in a little back streetbar with a group of locals cheering on their team really passionately.Upon Liz’s return we set off to the Caribbean coast to a small very laid backplace called Cahuita stopping on a rather run down campsite next to a reggaebar. The dirt track of a road through the town was quite wide. Even so a numberof the locals used every inch in swaying their way down the road on either foot145DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 145

or bike. The next day we did a beautiful walk in the national park along thecoastline. It was exactly like a postcard of the Caribbean with palm trees fringingwhite sandy beaches. We got close up and personal with a number of white facedand howler monkeys.We continued down the coastline to Puerto Viejo, a bit more of a resort. Wefound a nice campsite on the beach next to some coconut trees, knowing not topark under them. Being hit by a falling coconut features quite high in the deathsleague table over here! When the lady that ran the campsite came over she advisedus to move further from the coconut tree. A great pastime of the local monkeysappears to be throwing coconuts at anything that makes a noise and Frank & Bettywould definitely do that. In the afternoon we sat near the coconut trees, readingour books when someone stole my sandals from behind me – the cheek of it. Onlytwo thefts in the whole of our travels and both in Costa Rica.Later in town we bumped into Mel and Chris again, the couple that we hadlast seen a month ago at Samara beach. We arranged to join them for ChristmasEve at their hotel car park next to a lovely surf beach and over the next two dayswe visited some amazing tropical gardens, saw a sloth in a tree, red poison dartfrogs and did a bike ride along the coast.On Christmas Eve we went for a walk in another national park which was justas stunning but very wet. On the walk Liz got stuck in the mud. At the time I wasbusy laughing and trying to get the camera out when I realised that she was sinkingat an alarming rate. I managed to drag her out one leg at a time, but without hershoes, then I lay across the mud and fished about for shoes, which I eventuallyretrieved. In the evening Mel made us a great dinner and we had a big cards session.Christmas Day we awoke to rain and it continued to rain for most of the day,but we made the best of it. The four of us, Chris, Mel, Liz and I decorated theboat shed we were parked next to with decorations and a small Christmas treethat Liz had brought back from England. Liz made a full Christmas lunch withchicken instead of turkey and we all sat down to eat, pulling our crackers (how Lizgot these onto the plane we don’t know as they are made with gun powder!). Thenwe drank too much wine, played silly games and finished the day with After Eightmints! All in all a memorable day.On 27th we said our goodbyes and set off for Panama, arriving at the border146DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 146

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late morning. To get into Panama you have to drive across a bridge designed fortrains where literally they have nailed planks of wood to either side of the raillines and you drive across ‘keeping to the planks’ looking straight down into theriver below – scary. Another hour later and after plenty of official stamping ofpieces of paper, we made our way to the town of Alimente where we left Frank& Betty in a secure car park and caught a water taxi to the Island of Bocas delTo r o .We spent three days there. We went scuba diving, visited some beautifulparadise beaches, hired bicycles and rode around the island. By amazingcoincidence we heard the voices of Chris and Mel in the hotel. It transpired thatthey were in the next room to us. We joined them for a few drinks and a lovelygreen coconut curry that evening.Back on the mainland and reunited with Frank & Betty we set off for the townof Boquette travelling over the continental divide. We had been going about anhour when we turned a corner to find vehicles stopped with engines off in theroad. Thinking that this was going to be a long delay I jumped out and walked upthe line of cars and trucks to see what was going on. A few hundred metres downthe road there was a jack-knifed lorry with the trailer wedged in the trees on oneside of the road and the cab stuck in a field on the other side. As I arrived so dida heavy duty tow truck.You have never seen such entertainment that they provided for the next hourand a half. Before I describe it I will just let you know that no one had been hurt,however some of the people had at this point been waiting 12 hours to continuetheir journey. The collection of drivers, passengers and locals were providingquite a good audience. A two wheel drive lorry with twelve horses on board haddecided that he had all the qualities of a light four wheel drive vehicle and wentinto the field to get around the jack-knifed lorry and, believe it or not, it gotstuck too completely blocking the route for anyone, except for the spectatorswho were enjoying this prelude to the main event! So next they got a couple offour wheel drive vehicles to pull and twenty people pushing (audienceparticipation) to try and tow the truck and horses out, which, with the effort ofspinning all their wheels they managed to get a jeep stuck as well. Then it finally148ABOVE RIGHTA boy watching overFrank & Betty for atip whilst we sortedthe paperwork at thePanama borderDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 148

dawned on them that taking the horses off might makethe truck lighter - Hallelujah! Back at the main event,the tow truck was having difficulty getting to the jack-knifed lorry because the cars in the way would notmove, scared of losing a place in the queue. So the towtruck just set up the winches over the roofs of the cars.An ice-cream man arrived on his motorbike with an icebox on the back closely followed by a policeman on hismotorbike (yes the ice-cream man arrived at the sceneof the accident before the police). The policemanpushed to the front of the ice-cream queue and then gotback on his bike with his ice cream in hand to watch theshow. Literally he did absolutely nothing the wholetime.The tow truck operator having now spotted the ice-cream man also stoppedwork for an ice-cream. Suitably refreshed he continued with the winches withapproximately ten advisers, locals and passing motorists, which was the samenumber of advisors the that lorry driver had, although they had different viewsas to the solution to getting the lorry back on the road. It reminded me of aChristmas cracker, the trailer being pulled one way by the truck and the otherby the tow truck. Adding to the mayhem were the twelve horses tethered to afence, different vehicles and at one point one was actually tethered to the towtruck! By pure luck the tow truck managed to move the rear end of the traileracross just enough for a car to squeeze by. It was then like one of the old startsin the 24 hour Le Mans with everyone racing to their cars to get to the gap.I was still standing there enjoying the entertainment when I noticed twopetrol tankers heading for the queue to get through the gap which was just bigenough for one car! So I decided to join the mayhem and raced back to Liz,Frank & Betty, pushed in front of the petrol tankers and quickly got past thejack-knifed lorry. In the rear view mirror I could see horses, stuck cars, lorriesand the little gap just about to be filled by a petrol tanker. The audiencedefinitely had a show to remember and I think it was going to continue for afew more hours.Boquette, our destination, is a little town half way down the continentaldivide. It is famous in this part of the world for its flowers with poinsettiasgrowing wild along the side of the roads which was very seasonal. We met andspent a nice New Year’s Eve with a retired Canadian couple, Gerry and Sharon,who make us look like amateurs at this travelling game. They had been on theroad for three years and had driven from Canada to the southern tip of SouthAmerica and are now on their way home.On New Year’s Day we headed in the direction of Panama City stoppingmid afternoon at a beach for the night. The beach was one gigantic New Year’sDay party. As far as you could see were drunken Panamanians partying veryCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SHIPPING FROM PANAMA149ABOVEThe mayhem causedby the jack-knifedlorry and the ice-cream manDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 149

hard all having their own sound system. Luckily they all left early evening leavingLiz and I with all their rubbish.On to Panama City where we had arranged to meet up with Toby and Gudrunat the offices of the shipping agency. We had been put in touch with them via theSlovenian couple whom we had met in Guatemala. After a few emailconversations we had agreed to share a 12m shipping container for theirLandrover and Frank & Betty for the journey between the port of Colon inPanama and Cartagena in Columbia. At the agency we got our draft bill oflading and the agent, Evelyn, went through the procedure for us to complete allthe paperwork which sounded a real challenge of patience, which isn’t one of mystrongest skills!We spent the next few nights in the car park of a yacht club where we also metRene and Doris, a Swiss couple travelling with a similar truck to us but with adifferent type of camper. The evening was spent swapping information andhumorous travel stories which was nice as we have only met four other couplestravelling in vehicles since we left North America.The next morning we were ready for our paper chase tour of Panama City!8.00 am We were at the Police Vehicle Bureau. Within minutes the officer hadspotted a mistake in our paperwork. The customs man when we entered thecountry had incorrectly copied my passport number by one digit. Obviously agenuine mistake but the officer was having none of it and told us we would haveto go to the customs office and have the form corrected before he would progressanything. He also refused to do anything on Toby and Gudrun’s paperworkbecause they were with us. 9.30 am At the customs office the receptionist pointed us up the stairs to a manin an office. He sent us to an office around the corner, where a lady sent us backto the original office. He this time sent us to a window next to the reception backat the entrance. A sign writer could make a fortune here! This lady was actuallyhelpful and reissued the forms and stamped them with great gusto.10.15 am Back at the Police Vehicle Bureau. They took our new paperwork thenmade us sit for half an hour before stamping it and sent us across the road to theoffice of the Secretary General11.00 am Here they checked to see if we had any outstanding motoringoffences. As their computers are not networked I wasn‘t sure how they were goingto carry this out. Whilst they were busy doing something, Gudrun and myself wereentertained in the reception by the security. Liz and Toby had stayed with thevehicles. The security for the office insisted that all visitors went through the metaldetectors even though it was very obvious that it wasn’t plugged in. So even thepoliceman carrying a revolver on his hip didn’t trigger it off! Anyway, an hour anda half later they decided we had no outstanding traffic offences and handed us acompleted form duly stamped when I noticed they had spelt my name incorrectly.When I pointed this out she said it didn’t matter ‘No problema’. After the episodeearlier I asked her to correct it which she did with a scowl. As a souvenir I kept the150DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 150

visitors badge which had the spelling of General wrong as in ‘Genral Secretary’sOffice’.12.20 pm Back at the customs office and now knowing where to go, we handedback the form that she had given us earlier and she gave us another one identicalbut saying it was only valid for one week – i.e. time to get the vehicles to the port.They really love their stamps here – you can tell the importance of a person bythe number of stamps they have on their desk.2.30 pm Back at the shipping agency, Evelyn, surprised to see us so soon tookall the forms and issued us with a bill of lading (four stamped copies) to presentwith the trucks at the port in five days time.5.30 pm Celebrations back at the yacht club commenced as we had heard fromother travellers that it can take days to get all the paperwork done due to mistakeson forms, issuing of wrong forms, long lunch breaks, just sitting waiting and notenough ink for the stamps!Overall we liked Panama City – it seems to have everything. It had a financialdistrict of sky scrapers, the first we had seen since North America. A colonialdistrict with some wonderful architecture, modern shopping malls, yacht clubsand lovely cheap sea food restaurants. Land prices are low at the moment but itis definitely taking off as a place to retire too. You could live here easily.The next day we headed in the direction of the port of Colon on the Atlanticcoast spending most of the day at the Panama Ship canal, which is an amazingpiece of engineering, watching the massive container ships carrying 1,500 40ftlong containers, being guided into locks with less than a metre clearance on eitherCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SHIPPING FROM PANAMA151DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 151

side. The canal was formed using existing rivers, linked together by manmade lakesand three sets of locks which enable it to connect the Atlantic and the Pacificoceans. It is approximately 80km long and a container ship like the one Imentioned pays $200,000 to pass through. In travelling from one side of NorthAmerica to the other it saves 12,500km. We were also thinking about Frank &Betty being in one of those containers being swung onto the ship in a couple ofdays for their journey to Columbia.We arrived at the port of Colon where we spent a few hours going from thepolice to customs to the port authorities collecting more pieces of paper. Thesewere handed to someone else who stamped them and then we returned them backto the customs man for checking again. He wanted copies in triplicate – Oh whatfun! We were then given a loading time of 1.30 pm and surprisingly we were metat 1.30 – a first for Central America. We, Toby in the Landover and myself in Frank& Betty, had to follow a car into the port to the container loading area where wehad to wait for port security to check the inside of the empty container. Liz andGudrun were not allowed into the loading area – only one person per vehicle waspermitted. Toby drove in first and they then lashed the Landover down and I drovein with just two inches to spare on either side – very good but I couldn’t get out. Iliterally climbed out of the window, slid down to the floor and wriggled under thetruck much to the amusement of all the dockers. The others are now carefullywatching my diet because if I put on weight before collecting the truck I’ll neverbe able to get back in! The container was then sealed and we were given morepieces of paper.The thing that really amuses me is that through all of the mass of forms andstamping of documents and security checks nobody ever looked in Frank & Bettyso we could be carrying anything!We caught the bus back to Panama City and after a night in a local hotel flewto Cartagena in Colombia and now hope to be reunited with Frank & Betty infour days.152ABOVEToby driving theLandie into thecontainer followedby Frank & BettyDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 152

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Just One More StampJanuary 2007: ColumbiaCOLUMBIA WASN’T A COUNTRY we’d planned on spending any time in due to theperceived risks of cocaine barons and guerrillas. At best we thought if we had toship here we would drive straight to the nearest border into Venezuela. Howeverwe had also been warned that taking an American registered vehicle into Venezuelamay not be too safe with the current anti-American feelings propagated byPresident Chavez. On the other hand, all the travellers we had met and reportsread of those who had spent time here were basically saying that Columbia wastheir favourite country of their trip. Toby and Gudrun had similar views so we decided to travel through the countrytogether for safety in numbers. They have now have been on the road for 10 monthshaving originally shipped their Landrover from Germany to Baltimore. Since thenthey have toured around North and Central America to the point of meeting us inCosta Rica where we arranged to share a shipping container to South America.They have a good sense of humour for Germans! They have that incredibleGerman efficiency and organisation in everything they do, which I think is whywe’ve been able to travel for so long with them. Gudrun has been commissionedto write for a German travel book publisher about each country they travel throughin Central and South America.We had three full days in Cartagena before collecting our vehicles which gaveus plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere of this beautiful colonial port andwalled city. We stayed in a nice little hotel in the Getsemini area of the city – a bitless glamorous than the central area, but currently being rejuvenated and just a 10minute walk into the old part of town. We spent some time with Gudrun and Tobyplanning our route through Columbia looking at the websites of other travellersfor ideas and advice on where to go.On the Sunday we had heard there was a bullfight at the city’s bullring andafter a lot of deliberating (in most of Central America the bulls aren’t killed, butwe weren’t too sure about here) we decided to go. After purchasing our tickets and154DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 154

waiting for the gates to open we started to notice how many children were in thequeue – in fact we seemed to be the only people there without kids. The showstarted about an hour later than scheduled (pretty good for Latin America) andas the clowns and dwarves marched in, it suddenly became clear – we were at achildren’s show! We stuck out the surreal entertainment for about an hour. We didthink maybe there would only be pantomime bulls, but first on was Supermansparring against a small bull. This was followed by Spiderman and finally a Priest!Interspersed with this were bizarre interludes with the dwarves. We were relievedwe didn’t see any cruelty to the bulls, in fact we think the young bulls won, givingthe superheroes a prod up the backside, but I don’t think we’d consider attendinganother bullfight, adult or child version.Monday morning, we were all feeling a little pensive about picking up ourvehicles. Would they be in one piece? Would we get them out of the port in oneday? We had read many accounts of other travellers who had taken days to getthrough the red tape of importing vehicles. Our first port of call was the shipping company office where we needed tocollect the bill of lading and pay some fees before going on to customs, then theport. Our first glitch was that the taxi driver couldn’t find the address of theshipping office, and left us to run up and down the road looking for it. Colinfinally located it – a building that looked like any other house with no sign. Theysat us down and took $130 off us for each vehicle for unloading anddocumentation fees. They then told us that we could not have the bill of ladingnow as Barwils, the agent we’d booked through in Panama City, had not paidthem. Columbian businesses clearly do not do business on credit terms. Theywouldn’t phone Panama, saying they would just email our contact Evelyn. Weknew from experience that Evelyn didn’t always respond to her emails, so ourhearts sunk as we saw our chances of retrieving the vehicles today slip away. In theend Toby used his mobile phone to call Barwils – Evelyn was in a meeting butCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | JUST ONE MORE STAMP155ABOVE LEFTGetsemini districtABOVEThe renovated oldtownDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 155

was to call back. Half an hour passed and she did call back, telling us she wassorting it out at her end and it should all be clear in the next half hour. An hourand half later we were finally given the bill of lading.We walked down the road to the customs building. They were pretty efficienthere and quickly processed the papers we needed to present at the port. It had nowgone midday, so everyone was on lunch break until 2pm, so if you can’t beat ‘emjoin ‘em and we had lunch in the customs canteen. We went to the port early to see if we could get things moving on locating ourcontainer and organising the unloading. After some time of being passed arounddifferent people, a port official organised passes for us to get access to the officeswhere we would process our container through. An English speaking guy in theoffice took us on and helped us fill in the forms and took them to the relevantdesks for us while we waited. We’re not entirely sure what he had to do, but itseemed to take an eternity. The clock was ticking – it was now approaching 4pmand we still had to get the vehicles out of the container, cleared by customs, thenget back to the customs house, which closed at 6pm, for our final vehicle permits– it was all looking very unlikely, but we didn’t want to halt the process and haveto start all over again tomorrow. Our man finally said that we were ready to go to the container. We were showninto another office, then finally taken to our container which was still locked andsealed tight. We now had to wait for the port workers to come and open it asanother frustrating half an hour slipped by. The container was finally opened andColin immediately spotted that Betty had got some minor damage to her bottom– she must have moved back in the container and the ladder at the back hadcracked through the fibreglass. Other than this though, there was no other damageto either vehicle. We were also relieved that Colin hadn’t put on too much weightdespite having eaten copious amounts of pizza in our four nights in Cartegena. Hemanaged to wiggle under the truck and slide through the window again to driveFrank out. It was dark now, and our customs inspector signed us off without evenglancing in the vehicles – another relief as some travellers have their vehiclesstripped at this stage. She told us we must go to the customs office in the morningto get our final temporary vehicle permit. Colin and Gudrun now had to go andpay the port fees while Toby and I waited and waited with the vehicles. Over anhour later the other two appeared having had a stressful time paying the fees. Ourhelper had thankfully stayed on in his office to make sure we were OK, but thebank in the port decided it was closing early despite having a sign saying it wasopen until 8pm. Our man pulled a few strings and got the bank to process ourfees, which then caused havoc with all the other drivers who were told they’d haveto come back tomorrow.Surely this was the end? Another port worker who’d been helping us outsideasked us to come back to his office for ‘just one more stamp!’ Colin and Gudruntwitched at the sound of those words. This stamp took us another 30 minutes andinvolved Colin and Gudrun putting their thumb prints onto a document in156BELOWNearly ready to go?DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 156

triplicate. Now we could go – it had gone 8pm, and we were staggered that afterall the form filling, checking and stamping another official on the gate wanted tosee our passports again. Tired but elated that we’d been reunited with ourvehicles, we headed off to a car park where Rene and Doris were waiting withcold beers to celebrate.We are still amazed that in Panama we did two days of form filling and signingdocuments and here in Columbia another full day yet nobody actually checkedinside the vehicles!The next day after picking up our final papers from customs, purchasing carliability insurance and groceries we were on the road again which felt good. Ourdestination was about 50km away – Volcan del Totumo, a mud volcano in a nicesetting by a lake. Colin, Gudrun and I had a wallow for half an hour in the mudpool in the crater. Although the crater was just 20m high and less than 10m across,it is reputed to be 500m deep which is a funny feeling as you float on the surface.After getting out, the local ladies take you into the lake and give you a goodwashing down which Colin enjoyed. We had checked with the locals who said it would be fine for us to park therethe night, but Rene had been talking to Helmuth (half German in case youcouldn’t tell) a Columbian holiday maker, and he ended up asking us all back tothe place he was staying with his family for a drink and bite to eat that evening.He said he’d organise for us to have permission to park up there too. We spent theevening with Helmuth and his family, and his brother in law Felipe’s family whichwas very pleasant. They insisted that we must visit them in Medellin, the secondcity of Columbia where they live and they would sort us out somewhere safe topark. We were bowled over by the hospitality and kindness of these people. Weall had a good feeling about Columbia.The next day we continued up the coast to Santa Marta, a port town andColumbian holiday resort. We stopped off here for a quick walk around beforecarrying on to Taganga, a nearby fishing village. We spent our last night withRene and Doris who were heading on in the direction of Venezuela, while we wereto head south through Columbia.We had a couple of long days driving, nine hours plus the first day, to reach thearea of Bucaramanga. We couldn’t help but notice the amount of militarycheckpoints and military along the road, literally every few kilometres,presumably in an effort to keep the roads secure and also to make the road usersfeel safer with their presence. Columbians have had many years where they didnot feel they could travel safely in their own country. They seem happy with thecurrent president’s hard-line stance on the guerrillas, which has made many areassafer, but has perhaps only moved the problems into remote highland areas andover the borders into Ecuador and Venezuela whose governments are sympatheticto their causes.On the way to our next destination, San Gil, we had to drive up and round thespectacular Rio Chicamocha canyon. A new National Park complex was beingCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | JUST ONE MORE STAMP157ABOVEGermans to the left,Swiss to the rightBELOWSat in the mudvolcanoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 157

built with great views and we got permission from the police and parkadministrator to stay the night in their car park. Our vehicles seemed to be biggertourist attractions than the view and we had an endless stream of people comingup to ask questions and have a look inside. We have to say that is a lovely thing withthe Columbians – they are always keen to find out where we are from and what weare doing. They love our camping vehicles, but we know when they are lookingthey are genuinely curious unlike in some other countries where you feel they areoften seeing what we’ve got that they would like. Gudrun and Toby’s vehiclecaused an accident while we were here. Someone was so busy looking at it as theydrove past that they ran into another car. Another fact I’ve forgotten to mentionis that Toby is two metres tall, so he attracts a fair amount of attention himself –wherever he walks, the locals always do a double take and turn around to stare. San Gil is another colonial town and has grown into an adventure sports centreoffering rafting, caving and kayaking. The town had a really nice feel to it, andthere were several good places to camp. Colin decided he should try to get thedamage on Betty sorted out here, as it seemed to be worse than we’d first thought.We called in at a car repair workshop, and after having all the staff make a closeinspection of Frank & Betty, the jeffe (boss) quoted us 700,000 pesos for the work(around $350). We told him this was way too much – we only needed a piece ofmetal sheet fixed into place and a bit of paint, but he just shrugged and said takeit or leave it. We left it, but as we were leaving, a young mechanic grabbed us andsaid he’d do it the next day (Sunday) for 100,000 pesos, so Colin arranged to meethim at 7am.When Colin went off to meet this guy the next day, Toby, Gudrun and I wentto check out a natural water park and recreation area which sounded like a niceplace to camp. Being a weekend it was packed with locals who love a good picnicand to let the beer flow. When Gudrun and I returned from checking out level158ABOVELocal traffic!ABOVE RIGHTStreet seller sleepingon the jobDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 158

camping spots, Toby and the Landie were surrounded by a large group of locals.They’d been camping overnight and insisted we must join them for lunch. Wedrove back into town to book some white water rafting and check on Colin’sprogress. He’d had an eventful morning. He was surprised to find the lad and hismate waiting in the workshop at 7am and even more surprised that they alreadyhad a can of beer in their hands. Progress had been slow – Latin Americans onlyseem to think things out one step at a time. Colin tried to show them that if theydid certain tasks now, it would save time later, but that’s not their way of working.They were now also on their fourth beer which may explain why Colin waspatching them up with plasters as they kept cutting themselves! The job finally done, we headed back to the park tomeet the families for lunch. They consisted of threebrothers (all whom owned car accessory shops in town) anda friend who worked for Coca-Cola. They were incrediblyhospitable, keeping us in beer all afternoon and serving usbarbequed meats, yucca and salad. They asked lots ofquestions about life in Europe and what we thought ofColumbia. It seems very important to Columbians to knowhow we see them, as they really know they don’t deservethe image our governments paint of Columbia. We had alittle walk with them and they persuaded Toby and Colin tohave a dip in the icy cold water. Before they left they gave ussome chicken soup – a local speciality. We took photos andpromised that we’d call in at their shops before we left San Gil. The children askedif we had anything British or German as a souvenir, and were thrilled to be givensome English coins and some German chocolates.The next day we were in town early to go rafting on the Suarez River. We weredriven for about 45 minutes out of town. The rafting was supposed to be gradefour, but it wasn’t as full on as some we’ve done in the past and we had time toadmire the scenery and swim a bit. We stopped on the bank for some lunch wherewe got to sample the local delicacy – fried ants. They weren’t at all bad but theyget stuck between your teeth a bit.The next day we visited more lovely colonial towns nearby, Barichara and Guane.We have been very impressed at how well preserved the towns have been that we’vevisited. The countryside in this area is just stunning. When we drove back into town,we called in at the shops of Fernando and his brother’s. Again they made us welcomeand people working in the nearby units all came in to say hello to us. They ranaround after us trying to find a few car bits that Toby and Colin wanted for thevehicles, and then were very insistent that we called back tomorrow before we lefttown as they had a gift for us. Colin was taken to another brothers place where theymade us a big Union Jack sticker to put on our new look rear end of Betty. We reallywant to make sure people in South America know we’re not North American, asdespite our smaller British flags they still seem to see the Texas plates first.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | JUST ONE MORE STAMP159DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 159

We called in to see Fernando again as we headed out of San Gil the next day,and were presented by one of the wives with hand embroidered cushions as amemento of them. We were really touched by how generous and friendly thesepeople are. They will never be able to afford to visit Europe, but they insisted nexttime we come to Columbia we must fly there and stay with them.Another long day’s driving took us to Villa de Leiva, a picture perfect colonialtown. It was interesting that as we drove into the region of this town, the locals’clothes became more traditional with heavy blankets, hats, woollen skirts and longsocks for the ladies. Villa de Leiva is packed at weekends with people from Bogotá,but during the week it is quite sleepy. It was dusk when we arrived and as we drovethrough the main plaza (one of the largest in the Americas) we could see there wasa film set there. We were later told it was for the filming of Zorro, so Gudrun andI were looking forward to offering ourselves as extras to work alongside AntonioBanderas. We found a wonderful campsite just out of town which we had toourselves. It even had hot water, which was well appreciated as at over 2,000m itgot cool here in the evenings.We walked into town the next morning and had a nice leisurely few hoursexploring the cobbled streets. Unfortunately the film set had been taken down overnight, so there was no chance of fame after all. The next day we drove 40km to a city called Tunja which has a Friday market.We had a very entertaining couple of hours wandering around the predominantlyfruit and vegetable stalls and looking at the traditionally dressed locals selling theirproducts. We have to say, the food in Columbia is fantastic, and as Toby andGudrun share our love of food we have been spending a lot of time sampling thelocal dishes from the food stalls. Two of our favourite snacks are arepas, whichare fried maize cakes. In Cartagena these were thicker with the consistency ofmashed potato, they would slice them in half and put butter and cheese in themiddle. In other regions they were thinner and came with toppings like cheese ormeat. The other was empanadas which are small pasties filled with cheese and/orRIGHTThe main square inVilla de LeivaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 160

meat and egg. A more filling meal is a bandeja paisa consisting of meat (beef,pork skin, sausage etc – often all at once!), rice, beans, fried egg and patacones(fried plantain cakes) – we have had this for breakfast as well as dinner. The cheesehere is also very tasty and is often served with a big bowl of hot chocolate, tuckedinto cooked bananas or with a strip of fruit jelly on top. The assortment of fruithere is endless, with lots of exotic fruits being native to Columbia. Anyway, after stocking up with fresh provisions at the market we made ourway to a region North East of Tunja called Laguna de Tota. The contrasts towhere we’d visited before were quite pronounced. The area was very rural and themain activity here is growing onions, the smell of which hung in the air. Wecamped at a recreational area on a white beach on the lake, not surprisingly calledPlaya Blanca. It had barbeque stands and a nice grassy area, but there was a coldwind and a heavy mist had rolled in over the lake, so we retreated into therestaurant there for a hot sundowner of aguapanela, a drink made of sugarcanewith rum. A couple of those soon warmed the cockles. We had to educate Gudrunand Toby into the ritual of sundowners which apparently they don’t have inGermany.The next morning we took it easy – actually we were still trying to dry all ourclothes which had got rained on after we washed them at Villa de Leiva. A ladyfrom Bogotá who had also camped here came over to chat and ended up takinglots of photos of our trucks and made Colin pose for photos with her dog! Wecompleted our circuit around the lake passing some nice villages and seeing morestunning scenery.After getting carried away at a Carrefour supermarket on the edges of Tunjawe returned to our nice campsite in Villa de Leiva which, now being a Saturday,was full of tents. The town was bustling with Bogotáns up for the weekend to gocycling and horse riding.We now headed in the direction of Bogotá. We were undecided if we reallywanted to go into the city, but one of Columbia’s main tourist attractions is onthe north side at a place called Zipaquira. This is an area of rock salt mining andhome to a Salt Cathedral which is pretty amazing. It is a huge undergroundBELOW RIGHTA man comes intotown on his horsewearing an Arsenalfootball shirtBELOW MIDDLELaguna de TotaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 161

complex where you walk past 14 sculptured Stations of the Cross before reachinga great big open area. It is very dimly lit which makes it very atmospheric. The carpark had a nice outlook from the hill over town and we asked if we could park upthere the night and were a little surprised when they said yes of course. Not manynational monuments in Europe would allow people to stop in the grounds afterclosing time. The security guards went out of their way to make sure we were in agood secure spot where they could watch over us and even made sure the toiletswere left open. While we were here a young boy was obviously fascinated with ourvehicles and kept walking past peering in. He returned a little later with his mum,got brave enough to talk to us, and even gave us a little gift of a salt angel fridgemagnet and some rock sweets. I showed him inside Betty, his eyes were like saucersand he wanted to know how everything worked.We didn’t go any further into Bogota, but skirted around and headed northwest to Medellin. Once we got into the mountains there was a very strong militarypresence and they were literally every few hundred metres. We stopped for thenight in a truck stop in the mountains. Toby asked one of the soldiers guarding thetruck stop why there were so many of them stationed here and he was told thatthere were guerrillas in the hills. Toby was finding it difficult to concentrate onthe conversation as the soldier was pointing a grenade launcher at his groin whilethey talked! On the steep, winding roads that connect Columbia’s main cities, we witnessedsome appalling driving – lorries, cars and buses all overtaking on brows of hills andon blind bends. The oncoming drivers who are forced to swerve or brake seem sounphased – in the UK there would be severe road rage at this point. Amazingly wehave already done 4,000km here and we are only half way through the country –South America is big!ABOVEInside the SaltCathedralABOVEA wave from theschool busRIGHTTypical driving – acar overtaking a carthat is overtaking atractor whilstdriving around ablind bend!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 162

Back to University February 2007 : ColumbiaBEFORE WE DROVE INTO MEDELLIN we visited an area called El Penol, which had a600ft bullet shaped granite rock sat in an imposing position surrounded by hillsand overlooking a lake. There is a narrow spiral staircase that you can climb toreach the top and get wonderful views of the surrounding area. The lake has lotsof inlets and islands where wealthy Medelliners have weekend homes. We drovea little further on to Guatape, another colourful colonial town by the lake wherethey paint the houses an array of bright colours with murals on the lower levels.We returned to the Penol rock car park, where we’d been given permission to parkthe night – probably the most picturesque car park we’ll ever stop in, lookingstraight out on to the lake with the rock behind us.We’d arranged to meet Helmuth at the University where he lectures. As wedrove into the city we were a bit taken aback at the size of Medellin – the maincity has a population of around two million, but it has spread down a river valleyjoining up with other towns swelling the population to over four million. The cityis at an altitude of 1,500m which gives it is a pleasant climate to live in, beingspring-like all year. Medellin was once home to one of the two major drugs cartelsin Columbia (the other one being in Cali), and had quite a violent recent past, butfollowing the death of the drugs boss (Pablo Escobar) in 1993 and the fall of his‘empire’, the city has renewed its image, and now has a feeling of prosperity andbeing a good place to live. Building work in the city is spreading up into the surrounding hills, andHelmuth has bought a plot of land way up in hills where he is having a housebuilt later this year. He very kindly let us park up on his building lot, which hadlovely views of the hills, clean fresh air and was in a very peaceful location – theestate had only a few houses built and occupied at the moment. With just a halfhour drive into town, it made a good base for a few days. Again we were overwhelmed by Helmuth and his family’s hospitality. He tookus to meet his wife Gloria at the school where she is deputy principal, and then163ABOVEEl PenolDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 163

took us to a great little local restaurant where I think he was a bit taken aback tofind that we’d tried most of the local specialities already. We had a day exploringthe city ourselves. Medellin has a fabulous metro system which is spotlessly cleanand an efficient way of getting around the city. In the evening we met Helmuthand Gloria for dinner in a lively part of town, full of trendy bars and restaurants.On the Saturday, Helmuth came up to his plot to meet us, and drove us to alovely little town called El Retiro. Again the scenery was beautiful. He took us tomeet a good friend of his Gustavo, who had lectured at the same university. Hewas now retired and spent his time on his passion for music, writing books andthen on marriage guidance counselling. He currently lives in a house built in thetraditional style for this area, which was interesting to look around. We were joinedby two more of his friends, Claudia and her mother Mariel-Carmen, and passeda wonderful afternoon. Unfortunately Helmuth had to leave early, but his friendslooked after us fantastically – we sampled the local drink aguadiente which is a bitlike rum, then went for a tasty lunch in a local restaurant. Later we went to havea look at Mariel-Carmen s new family house which they were having built.Gustavo had mentioned that on the first Saturday of each month, a stage is put upin the main square and there are various sorts of music through the evening, so wedrove back to enjoy it an hour or two.164RIGHTMore amazinghospitalityABOVE RIGHTParked up for theeveningABOVE CENTREViews from El PenolABOVE LEFTColourful houses inGuatapeDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 164

On the Sunday, Colin had found out that a Medellin football team was playingat home and poor Toby and Gudrun, who aren’t football fans, against their betterjudgement agreed to come along. Helmuth’s nephew and niece, Estefan andVeronica, also wanted to come along (Estefan is a fan and Veronica who supportsthe other Medellin team, Nacionale, wanted to practice her English). I thinkHelmuth and Felipe were a little nervous about us going to the ground, and insistedon coming with us on the metro to make sure we got in OK. It was one of the firstmatches of the season and the stadium wasn’t very busy except for the north standwhere the diehard fans stand. They were actually far more entertaining than thefootballers, who quite frankly put in zero effort, except for the occasional Oscarwinning multiple roll and ground thumping routine, only to leap up and skip offwhen the opposition had been shown the yellow card. The fans on the other handjumped up and down and chanted along to the accompanying drums for the entire90 minutes. The final score was 2-1 to Medellin (the opposition were from Pastowhich is by the Ecuadorian border, 2,400km away which is too far for any fans totravel) – not really deserved considering the first Medellin goal was from a penaltygained from a shocking dive.On the Monday, Helmuth had organised for us to give a seminar for somestudents at his university. The University of EAFIT is a predominantly businessand commerce institution, with engineering and language departments too – notunlike Aston University where I went many years ago. It was set in a very nicelandscaped campus, where students could sit out in the sun, had food courts andshops and even wi-fi – maybe not that much like Aston! We met up with Sacha,a German who is head of International Business Studies and Pablo, anotherbusiness professor. We were briefed on what we should talk about and given aquick tour around the campus. The students here have to be able to speak areasonable level of English, so thankfully we didn’t need anyone to translate forus.We got ourselves set up in the lecture hall. Around 40 students turned up –quite a good showing according to their professors. Toby and Colin took it inturns to give an overview to our respective trips – why we’d quit work and wherewe’d visited. The students then had a session asking us questions largely aboutcultural differences between Europe and Latin America. Over lunch afterwards,Pablo told Colin that he had never seen his students keep their attention for solong, as they are normally talking or sleeping after five minutes. We arranged tomeet Helmuth and Felipe that evening for a final meal before hitting the roadagain. They took us to another good local restaurant near Helmuth’s new estate,and we had a very nice evening sampling yet more local food, including blackpudding sausages, and knocking back quite a few aguadientes. Helmuth andFelipe presented Gudrun and I with some locally made earrings, and in return wejust gave them a signed photo of us – is fame going to our heads? We said ourgoodbyes to these lovely people – we hope that maybe one day we can return someof their hospitality if they or their families ever come to England.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BACK TO UNIVERSITY165BELOWFarewells and thankyous to Helmuth andFelipeDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 165

After a short diversion north west of Medellin to the attractive colourful townof Santa Fe, we headed southwards towards the Zona Cafetera stopping the nightat a recreational resort with a nice pool and campground at a place called LaPintada and then headed into Manizales, the principal town of this region, wherewe wanted to visit the Parque Nacional Los Nevados. We made our way to thepark headquarters at 4,100m with the intention of doing some short walks andspending the night there. The vegetation changed from green and lush to sparserwith interesting palm plants. A few kilometres from the park entrance there wasa heavy military presence – apparently the road forking off from where we werewas home to guerrillas at present. As we stopped to take photos, some othervehicles were heading back down and stopped to tell us there had been a landslideon the road in the park making it impassable which put pay to our plans. We calledin at the visitors’ centre anyway where they gave us a talk about the park, butdecided it wasn’t worth paying to go into the park only to see a very limited area,so we headed back down towards Manizales by a different road which ourguidebook said was shorter, but required 4x4. The road was in a very rough stateand at rate of just 8kph did not make it a shorter route by any means. It was alsovery quiet and remote and after hearing there were guerrillas not far from thisarea, we did feel a bit vulnerable. Our next destination was Salento, a small brightly painted town on the edgesof the Valle de Cocora, a very scenic valley famous for its wax palm trees, thenational tree of Columbia. We found a great campsite run by a charismaticColumbian called George. The campsite had individual grassy sites separated byhedges, and he had a themed ‘tent hotel’ area with an African tent, an Amazonianhut and even an American caravan. George showed us his own house and thestrange museum he had set up with varied artefacts ranging from meteorite stonesto tarantulas. Already stopping here was a big blue German truck. The retiredcouple were from the same region as Toby and Gudrun, and had been travelling inthis particular vehicle since 1999 going through Africa, India, the Middle East,and now the Americas. We spent the next day exploring the area. In Salento we climbed 250 steps to anice viewpoint of the area and had a walk around the main plaza which was setup with lots of food stalls for the Sunday visitors’ trade. We then had a lovely walkthrough the valley to admire the scenery. Most of the Columbians hired horses toride along the trail and occasionally came charging past shrieking. We travelled a little further south to a town called Armenia. We’d read about abeautiful hacienda nearby that allows travellers to park in its grounds. Toby hadbeen in touch with the son of the owner, who said we were welcome to stop therefor a few dollars a night, with use of their pool, washing machine and a room witha bathroom – what more could we want? Hacienda Bambusa is tucked away in abanana plantation and is a stunning place. When we arrived we were shown aroundthe simply but tastefully designed rooms, all with airy balconies and hammocks,enjoyed the refreshing pool, sat gazing up at the mountain scenery and got dizzy166ABOVELiz and Gudrunsample the localdelicacies in SalentoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 166

with the array of birds that inhabit the area. We were surprised to find anEnglishman staying here, but he was visiting Columbia for the first time with hisColumbian wife. We spent the next day hammering their washing machine,cleaning out Betty and getting on with this update. After the coffee zone we were currently in, there aren’t too many major sitesthat are possible to see off the main road due to security issues. Evelyn, whoorganised our shipping in Panama, told us we should not stop anywhere for thelast 500km towards the Ecuadorian border, but one of South America’s bestarchaeological sites, San Agustin, sits in this region. We have not read or heard ofany other travellers in vehicles going here, and other tourists we’d met had beentold it wasn’t safe. However George in Salento had told us of an alternative route,which would be a long way round for us (1,000km round trip from here needing fiveor six days), and Diego, the owner of the hacienda, confirmed this route was safe.We decided it would be a worthwhile side trip, as long as we checked along the wayabout latest security news. The morning we set off was Valentine’s Day, and Colinand Toby gave us girls a treat of pancakes with a glass of bucks fizz – little treasures!The road out of Armenia climbs to over 3,000m before dropping all the wayback down again and is very slow going trying to get past struggling trucks andavoiding Columbia’s legendary suicidal drivers. We got stopped by the roadsidepolice more than we had been before – in fact we have rarely been pulled overhere. We did have one policeman however, who wanted a close look at all ourdocuments (he spent a long time studying the Japanese page of Colin’sinternational driving licence). He then said he wanted to see our fire extinguisher.We pulled it out, and he spent quite a bit of time trying to prove it was not indate (which it almost certainly isn’t, being 12 years old), but he couldn’t prove it.He and his friend then started to ask for recuerdos (something to remember usby). Seeing the German chocolate wrapper in his hand that Toby and Gudrunhad obviously given them, we realised what they were after, but we only had twoColumbian boiled sweets to offer them which they weren’t impressed with. I guesswe’ve done pretty well to get so far through Latin America without being askedfor ‘propinas’ as such, but it made us think what an easy target our fireextinguisher is and we’ve now bought a new one in preparation for the lessscrupulous police in Peru.About half way along the route we took to San Agustin, there is an area ofdesert called the Tatacoa desert which made a good stopping point. We had adrive around the desert area which has lots of large cacti and interesting rockfeatures where the red soil has eroded away. There is an observatory based heretoo and we arranged with them to have a talk on the stars that evening. We parkedup nearby at a great spot overlooking the valley. The stargazing session wasinteresting, but the astronomer could only speak Spanish which made it hard torecognise all the names of constellations. He went around the various stars andwe had a look at some of them through telescopes. Saturn was particularlyamazing and we could see its rings. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BACK TO UNIVERSITY167DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 167

Another long day’s drive got us to San Agustin. It is a small town with somecolonial buildings and cobbled streets. Our guidebook had recommended we callin at a tourist office, but we didn’t need to as the 50 year old lady was literallyrunning down the street after us very excited to see us. She couldn’t stop talkingabout all that there was to do here and told us we were the first tourists in ourown vehicles to come here in 18 years! I started to wonder if things weren’t as safeas we’d been led to believe, but she assured us the town was safe, and it was justthe other road out of town over the mountain that wasn’t totally secure. A secondperson on the road had told Toby the same thing – about 20 years ago, manytourists would drive to this area, but none nowadays. We decided we’d visit theParque Arqueological in the morning and she arranged a horse trek in theafternoon to visit some more remote sites. We found another really nice grassycampsite just 2km from the main park, where we got a fire going and cooked thatevening. News had obviously gotten around that we were in town as another tourguide appeared at our campsite and talked without taking breath for 20 minutesabout all the tours he could take us on. We sat there a bit dumbstruck wonderingif we should point out that we didn’t understand everything he was saying andthat we’d already booked a tour, but he didn’t give us a chance.We walked up to the main park the next morning where they looked a bitshocked to have foreign visitors. We had a pleasant three hours walking around thevarious sites of the monuments and tombs. There have only been a smallpercentage of tombs excavated in the area, and in the park they have placed thestatues by the tombs in which they were originally based. Not very much is knownwith certainty about the origin of the tombs, but the remains in the graves havebeen dated as far back as 3000BC, and the statues 1500BC.Our trusty steeds were brought to our campsite early in the afternoon, and theycaught us out by being on time. South American horses tend to be very small andcompact and the owner of the horses looked amused at the sight of Toby’s legs168ABOVEThe Tatacoa desertwith some colourfulinhabitantsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 168

almost touching the floor when he was sat on his. Anyway, we had a fabulousfour hour trek around the area visiting four other sets of statues and admiring therural scenery. One of the sites, La Chaquira, was in a particularly stunningposition, set half way down a steep valley wall with views of the river along thevalley floor, impossibly steep slopes where crops were being grown and waterfallsdropping over the edge of the mountains. After we had last visited the site thehorses knew they were on their way home and almost galloped back into ourcampsite, which was just as well as the heavens opened and torrents of rain fell.We had a nice meal in a local restaurant and sampled a bit of the nightlife on aSaturday night in San Agustin – much like Northampton – lots of young peopleout drinking with not a lot else to do.We debated whether to have another day in the area, as we’d had such a longdrive here, but we weren’t convinced about the safety of some of the more remoteareas, and quite fancied another day at Hacienda Bambusa to get ourselvesorganised for heading into Ecuador. En route back Colin found a garage that hadnew tyres the size we needed, and although we still had some tread left on ourcurrent ones, we decided to get them changed now in case we couldn’t find theright ones in Ecuador. After having only good experiences with Columbians, hehad a frustrating few hours getting the tyres fitted, with the owner of the depotsuddenly adding on extra costs he’d not mentioned previously and they createda dent in our bumper. Colin, in his best Spanglish, lost his rag with them, but thestock answer was ‘that’s how it’s done in Columbia’. We arrived back late to the Hacienda where we had another day of washing,using the electricity for our computers and reading guidebooks. Colin and I alsocelebrated our second year since setting off to Morocco – it just doesn’t seempossible to us.We had a night in a petrol station on the outskirts of Popayan where we got agood meal – it is always a good sign when there are lots of truck drivers eating ina place as it means the food is good and cheap. We also found that Gudrun andToby had acquired a new pet today – a bat was hanging on for dear life to theirroof rack. It wasn’t awake, and we worried it would have a bit of a shock whenit woke up to find it was hundreds of kilometres from home and in a much coolerclimate, but the following morning when it still hadn’t moved we realised thejourney must have been more traumatic than we’d thought. Now its final restingplace is the Texaco Service Station!Our final full day in Columbia took us down from the cool heights of Popayaninto a hot valley with some desert landscape, then back up again to the 2,500mof Pasto. We went through some very spectacular scenery where we could see theDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 169

road we were taking snaking into the distance clinging to steep valley sides. Ouronly stop, other than for lunch, was at Exito, our favourite supermarket chain,where we purchased some cartons of red wine (yes, I did say carton – it’s amazingwhat you get used to when travelling) so we could have our final toast to Columbiathat evening. It was late afternoon by the time we reached Ipiales, the border town,which in keeping with most border towns was a grey depressing place. Colin andI lost a couple of cans of coke that day to policemen. We could see one of themwas desperate to find something wrong with our papers, then started proddingaround saying he was looking for weapons or drugs – we told him we only hadneurofen. Then he said Colin must have a lot of money if he works in construction.We didn’t like the way this was going, so when the mention of a receurdo came upwe threw the cokes at him and his colleague and sped off quickly. We guess thepolice are more switched on to travellers in vehicles nearer the border. Seven kilometres outside town is an amazing church, the Sanctuario de LasLajas, which is in a stunning setting in a gorge. We had a walk down to the churchwhere a service was just finishing – the wall behind the altar is carved into the cliffrock. Our guidebook says that this place is only second to Lourdes in its claims formiracles.We’d been in Columbia just over six weeks and have to say it is probably ourfavourite country of the Americas so far. Far from feeling a dangerous place totravel, we felt safer here than in many other countries. The landscape is soincredibly varied – the country has Caribbean and Pacific coasts, Amazonrainforest, deserts, mountains, historic colonial towns and modern cities. Best ofall, the Columbians welcome foreigners without treating you like dollar totingtourists. We feel lucky to have seen it now, as it is no doubt set to be a big touristdestination in the next few years.170ABOVEThe mist added tothe atmosphere atthe Sanctuario deLas LajasDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 170

Meeting the Equator againMarch 2007: EcuadorWE ARRIVED AT THE BORDER between Columbia and Ecuador, where it all seemedvery alien. All of the buildings had signs on saying what they did, the buildingswere in a logical sequence and there were even car parks. Passage through waseasy and within an hour and half we on our way.During our travels I have developed a bit of theory that the smaller the countrythe cheaper the fuel. Peru a large country- 33p per litre, Ecuador a small country-11p per litre. I was enjoying filling up Frank’s fuel tanks until we had an emailfrom Rene and Doris who are now in Venezuela and paid just 1p per litre,meaning that they can fill their truck for £1.50. Venezuela is said to have thecheapest fuel in the world. Still with Gudrun and Toby, we travelled on to Otavalo renowned for itsSaturday market. The local Indian population all come to town in their traditionalcostumes. The men under broad brim hats wore white, calf-length trousers andponchos. The women wore embroidered blouses, shoulder wraps and bright goldcoloured beads. We spent the day around what are really four markets, the firstbeing the livestock market. I tried buying a horse, whilst Gudrun tried to buy alight coloured pig as it would look nice barbequed (practical Germans!). Nexttextiles, where both Gudrun and I bought silly woollen hats- but it keeps my headwarm. The artisans market had us just looking. Then Toby came into his own inthe food market where he found a stall for us to eat a full meal for just 50p.A couple of days later we were posing for photos on the equator beforeheading into Quito. Before arriving in Quito we had decided that we couldn’treally afford a trip to the Galapagos Islands, so with our normal control of ourbudget, it was no surprise that within 24 hours we had booked a cheap last minutedeal for an eight day trip. With a few days to spare before our trip to the Galapagos and with Quitobeing nothing special, we headed to a cloud forest reserve in a small town calledMindo to do some serious bird spotting. We parked in a hostel car park where171DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 171

there were literally hundreds of hummingbirds whizzing around the garden. Earlythe next morning we set off on an eight and half hour walk and saw very littlebird life. Tired, disappointed and back in town we had a coffee to recover, just asa gaggle, if that’s what you call a group of parrots, flew over our heads – justtypical! However during the next two days we saw plenty of parrots and a toucan.Back in Quito we had a walk around the old city and arranged to meet Tobyand Gudrun for a drink as they were in the Old Town as well. They arrived lookingvery flustered with Toby’s shirt slit from top to bottom. They had caught a packedbus across town and Toby had felt a group of ladies banging into him with thesway of the bus. Just when he was thinking it was his lucky day he looked downand noticed that his shirt had been slit and his valuables wallet which hung aroundhis neck was also slashed. Upon further inspection they hadn’t got anything, buthad caused some damage to his passport and of course his ego! The next day we caught an early morning flight to the Island of Baltra in theGalapagos, sharing the check-in with cages of chickens. Upon arrival we travelledby bus on the only road on the island to the port to meet up with our ‘ship’. Theharbour was full of glamorous motor yachts and then there was our convertedfishing boat which had a list to one side! It turned out to be great as it could onlyhold ten passengers and being so small could get into many bays that the otherboats couldn’t. The following eight days were a real highlight of our trip and we wouldrecommend a trip to the Galapagos Islands to anyone. It was amazing just howclose you can get to the animals and marine life. Our guide informed us that theyhave no fear of man as they have never been hunted.The days dropped into a pattern of travelling to the next island during thenight, going ashore early morning and late afternoon with snorkelling inbetween.The amazing array of animals and birds we saw included magnificent frigate birds,lava lizards, land iguanas, flamingos, Galapagos hawk, night heron, great blueheron, lava heron, pelicans and blue footed boobies, a particular favourite of mine.Marine life we saw whilst snorkelling included marine iguanas, white tip sharks,black tip sharks, Galapagos sharks, crabs, penguins, spotted eagle rays, goldenrays, stingrays, turtles and too many different types of fish to mention, some inshoals of thousands. Sea lions were so curious they would come up to us and dartbetween us. We were lucky enough to do two dives whilst we were here, at a place calledGordon’s Rocks which is a known hang out for hammerhead sharks. As soon aswe put our heads under water three large spotted eagle rays glided past. On oneledge about 15m down sat four white tip sharks and yes we saw a large shoal ofvery large hammerhead sharks. Also in the distance we saw a manta ray.Early one morning, at 6am before breakfast, Liz and I decided to have a snorkelwith the turtles. I jumped in and moved away from the boat. Liz then jumped andin mid air looked down and screeched in horror as she was about to land on ashark! From all accounts she looked like someone in a cartoon with legs flailing172DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 172

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wildly as she tried to climb back on board the boat. Anyway I would just like toapologise to the shark that was rudely awoken and had a nasty headache all daybecause Liz didn’t look where she was jumping! Back on the main island we visited lonesome George, the last giant tortoise ofhis species. Actually, when we visited him he didn’t seem too lonely and seemedkeen on trying to keep his species alive with a female of a slightly different species.Sadly the scientists say he is infertile, but you couldn’t knock him for his lack ofeffort!Back in Quito and reunited with Frank & Betty, we set about trying to get abit of Frank’s suspension fixed that had broken in Mindo and also get a generalservice. After a bit of messing around we got it all done in four hours, but I wasconvinced that they had replaced the fuel filter gasket wrongly and fuel wasleaking out. I pointed this out and foolishly believed them when the mechanicand his boss said that it was just residual fuel on the engine dripping off.The following day we were excited at being back on the road. We stocked upwith some groceries and set off on the one hour journey to our destination southof Quito. Ten minutes into the journey, a passing motorist started shouting at usthat fuel was pouring out and I looked at the fuel gauge and could see it dropping.To make matters worse we were on a dual carriageway with heavy traffic and noU-turns. We had passed a Ford dealer, but no matter how many times I turned intothe back streets it seemed impossible to change direction, so eventually I just cutup all the traffic (they have done it enough to me over the last nine months) andswung into the Ford dealer with the fuel gauge on empty. Again after they hadrefitted the gasket, they tried to convince me the fuel still dripping was the residualon the engine, however this time I refused to be convinced and made them cleanthe whole engine to prove it was still leaking. An hour later, with the fuel gasketturned the right way up and refuelled, we were off.We followed a tram out of town and before we realised it the road had changeddirection slightly and we found ourselves on the designated tramway passing allthe cars going under the roundabouts and stopping with the tram at its stops. Wefelt like something out of the Italian job. Just as we rejoined the other traffic theheavens opened and within minutes the road turned into a river. You couldn’t seethe kerb as the water was so deep and as the small cars flooded, the traffic groundto a halt.Eventually we started moving again and a man came running across the roadin front of us shouting and pointing at the front of the truck, then another twentyyards further on a second man did the same, then a third and fourth. It was aparticularly rough area and I wasn’t going to stop so I kept going to a petrolstation which was only another hundred metres. I was suspecting the same fuelgasket problem. At the petrol station, as I got out Liz locked herself in while I hada quick look underneath, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. As I lookedaround one of the lads had obviously followed us up the road and he dived underthe truck and came out holding a broken ball joint. I looked at it and thoughtCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | MEETING THE EQUATOR AGAIN175DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 175

that it was far too small to be a ball joint of Frank’s – it was more like a mini’s! Asecond lad arrived and told us that we were in luck as they were mechanics and ifwe followed them they could fix it. At this point I jumped into Frank and we keptgoing. Yes, it had been an attempted scam and we finally arrived at Papa Gayo inMachachi, our destination, four and half hours after setting off.The next day we visited Cotopaxi National Park. We drove Frank & Betty upa very rough track to a height of 4,650m and still looked up into the clouds unableto see the summit. The weather wasn’t particularly good and it was cold so Imanaged to wear my new silly hat for a little walk around a lake in the park beforerain stopped play.Our next deviation from the Pan-American Highway was to do a scenic loopknown as the Quilotoa circuit which was approximately 200km most of whichback home we would call a cart track. We averaged 10 miles an hour whilsthanging on to the side of the mountain for a large part of the circuit. As we drovewe were able to watch the local indigenous people farm the sides of the mountainat impossible angles and take in the breathtaking scenery. At night we parked in thecar park of a hostel and were lucky enough to be joined by the village childrenwho performed their version of a maypole dance tying me to the pole in the process– how charming! They let us park for free as long as we had dinner there, which we were relievedabout, having run out of gas and having no fridge or cooker to use. The first nightwas a lovely three course dinner of chicken for just a pound, and the second nightwas guinea pig! It was a bit offputting eating your dinner with a grinning guineapig staring at you. We thought it tasted a bit like duck (greasy texture), but it wasvery fiddly trying to get the little meat there was off the bones. During the day we176RIGHTA snowy volcanicpeak in theAvenue ofVolcanoesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 176

hired the slowest horses in the world and set off down the side of the mountainand up the other side to see Lake Quilotoa, a beautiful emerald green lake in anextinct volcano. En route we were again able to see and meet the locals goingabout their everyday lives and take in the stunning scenery with views of snowtopped peaks. The six hour ride we were expecting took us more than eighthours – it was a relief to know we’d be back on Frank’s comfortable seats thenext day.We completed the circuit at a height of 3,850m and then drove to the town ofBanos at a height of 1,400m. Whilst staying in town we hired bikes to cycle the65km to Puyo on the fringes of the jungle at a height of 900m. Yes, on paper itdoes seem downhill all the way and that was how it was sold to us. But what theydidn’t say is you actually go down to 600m then climb back up to 900m in jungletemperatures and humidity. The return journey was a lot easier – we put the bikeson a bus!Banos has a very active volcano looming over it called Tungurahua and as weheaded into town we had a good view of its smouldering cone. All the locals toldus it was quite docile at the moment and there was nothing to worry about, buta week after visiting we heard that it had a minor eruption sending ash and debristwo kilometres into the air.After Banos we drove back into the mountains to Alausi to do a short ride ontheir run down and dilapidated train which used to run between Quito and thecoast via Guayaquil. Ninety percent of the line is now completely defunct.However the bit that still operates is one of the most scenic, traversing withswitchbacks along the side of the mountain and is now a tourist attraction as itdoesn’t actually go anywhere. Reliability or safety wise, it doesn’t have a good177LEFTLake QuilotoaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 177

reputation. Only the month before two Japanese tourists were killed while standingup on the roof to take photos. They were garrotted by low hanging cables. On arriving in town we set about establishing what time the train runs andwhen you can buy tickets, which for those of you who have travelled in these partswill understand is an enormous task in itself. The guidebook said tickets could be bought at 9am with the train leaving at11am. A hotel said 8.30am and 10.30am. The man at the café next to the stationsaid tickets go on sale at 9am and the man who owned a shop on the stationplatform advised ticket sales at 9.30am and the train leaves at 11ish. So we nearly missed the train as we were still inside the unmanned ticket officeat 9.45am when the train arrived. It was just leaving when the conductor walkedpast and noticed us. NB – you buy the tickets on the train today!We had just got on the train, made ourselves comfortable and covered akilometre or so when the train ground to a halt. There had been a landslide, so weall got off the train. The driver and the conductor started digging and before Iknew what was happening a posh English woman had us Brits organised into achain gang passing rocks along. The old North Americans stood and told us howthey have bigger landslides back home. The French stood and smoked cigarettesand the Japanese took photos! More quickly than I was expecting, an hour later,we were back on our way. The scenery was amazing and the train very rickety – itfelt even more so when Liz and I were sat on the roof with our legs hanging overthe edge of a sheer drop. We continued on our way down the Pan-American Highway stopping for acouple of nights at Ecuador’s second city Cuenca and then on to Vilcabamba, apicturesque little town nestled in the mountains.From here we drove to the border town of Macara spending the night parkedin a petrol station a kilometre from the Peruvian border. 178ABOVERoasted guinea pigABOVE RIGHTA landslideinterrupts our scenictrain rideDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 178

Deserts and Mountains April 2007: PeruWE HAD ANOTHER AMAZINGLY easy border crossing into Peru. Yet again thebuildings on both sides of the border were in a sensible order and even had signsstating their function. The Peruvian officials were friendly and Colin wrote outhis own vehicle permit which the Aduana (customs) duly stamped to make itofficial and we were on our way – no hassle and no costs.I know we always say it, but once again, on the other side of the border thepeople and the countryside instantly looked different. The Peruvian side definitelyfelt poorer, the housing looking more like shacks. The scenery was still impressiveuntil we got closer to Sullana, a junction town where we planned to head northto the coast. Our guidebook had said the coastal resort of Mancora was the bestin Peru so we thought it would be a worthwhile diversion.After a dusty desolate two hour drive of desert and oil wells, we arrived atMancora and have to say that we were a bit underwhelmed and vowed that if thiswas Peru’s best beach resort we’d keep away from the coast! The town is strungalong the busy PanAm highway and unless you’re a surfer, it doesn’t have a greatdeal to offer. We’d been given the name of a nice hotel that lets overlanders parkup in their car park, so we did have a nice day using their pool, enjoying the viewof the beach and surfers from the terrace and reading up guidebooks on what tosee in Northern Peru.We retraced our route to Sullana, which we’d been told wasn’t a city to hangaround in, then had a 200km drive through the Sechura desert. It is a longstraight dusty road which with its sand dunes and occasional shacks, made usfeel more like we were in Mauritania, West Africa again rather than SouthAmerica. We really hadn’t appreciated that Peru had this type of landscape,having only really seen photos of Machu Pichu and green highlands. Anotherthing that had hit us since entering Peru was the amount of litter strewn alongthe roads. It seems that the desert is also used as a waste site and there are largeareas where rubbish is just tipped and left or occasionally burnt with a few179DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 179

people living on and sifting through the mess.We headed towards the town of Chiclayo which has some pre-Inca archeologicalsites dotted around it. We visited the site of Tucume first, also known as the Valleyof the Pyramids, which is an amazing complex of huge adobe (mud brick)pyramids. They have eroded pretty badly over time and were particularly damagedby the bad El Ñino rains of the past couple of decades. However a walk up to aviewpoint on a hill in the middle gave you a real feeling for the scale of thestructures in view and how amazing this community must have been in its heydayof the 13th and 14th centuries.The next day we drove to another archeological site called Sipan, where asrecently as 1987 they had discovered an incredible burial site which unusually hadn’tbeen looted, as so many of the sites in northern Peru have been by the Incas, theSpanish conquistadores and locals in modern times. The actual skeletons andartefacts found in the excavations are now housed at the museum Tumbas Realesde Sipan, but they had reconstructed the tomb as they had found it which was veryinteresting. We visited the museum the following morning and we have to say it isone of the best assembled museums we have ever visited. The building is in theshape of a truncated pyramid, with visitors entering at the top and working theirway down. The displays took us through how the Mochica people lived, their burialpractices, and how they had discovered and excavated the site. It certainly made usappreciate how painstaking the work of an archaeologist is and what a fantastic jobthey had done of restoring the clothing, jewellery and pottery that had been foundin the graves. If you were a wife or servant of the Lord it was definitely in yourinterest to keep the guy alive, as when he died you had a pretty good chance of beingburied with him!Back on the road we continued south to Trujillo, a colonial city by the coastwith more important archaeological sites nearby. We parked up in a resort calledHuanchaco, just a few kilometres out of the main town. It was a strange little placethat looked almost like a tacky English resort with its pier, but we definitelypreferred it to Mancora. The resort is known for its cabalitos del mar, which areancient designed rafts made out of bundles of reeds. The fishermen kneel or sitastride the back of them having to ride the big strong waves to get to and from thebeach.We parked up on a grassy spot by a swimming pool at the back of a small hotel.Next to us was a VW Westfalia camper from Canada. Its owners, Douglas andKim, had driven all the way down through the States and were heading towardsBrazil. We spent a nice evening in town with them swapping our tales of the road. In Huanchaco we did our first of hopefully many samplings of the nationaldish of Peru – Cerviche, which is a delicious plate of raw fish, prawns, lobster,crab and octopus in a piquante marinade of lime juice and chilli, usually servedwith corn, sweet potatoes and yucca. We also tried Inca Kola for the first time,which is a radioactive luminous yellow coloured gassy drink that tastes like bubblegum. I prefer their other national drink – Pisco Sour!180DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 180

From Huanchaco we caught a collectivo to visit the archeological site of ChanChan, another huge complex which was capital of the Chimu Empire that ruledhere around 1100AD. We decided to take a guide which was worthwhile, as sheexplained the layout and functions of each of the areas of the large complex.There was a lot of symbology in the decorations and parts had been restored toshow how it would have once been. On heading out of Trujillo the following morning, we visited another set oftemples, the Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna. The Huaca del Sol hadprobably been the largest adobe structure in the Americas, but it wasn’t open forvisiting. We were given a guided tour of the Moon temple which has someincredibly well preserved painted friezes in it. It was now time to head away from the barren coastline to the CordilleraBlanca mountain range that sits between the coast and the Amazon. To reachthere, we had two days of quite tough driving, much on unpaved road, butthrough spectacular scenery. The road followed a strong flowing river, clinging tothe edge of a steep canyon, and the steep slopes often looked like a landslidewaiting to happen. We had to spend the night in the middle of this and decidedto ask permission to park up in a village rather than in the middle of nowhere.The village was just a row of houses, where the locals made their living sellingfruit and drinks to the buses and lorries that stopped here. We gave the villagersgreat entertainment that night and at one point had 10 of them squeezed intoBetty. They were very curious about Frank & Betty and about England, but wehad a bit of an uncomfortable moment when the conversation went onto howmuch they hated Gringos. They kept using a word we didn’t understand and wewere a bit alarmed when they did the action of throat slitting – had we gotourselves into a bad situation here? They must have seen our look of alarm andsaid we were OK as we’d spoken to them – phew!The last section of our drive before reaching the valley we were aiming for wason a section called the Canon del Pato (Ducks Canyon). This was basically 50kmof road through a steep canyon with the road passing through 39 tunnels.Thankfully we didn’t meet too many other vehicles coming the other way, as itwas a very narrow road for much of the trip. We finally made it back onto pavedroads – well they are paved until a random section isn’t which catches you out asyou crash into a pothole. We carried on into Huarez, which is the main touristtown in this area, thinking this would be a better place to see the Semana Santaparade the next day on Easter Sunday. Being a Peruvian holiday weekend, all theaccommodation in town was full and we had a lot of trouble finding a place topark the night. Huarez is not the most attractive town, having been almostcompletely rebuilt in the last 30 years following a devastating earthquake in 1970.We watched the Semana Santa parade. There were lots of colourful indigenouspeople there and a local mountain guide explained the meaning of the floats andthe displays going on. There wasn’t a great deal else to see or do in Huarez unlessyou are looking to use it as a base for trekking, so the following day we droveCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | DESERTS AND MOUNTAINS181ABOVEParked up for thenight in a remotevillageDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 181

back down the valley to Caraz which had a much nicer feel to it. We had a bit of a dramatic entrance into Caraz as we tried to find the hostel weplanned to park at. It certainly wasn’t in the location our guidebook indicated,and as Colin tried to manoeuvre Frank & Betty’s big bulk whilst reversing in thenarrow streets, we heard a horrible crunch. I thought we’d hit a car, but it was asolid lamppost that was positioned in the road, not on the pavement. Colin waslivid, not with himself, but with the authorities in Caraz for putting theirlampposts in such silly places. On first inspection it didn’t look too bad – we’dknocked off the door stopper and smashed a light reflector. However, having acloser look later we found the bathroom top inside had shattered and we’d got adent where Betty had jolted into Frank. This happened on the same day that weheard Gudrun and Toby’s landrover had been hit by a 40 ton truck – thankfullythey were fine and the damage to their landie was not too severe.We had only planned to spend a couple of nights in Caraz, but when we werein the tourist office the next day, we were told that the road towards Lima wasclosed for two days for ‘strike’ action. We seemed to get mixed messages aboutwho was striking over what, but there seemed to be lots of different political factorscontributing to it. Anyway, it meant we weren’t going anywhere for two more days.We did a couple of nice outings from here though. The weather definitely improvedand the morning views of the snow capped mountains were spectacular. We droveup the Cordillera Negra mountains to see some Puya Raymondi plants – theseplants only grow between 3,700 to 4,200m and can grow to 12m high. We weretoo early to see them in full bloom and they weren’t quite as spectacular ornumerous as we’d hoped, but the three hour drive to get there was wonderful,taking us through indigenous villages with stunning mountain views. After that tough six hours of driving, the next day we decided to take a taxi upto Lake Paron, another beautiful glacial lake nestled between several mountains.The one and a half hours drive was on a narrow rough road, but again withamazing views and we were rewarded with having the place to ourselves to enjoythe scenery.With the roads open again, we set off back towards Huarez, dodging theremains of road blocks left by the protestors. There were remains of fires, boulderseverywhere, glass all over the road and even a couple of overturned cars.182ABOVEThe road of 39tunnelABOVE RIGHTA welcome breakfrom the roughroadsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 182

Before heading to Lima, we wanted to visit another important temple complexcalled Chavin de Huantar. It was another very scenic three hour drive fromHuarez which took us up a pass of over 4,500m, on a paved but very potholedroad, which after passing through a tunnel became a very potholed muddy road.The road had been closed twice in the past week with different landslides, and aswe slid through the remains of some, we weren’t convinced that a heavy showerwouldn’t bring it all down again. When we arrived at the ruins we were alarmedto see they were all closed up, but within 30 seconds people appeared fromnowhere and the gates were opened for us. The ruins were in a beautiful location,and considering their age and having to survive floods and earthquakes throughthe ages they weren’t in bad condition. We spent the night in a petrol station (called Grifos in Peru) before setting offtowards Lima. We had some final wonderful views of the mountains beforejoining a road that was downhill all the way to the PamAm highway. In just threehours we had left behind the green scenery with snow topped peaks and we wereback with dusty desert scenery.We had been warned by all travellers in their own vehicles that the Peruvianpolice are notorious for pulling foreigners over and making up spurious chargesthat usually end with a bribe having to be paid. Although we were pulled overregularly in Northern Peru, the police were very friendly, just wanting to knowwhere we were travelling to and from. One policeman even gave us some sweets183ABOVEThe stunningCordillera BlancamountainsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 183

wrapped in Police logo paper! But we now had to be on our guard, as the PanAmaround Lima and further south are where the problem police are located. Colinwatched our speed like a hawk, but we just couldn’t get past the police withoutbeing stopped. I actually think the locals just drive fast so that the police can’t flagthem down, but we could almost see them leap out of their car in the distancewhen they caught sight of a ‘casa rodante’ (campervan) heading their way. Howeverthey were generally still courteous and friendly and after establishing that we weretourists they waved us on.We were pulled over at a larger police control point, where we knewimmediately that our policeman was going to be trouble – the arrogant swaggeras he approached us said it all. After an overfriendly greeting he surveyed Frank &Betty, and we handed him our wad of copy documents, but he wanted originals ofColin’s passport and driving licence – not a good sign. He then asked Colin to puthis window up a few inches, and looked pleased to tell us that tinted glass is illegalin Peru so we must be fined. As luck would have it, Colin had been talking to a ladyin the past few days who said that the Peruvians had a hard time from the policetoo, and she said she was fined for her tinted windows nearly every time she visitedLima. Apparently certain people can buy permits, but not your average man on thestreet. As he got his ticket book out, Colin bravely thumped the steering wheel andsaid ‘no!’ which stopped him temporarily. We then argued that this is not aPeruvian vehicle so it doesn’t have to comply with such a rule, as we were solelytransiting the country. He argued this was irrelevant, so I pointed out that thevehicle had been fully inspected by the police at the border who were happy withit and that we have been stopped several times a day by the police in our two weekshere, with not one mention of our windows. There were more words back andforth, but I think our poor Spanish was frustrating him together with the fact we’djust look at him blankly the more he said. Colin took the opportunity to grab hisdocuments back and we were a bit stunned when he finally waved us on – weaccelerated away as quickly as we could (which isn’t particularly fast). We guessthis is the first of many incidents like this we are going to have, but it does makeyour blood boil that they are so blatant.Relieved to get off the PanAm, having been stopped by the police five times in50km, we headed into the Reserva Nacionale de Lachay, a protected area of floraand fauna in the middle of the desert landscape. The park was very dry at this184DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 184

time of year so there wasn’t much to see in the way of birds and plants, but wehad the whole place to ourselves and parked up on the top of a hill with hazyviews back out to the sea. Again we felt like we were back in Africa (without theanimals) and got a camp fire going as it became dark, watching the twinklinglights of traffic on the PanAm in the distance.We were really dreading the drive into the centre of Lima the next day due tothe police and the daunting prospect of the traffic mayhem in a city of eightmillion people. I don’t know if we were just lucky, but the police all seemed to beon the wrong side of the road or occupied and we sneaked past. The outskirts ofLima go on for miles and miles and were not places to hang around in our vehicle,but in the middle of a fairly seedy area we stopped at a super modern shoppingcomplex which was like another world. Colin was hyper-ventilating about getting the chance to have some time in a largeDIY depot, and we reminded ourselves how bad western fastfood is by having a KFC meal. It was noticeable how many of thePeruvians shopping here were overweight – we’d not seenoverweight locals in Peru before now.We fought our way into the central area of Lima, with localdrivers hooting their horns at us for stopping at red traffic lights,on to our destination of Miraflores, an affluent suburb full ofhotels, restaurants, swanky apartments and shops. Again we feltdazed and confused at the contrasts we were getting in suchshort spaces of time and distance. We’re now parked in theparking area of a backpackers hostel. The beach is two blocksaway, but it would probably kill us to swim in the polluted waterhere. We met up with Gudrun and Toby again, who have justhad a few days of five star luxury courtesy of Toby’s parentswho had completed a three week holiday here. We’ve not really had a chance to explore Lima yet as we’vebeen trying to buy what we need to replace our bathroomworktop and after having our squeaky front brakes checked, wehad the bad news that not only do we need our second set ofbrakes since the start of the trip, but one of the discs is crackedand needs replacing. So I write this sat in the workshop lobbywhile Colin watches every move the mechanic makes!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | DESERTS AND MOUNTAINS185DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 185

Seeing Machu Picchu... eventuallyApril 2007: PeruIT WAS FAR EASIER GETTING OUT on the Southbound PanAm highway than comingin from the North, and we soon hit a long stretch of dusty highway that took uspast the endless beach resorts south of Lima. Some of the beaches looked quitenice, but the surrounding areas weren’t very attractive and there were a lot of hugechicken sheds packed to the rafters with chickens. The smell from them and thefishmeal on which they are fed wasn’t too pleasant. We were headed towards Pisco, but on the way there we did a short diversionto the Inca ruins of Tambo Colorado. We bumped into Gudrun and Toby whowere setting off to Nasca and we arranged to meet them there the following dayto share the cost of a flight over the Nasca lines.The ruins, which are believed to have been used as an administrative centre,were in amazing condition and you can still see some of the original paint on thewalls. We then drove into Pisco, famous for its drink of the same name, a whitegrape brandy concoction. Add crushed ice, egg white and lime juice and you’vegot a Pisco Sour – delicious but deadly. The town of Pisco itself hasn’t got a greatdeal to offer, but it is a place to book tickets for a boat trip out to the BallestasIslands just off the coast. After fending off lots of tour agents, all offering thesame trip, we bought tickets for the next morning and drove down the coast toParacus from where the boats depart. On Gudrun and Toby’s advice we parkedoutside the Police Station – we spend all day trying to avoid the police, and nowwe were asking to stay with them?We had a peaceful night there and had no mention of tinted glass or not havingthe right coloured reflector strips. We’d had another discussion with a policeofficer today about the merits of having red and white reflector strips across theback of our vehicle – the plain red we’d put on in the States didn’t meet the legalrequirements in Peru. Thankfully this policeman was a reasonable type and wavedus on without getting his fine book out. The Ballestas Islands (also known as186DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 186

Guano Islands as most of them are covered in bird poop) are rocky islandscomplete with arches and caves. They are home to a mass of seabirds includingpelicans, boobies, terns and penguins. The boat trip took us past a 128m hightrident carving on the hillside of the Paracus National Park. No-one really knowswhy it is there, but it probably relates to the Nasca lines era.We were very lucky with the weather for our flight that afternoon, as theclouds and haze lifted late afternoon and we got perfect views of the lines. We’dalso prepared ourselves with travel sickness pills which was just as well as thelight aircraft was very bumpy and to ensure each side of the plane got views thepilot would bank the plane around steeply. Taking photos was a bit of anightmare as by the time you’d identified the line, then found it on the camerascreen whilst trying to hold the camera still through the bumps, you’d gonepast it.The lines are basically geometric shapes and figures that have been carved intothe sands, but no-one really knows why they were created. Various theoriesinclude that they represent: a pre-Inca calendar, running tracks, weaving patterns,or fertility symbols to name a few – we’ll never know. There are about 14 imagesincluding a hummingbird, a spider, a monkey, but the one I can’t understand is theastronaut – I’m sorry, but how does that fit into Inca times?Back on terra firma it was time for a Pisco Sour and we were joined by a Germancouple who were travelling on motorcycles and a young Swiss couple. The firstdrink went down very well. We all commented on how strong they were and beforewe knew it we’d ordered a second. Well, the next thing we remember is waking upCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SEEING MACHU PICCHU... EVENTUALLY187DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 187

the next day! We’d planned to stay here another day anyway to see some other sites,which was just as well as Colin could only just make it from the camper to ahammock by lunchtime. By mid afternoon we’d finally pulled ourselves together enough to take a driveout. We visited a site called Chauchilla where grave robbers had ransacked sometombs located here, but had left their bones, skulls, hair and pieces of potterybehind. In the dry climate these were well preserved and now they are exhibited inmock graves. They also had a couple of well preserved mummies with skin intactin the small site museum.By the following morning we felt strong enough to set off on the two day driveto Cusco with Toby and Gudrun. The route was very scenic, climbing up to over4,000m. We passed by a reserve where we saw lots of wild vicuna (similar tollamas). They were described as ‘shy creatures and hard to see close up’ in ourguidebook, but we had trouble avoiding them as they walked out in front of ourvehicle. We have to say, all the locals on this leg of the journey were very friendlyand we had lots of smiles and waving as we drove through villages. We also hadfun trying to find our way out of a town called Puquio where we stopped for lunch.We tried following the sign that pointed to Cusco, but the locals all told us thiswasn’t the way, and no matter who we asked and where we were in town, we gotthe same directions each time – recto (straight ahead!). We had planned to park thenight at some hot springs, but after failing to reach them in daylight, ended upparking just off the road only a few metres away from them without realising. The second day we also managed to call in at a couple of less visited Inca sites(Saywite and Tarahuasi) which were near the main road. We finally reached Cuscolate afternoon and headed to the only known campervan parking spot calledQuinta Lala. Now during our entire trip through Central America we’d met maybeonly six other sets of vehicle travellers. At this campsite alone over the next week,RIGHTColourful cropsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 188

we met at least 10 sets of travellers. When we pulled in Doug and Kim, theCanadians we’d met in Northern Peru were parked up and others we hadpreviously met turned up over the next few days.Colin and I had a day sightseeing in Cusco, which although very touristy, wereally liked. It has a mix of colonial, Inca and modern architecture. The Plaza deArmas is a stunning square with colonial buildings and four churches. Ourfavourite site was probably the Santa Domingo monastery which had been builton the site of an old Inca temple and had some amazing stonework features.The only thing we didn’t like was the high admission prices that thegovernment has imposed on many of the sites. We were told the money is takenback to Lima and not spent maintaining the sites or supporting the localcommunities. For example the train to Machu Picchu cost $77 and entrance to thesite $40 – to put it into perspective, a local earns $2 a day. Even with the feeling of being ripped off and wanting to make a statement totheir government we could not come this far and not visit Machu Picchu. AGerman couple we’d met in Northern Peru had told us how you can drive towithin a three hour walk of Agua Calientes, the town next to the site, so wedecided that this was a compromise where we get to see the site and not give thegovernment $77 for a train journey that you could make elsewhere in the countryfor less than $5. We set off on what we thought would be a three day jaunt, with Toby andGudrun. To break up the journey, we decided to visit Pisac, an attractive townCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SEEING MACHU PICCHU... EVENTUALLY189LEFTCuscoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 189

30km north of Cusco, popular for its tourist market and Inca fortress high up onthe hills above the town. We caught a taxi up to the ruins, which were fabulous.There were amazing Inca walls (Colin can only dream about constructing suchperfect stonework in this day and age), large grassy terraces stretching down thehills, unusual rock formations and stunning views down the valley. We ambled ourway through the site before walking back down into the town. From here we droveon to the town of Ollantaytambo, which has another Inca site. We parked up in thecentre of a hotel garden and had a quick walk around the town, which againalthough very touristy had a nice feel to it. Our plan the next morning was to leave early – we guessed it would take aroundseven hours to drive to the other side of Santa Teresa, where we needed to leave thevehicles, and we hoped we could catch the 3.30pm train up to Agua Calientes. Thisseemed a realistic plan as we set off at 7am. We had a small glitch in our plansearly on when we took a wrong turn, driving for about three quarters of an hourdown a very scenic valley until we found the road ended. At this point our GPSshowed we were only 20km from our destination. We retraced our steps and droveup a steep and windy road to the top of a pass at over 4,000m. There was a controlbarrier over the road and we were told the road was closed for road works, butwas open to traffic between midday and 1pm. It was only 9.30am, so we had towait. The road finally opened at midday, by which time it was pouring with rain, andwe were totally shrouded in clouds. The roadworks covered nearly the wholedownhill of the pass. There were no doubt spectacular views (the narrow gravelroad had sheer drop-offs), but we could see nothing but a few feet ahead of us. Onmost of the sharp bends of the road we had to drive through running water. Thewhole way our GPS still showed our destination to be between 19 and 22km away,so after six hours since setting off we were no closer! Near the bottom of the passthe vegetation had turned quite tropical and lush, and we passed bananaplantations. We didn’t reach the turn off to Santa Teresa until 3pm, when we knewthere was at least two hours drive still to go. A collectivo (minibus) coming fromthe other direction pulled over and told Toby that the road was very steep andmuddy and the rain had left it very slippery and dangerous – now if a bus orcollectivo driver (who tend to be nutters) tell you a road is dangerous, it’s time to190ABOVEThe colourfulmarket at PisacDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 190

worry. We put Frank into four wheel drive and began a long slow journey grindingup the hill with hairpin bends. We often had to do five or six manoeuvres to getaround the bends with sheer drops, and it was a bit of a nightmare when we metoncoming vehicles, as most of the time one vehicle only just fitted on the road.The road snaked around the mountainside and the final kilometres ticked downpainfully slowly. The light was also beginning to fade and the thought of drivingin the dark on these roads wasn’t appealing. At last we saw Santa Teresa below us, just as the sun finally went down. Aswe drove into town a group of young boys ran after us, trying to lead us toaccommodation or restaurants. A local man showed us to a grassy field by theentrance to the village where we could camp and then led us to his pizzarestaurant. We noticed a happy hour deal on Pisco Sours – 6 soles for 2 ($2)sounded a good deal. It wasn’t such a happy hour when we got the bill thoughand found he’d overcharged us. When we questioned the prices, he said happyhour prices were different to the menu price, i.e. more expensive! He got upsetwhen we refused to pay the higher price and he even tried splitting the difference– no way!We had all day to get up to Agua Calientes. We wanted to stop the night thereso we could be in the site for sunrise, well before the trainloads of tourists arrivelate morning. Our destination with the trucks was 8km the other side of SantaTeresa, at a station called Hidroelectrica. A kilometre from our destination wefound the road blocked with local collectivos and beyond them saw the wholeroad had been taken out by a huge landslide. A local said it had happened just fiveminutes ago, and we could see the rocks were still moving. We all looked at eachother in shock and relief – if we’d got past here yesterday or even this morning,our vehicles would have been trapped for we don’t know how long. The roadended at Hidroelectrica and the size of the landslide didn’t look like it would becleared in a big hurry.We retraced our steps back to a big bridge further down the road. There wasa small security hut there. We did wonder why a bridge in the middle of nowhereneeded security, but the guard just said it had only been open a month. He wasvery happy to watch our vehicles and assured us that after his 12 hour shift, anight guard would take over, so there would always be someone here. We walkedback up the road to the landslide where we nervously climbed our way to theother side with an eye on the large boulders still hanging above. Late afternoon,having walked very awkwardly up the rail tracks, we arrived at Agua Calientes.Someone had said that it had the feel of a ski resort town, which it did – lots of191DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 191

wooden type hotels, loads of bars and restaurants and the usual array of touriststalls. We checked into a nice little hotel by the river and luxuriated in the joy of a hotshower. Colin and I took ourselves off for a nice meal in a French restaurant we’dbeen recommended which was a bit of a treat. Then it was early to bed – we hadto be up at 4am. We were so excited at the thought of seeing Machu Picchu in justa few hours.We’d booked breakfast for 4.30am so that we could be on one of the first busesup and we were walking through the entrance gate around 6am. The sun lookedset to break through at any moment. We walked as quickly as we could to the spotwhere you get that classic view of Machu Picchu. It was still thick mist and wecouldn’t see the ruins at all. Still, we were optimistic that the sun would breakthrough any moment now. 7am came and went – still no change. Groups ofwalkers were arriving off the Inca Trail all congratulating themselves. For a briefmoment it looked like the sun was having another bash at beating the clouds,but...no it vanished again. 8am and still no view. How depressing – we’d come allthis way and to not see anything at all... The tour groups had started their toursDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 192

and the walking groups had given up and gone for breakfast, so we decided wemight as well have a closer look at the stone buildings. We wandered around thecomplex eavesdropping on various tour guides explanations – it’s always amazinghow different they can be for the same subject.In the middle of it all we suddenly realised the mist had cleared a bit and thesun had broken through a little. We rushed back to the viewpoint and snapped offsome better photos. We could now see the two sacred mountains behind the site,albeit briefly. It is just such an awesome setting – Colin and I sat and gazed at ittrying to take it all in – we’d finally seen Machu Piccu!We resumed our walk around the site. We have to say, even though the traintourists had arrived now, it wasn’t as crowded as we’d been led to believe. Beinga Sunday, someone told us that the tour groups tend to get taken to the bigmarkets in the Sacred Valley, so perhaps that helped. We went and sat up on theviewpoint again – we could have sat here for hours, but the clouds rolled in againand it started to rain. We counted ourselves lucky we’d had some quality timehere – imagine being in a tour group turning up now just as the weather turnedbad. It rained for most of the walk back and the rockfall was as we had left it,however our very dirty vehicles had been cleaned by the security guard. We gavehim a propina (tip) and a couple of beers before driving back into Santa Teresato park in our field again for the night. After some food and a few glasses of redwine in Betty, we slept well after a long but amazing day.We woke to a beautiful clear sunny day which made for a completely enjoyablereturn journey – stunning mountain views, little villages to pass through and weonly met one bus coming the other way, so no sticky moments. We were back inOllantaytambo by mid afternoon. Colin and I walked into town for much neededcoffee and cake. We even managed to buy a couple of nice paintings for our home.Back at the hotel we had a bit of an England v Germany game of Inca pinball –we had to throw heavy metal coins onto a table with different slots with varyingpoints values. After initially getting stuffed by the cool Germans, Colin and I bothhad lucky strikes with maximum points and clinched a victory for our country.The next morning we paid a visit to the Inca ruins in Ollantaytambo, againvery impressive with terracing running down the hill at the back of town. We thenheaded back towards Cusco, having taken six days instead of our intended three.We took a different road across the Sacred Valley and visited some spectacularInca salt pans set in a dramatic valley which are still being used today. We alsocalled in at Chinchero, a small town with a very interesting church and a smallplaza with many local ladies selling their wares. It was clouding over and gettingquite cold which spurred Gudrun and I into buying alpaca jumpers. One ladygave us a good deal for two with little bargaining and we gratefully put them onas the heavens opened before we ran with all the market ladies to take cover.Back at the campsite in Cusco the German motorcyclists we had met at Nasca,Flo and Tekla a German couple we had met in Ecuador, two sets of Dutch and aCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SEEING MACHU PICCHU... EVENTUALLY193DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 193

French family had arrived. Doug and Kim were here still waiting for a new turbo tobe shipped in from the States, which had been impounded by customs in Lima. Whereare the Brits? There were still lots of sites in Cusco that Colin and I wanted to see, so we dida bit more the following day. There was a great Inca site just down the road fromour campsite – Sacsayhuaman. As well as being in a commanding site over town,it is most impressive for its huge stones making up the walls of the structure. Wewalked down into town and had a look around the San Blas area which had somenice streets and buildings and was full of artisan shops and galleries. Colin alsomanaged to get his hair cut in a very dodgy looking place. The barber was asleepwhen we found him and to be honest I don’t think he’d woken up fully until halfway through scalping Colin. I went for a walk and had a shock when I returned tofind that Colin’s number one was more of a non-existent.We had a full day in the campsite doing a bit of route planning for Bolivia andBrazil. We’d originally had the notion that we would drive the Trans-Amazonianhighway across Brazil, a 5,000km dirt road that runs through the Amazon to thecoast. The latest reports suggested that the road was impassable after a particularlylong wet season and as a result a number of bridges had collapsed. Instead wehave decided to head into Brazil from Bolivia, if we can even get that far on the dirtroads of northern Bolivia. We have arranged to meet Toby and Gudrun again atLa Paz to do this journey together, so that we can pull their landrover out of themud when they get stuck! 194RIGHTLiz, Frank & Bettywith the campsitelawn mowers!DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 194

We were definitely ready to move on and the next day we set off to Puno theunattractive town next to Lake Titicaca. We arrived in town after dark and hadquite a job fighting our way through packed market streets to reach a swankyhotel car park we’d been told would take us. It did feel strange being in a poshhotel reception largely full of British tour groups and it was nice hearing goodGeordie accents in the bar. It was my birthday the following day and we paid a few dollars extra to booka tour from the hotel to visit the floating Uros Islands on the lake. We had anotherbig splurge – buffet breakfast in the hotel (sometimes you can just have too muchgranola) and we worked hard to get our money’s worth, but after our fifth visitto the buffet we were definitely stuffed! I didn’t get any cards or presents –unfortunately life has come to the point where we have to make do with gettinga pair of woolly alpaca socks for our cold nights.The floating islands were very disappointing. We had read somewhere that thepeople of these islands don’t even live on them now, but commute from Puno justto sell their handicrafts, and it certainly did feel that way. After a short ride outon a boat we were greeted by a reception committee of colourful ladies who setabout trying to sell us stuff. To be fair they weren’t pushy, but it all felt like a showfor the tourists rather than seeing real life. In the evening we went into town for my birthday meal. It was very quiet butafter a cocktail (Colin was still not able to handle Pisco Sours), we found a nicetrendyish restaurant where we had a tasty steak and a nice bottle of wine in ‘realglasses’. We only have plastic ones on the truck.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SEEING MACHU PICCHU... EVENTUALLYBELOWSillustaniDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 195

Our final destination in Peru was Arequipa, but on our way out of Puno wevisited a place called Sillustani which consisted of a series of pre-Columbianfuneral towers in a fabulous setting on a peninsular by a lake. It was a wonderfullypeaceful place and we enjoyed a couple of hours strolling around and gazing outat the lovely scenery. It was another long but scenic drive to Arequipa. After being at an altitude of3,800m at Puno, we were looking forward to being at just 2,400m in Arequipa andhopefully being less chilled to the bone at night. For much of the route we were ona high plateau well over 4,000m. We even had hailstones and lightning on the verytop. A little way out of Arequipa we were pulled over by a policeman who wasvery friendly and chatty. After going through several of our documents we gavehim a lollipop, but then he kept mentioning how cold he was and that there wasno heating in the police station. We told him that was a shame and he persistedfinally asking for a few dollars to buy some coffee! We shook our heads and heshrugged and said OK and let us on our way.We were a bit shocked at how large Arequipa is, although it is Peru’s second city.The dusty and dirty suburbs sprawled for miles. We’d been given the name of ahotel that took campers and were pleasantly surprised to find it was only a fiveminute walk from the centre. As always we were joined by more Germans – acouple with a young boy in a VW Campervan and to our surprise Gudrun andToby showed up later in the evening. We had a nice gentle day sightseeing in the town, where it has a small but very196RIGHTThe Colca CanyonDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 196

attractive colonial centre. The Plaza de Armas had a large cathedral with thebackdrop of a volcano behind. Our favourite place was the Santa CatalinaConvent, which is a wonderfully restored convent, with walls painted in vividblues and oranges with pots of red geraniums adding more colour everywhere.The nuns live in total seclusion, living in one section and allowing visitors tomeander through the rest of the complex enjoying its tranquillity and artefacts. Arequipa is also a good base from where to visit the Colca Canyon. It is twiceas deep as the Grand Canyon, and, as well as the local villages and terraced wallsof the canyon, it is famous for the condors that fly there on the early morningthermals. We debated whether we should drive there ourselves or take anovernight tour for just $20. We figured we could spend up to $40 on diesel overthe two days and decided to take a tour for a change. However, as we climbed aboard the tour bus, with 28 other tourists of varyingnationalities, we suddenly realised this wasn’t for us. We didn’t enjoy being herdedon and off the bus, not being able to stop when we wanted for photoopportunities and having the bus stop always where there are handicraft stalls. Itwas a very scenic drive to Chivay, the town which marks the start to the ColcaCanyon tourist circuit. We climbed steadily up a pass to around 4,900m withstunning views of the surrounding mountains. On the top of this pass we wereencouraged to build little stone towers and make a wish. I can’t tell you my wish,but it may have had something to do with winning the lottery and never havingto work again…….At Chivay, after a buffet lunch in a tourist restaurant and checking into ourhostel on the main square which was fine (but not as cosy as Betty), we were takenfor a walk around some local Inca sites before going on to some thermal bathsoutside the village, which were very welcome. The next morning we were up at 5am so that we could be taken to the CruzCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SEEING MACHU PICCHU... EVENTUALLY197DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 197

del Condor where the condors can be seen. The scenery along the road was prettyspectacular. The canyon was a lovely array of greens, wonderful terraces and theriver running through. It was heaving with tourist buses when we got there, but wewere incredibly lucky because as we walked down some steps to find a good place,the first condor swooped past. They are pretty awesome birds – one of the largestin the world with a wingspan of up to three metres. We had the perfect spot andjust sat and watched them glide past effortlessly with such dramatic scenery in thebackground. We headed back to Chivay, this time stopping at various spots along the roadfor photos of the canyon and after lunch we were taken back to Arequipa. Thecanyon was very scenic and the condors amazing, but next time we’ll know betternot to leave Frank & Betty out of our sightseeing plans.For our final day in Peru, we had a seven hour drive to the border town of Tacna– a drive through very arid desert scenery. We had one final brush with the Peruvianpolice. We were stopped three times in an hour heading towards the PanAmhighway, but the last one made us laugh. They were two very jovial policemen andwe were not exactly sure what they said but we think the gist was that it wasMothers Day this weekend, and they needed $5 to buy presents! Needless to saythey got no financial aid from us, but they waved us on and wished us a goodjourney.198DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 198

On holiday in ChileMay 2007 : ChileWE COMPLETED THE PAPERWORK at the Chilean border in record time with theofficials actually helping (unheard of) and headed to the town of Arica. The roadwas smooth and flat with signposts telling you where you are going – what a novelidea! As we approached the town I stopped at traffic lights and no one hooted atus or overtook and went through the lights – again this seemed strange but nice.When I had mentioned to someone in Peru about the lack of stopping at lights orthe ignoring of traffic signs, they responded that they are merely arecommendation. I will try this with the police when we are back home. The nextexcitement came when we found a large supermarket. We spent ages drooling atthe deli counter before moving on to the wine section.With our luxury goods we headed to the beach where the guidebook told usit was safe to camp, but it did warn you that it can get very noisy at weekends. Asit was Saturday we were surprised to find that we were only one of a handfulthere. That was until about one in the morning when the beach became a mobiledisco using lots of car speakers.The following day we took it easy doing a few jobs on Frank & Betty. That’swhen I noticed a couple of hairline cracks just in front of the radiator and decidedto add those to the list of items to be sorted during the service that we hadplanned to get in Iquique.The next morning we set off to the Lauca National Park about 200km awayand in that distance we climbed from sea level to 4,500m (over three times theheight of Britain’s highest mountain). During the journey we visited small villagesand did a short walk around a laguna. We spent the night outside the ranger’sstation with an amazing view of a lake with snow covered volcanoes behind.However the temperature went down to minus ten with an icy wind and we wereabsolutely frozen. My breath condensed on to the blanket and then froze. Weeven had icicles on the roof inside. On top of this, as we had gone so high soquickly without stopping for a day or two to acclimatise, we suffered from199ABOVESantiago is only athird of the waydown ChileDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 199

altitude sickness and couldn’t sleep. The next morning, my birthday, I awokefeeling my age and according to Liz looked it. Anyway it makes a change fromlooking 25!As there were some hot springs about an hour away we headed there to thawout. It did the trick, reinvigorating us, so much so that we decided to take a shortcut across what we had been told by a local was a very scenic road. Looking at themap I calculated it would save us about 50km reducing the journey from four tothree hours. What the map didn’t say, nor the local, was that the road was a singledirt track that wound its way up and down the sides of mountains. Cutting a longstory short, yes it was beautiful with wonderful scenery, but the planned three hourjourney took us twenty four hours.Lunchtime the following day, we arrived in Iquique which is a very isolated town300km south of Arica and 400km north of the next town. The capital Santiago isa further 1,850km south. Literally we drove through the desert turned right andthere surrounded by sand dunes is Iquique with a population of 150,000, but moreimportantly a Ford dealer and a place to fill Betty’s gas tank.Eventually we found the Ford dealer and booked Frank in for a service thefollowing day. It was hard trying to get them to understand what I wanted, becauseas a rule they don’t service cars in Central and South America – they just botchthem back together when they break down. In the end I think they humoured meand agreed to do it. From there we went to a paragliding school owned by a Swissman who arrived there quite a few years ago realising that the warm air off thedesert mixing with the cold air off the sea gave the perfect place for paragliding.He kindly allows travellers to park up and use the facilities.200ABOVELauca NationalParkDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 200

The servicing turned out to a bit of a farce. First of all we became the centreof attention as they had never seen a truck from Texas before and all themechanics were asking lots of questions about our journey and the vehicle.Secondly they didn’t know what to do in a service. They eventually got startedafter I gave them a copy of the Ford service schedule. After ten minutes I had tostop the mechanic from putting brake fluid into the power steering so I decidedto do it myself using the mechanic to pass tools and parts. This caused a big laughwith all the mechanics in the workshop who insisted on discussing all the footballteams in the Premiership with me and treating me as one of them. The chiefmechanic had a look at the cracks and said that he had seen it before on the 7.3Lturbo diesel engine as it vibrates so much it causes the cracks and gave me thename of a man that could weld it. Whilst I was working on the truck, Liz hadtaken over a director’s office and finished the Peru update.At 9am the following morning I went and got the welding done and filled thegas tank whilst Liz stayed at the paragliding club and brought her diary up todate. By the time I had returned and showed Liz the welding it had alreadycracked. As luck would have it, whilst I had been away Bernd, a German traveller,had arrived and parked next to us. He had been travelling on this trip of SouthAmerica for three years and Chile was only his second country. He was rathertaken with Argentina. More importantly before he retired he was a designengineer with Ford and with his help we designed a support brace to fit along thefront under the bonnet. The latter part of the afternoon was spent asking for our money back on thewelding- which he gave us, then going around all the back street workshops tryingto find someone to make the brace. Two guys called Pepe covered from head totoe in dirt with a workshop the size of a car garage took one look at it and said“no problema, mañana 9am”.The next day I was at the workshop at 9am and they treated me to breakfast,an empanada (like a pasty but tastier) and then we went off to buy the materials.They didn’t have the angle Bernd and I wanted, but Pepe talked me into buyingone the next size up. As soon as we got back they got straight on with it. They didset fire to their workshop when welding, but it soon became apparent that it wasa regular occurrence as they dipped the bucket into the barrel of water in themiddle of the workshop and threw it against the smouldering wall. I was veryimpressed – they worked very hard and by 2pm they had made a real piece ofquality engineering. The only problem came went they tried to shut the bonnet –it was too big. The rest of the afternoon until 5pm was spent bastardising it tomake it fit. So it now fits and, as Bernd said, it will hold a tank together, but itwon’t win any beauty prizes.As all we had seen of the town was the back street garages we decided to spendone more day around town which was nothing special. On the seafront there wasa surfing contest taking place. Liz tried entering me, but it soon became apparentthat they weren’t ready for my underwater techniques. Even that seemed ratherCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ON HOLIDAY IN CHILE201DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:56 Page 201

subdued so we headed back to the paragliding school and got ourselves ready forthe Bolivian border the next day.After a four hour drive from Iquique and a climb back up to 4,000m we arrivedat the Chilean border control. It was closed for lunch, but a local pointed us to thehouse of the immigration lady who duly stamped our passports on the kitchentable! Then on to the Bolivian border where the tarmac road vanished, the dust wasbeing swirled around by the icy wind and we were back to guessing which buildingdid what. Immigration was relatively easy. However the customs office had runout of car entry permits and the officer sent us off into town (twenty buildingsand a petrol station) to find Miguel who had some in his house. An hour laterhaving found Miguel, we were back at the customs office with the form completed.It appeared that the officer then had to transfer the information on to the computersystem, but he obviously didn’t know how to switch the thing on! Luckily for usand him two other officers turned up and invited us into the office, which was onlyslightly warmer than outside as a number of the windows were broken. Theyhelped the other officer and the completed form was handed to us with at leastthree mistakes. On pointing these out they said “No problema” – we said it maynot be to you, but it will be to your police (remembering Panama). Reluctantlythey started to fire up their ten year old computer again, but this time Liz did thedata entry for them! Finally after having the form stamped by the police we droveto the end of the houses, stopped and looked at the two dirt tracks heading off infront of us – now which one do we want? We were back to asking three locals thedirection and choosing the consensus. Now all we have to do is find three locals!The Holiday of Chile is definitely over.202DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 202

Salt, Dynamite and Tragedy May 2007: BoliviaFACED WITH SEVERAL SANDY TRACKS to follow, it dawned on us how woefullyunprepared we were for this area of Bolivia, with an inadequate map and no GPScoordinates other than for an island in the middle of the Salar de Uyumi (thelargest and highest salt lake in the world) that we wouldn’t reach until tomorrow.We were on the edges of a smaller pan, the Salar de Coipasa, and whilst at theborder crossing when we had asked if we could drive straight across it we hadbeen told both ‘no, it is dangerous without a guide’ and ‘yes, of course’. Thesesaltpans are basically lakes in the wet season, but they have a hard crust of saltover the water which you can drive over. Coipasa is not a tourist destination andseemed to be more heavily used for salt extraction, whereas Uyumi, the largerpan, is a protected area. We eventually passed a small military base and asked directions to one of thevillages we did have on our map. We got the usual recto (straight on) directions.The scenery here is very beautiful in a bleak sort of way and we were soon drivingon the edges of the saltpan following a well worn track. We finally arrived at asmall settlement, but it wasn’t where we thought we were heading. There were lotsof salt trucks passing through here and we thought maybe we could follow oneover the pan. We tried to show a local guy where we wanted to head to, but he saidwe shouldn’t try driving straight across the centre of the pan as we’d planned, butinstead recommended we cut over a shorter section and follow a firmer trackaround the edges. Again, we asked if there was a vehicle heading that way that wecould follow, but he kept telling us it was an easy route and pointed out into thepan in the direction we should take. As we probably only had another hour oflight we decided to park up for the night and the guy let us tuck in behind abuilding which partially sheltered us from the bitterly cold wind that seems tostrike up at sunset. Thankfully our heating worked at this altitude (3,700m), butBetty was rocking in the wind – so much so we thought we would get seasickduring the night.203DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 203

We made sure we were up early in the morning still hoping to find someone tofollow. A pickup truck driver did say he was heading that way, so we followed themfor a short distance onto the pan until they indicated they were heading off in adifferent direction and we should just follow the tyre tracks all the way to the edgewhere we’d pick up the main track. The tracks were pretty easy to follow and wecontinued to take shortcuts following other tracks. We gradually moved away fromthe salt and back onto sandy tracks that weren’t too bad to drive on. We had beengiven a list of villages that we should pass and were relieved when we checked inone particular village to find that it was on the list. We continued in this vein forthe rest of the morning, arriving in dusty windy little places, being pointed in thedirection of the next village. We have to say that the locals here were very friendlyand helpful, and even more surprisingly, they spoke much clearer Spanish than theChileans where we could hardly make out a word.Our map showed that when we reached a village called Tres Cruces, the roadlooked like it should improve from a single pink line to a double pink line, so wewere expecting our progress to speed up here. We were chuffed when it wasconfirmed we’d made it to Tres Cruces, but our mood soon changed when the roadturned into a dreadful hard rock track which we could only take at 5mph. With stilla long way to go this was going to be painful. The Uyumi saltpan eventually cameinto view, but all the advice we’d had was that you should only drive onto it at anofficial ramp as it can be very soft around the edges and vehicles run the risk ofsinking. The ramp we had details of was about another three hours drive on thisawful road which seemed to be getting worse.We finally reached our ramp at Jirira at around 3.30pm, and at last we were ona smooth surface so Colin clicked on the cruise control and relaxed. It’s quite aweird feeling driving on the pan. As far as you can see in the distance is dazzlingwhite salt and you soon get disorientated. Your brain also tells you you’re drivingon ice and I felt like it could all crack around us at any moment – I was worriedthat Frank & Betty are much heavier than most vehicles on the pan and hoped it204RIGHTA track headingfrom the border –where the heck arewe?DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 204

wouldn’t be a problem. We were grateful to have the GPS coordinate for the islandwe intended to park by for the night. It was 40km from the shore and as itappeared in the distance it looked deceptively close. Isla Incahuasi (Inca House)is a large coral island covered in cacti in the middle of the pan and most tourgroups stop to use the facilities and take a walk on the island which has beautifulviews of the pan and the stunning volcanoes on the edges. You are allowed topark up anywhere on the pan overnight, but with strong icy cold winds wedecided to tuck ourselves into a sheltered spot on the other side of the island andfeeling safer having our wheels on firm ground – there were a lot of holes aroundthis side that we needed to avoid. We watched a beautiful sunset before batteningdown the hatches for the night trying to keep warm at temperatures of -10˚C.In the morning we had a walk on the trail of the island and then drove out a littleway into the pan to take some photos. Because of the vast white perspective you cantake shots that make things look bigger or smaller than they are. We then drove the70km to another ramp which led us onto a terribly corrugated road to Uyumi, thelocal town. After having Frank & Betty thoroughly jet washed to get rid of the salt(so thorough it took the paint off!) we found a hostel with a car park and hotshowers. We’d not taken our clothes off since arriving in Bolivia, just sleeping inwhat we were wearing, so we were well overdue for a good wash. It wasn’t thepleasurable experience we’d hoped for. Even mid afternoon it was bitterly cold andthe electric showers only gave a dribble of hottish water which by the time it reachedyour feet on the icy white tiles was cold. Uyumi is another dusty desolate lookingtown, once an important railway town, so there are statues of trains and militantworkers, and even an old train graveyard on the edge of town.Our next destination was Potosi, a famous mining town in the centre ofBolivia. We had been told the road was in a poor state all of the way there, butwe were pleasantly surprised that although unpaved we could ride out the bumpswell. It also helps that the roads are so quiet – we passed only a handful of vehicleson our five hour journey.205LEFTDriving on the salarDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 205

Potosi at 4,100m is one of the highest cities of its size in the world and havinglooked at the BBC weather forecast that showed it being -20˚C degrees at night, wedecided it was time to stop in a room in a hostel. Saying this, the wind didn’t feelso strong here and I think our bedroom which had no heating was actually colderthan the truck. Potosi looks like a grim mining town as you approach it from thedistance, but it does have a nice colonial central area around the main plaza andis a World Heritage Site.The following morning we booked onto a tour of one of the cooperative minesin the Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) that sits behind the town. In the 1980’s thegovernment shut down most of the state owned mines in this region, but the localminers formed 26 cooperatives all of which are mining this mountain today inwhat can only be described as archaic conditions which is what makes this tour sofascinating but scary. We were taken to a place on the edge of town to get kittedup in protective clothing – over trousers, a jacket, welly boots and a hard hat witha light on. The next stop was a market area where we were encouraged to buy giftsfor the miners. Our guide Freddy ran through the things they appreciate – fizzydrinks, coca leaves and cigarettes, but there was only one thing Colin wanted tobuy – dynamite! This is the only place in the world where you can legally buydynamite on the streets and at just 70 pence is an absolute bargain.I felt a little apprehensive as we stepped into the dark tunnel and worked ourway into the depths of the mountain. This mountain has seams of silver and in the17th century Potosi provided the majority of the world’s silver, tin, lead and zincto name a few. One statistic we were given was that with all the silver that has beenmined from this mountain you could build a bridge stretching all the way toEurope, but with the bones of the miners whose lives had been lost you could builda bridge there and back. There is no investment in the mine so everything is stilldone very manually. The tunnels we walked through weren’t too low for a shortylike me, but we were glad of the hard hats as we did occasionally clonk our headsor got a loose rock falling on us. We had to climb steep rickety wooden ladders toreach different levels of the mine, which was quite tough in the altitude, where wemet different groups of workers. The miners are paid fixed salaries, dependent on their jobs. The lowest paidget 60 Bolivianos a day (£4) for a six hour shift. The workers doing the drilling get206DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 206

80 Bolivianos a day. We guess these are good wages for Bolivia. After a steepnarrow climb we reached a group who were drilling. We’d been given someprotective ear plugs (a piece of plastic bag) to use while they drilled away – a trulyhorrible job using jack hammers, they were covered from head to toe in mud andicy water. The ladders had been hard enough for me, but we then had to scale apartition in one of the shafts. I was shaken to find our guide was straddled acrossa 20m deep hole asking us to put our feet on slippery footholds to climb pasthim. We also came across a group whose job was to winch up by hand bags ofstones. The heat from their bodies in this unventilated place made it incrediblyhot. Each group of men we met were given one of the gifts we’d bought and theseguys certainly appreciated the fizzy drinks. The miners have many rituals andsuperstitions they follow, one being that they may not eat in the mines. They onlychew coca leaves, the same plant from which cocaine is extracted. Which issupposed to combat the effects of altitude sickness as well as give you a boost ofenergy and strength, but they each go through 40 grams a shift – a huge amount,which must have some drugging effect on them. We thought their lips and cheekslooked swollen from all the constant chewing. Freddy had told us we’d be in the mine when they blasted some dynamite, andwe came across a miner preparing the wall with 24 sticks. We were told that theydid the blasting at midday, and as it was only 11.30am, we were chatting aboutthese practices a bit more. We wanted to know how it could be that 26 groupscould all be blasting away at this mountain without making it weaker andvulnerable to collapse, but he assured us that they had agreed times. As we stoodthere, the miner started lighting the fuses. Colin started to try to take photos, butas the miner pushed past us we suddenly realised what was about to happen anddecided it was time to make a sharp exit too! Freddy claimed we’d moved 200mfrom the blasting area, but we’re sure we were closer. It was a surreal experienceas the first boom happened, (we’d got our protective plastic bags in our earsagain) we felt the woosh of warm air push our hair back and the mountainCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SALT, DYNAMITE AND TRAGEDY207DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 207

definitely shook. We stood through the 24 booms looking at each other thinking‘what the hell are we doing in here?’Back at the entrance level, we visited the God of the Miners. A freaky red statuewith a huge you know what, he is visited by the miners who give offerings in returnfor a safe day’s work. The miners also like to drink their local spirit which is 96%proof and was often partly the cause of the average of one fatality per week.Another statistic that shocked us was that after 20 years working in the mines, theminers lose 80% of their lung capacity. They can’t even live in the thin air of Potosianymore, having to move to lower altitudes. We didn’t see anyone over the age of28 and they can start work as young as 11.Before we reached the outside we heard and felt more blasting. It was a relief tobe out in the fresh air and sunshine again. The following day (third Saturday in May)was a big day for the miners where they sacrifice many llamas as an offerikng. Theybury the heads and feet by the entrance, smear blood over themselves and then cookthe rest of them for a big feast. It certainly was a memorable experience, but not acareer change we’d consider in a hurry.We moved on to the town of Sucre, just two hours away on a paved road, ourfirst in Bolivia. We were looking forward to getting here as we hoped the loweraltitude of 2,800m meant warmer nights. Our guidebook said the city is known asthe White City, but we really weren’t prepared for such a lovely place. We droveright through the central historic area which is a mass of white painted colonialbuildings with well tended gardens, nice bars and restaurants. It was reminiscentBELOWMarket day atTarabucoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 208

of Antigua in Guatemala – a surreal bubble in the middle of a poor country. Wesomehow squeezed Frank & Betty through the gates of a nice centrally locatedhostel, taking down and driving over half of their plants, but they remained goodhumoured about it – Bolivians really are friendly, kind people. For less than £5 wehad a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. We planned to have a couple of days here, the firstvisiting a Sunday indigenous market at the nearby townof Tarabuco. As it would have caused such an upheavalto get Frank & Betty out, we booked to go on a touristbus. It was a nice two hour drive to the town which wasset up in the hills at over 3,300m with lovely surroundingscenery. The market itself was nothing special, but thelocals wore traditional dress and in particular the men’shats were unique. We even bought a heavyweightblanket for the cold nights in Betty. On the journey back everyone was relaxed talkingabout their purchases when we rounded a bend andfound a collectivo (local minibus) crashed at the side ofthe road. Our bus pulled over and it was then we saw,about 100m up the road, a tourist bus like ours that hadset off five minutes ahead of us was on its side. Colin grabbed his first aid kit andran straight to the collectivo where most of the seven or eight passengers weregetting out. Colin helped out two remaining passengers who were panicking asthey were covered in blood, but on closer inspection it wasn’t their blood but thatof the driver. The poor young driver was trapped in the front, his side taking thefull impact of the bus. He had suffered a puncture wound to his stomach and wasalready seizuring and coughing up blood – a horrific sight, but nothing could bedone for him while the locals frantically tried to free him from the vehicle. In themeantime, the tourists on the bus were climbing out in various states, but allclearly in a state of shock. Amazingly all but three passengers managed to climbout on their own. Colin and another tourist assisted a middle aged Dutch coupleout who were more seriously injured and were struggling to breathe. Colin madethem comfortable outside the bus, conscious that they were in a bad way andsuffering from shock. A passing vehicle offered to take them to the small hospitalback in Tarabuco and it was decided that they should go straight away. The thirdpassenger left on the bus was a 23 year old Canadian girl who had been crushedand hopefully died instantly when the coach went over. Colin went around the other tourists from the crashed bus and spotted a fewwith potential concussion after knocking their heads. We’d been here over anhour and there was still no sign of police or ambulances arriving. Everyone on ourbus took off their possessions and we got all the crash bus tourists on so that theycould be taken back to Sucre and checked out in the hospital there. Eventually twopolicemen appeared, but we were a bit staggered to say the least, when they askedCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SALT, DYNAMITE AND TRAGEDY209DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 209

if anyone had a mobile phone they could use to call for assistance. A medic fromthe Tarabuco hospital also arrived after all the injured had been moved on. Colinand I stayed at the scene, where the dead girl’s boyfriend was trying to come toterms with events. Also a young English girl from Durham who had met them justa week ago and had been travelling with them, sat numb by the side of the road. Ilooked after the English girl and was chatting with her when she said the poorCanadian girl had been in another bus crash in Peru just three weeks ago and stillhad the stitches. Three Dutch girls who had met the injured Dutch couple earlier started to worrythat the couple couldn’t speak much Spanish and may be struggling in the hospital.They asked if we could come with them to the hospital. We flagged down a bus totake us back to Tarabuco, asking the driver to drive very slowly. We were glad to seethe Dutch couple seemed to be well attended, having x-rays and being madecomfortable. The only bad thing was that the body of the dead collectivo driver layon the bed next to them. The Dutch man was much more lucid now and he told usthat their bus driver had driven appallingly on the way to the market, so much sothat three tourists had refused to go back with him preferring to pay for a taxi –good move. He had even asked the driver to go more slowly and take more care onthe way back. Although he couldn’t remember the crash, others we talked to latersay the bus was definitely on the wrong side of the road and going so fast that thepoor collectivo had no chance. His wife was in a worse state of shock and sat staringstraight ahead barely talking. It was decided to transfer them to the main hospitalin Sucre, so two of the Dutch girls went with them. Colin, me and the other Dutchgirl were keen to get back before dark and went out onto the street to find a bus orcollectivo. Two well dressed Bolivian women approached us and started askingquestions about the accident. It turned out that they were from the hostel in Sucrewhich had booked the bus that had crashed. They asked if we’d like a lift back toSucre which of course we jumped at. When we got back to our hostel, we let theowners know what had happened. We knew that three French people from ourhostel were on the bus and one had bad concussion, so warned them they may notbe back tonight if they were kept in for observation. The owner of the hostel, Anna,grabbed a French volunteer nurse who was staying there and went straight off to thehospital to see if they could help – a lovely touch. Colin was drained after all he’dseen and done that day and I think he was starting to run over in his mind if hecould have done more for the collectivo driver. The next day we didn’t feel like doing too much and we caught up with theFrench nurse who said everyone in the hospital was doing fine, including the Dutchcouple. The French had returned to the hostel during the night and Anna wasmother henning them. They looked very stiff and sore and thanked Colin for hishelp. Later in the day we met some of the other people involved in the accident,who said that the hostel who’d sold the bus tickets which had the same name as thebus company was saying that they were totally unrelated. To get any attention inthe hospital in Sucre they had all had to pay out cash and now they were trying to210DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 210

claim those costs back from the tour company. Strangely enough, theowner of this company had disappeared and the insurers said theycouldn’t proceed without his signature – very convenient. The driverof the bus had also run from the scene, although apparently this iscommon as the locals would probably lynch him. We ended up having a further three days in Sucre – it was a nicerelaxing place and safe to walk around at night. We visited many ofthe historic sites in town. We had a fantastic tour around the Casa deLibertad where the Bolivian Independence charter was signed in 1825.Our guide ran through the history of Bolivia, now the poorestcountry in South America, but once highly prized by the Spanish forits mineral wealth in Potosi. It was the last country to gain itsindependence as the Spaniards fought to hold on to it. We hadn’tactually realised that Sucre is the real capital of Bolivia, but theGovernment was moved to La Paz in 1899. There have been 80presidents since Independence, with a high turnover due to manymilitary coups and assassinations. The current President, EvoMorales, is the first indigenous Indian president and has been inpower for just 18 months. He is obviously popular with the ruralIndian population as he is looking after their interests more than previousregimes, but the business communities are feeling snubbed and very nervous thathe is openly following the policies of Chavez in Venezuela. Our guide said hecould see the country was on the brink of more civil unrest, and as if on cue, weheard a street protest going on in the square outside the building. Most of thebanners said ‘We are not Venezuela, Bolivia is a democracy’ (in Spanish ofcourse).We also walked around the street markets in Sucre, one of which had awitchcraft section. The stalls had bottles of powders and potions for anything youwanted. It also had all sorts of dried dead animals hung up, including owls, ratsand llama foetuses. It all felt a bit Harry Potter. Another thing Sucre is popular foris its chocolate, so we had to sample some – we can confirm it is very good.We had only two days to drive over 750km to La Paz, to meet Toby andGudrun, which were long days but very scenic. We are now stopping in theparking yard of a Swiss hotel in the suburbs of La Paz. There is a mad black llamain our yard called Harry or Harriet (not sure if it’s a girl or boy) but it has a nastyhabit of spitting at you if you upset it – Gudrun’s white t-shirt paid the price! We were just in time to witness the biggest fiesta of the year, Gran Poder, aspectacular event involving over 30,000 people. In total 58 groups took their turnto parade the streets. It started on Saturday morning and we arrived in town latemorning and took a place on one of the makeshift stands erected for the day. Byaround 4pm we’d seen maybe only 16 of the groups go by. It was a fabulousspectacle – each group consisted of a flag bearer and a mixture of traditionallydressed Indian ladies, scantily clad leggy ladies with knee length platform bootsCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | SALT, DYNAMITE AND TRAGEDY211ABOVEA witchcraft stallin the marketDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 211

(Colin and Toby took particular interest in these), ornately dressed male groupsand large bands with drums and brass sections. Most of the ‘dancers’ carriedrattles in the shape of mock radios or batteries. The groups all had similar moves– a sort of shuffle and shimmy dance. Some of the dancers had clearly beendrinking plenty and had pronounced swaggers. The traditionally dressed ladieswould often pull a bottle of beer out from under their layered skirts and have aswig. By late afternoon the sunshine and beer were kicking in and it looked set tobe a lively evening. We believe the parade went on until three in the morning.The following day Colin and I went back into town to have of a look aroundand were impressed by how well they had cleaned up the streets again. La Paz isn’ta pretty city but it’s in a particularly spectacular position nestled between snowcapped peaks and amazing rock formations. 212ABOVEThe Gran PoderfiestaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 212

Dust, dust and dust June 2007: BoliviaAT 8.30AM ON THE MONDAY MORNING we were at the La Paz Ford Dealer havinghired a taxi to follow through the maze of non-signposted roads and one waystreets (45 minute journey for £1.50). Our front wheel bearing was showing theeffects of all the hard dirt roads. The guys at the garage were very helpful andstarted dismantling the front wheel assembly immediately. By mid afternoon(after a two hour lunch break when they all went home and locked up theworkshop) they informed us that they didn’t have the part. So with Jaime Novillo,the chief mechanic who spoke perfect English having studied in the States, we setoff around the part suppliers to find that there wasn’t one in the whole of La Paz.Then in a little back street parts place, the owner made a phone call andsaid there isn’t one in the whole of Bolivia, but he could have one flown in fromChile overnight and it will be here by lunchtime tomorrow (an extra £15). Tosay I was sceptical that the right parts would turn up as promised would be anunderstatement! We had planned to get the gas cylinder filled the following day and the garageoffered to do it for us which was really kind of them, saving us having to trundlearound town in a taxi with a gas cylinder.After a night in a hotel we returned to the garage in the early afternoon to begiven the good news, bad news routine. First the amazing news – the right partshad arrived as promised and then the bad news – there had been a strike at the gasworks and our cylinder was stuck there, but they assured us that they would beable to get it back to us filled for the following morning. By 6pm Frank was rebuiltand we were on our way back to our parking area. The next morning with Toby and Gudrun following in their Landrover, wereturned to pick up the gas cylinder en route out of town only to find that the gascylinder was now on the other side of the city. Once again I jumped into the workstruck with Jaime to go and find it. On our journey we continued our interestingconversation from the previous day about the Bolivians’ driving habits and as213DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 213

Jaime put it “their disregard for road rules.” He was explaining this as we drovethrough numerous red lights! In fact I have come to the conclusion that trafficlights are merely for street decoration in La Paz.Reunited with the gas cylinder and back at the garage, we thanked everyone fortheir help and two hours later than planned the four of us headed out of La Pazin the direction of the jungle.It was a long climb out of the city. We reached the height of 4,600m and ice couldbe seen at the side of the road. We then turned off the new, recently opened mainroad onto a dirt road that is called ‘the most dangerous road in the world’. It is cutinto the side of the mountain, it drops from 4,600m to 1,700m in its 50km, it is thewidth of one vehicle with passing places and has sheer drop-offs. We were told thatsince the road has been built, over 7,000 people have died on it. There were manymemorial crosses along the route, many of the more recent ones were for touristswho hire bikes and cycle down it. In fact we were aware that two tourists had diedthe previous week. We actually found it to be a nice and pleasant drive thinkingthat our drive to Machu Picchu via Santa Teresa was a lot more hair-raising. At the town of Coroico we rejoined the main highway, but by now it was backto the old road, i.e. dirt track the width of one vehicle with passing places andsheer drops. The thing that really shocked us and made us realise why the otherroad had got its name was not from the road itself but from the truck drivers onit. They were driven by young lads (they looked 15) driving 20 ton trucks withprobably 40 tons of goods, the usual bald tyres and most of them were chewingmouthfuls of coca leaves. As with any truck driver in Central and South Americathey worked on the principle of size, therefore it was your responsibility to get outof their way which on a single track road with straight drop-offs is nigh impossible.Another thing just to make it more interesting and in theory safer, is they changethe side of the road you drive on, so the driver is the one with the sheer drop onhis side and is able to judge how far he can move over without falling off! Thisdoes make some sense, but they don’t always signpost these sections which seemedto swap back and forth in the villages without telling you.As you can imagine it wasn’t the most pleasant driving we have done. We wereactually hit once after I had pulled over in a passing place right on the edge. Thetruck just came straight through at speed and due to being overweight and going214ABOVEThe most dangerousroad in the worldDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 214

through potholes leant into us damaging a roof trim, but of more concern to uswas how easily he could have pushed us off the road and over the cliff edge.That was just day one of a three day drive to Rurrenabaque in the jungle. Theroad varied from really deep mud ruts where we had to balance between the trucktracks, to clouds of very fine dust where at times we had to drive a kilometre apartjust to be able to see. Toby and Gudrun also had a confrontation with a truck.They had driven over 80m of a 100m section of heavily rutted track only wideenough for one vehicle, when a truck drove the 20m up to their bumper andrefused to budge. They had to reverse all the way back which was absoulte bloodymindedness by the truck driver. Also en route one of Frank’s two batteries crackedafter the holding down bracket snapped so we had to stop in a small town for acouple of hours to buy a new battery and to get a new bracket made. We had onefabricated within an hour at a cost of £2. When we finally arrived in Rurrenabaque you have never seen so much dust onor in two vehicles and four people. The owner of the hotel we parked at cameout to meet us saying we were the first tourists this year to get through in ourown vehicles. The showers and beers were good!We had come to Rurrenabaque to go on two trips, the first through themarshlands of the Amazon flood plain (Pampas) and the second to head furtherup the river into more pristine rainforest areas.The next morning we were off on the pampas tour which meant swapping ourtrusted trucks for a dugout canoe with an outboard motor, driven by our guide whocould have been a truck driver. He cut all the corners and on one occasion did hita boat coming the other way at full speed, which is just want you want in alligatorand piranha infested waters. For the next three days we were based at a camp on thebank of the river from where we could watch an amazing variety of birds and pinkdolphins – it was absolutely beautiful. We went looking for anacondas, the biggestsnake in the world that can swallow a man whole and cobras, one of the mostdeadly. They put us in a line (like a police forensic search team, three metres apart)and we walked across the swamp with the water often coming over our wellies.Now I was as keen as anyone to see an anaconda and a cobra, but I wasn’t keen onbeing the one to find one, if you get my drift? Anyway we only found a cobra whoI don’t think appreciated being manhandled by our guide. 215ABOVEThe extremes ofdusty and muddyroadsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 215

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We also did a bit of piranha fishing where we fed more meat in weight than weactually caught, in fact out of the four of us only Liz caught one. Overall therewas enough catch for us to have a nibble of fried piranha for lunch. In theafternoon the guide took us to an area where he told us it was safe to swim,informing us that dolphins swam around the edges of the area which kept thepiranhas and alligators away. We took a bit of convincing, but we did go for aswim. Just after we had got back on board a snake swam past and the guide coollyinformed us that it was one of the most deadly, one bite and you would be deadwithin minutes! As you have probably noticed by now, health and safety hasn’tquite reached Bolivia yet. Added to this our jeep driver stopped to buy a livechicken which he held under one arm whilst driving the one and half hour journeyback to town over some very bumpy roads. Two days later we were back on board a boat heading upriver to a lodge thatwould be our base for three days of exploring the jungle. We did plenty of walksand canoeing on lakes watching the wildlife. Again we saw a large variety of birdsincluding parrots, kingfishers, toucans and water birds. There were also snakes,caimans, monkeys and a tarantula the size of both of Liz’s hands which was veryscary. It was a really nice place being more orientated to conservation thantourism which we liked. We were lucky to meet the owner of the lodge, RosaMarie, who had been instrumental in getting the Madidi National Park set up bythe government. She was a very interesting lady, telling us about the methods sheused to influence her staff and government officials (there was a big article onher in a back issue of National Geographic), and she still does expeditions intonew wilderness areas today, despite having nearly lost her life to a caiman thatgrabbed her whilst having her daily swim in one of the lakes here last year.Back in town I got talking to a local about where we were heading next, beingthe Jesuit missions via the town of Trinidad. He gave me detailed directions toTrinidad – “follow the road out of town for half a day then turn left and drivefor two days, crossing the river by a few ferries.”His directions were absolutely correct! The journeywas wonderful with a lot of wildlife just at the side ofthe road and even more parrots than we had seen in thejungle. The river crossings were entertaining. Theyconsisted of a pontoon attached to a hollowed outcanoe with an outboard motor strapped to the side. Infact the biggest engine was the water pump which wasgoing non-stop as the pontoon filled with water! Onone of the crossings we even had pink dolphins at theside of the boat. Also getting on and off these pontoonsprovided great entertainment as they just ram the bankswith the pontoons and in the vehicles you are left toscramble up the banks.After a day of rest and food shopping in TrinidadCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | DUST, DUST AND DUST217BELOWOne of the manyriver crossingsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 217

we continued on to the missions area and rather bizarrely we had a day of tarredroad which made a welcome change. The missions themselves were built by SwissJesuits in the early 1700’s and apart from the building of churches they also builtschools and taught classical music which is stilled played there today. They werevery well organized and the missions prospered, growing indigenous and Europeancrops. The Spaniards felt threatened by their success and expelled them in the late1700’s leaving the towns and buildings to fall into disrepair. Another Swiss man,Hans Roth, restored six of the churches during the 1980s. He did an excellent joband they do look very impressive. The structures are made from cedar and areintricately carved with wonderful painted patterns on the walls.After finishing our loop of six mission churches, we headed to the Brazilianborder at the town of San Matias, on 300km of narrow dirt track which took usthe best part of two days. We arrived in San Matias late on Sunday afternoon. Aswith all South American towns on a Sunday everyone was partying hard and whenasked what time will customs open tomorrow the answer came – “it depends onhow hard the customs officer parties today.”We parked up for the night in his car park so that we could see him arrive. By9.00am the following morning with paperwork sorted (his hangover can’t havebeen too bad) we made our way out of Bolivia and into Brazil. In total we have spent nearly six weeks in Bolivia. The people have been someof the friendliest encountered on our travels even if health and safety doesn’tfeature highly on their priorities. The extremes in scenery, heights and temperatureshave been unbelievable from the Alto Plano at 4,500m and temperatures of -20˚C,to the jungle with an amazing variety of wildlife. We have really enjoyed our timehere.218DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 218

A Watery Time July 2007: BrazilWELL WE HAVE TO SAY THAT SO FAR the Brazilians are giving the Columbians somecompetition for being the friendliest and most helpful people we’ve met on ourtrip through the Americas. Even with our total lack of comprehension ofPortuguese, which is more dissimilar from Spanish than we were expecting, theBrazilians are always incredibly hospitable. Brazil is another country with animage problem, with soaring rates of crime in the cities, a corrupt governmentand legal system and a huge void between the rich and poor. It is the fourth largestcountry in the world and looking at distances on the map here is daunting. It alsodoesn’t help that petrol is the most expensive we’ve come across so far.Caceres is a small town near the border with Bolivia, but with stacks ofsupermarkets and the types of shop we’d not seen for some time. With paperssorted and food stocks replenished, we headed off to the northern Pantanal. Wehave to confess that we’d never heard of the Pantanal before we reached SouthAmerica. We’ve all heard of the Amazon, but thePantanal is an enormous wetland and savanna regioncovering an area larger than France and is jam-packedwith wildlife. The region is largely underwater for muchof the year with the level of the land falling only twometres over this huge area, but once the rainy seasonends it is easy to access, with the birds and animalsbeing easy to spot around the remaining water. We headed to a town called Pocone which is the startof the Transpantaneira, a 146km dirt road that hasaround 120 wooden bridges (many rickety) to cross. Ithad originally been planned to build this road rightthrough to the southern side of the Pantanal, but it wasnever completed presumably due to the usual political,monetary and environmental issues that affect this area.219DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 219

It now terminates at the river at Porto Jofre, so once you reach the end you basicallyhave to drive all the way back again. Before we set off along the Transpantaneira, we did a side trip to a bridge thatwas well known to be a hangout for hundreds of caimans (alligators). We foundit about 30km from Pocone, and there were indeed stacks of them floating in thewater and basking in the sun around the water’s edge. The birdlife was also prettyincredible around here, with huge jabiru storks, herons, egrets and beautifulkingfishers in vast numbers. We’d spotted a great place to camp just off the road,in a clearing by some pools with lots of wildlife. On our way back there we metPeter and Isabelle, two Germans in a big blue truck who we’d first met in Columbiaback in January. We had also passed them on a road in Northern Chile a coupleof months ago – it’s a small world for travellers in this big continent. When weparked up we could see that there were jaguar (or some other big cat) prints in thesandy ground and in the morning there were fresh tracks on our tyre prints, but weweren’t lucky enough to see them. The following day we ambled our way down the Transpantaneira stopping tolook at the birds, caimans and capybaras which I believe are the largest rodents inthe world and look like a cross between giant beavers and guinea pigs. We spent anight roadside tucked under some trees where owls hooted all night. Colin foundit very amusing that each time we reached a particularly shaky bridge I quicklyvolunteered to get out and take photos leaving him to drive the four and half tonsof Frank & Betty over the bridges!We reached Porto Jofre the following morning. There was very little there – justan unattractive hotel on the river, but the previous day we had met a local guide,Carlo, who said he could provide us with a free place to park up for the night bythe river. When we arrived at the place Carlo wasn’t there and we were greeted orshould I say grunted at by a surly Brazilian guy. We tried to explain about meetingCarlo, but we didn’t understand a word he said. It was a strange place – it hadobviously been a lodge at some point, but looked like it had been abandoned withpiles of building materials and old pieces of machinery scattered around. Gudrunand Toby decided to start off back down the Transpantaneira, but we decided wewanted to slow our pace down a bit and would hang around here for the day. Carlo eventually showed up and he got permission for us to park up for thenight. We had a nice afternoon sat by the river with colourful birds flitting aroundus. Carlo was a really nice guy and gave us some tips on where to visit in theregion. He introduced us to the surly guy, whose name is Roberto, and had beenemployed to caretake the property until it is sold – he had now been here eightyears! He basically spends his days fishing for piranhas, which he sells to the localhotel. During the afternoon different groups of hyacinth macaws visited us. Theseare the largest of the macaw family (up to 900mm) and are a stunning azure bluewith bright yellow around their eyes. As the sun was going down the whole sky wasfilled with noisy parakeets, which swarmed into the trees before heading off for the220DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 220

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night. It was a beautiful spot and Colin hadalready designed the perfect lodge and campsite.Carlo told us that Roberto was insistent that hecooked dinner for us which we found slightlyalarming, partly worrying what he would cookand also the fact we couldn’t decipher any of thegrunts he made, but as he had been proudlyshowing us the large piranhas he had caught wecould hardly refuse. We nervously followedRoberto into the large kitchen. It was only lit bycandlelight, which was probably good as we couldn’t worry about the cleanliness.We had already given him a couple of Bolivian beers which hadn’t touched thesides and we gave him a couple more. We think Roberto must have lived on hisown for a long time – his table habits left a bit to be desired. He belched his waythrough the meal, spat out his fishbones on the table, threw his empty beer cansover his shoulder and would occasionally go for a noisy pee outside the door, butwe have to say he is an excellent cook. The food was delicious – a piranha stew,crispy smoked pork and rice. Colin woke up the next morning feeling pretty dreadful (stomach and backpains) and put it down to Roberto’s food which I thought was a bit uncharitable.We decided to head to a recommended fazenda for the evening which was about100km back down the road. There are lots of fazendas/possadas along the road,many of which had once been cattle ranches, but have now turned to tourism forbusiness and offer accommodation and activities. Possada Rio Clarinho was abasic old farmhouse which caters for budget tour groups, but we had a nice spotparked up next to the river. Colin made it to a hammock and festered. We endedup having three nights here. Our gas bottle had run out so we couldn’t cook orrefrigerate anything, and being the weekend we didn’t think we’d be able to get itfilled until Monday. While we were here we went out on a boat on the river. It waspleasant looking at the birds, howler monkeys and caiman, but the young ladswho took us insisted we fish for piranhas and unfortunately I managed to catch oneagain – Colin maintained his 100% record of just feeding them. We also went outon horseback around the farmland and had a walk down the trail by the river. It was a bit of a shock to the system to reach Cuiaba, the nearest city. The sightof high rise buildings in the distance looked overwhelming and we had a pig of aday trying to find a gas filling plant. After several fruitless attempts, I spent halfan hour with two very helpful girls in the tourist office who phoned around lotsof places and eventually got us perfect directions to a place on the edge of town.We braved a shopping mall, found a fantastically stocked big supermarket (but theprices were also fantastically high – nearly English prices), then stopped in atruckstop for the night. The roads of Brazil are heaving with trucks, but it doesmean that they have a network of very decent petrol stations with restaurants,good clean bathrooms and showers for free.222ABOVERoberto catchingour dinnerDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 222

We were glad to leave the city and head northeast to the very scenic area andquaint town of Chapada dos Guimaraes. The town sits on an impressive plateauof eroded rocks some 800m high, with the surrounding views back to Cuiaba andthe Pantanal being very dramatic. We parked up in a pleasant grassy campsite inthe centre of town and were looked after by two residents there – Rose, an ageinghippy chick who was here to sell jewellery at the winter festival that was takingplace. She seemed to exist on a diet of water and spliffs. Then there was Williamwho was having a lot of troubles in his life. He had quit life in Sao Paulo afterbeing robbed several times, having his car stolen and finally having been flashkidnapped (marched to a cashpoint with a gun in your side to draw out yoursavings). He was now teaching English and Spanish here. He was clearlydisillusioned with the state of Brazil – corruption, poor education, health servicesand crime. He was even more disillusioned with the state of Brazilian footballand complained that all their new talent was whisked straight off to play inEurope so their home league was poor, and as the players have their heads turnedby money and lifestyle in Europe they no longer had any passion or commitmentto play for the national team. Colin was still feeling a bit shabby and after several days of me nagging him,COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | A WATERY TIMEBELOWCidade de PedraDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 223

I finally got him to concede he should see a doctor. William very kindly took himto the local hospital, where to his amazement (William’s not Colin’s) Colin waspushed to the front of the queue of 40 locals. The doctor asked Colin a fewquestions, prodded him a few times concluding that it was probably a virus and heshould drink plenty of liquids and take paracetemol. As William had said Braziliandoctors are hopeless, I didn’t take too much comfort from this check-up. We havesince heard from Gudrun that Toby had to go to hospital after several days of feverand headaches and he was told he had dengue fever. With the same symptoms Isuspect this is what Colin was suffering from.We had a day exploring the natural sites in the area of Chapada. We visited anice mirador (view point), had a walk in a national park which had waterfalls andnatural pools to swim in. We also a drive to an area of striking rock formations(Cidade de Pedra) where we saw beautiful red and blue macaws. Throughout the week of the festival there were events on in the evening – filmson a big screen in a square, local dancing, poetry and musical groups. We enjoyeda group of masked dancers from Pocone who were all boys, but half of them weredressed in colourful dresses (we don’t know why), and they did some dancing muchlike a barn dance. We headed to an area recommended by Carlo called Bom Jardin where therivers are crystal clear and you can snorkel with the tropical fish. We parked up fora couple of days at a fazenda where we could do just this. The owner Tonio seemedto have the sole tour agency in the village, which offered a number of differentswimming activities at different locations. We snorkelled in a crystal clear poolwith several types of tropical fish like we are used to seeing in our fish tanks athome. There were little tetras (black neon, red eyed and red), larger fish (dorados)and catfish. We then snorkelled down a river for half an hour which was awonderful experience – drifting along with the current in water no more than oneand a half metres deep with a variety of fish and the type of vegetation and sceneryyou’d see in a tropical fish tank. Late afternoon we visited a lake where we sawhundreds of parrots and other birds that become very active around sunset. It wasa beautiful setting with palm trees in a shallow lake. There were as many as 20beautiful blue and yellow macaws. Macaws are so noisy – they hang out in pairsand are constantly screeching at each other – they sound like they’re having apermanent row. While at the fazenda we met a lovely lady Gisleia who lived in Cuiaba but hadcome to stay here for a few days to study in peace for the law exams she was sitting.Her aim was to become a judge. She recognises that the legal system in Brazil is ashambles of corruption and hopes that she can do something to change this – wejust hope she doesn’t end up in a box! She spoke very good English having spenta year in London with her daughter some years ago. However, she didn’t get a lotof studying done with us there and we had a very nice evening chatting with herabout life in Brazil and her times in Europe. She thought we were crazy to bedriving through Brazil saying it was far too dangerous particularly when you don’t224DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 224

speak the lingo. She had been carjacked at gunpoint in Cuiaba and said thatwasn’t unusual, even in the smaller cities. Although she didn’t get any revisiondone that evening she did improve her knowledge of Argentine wine and herEnglish!We’d enjoyed the river snorkelling so much that Tonio was able to talk us intodoing it in another river. We’re glad we did – we managed to see freshwaterstingrays (again we never knew these existed) and some really big dorados – overa metre. We headed back through Cuiaba, but only stopped to stock up on food,then on towards the Southern Pantanal region. Carlo had given us anotherrecommendation of a place to stop on our journey – a fazenda near the town ofRio Verde. He said that we might have trouble finding it, so we stopped in townand Colin went into a shop to ask. The shop owner and customers couldn’t doenough – after making phone calls, getting a map off the internet and finding theowner’s son in town, we arranged to go there the following morning. One of thecustomers in the shop insisted on leading us there on his motorbike and sureenough at 8am the following morning he was at the truckstop waiting to take us.It was a cold foggy day and if we were being honest we probably wouldn’t havemade the effort to go there as it wasn’t a day for walking, riding and taking instunning scenery, but we felt obliged. The owner Beto and his family were thereto greet us. We were given some breakfast and sat around chatting as best wecould in Spanglish. The weather didn’t look set to improve which wasdisappointing, but we said we’d eat lunch with them and see if the afternoonpicked up. We had a delicious lunch of typical food – meat, rice, potatoes, beansand salad. It was still very murky outside, and as it was so cold, we weren’t keento just sit around all afternoon, so we decided to move on – a decision we regrettedlater. As we were driving back towards the main road we saw toucans, owls andother unusual birds. Then the mist started to clear and at last we could see whatlovely scenery and views of the Pantanal there were. Nearly an hour later, by thetime we’d reached the main road it was glorious sunshine – we felt terrible for nothanging around longer at the fazenda – it would have been a perfect place tospend more time and their hospitality had been out of this world, but we weren’tsure if it was the right thing to return, as having no other visitors we didn’t wantto put them out. 225ABOVESnorkelling in thecrystal clear tropicalwatersDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 225

It was dusk when we reached the outskirts of Campo Grande and we didn’tfeel too safe hanging around the central area, so we pressed on to the other sideto be in easy striking distance for the South Pantanal the following day.We parked up at Posso Do Lontra, which is a strange place – a bit of a tackytourist fazenda, but they have a wonderful camping area set away from the maincomplex complete with electricity, hot showers and toilets with frogs. I had ashock when I stood up after an ablution to see a large dark shape slip into thebowl (nothing I’d done I hasten to add). At first I thought there’d been a scorpionor tarantula under the seat, but after the flush had finished I realised a big frogwas dragging itself back up the bowl to its home under the rim. We’ve namedhim Sidney – Colin seems to be taking great delight getting him to have a swimeach time we flush. I found a smaller one in the other toilet, Dorothy, but we fearthat she may have gone round the bend permanently after a large tour group ofBrazilians used the bathrooms.Frank & Betty are parked up overlooking a wetland area where we can seecaimans, countless capybaras in the late afternoon, birds of all sizes and colours,including the hyacinth macaws again and a troop of howler monkeys live in thetrees opposite – it’s always nice being woken up by the amazing sound these littlechaps make. A Brazilian man joined us for an hour telling us about his farm inthe Pantanal. His family had been farming cattle on it for 100 years, but afterland upriver had been cleared for farming soya (now a huge industry in Brazil forthe Chinese), his land flooded and he lost most of his herd. He too now has hadto turn to tourism to make a living.We had three nights at Passo Do Lontra. We spent a day at a farm furtherdown the Pantanal road where we did a walk wading through the wetlands andhorse riding. We were joined on the final night by a German couple with theiryoung daughter in a Landcruiser. They had travelled around South America 12years ago and couldn’t settle back in Germany, so had lived and worked invarious places in the region. They were now living in Paraguay where they wereteaching German to the Mennonites who live there and only speak an oldGerman dialect.We drove further into the southern Pantanal as far as the river and saw massesof capybaras which literally lined the narrow dirt track. We were also lucky to seeseveral giant otters that were fishing in the waterways. We spent the night parkedup roadside near a shop/bar. Colin knew it was the final of the Copa America(South America’s equivalent to the European Cup) and Brazil were playingArgentina. He asked the owner if they would be showing it on television and sheindicated that they had no electricity, but a few minutes later we heard thegenerator being fired up and she tuned the television in just for Colin hushing allher children up so he could watch it. Brazil won 3–0.As we headed out of the park the following morning we met a huge herd ofcattle and horses that were being escorted down the road by the gauchos (realcowboys) who we see frequently in this area. We arrived in Bonito late in the226DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 226

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afternoon. Bonito is known as Brazil’s number one eco-tourism destination andoffers countless activities, much the same as Bom Jardin, but double the price. Being in a proper campsite, we took the opportunity to give Frank & Betty agood clean – we were still carrying a lot of Bolivian dirt. We parked up next to ahuge converted coach proudly owned by Paulo, a colourful character from SaoPaulo. He showered us with hospitality – always ensuring we had a fresh Braziliancoffee in our hands and cooked us fillet steak on his barbeque. He gave us maps,books and lots of advice on our route through Brazil and he keeps telling us thathe wants to buy Frank & Betty.228RIGHTReal gauchos goingabout their businessDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 228

On the Road July 2007: BrazilWE ARE STILL IN BRAZIL – the home of the Carnival,majestic football, corruption and bikini clad beach girls. The night before we left Bonito, we had an eveningwith Paulo, his sister and his nephews. Paulo is the sameage as me and has just recovered from three throatcancer operations. He decided to do something he hadalways wanted to do and bought a 30 year old busconverted into a motor home (the Dinossauro) which hehas restored over the last year. He was on his first trip,which he was making the most of and having a lot offun. He was very keen on knowing all about our trip asit is something he would like to do in the Dinossauro.In the evening he was playing Pink Floyd and Genesison his massive stereo system telling his nephews aboutthe wild 70’s and him being a playboy in the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio deJaneiro. I told them it was much the same for me, but in the cities of Bolton andNorthampton. They nodded with approval!The following morning we said our goodbyes to Paulo, his family and theDinossauro and he made us promise to visit him at his farm near Sao Paulo laterin our trip which we hope to do.We moved on to Jardim, an area where the scarlet macaws hang out. It was agreat experience seeing these stunning members of the parrot family in largenumbers just going about their lives – they don’t seem to do anything without alot of noise. From Jardim it was a two day drive to Foz do Iguacu, the town on the Brazilianside of the Iguacu falls. The night on the road was spent at one of Brazil’s manytruckstops. The only problem that we encountered was the local monkeys229DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 229

throwing things at the truck as they like the noise it makes, or was it in retaliationas we had refused to feed them in the evening like the truck drivers did?The Brazilians continue to amaze us with their hospitality and friendliness.The next morning the lady on the cash desk of the cafeteria give us a Jesus pendantfor safe travel to put in the truck window.Iguacu was a strange place, but on our travels we have found border towns notto be nicest of places and most have a bit of a sleazy side. Iguacu borders twoother countries, Paraguay and Argentina, so it was no different. We were there tosee the falls which we wanted to do from both the Brazilian and Argentine sidesand also to visit the Itaipu dam, currently the world’s largest hydro electric powerstation – but only until the Yangtze River dam hydro electric power station inChina comes on stream in a few years.First we visited the falls on the Brazilian side and we were absolutelyoverwhelmed at how amazing they were. We have been lucky enough to visit quitea few waterfalls on our travels, but nothing compares to the sheer scale andmagnitude of these. There are in total two hundred and seventy five falls and themain one, the Devils Throat (not ‘deep throat’ as a Canadian behind us mistakenlycalled it!) is half a kilometre long.230DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 230

The next day we headed to the Itaipu dam and had a fact filled two hour tour,with facts such as:• It is a joint venture between Brazil and Paraguay• It supplies 25% of Brazil’s and 90% of Paraguay’s power• It has 18 turbines, each of which can supply enough electricity for a town of1.5 million people• Each of the turbines are turned by the force of 700,000 litres of water persecond • The reservoir that supplies the water is 170km long• The dam itself is the same height as a 65 storey high buildingYes, as you can imagine I really did enjoy the tour, the sheer scale of it and theconstruction logistics were just mind boggling.Back to the falls, this time on the Argentine side, the 38th country of our trip,and Liz would tell you that the views on this side were even better. I woulddefinitely say that the park they lay in was nicer and the actual walkway that hungover the edge of the Devils Throat had the most spectacular view. Whilst in Argentina we took the opportunity to visit the duty free. Liz as youwould expect headed to check out the wines and my mother would be proud ofme, as I was more excited at the prospect of Twinings English teabags – crikey have I become that sad? … yes Liz has confirmed it.The next day was a truck cleaning day as we were about to headover to the Brazilian coast to meet a Dutch couple who live there whoare very keen on buying Frank & Betty at the end of our trip. Whilstcleaning, a Brazilian couple came over to look at Frank & Betty andsay goodbye as they were heading home. By the end of theconversation they had offered us the use of a 12th floor apartmentoverlooking the sea at Santos the resort of Sao Paulo. TheseBrazilians are so nice!On the road the locals pip their horns and wave as they go pastus. We have even had them hanging out of their cars taking photos of us. Theyalso seem fascinated with the Texas number plate – the young lads take photoswith their phones just of the plate.The traffic lights are something different here – they are like those used forthe start of a Grand Prix. They have a row of red lights that come on as acountdown to the green, but no self respecting Brazilian has ever seen the greenlight as they have long gone by then. To give them credit where it is due, they dostop at red lights, which is more than can be said for the drivers in neighbouringcountries.Back on the road, we headed to Bombas on the coast, a three day drive with aplanned two days stopover at Blumenau, a German influenced town. En route wehad a couple of interesting fuel stops. The first was at a Texaco truck stop whereCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | ON THE ROAD231DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 231

it felt like driving into a formula one pit stop as sixattendants jumped into action filling the tanks,checking the oil, washing all the windows andwing mirrors. We also left with presents from thegarage owner – a baseball cap and car duster.At the second we were served by a partiallysighted guy who took eight attempts to get thenozzle into the tank. The only way he could tell ifit was full was to put his ear to the nozzle and as you can guess he ended up withan ear full of diesel. As with all the Brazilians we have met, he was very friendly,chatting away and demonstrating his English as more diesel continued to flow overthe forecourt.Also en route we have been seeing a lot of motels with very suggestive signswith names like Swingers, Passion, Amour, Love, Seduction and Ecstasy motels.Having asked a local about them they are hotel rooms catering for the Brazilianman and his lover. The rooms are rented by the hour, offering total privacyincluding secluded entrances and individually garaged parking with access straightto the rooms. I am not exaggerating that on some roads into cities we have seen 10or more motels of this nature. We were told that most men have a wife and a loverand obviously vice versa. It must be true to keep all these motels in business. We arrived in Blumenau at the end of the second days drive and it was verystrange to find a German town in the middle of Brazil. Many of the inhabitantsspoke German. It was an unusual place, apart from a lot of blonde haired people,everything was clean, neat and tidy, well organised and even the busses werepunctual – gosh it was boring! On the fifth day we finally arrived at the coast, a moment I had been lookingforward to with all those Brazilian girls on the beach. In the first big town we hadentered in Brazil, Cuiaba, the local girls rode around town on their scooterswearing bikinis and they were over 1,000 miles from the coast! So as you canimagine my mind was in overdrive as to what to expect at the coast. Well thedisappointment was unbelievable when all I got was a collection of fleeces andwoolly jumpers! As it seems around many parts of the world, Brazil is experiencingsome strange weather and the locals, who are used to winters of 25 degrees andsunshine, are having great difficulty coming to terms with 15 degrees and rain – i.e.English summers. It would appear that we are the only ones with heating as theyhave never needed it before.232DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 232

Rain Stops Play August 2007: BrazilWE PARKED UP AT THE DUTCH couples possada for a few days.They said that theywanted Frank & Betty, paid us a deposit and we agreed to return in January 2008.Bombas was a nice area, but as with all seaside towns out of season, was largelyclosed. As the weather showed no signs of improving after three days, we decidedto move on. As we left Bombas we had a drive around the rest of the peninsularwhich has several beach resorts, also largely closed, which consisted of a lot offairly nasty buildings – planning control is obviously non-existent here. It washard to believe that all the empty property here would be booked solid from afterChristmas through to March with Brazilians and Argentineans. The Dutch couplemade enough money in those three months to live comfortably and travel for therest of the year – we liked the sound of that.Brazilian food isn’t the most exciting, but they certainly know how to put ona great buffet, in fact the majority of restaurants here are buffet style. The mainmeal of the day is lunch where there would be a vast choice of salads, vegetablesand pasta dishes, then meat dishes straight from the barbeque grill, plusdesserts. Some places offer ‘buffet livre’, which is a set price eat as much as youcan. The other type is ‘pay by the kilo’, whereby after filling your plate you haveit weighed and priced accordingly. Colin didn’t get on well with the latter type,complaining that it was just his potato salad that weighed a lot, or it was an extraheavy plate, or someone had put lead in his salad etc etc, and not the fact he’dloaded his plate up with anything that would fit. Our favourite type of buffetthough is called a rodizio, which is basically heaven for carnivores (although thereare also rodizios for pizzas, seafood, cakes and ice-cream). After filling your plateat the buffet, the waiters come round continuously with various skewers ofdelicious meat, all cooked slightly differently – well done, rare, plain, with herbs,garlic, salt etc, beef, pork, lamb, chicken, sausages of differing types – you nameit, you got it. The first time, Colin got in such a state with it all, he forgot how tosay no in Portuguese (nao – how difficult is that?) and just kept having more and233DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 233

more loaded onto his plate and wondered why he couldn’t move afterwards. Allthis great food would generally cost us less than £3 a head. We headed a couple of hundred kilometres down the coast to the resort ofFlorianopolis. It is a large city, but has an attractive island, Ilha de Santa Catarina,joined by a bridge to the mainland, which is very developed with resorts and isagain jam-packed in the summer. The weather was still decidedly bleak when wearrived, but there was a lot more life here than the other places on the coast. Wefound a proper RV park in a good location – opposite a lake and just a 15 minutewalk into a little town bustling with shops, cafes and restaurants. The RV parkwas a bit of a building site which always suits Colin. He wasn’t there 10 minuteswhen he electrocuted himself while plugging in Betty. Most electric boxes here area mass of live wires and he definitely found one – it was a cartoon moment – a fizz,spark and bang – if he had hair it would have been on end. The receptionist whowas with us looked very alarmed, but every time he saw us after that he wouldmake a buzzing noise and chuckle – I don’t think Colin was as amused having feltnumb and tingly for a couple of hours after the incident. We also befriended anadorable alsatian pup (Colin named him Bruce, after a dog his family once owned)who was chained up to a little kennel and was obviously being left to grow into amenacing guard dog. We couldn’t resist him and would give him cuddles and throwthings for him to play with – things a puppy would appreciate, but probably didn’tdo much for his guard dog training. We even took to sneaking chewy dog bonesto him under the cover of darkness. We drove around the north and south parts of the island which were both quitedifferent. The north was more developed with large surfing beaches, while thesouth had small scale developments and some authentic fishing villages stillremained. We were surprised at how much we liked the island – we expect it’smayhem in the summer, but out of season it is very pleasant. While we were there, Colin had got details of the Brazilian Serie A (PremiershipRIGHTThe beach at TorresDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 234

quivalent) football games taking place in Porto Alegre, a large port town furthersouth. He was keen to see a Brazilian football match and although the big teamsplay out of Sao Paulo and Rio, we discovered that Porto Alegre has two teams,Gremio and Internacional, who are in Serie A. We thought this would be our bestopportunity as the football season will be over when we return to Brazil inJanuary. On our way to Porto Alegre we visited a number of coastal resorts, but alllooked a bit sad out of season. At one campsite in Torres we were joined by aBelgian couple in an 11½ ton Iveco truck (ex Danish military) with a convertedrefrigeration container on the back which they had kitted out very stylishly inIKEA fittings. They had shipped it from Europe to Buenos Aries and had beenon the road for just a month. They had just come from Uruguay which they reallyliked, but were desperate to find warm weather – not what we wanted to hear. Wehad a couple of nice evenings with them, swapping travel information anddrinking wine. We continued down the coast, to Rio Grande do Sul which isBrazil’s most southern state, having a buffet lunch stop in an ugly surfing resortcalled Capao da Canoa (it made Blackpool in November seem attractive). Weovernighted at an even uglier resort called Tramandai. We asked in town aboutcamping and were directed to a campsite nearby. It looked closed when we pulledup, but we spotted a couple of blokes in there who finally agreed to let us in. Itwasn’t a particularly nice place, but as it was late in the afternoon we didn’t wantto head out again. One of the guys who stunk of alcohol, and whose slurredspeech meant we understood even less than normal, said we had to pay Reais 50(£13). We said no way, but at that moment the owner turned up at the gate andthe price suddenly dropped to R25, and by the time he had walked over to us itwas R15. He said this little guy would look after us this evening – not verycomforting. We were introduced to the guard dog called Capitao – a big lump ofa St Bernard who rolled on her back to have her tummy tickled at everyopportunity. The other guy working here had just one leg – a right motley crew!We actually had a peaceful night – the drunk guy had gone off drinking again andour guard dog was asleep. In the morning the drunk guy kept on at us that hewanted more money, so we got out of there as quickly as we could. The football match at Gremio was being played on Sunday (so we thought),but we drove into Porto Alegre on the Saturday to try and get our bearings. Wehad been told that the city wasn’t particularly safe so we wanted to make sure wefound somewhere secure to leave Frank & Betty. We found Gremio’s ground quiteeasily – it wasn’t in a bad area and we parked up and went to see about buyingtickets. Unfortunately Colin had got the clubs mixed up and it transpired that itwas Inter playing at home tomorrow. Colin was very upset – he’d kind of selectedGremio (who play in a dark and pale blue strip) as the team he wanted to supporton the scientific basis that Inter play in red and white and he just can’t bringhimself to support any club in those colours. Inter’s ground was only five minutesaway, so we went and got our tickets for the next afternoon. We found it strangeCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | RAIN STOPS PLAY235DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 235

that the club official directed us to a tout who was selling tickets for half the facevalue. We think there had been a special promotion where you got cheap ticketsif you drank a cup of coffee in a supermarket. We couldn’t find anywhere in the city to park up and sleep the night so we droveabout 30km to a bizarre camping area that a local had directed us to. We pulledinto a place that didn’t really look like a campsite, but were greeted by the ownerwho said we were very welcome to park up – he assured us it was a nice quiet spot.We ended up with a little group around us, curious about what we were doing.We had a walk around the rest of the place which had some wooden chalets andcamping stands that had definitely seen better days.We drove back into Porto Alegre at around 11am even though the match didn’tkick off until 4pm, so we could be sure that we got the parking sorted and hadlunch. Brazilians seem to eat lunch very promptly at midday. There was a petrolstation across the road from the ground with a parking area, so we thought thiswould be as safe as anywhere. The attendant said no problem and charged us R10.We had a stroll down a road that had several Rodizio restaurants and weresurprised to see big queues of people waiting for seats already, before midday. Wejoined a queue for one and were amazed how busy it was – it had two floors oftables crammed in and the second floor where we were sent was nearly full. We’dbarely sat down when we were given our own terrine of soup, bread, spaghetti,and fried polenta. Then the onslaught of meat began. The waiters really have towork hard for the couple of hours, weaving inbetween tables and carrying bigskewers of meats to slice off a piece on request. There were huge family groups,but they could be completely fed and watered in just half an hour – all veryentertaining and great value for money. It was good to see that football here is very much a family activity and they allturned up fully kitted out in the team shirts and hats. They did seem to arrive early236RIGHTThe stadium atInternacionalDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 236

– the gates opened at 2pm and there was already a steady stream going in. Wetook our seats, which were quite high up and I will now hand you over to Colinfor his match report: The match – Internacional of Porto Alegre versus Goias of Brasilia. Goiaswere higher in the Serie A league. Brasilia is over 1,000 miles from Porto Alegrewhich explained the first difference from a British game as there were only sixaway fans with a home crowd of over 40,000.The match itself was more physical than I expected, but with some of the silkyskills you’d expect of Brazilian football. However, there seemed to be anunwritten rule that first goal wins, as after Inter scored a bungled goal early in thesecond half, neither team put much effort into the rest of the game, with the endresult being 1-0. The referee and his assistants were also good value. They wereescorted on to and off the pitch by half a dozen armed riot police. On the pitch,the referee had a can of white dissolving spray paint which he used to mark thespot where free kicks had to be taken and his assistant referees came on to thepitch to mark the 10m positions for free kicks with more spray paint. As alwaysin South America, the fans were absolutely amazing – a section of them chantedand danced for the full 90 minutes.After the match we filed out to retrieve Frank & Betty and were a bit takenaback to find the whole petrol station had been used as a car park – they couldn’tserve petrol as cars were parked between the pumps. We were impressed by howpatient Brazilians are – there was no pushing to get cars out – most people got asnack in the shop and waited until things eased up. We don’t like to drive at night,particularly in cities, but our aim was to drive across town and on to a main roadheading north where we assumed we’d find lots of truckstops. Strangely wecouldn’t find a single decent place and before we knew it we were heading out intothe countryside where nothing was open. It was nearly 9pm when we finally founda petrol station which had a shop and restaurant but it was closed. We searchedaround trying to find someone to ask if we could park there, but the place waseerily quiet. There were a few houses around, but we didn’t want to startknocking on doors at this time of night, so we tucked ourselves against a walland parked up for the night.The service station was up and running when we surfaced in the morning, sowe filled up with diesel and bought a snack for breakfast. We were now in an areacalled the Serra Gaucho, popular for its striking scenery and architecture that hasbeen very influenced by Bavarian European settlers. We passed many villagesnestled in the hills with a very alpine feel to them. There were also many FatherChristmas manufacturers along the roadside. We headed to the immaculate littletown of Gramado. It was so German that we saw men with big moustacheswalking around and wearing lederhosens. It was very touristy – full of chintzysouvenir shops, but with every other shop selling either chocolate or wine, whatmore could a girl ask for? It was also hosting a Latin American film festival whilewe were there. There was a big red carpet laid out leading into a building andCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | RAIN STOPS PLAY237DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 237

some swanky hospitality areas, but I don’t think George Clooney was due there sowe didn’t hang around. On our way out of town we visited the very bizarre Hollywood Dream CarAutomobile Museum which had a sparkling collection of 1950’s and 60’s Americancars (including one of Elvis’ cars) and some Harley Davidsons. My favourite wasdefinitely the pink open top Cadillac. Across the road from here was a chocolatefactory where we had a free tour around the production area. It was a bit of awhistlestop tour. When we told the girl we didn’t speak Portuguese, she did whatus British tend to do with foreigners and spoke louder and quicker. We weredisappointed that we didn’t get any free tasting on the tour like you do at CadburyWorld, but we were given a few small samples in the shop, which lured us intobuying a ridiculously expensive box of chocolates. We continued to the next town, Canela, which was another very nice place, butmuch less twee than Gramado. The nice warm sunny weather continued for acouple of days and we enjoyed visiting some of the local parks with nice walkingtrails and scenic viewpoints. Colin sent me off down a path that took me down715 steps to take photos of a waterfall – one of his knees is absolutely shot nowand he is finding walking downhill very painful. My heart was pounding by thetime I’d climbed back up – we are both very unfit after two and half years on theroad. On our third day in Canela we had planned to visit more parks, but we werehorrified to wake up to thick cold fog – just as we’d got used to the warm daysagain and had got out our shorts. After setting off we actually turned back toCanela – there seemed no point driving through a scenic area when we couldn’t seeanything, so we spent the rest of the day holed up in the campsite listening to therain battering our roof. We have got used to a lot of long evening time filling inBetty – lots of card sessions, seduku puzzles, connect 4 and reading. Colin hasjust finished Harry Potter 3 which he found a bit frightening and he frets a lot forHarry’s safety!The weather wasn’t much better the following day, but we decided to set offand continue back to the coast rather than hang around here. It soon became clearthat the weather wasn’t going to improve, but we stopped at a National Park(Aparodos Da Serra) hoping to see the canyon and waterfalls. It was a pea souperby the time we reached the gates, but we still decided to go in (I think the guy on238ABOVEThe bizarreHollywood DreamCar MuseumABOVE RIGHTScenic views in thecountry parkDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 238

the gate was shocked that anyone was mad enough to paythe entrance fee on a day like today) and have a bit of a walkand keep our fingers crossed that the mist might suddenlylift. Well, it didn’t happen! However the pictures in thevisitors centre showed us what we’d missed.We descended back to the coast where the weatherseemed actually worse if that was possible – cold drivingrain. I’m not sure how, but Colin slept through torrential rainduring the night which ricocheted off our roof. Over the nexttwo days we drove the last stretch to within 30km of theUruguayan border for our final wet night in Brazil, which wespent at a truckstop. We couldn’t believe it had rainedvirtually nonstop for four days and we had travelled nearly600km south through Brazil with no change – even in England we get some breaksin the rain.We were sad to leave Brazil on a bit of a low note, but we have enjoyed oureight weeks there very much even though we only saw a very small section of thisvast country. It will be interesting to see it in full flow when we return in January,when hopefully we will get to see the more Northern regions. Our Portugeselanguage skills, in keeping with our Spanish got no better. Colin’s last attempt toorder two white coffees ended in him getting one black one which just about saysit all!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | RAIN STOPS PLAY239ABOVEA typical eveningwhen it was dark andwet outsideDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 239

Uruguay – It’s Just NiceAugust 2007: Uruguay and Buenos AiresWE ARRIVED AT THE BRAZILIAN immigration at the border with Uruguay. Liz walkedoff into the office leaving me trapped in the truck – the door handle had come offin my hand! She eventually missed me. The immigration officer was very thoroughand checked every piece of paper twice, logged it in the computer and thenphotocopied all our documents. Liz was just saying how unusual it was that a LatinAmerican was bothering about forms and procedures for us leaving a countrywhen I pointed out his blonde hair and that you could almost hear his heels clicktogether as he stood – he definitely had some German blood in him! We continued to the Uruguayan side to be met by a man drinking tea andwearing a grey shirt with matching tank top. The immigration/customs office hadthe feel of someone’s home, even having a fire roaring in the corner. When we toldhim we wanted to bring our truck in he got out his duplicate pad and within fiveminutes all paperwork was completed. He followed us out to Frank & Betty, askingif we had any banned produce, e.g. fruit, vegetables, etc. We responded with a “yesbananas” and he just smiled and said “off you go then and enjoy our country”. Lizwas ignoring the onions and garlic that she insists on smuggling into every country.That first step into the country set the pattern of what was to come – everythingabout it is just nice! The scenery is open rolling countryside and mainly farmland.The roads are well maintained and very quiet. They have the fastest speed limitsof any Central and South American country we have visited, but they are theslowest and most courteous drivers. They even stop for pedestrians headingtowards a crossing! The towns are small and not particularly beautiful, but wellorganised and functional. The people are friendly and easy going. As I saideverything is ‘just nice’. In fact it is the type of place my mother would like.However their fashion sense is definitely in the seventies which would suit my dadas well.Another thing that hits you straight away is the age of their cars. We were toldthat there is a very high tax on new cars and therefore people keep their old ones240DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 240

therefore maintaining and looking after them has become a national pastime.Another nice quirk is that petrol stations are closed on Sundays and much likechemists in England you can find a rota in the Friday papers of which ones areopen in case of emergency. Our first stop was Santa Teresa which is a large National Park on a stretch ofbeautiful, but wild coastline. The park has botanical gardens, an 18th centuryfort, palm lined avenues, fresh water pools, holiday cottages and two campsites.We shared the whole place with a German couple in a Toyota camper van. We didsome lovely walks along the beach and through the gardens. The gardens aremaintained and run by the army who, not having fought many wars recently, havetaken to looking after the National Parks – how nice!The next day we ambled down the coastline stopping for lunch in the lovelyhippie fishing village Punta del Diablo – a very quaint collection of shacks arounda beautiful bay with a just as impressive beach. We continued to Cabo Poloniowhere we took a trip on a 4x4 vehicle across the sand dunes and along the beachto an isolated community that lives on the headland. The scenery was stunningand the little shacks had the same feel to them as those at Diablo (lots of retiredhippies-many still practising). The rocks on the headland were home to sea lioncolonies, and on the journey there we noticed lots of dead sea lion pups, penguinsand fish along the beach. Our driver told us it was due to pollution from theshipping traffic heading to the ports up the Rio de la Plata river. We finished theday at the deserted holiday resort of La Paloma, the only ones in a large complexof chalets and camping areas.On leaving the campsite and being aware that Saturday 25th August wasUruguay’s Independence Day we decided to ask at reception about any particularcelebrations that would be taking place in the capital Montevideo. She repliedwith a ‘yes’ on the 24th it is Nostalgia Night, an evening celebrating the goldenoldies 60’s, 70’s and 80’s music by dancing to their sounds all night. We were wellimpressed with this and gained a few more details before diverting back to thequestion of Independence Day celebrations where again we were taken aback tobe told ‘we don’t celebrate that any longer – we just recover from the NostalgiaNight’! Within minutes we changed our plans and decided to book into a hostelin the centre of Montevideo to make the best of what sounded like a great night.241ABOVEThe deserted wildcoast at SantaTheresaABOVE LEFTSome of the oldcarsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 241

First we headed into the countryside on one of the scenic tourist routes to atown called Minas, stopping the night with lots of large white rabbits in a lovelycampsite that must be amazing in season as it had space for over 500 campers. Thenext day we headed to Montevideo to ensure we had time to get things sorted forthe big day. En route we found an excellent radio station and within five minuteswe had heard YMCA and Yes Sir I Can Boogie – we knew we were heading to theright place. Upon arrival we headed for the tourist information office to get details of thebest places to go on Nostalgia Night. The guy was very enthusiastic about thisand was telling Liz in detail all the best places in town. He suggested one place inparticular and mentioned 2am. Liz asked ‘is it open till then?’ – he gave Liz astrange look – “no that’s when things start, it finishes around 11am!” He gave usa guidebook of the city which describe the event – “La Noche de la Nostalgia hasgrown in popularity up to the point where it is considered to be one of the mainhighlights of the year, with a mass appeal only comparable to that of Christmasand New Year’s Eve, with 600,000 people celebrating on the city’s streets.” That’snot bad when you consider Montevideo has a population of 1.3 million. I think Iwill be writing a letter to Gordon Brown when we return telling him that we shouldhave a Nostalgia Festival each year with an additional bank holiday to recover. We parked up on the seafront outside a fishing club for the night and read thetourist information. I found it a sad reflection that they listed as famousUruguayans Diego Forlan who played football badly for a couple of seasons atManchester United and the rugby team that ate each other after a plane crash inthe Andes which was subsequently a book and the film ‘Alive’.The next morning we headed back into the centre and found a hostel for thenext two nights and a 24 hour car park for Frank & Betty. We then did a self-guidedwalking tour of the city before getting ourselves ready for the night. The city wasnice but nothing special.We had a couple of drinks in the hostel bar before heading out and got talkingto Mack from the USA. You don’t find many people from the USA travelling – wehave a theory that their government scares them by making them believe that therest of the world is dangerous. Anyway a lot of Americans who travel are barkingmad and Mack fitted into this category. A 66 year old touring around with a bicyclethat he doesn’t seem to ride. He had been at the hostel for two months waiting forthe weather to improve and had been travelling for over a year having started inBuenos Aries which is only three hours away. Last March he was at the Rio carnivaland had been to a number of other places in South America sky diving. Inconversation he mentioned that in the past he had been to a number of CentralAmerican countries flying ‘produce’ back to the USA!We left Mack at 10pm and headed out to get something to eat, i.e. line ourstomachs. We found a large pizza restaurant that had been recommended whichwas packed. The pizza wasn’t tasty, but it did the job before we headed into themain area.242DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 242

The streets were packed and there were queues outside all of the bars andclubs. We had a walk around to soak up the atmosphere trying to figure out whereto go and not having a clue we joined a line outside a club. Liz wandered off anda couple of minutes later came running over for me – she had got us into an Irishbar with live music. We had a great evening in there enjoying all the songs fromour past and couldn’t believe it when our watches showed that it was nearly 5am.We left with a slight swagger, feeling very proud of ourselves. Back on the streetsthe party was still in full swing – the restaurants were still serving food and musicwas blaring out of all the clubs and bars. The following day I can only describe as a perfect day. I woke with a slighthangover which reminded me of the great time we’d had the previous night. Acouple of coffees later we managed to head to the port market which is an oldVictorian fruit and vegetable market (the frame of the building actually camefrom Liverpool). It is now full of Uruguayan beef restaurants (Parrilladas) –basically they grill large volumes of every type of meat on open wood fires. Butfirst we had one of their local drinks in a bar called Roldos House, famous forMedio Medio which is a mix of sparkling white wine and dry white wine (aperfect cure for a hangover!). This was followed by a large steak and chips – justright! From there, we made our way across town to watch a football match –Nacional versus the Wanderers – two of their top teams. It was like watchingNorthampton Town play – yes the standard was that bad and the groundaccording to Liz reminded her of Kettering Town although I didn’t think it wasthat bad! The fans however were amazing – with a minute to kick off and playerson the pitch, one end of the ground was almost empty but in the distance youcould hear the drums beating. They came into the ground en mass chanting anddancing to the drumbeat, waving large flags – they only stopped for half time.Nacional won 2-0 and we retreated back to the hostel for an early night, but whata good day.The next day we drove to Colonia del Sacramento along route one- theirequivalent of our M1 but we don’t have cowboys (Gauchos) grazing their cattlein the central reservation! COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | URUGUAY – IT’S JUST NICE243FAR LEFTLiz enjoys “the hairof the dog”LEFTColonia delSacramentoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 243

Colonia del Sacramento has to be one of my favourite towns. It is situated ona small peninsular between the sea and Rio de la Plata which is about 20 mileswide at this point. The streets are cobbled, pavements lined with trees and thebuildings are very colonial in style, set around small squares. Many of thesesquares have pavement cafes and restaurants and the scene is finished off with theold vintage cars still in use.As it is only one hour by Sea Cat to Buenos Aries we decided to park Frank &Betty at the campsite and head over to the Argentinean capital for a few days. Itwas like being on holiday! The first day we just walked the streets admiring thecolonial buildings, arriving in the main square in time for the weekly silent marchof the Madres de Plaza de Mayo – mothers or widows of men and women thatdisappeared during the military dictatorship between 1976-83. They are stillwaiting for answers as to what happened to them, but the current governmentdoesn’t seem willing to provide them with the information.In fact there were a number of protests while we were there, most based aroundpeoples’ monetary losses when the country had a financial meltdown five yearsago and the government helped itself to everyone’s money in the banks – theprotestors would obviously like some recompense which the current governmentagain is ignoring. Whilst there we did all the tourist things. We visited Recoletta, the cemeterywhere the mausoleum of Eva Peron is situated. We walked and drank coffee in theposh suburbs, admiring the beautiful buildings. We visited La Boca the poorneighbourhood where in the past most people worked in the shipyards with theirhomes being made from, and painted with, materials they ‘borrowed’ from work,which has resulted in an area of multi coloured, unusually shaped buildings. It isalso the home of the Boca Juniors, one of the most famous football clubs in theworld and the footballer Maradona. You can buy ‘Hand of God’ t-shirts of him(big cheat – I am not still bitter and twisted after all these years about his blatanthandball against England that sent us out of the World Cup!). On the Sunday we visited the San Telmo district which was alive with antiquemarkets, artists, street musicians and couples dancing the tango. It was a greatatmosphere and we really enjoyed mooching around and just watching. We thenmanaged to have our best steak yet which was superbly cooked and dirt cheap.244DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 244

This was again perfect preparation for what was next. We had tickets to watch theBoca Juniors play a league match against the Hurricans in a local derby.We arrived at the ground two hours before kickoff – the end behind the goalwas already full and we had to squeeze in. The reserve teams were playing eachother, so for the price of one ticket you get to see two games. By the time the maingame was ready for kick off, 50,000 fans were stood shoulder to shoulder, even theones with seats. They made one hell of a noise and bounced up and down, theatmosphere was absolutely electric. The TV cameras were showing it live and thereferee blew his whistle to start the game, the fans roared and then burst outlaughing – there was no ball!It was a good game of football, but the fans’ passion and the singing were themost memorable parts. When Boca Juniors eventually scored from a penalty, thefans started a move that I hadn’t seen before – they en mass moved two steps tothe right then back to their original position, then two steps to the left and keptthis going for a few minutes while celebrating the goal. To see 50,000 people alldoing this whilst singing at full volume was wonderful.Back reunited with Frank & Betty in Uruguay we headed north, first to thetown of Fray Bentos. It is the home of corned beef, tinned meat pies and OXOcubes. The factory is no longer in use and has been converted into an industrialheritage museum. We did a tour of the site which we found fascinating. Theprocess was invented by a German, Georg Liebig in 1865 and at that time Britishindustrial engineering was seen to be the best in the world so he employed Britishengineers to design it and build the machines, meaning most of the equipmentwas built in Britain. It was strange seeing all the drawings and machines withEnglish company names on them. The engineers also introduced the idea oflooking after the workers by building homes,schools, hospitals and social clubs. Liz describedit as being like Cadburys at Bourneville, butwithout the chocolate! Over the next three days we continued northto the border crossing with Argentina at Salto.The two nights were spent at thermal waterresorts where we sat in natural thermal warmwaters – it was nice and as they say here‘tranquilo’ which summed up Uruguay.BELOWThe old docks at theFray Bentos factoryDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 245

A Slice of Argentina and ParaguaySeptember 2007 : Argentina and ParaguayWE HAD ANOTHER VERY EASY and swift border crossing into Argentina. One of theimmigration officials even changed our remaining Uruguayan money intoArgentine pesos, so before we knew what was happening, we were straight ontoRoute 14, a notorious road for foreign travellers in vehicles. Route 14 north ofBuenos Aries runs through two states called Entre Rios and Corrientes and wehave had countless reports of the police corruption on this stretch of road. If theydon’t find something wrong with your driving, they’ll find a problem with yourvehicle or its contents. Furthermore it’s not just random policemen trying to takea bribe, it’s the whole force giving out official tickets and they will even take creditcards. But we are pleased to say we had no problems, maybe helped by a downpourof rain. We also managed to tuck ourselves in behind a wide load for the firstpolice post getting past before they spotted us and could pull us over. We werepulled over a couple of times, but just had the usual questions of where we arefrom and where we are going. It was an easy drive but the main noticeabledifference from pristine clean Uruguay was the amount of litter. We arrived in a small town, Mercedes, mid afternoon and as this part ofArgentina has very long siestas (from midday until 5pm) where everything closes,we first headed to the shrine of Gauchito Gil, just a few kilometres out of town.Gil is a bit of a legendary Robin Hood type figure in Argentina. In the mid 1800’she robbed the rich to give to the poor and also dodged being drafted into the army.When he was finally caught he was executed, but just before he had his throat cut,he told the sergeant that his son was dying and if the sergeant prayed for Gil’ssoul his son’s life would be spared. The sergeant did find his son gravely ill, andafter doing as Gil said, the son made a miraculous recovery. The sergeant set up amemorial for Gil. There are shrines at the sides of the road all over Argentina,marked with red flags, with this particular site being immense. There were literallythousands of plaques from followers, thanking Gauchito Gil for various things.We watched in fascination as cars and coaches pulled up, with many people dressed246DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 246

in red scarves and gaucho clothing, all bringing offerings, lighting red candlesand attaching ribbons to the shrines. There was a huge tacky souvenir industryaround this shrine and we came away with a ribbon asking for Gil’s blessing forour safe travels.Behind the shrine there was a grotty campsite but we decided it would soon bequiet as most visitors seemed to be leaving. However just as we settled down withour books, a truck pulled up next to us and before long several families weresetting up tents and getting the fire going. The hours the locals keep here, as wellas in Uruguay and Paraguay are still alien to us – they don’t even think aboutgoing out and eating until at least 10pm. In one of the remote thermal campsiteswe stayed at in Uruguay we were amazed to see a car pull in next to us after 11pm.They proceeded to get a fire going, cooked a barbeque, then at 2am packed upand drove off again. We knew we were in for a noisy night now, but we needn’thave worried – our neighbour’s music was overtaken by a huge sound system inanother building nearby which went on until dawn. We could hear locals walkingaround Frank & Betty during the night commenting on our plates. We heardsomeone say ‘where do you think they’re from?’ and another saying ‘they must befrom Germany’ – this always makes us giggle what with the ridiculous number ofUnion Jacks we have and Inglaterra written in big letters, not to mention ourTexas plates.We had wondered if we would get some unfriendly receptions in Argentina,obviously following the Falklands War and with our football rivalry and we didstart to feel a little self conscious about the Union Jacks we were sporting.247DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 247

Although we haven’t had any bad experiences, there are signs along the main roadssaying ‘Las Malvinas son Argentinean’ and we thought maybe we shouldn’t beflaunting our flag which may upset those who had lost people in the war, so nowBetty has been deflagged at the back.From Mercedes we had a rough dusty four hour drive to a little village calledCarlos Pellegrini set within the Esteros del Ibera wetland, an area with lots of birdsand wildlife. We parked up in the grounds of a hostel and had a very relaxing dayand a half there. We were joined by a German backpacker, Ludtz. The villagewas a very sleepy little place, nice for wandering around. We had a walk on a trailand saw howler monkeys up close, then took a boat trip out on the lake where wecould get really close to the fauna. Our guide killed the boat engine and used apole to move us between the floating islands where capybaras, caimans, marshdeer and birds all lived. We also went horse riding and met a nice family from Buenos Aries who werehere on holiday for a few days. Argentines are all very much at home on horses andtheir young children were already good riders. Back at the hostel we wereentertained by two pet parrots – a larger one that talked to itself constantly and asmaller one which took great delight in biting Colin. It couldn’t fly as it hadclipped wings, but each time the owner moved it back to her kitchen it was backon our table within minutes squawking at us. Our next destination was the mission town of San Ignacio and we parked thenight at a fantastic campsite on a bluff overlooking the Parana River with Paraguayon the other side. After the dry flat landscapes of the past few days it was arefreshing change to be in lush green scenery again. We enjoyed a warm eveningwith a lovely sunset, hampered only by the pesky mosquitoes. The next morningwe visited the Jesuit ruins in the town. They were very different to the fullyrestored churches we’d seen in Bolivia. Although only partially restored, it was alarge complex (up to 6,000 people inhabited it at its peak) with a church, livingquarters, cemetery and workshop. Many of the original stone carvings andflooring were intact. There was a very good information centre at the start tellingus all about the rise and fall of the Jesuits in the area. As with all these types ofplaces, we would always love to be able to go back in time to glimpse it in itsheyday. Our next destination was just over the river to Paraguay which we managed laterthe same day. Another straight forward border crossing – we didn’t even need to getout of our car for the Argentine side. On the Paraguayan side we got our passportsstamped and were greeted by an effusive customs officer. As soon as he found outthat we were English we got ‘arrhh Liverpool, Beatles….’ – well it makes a welcomechange to ‘Manchester United’. Our man ‘inspected’ Frank & Betty – well he stuckhis head in and said ‘muy bueno’, so my vegetable smuggling went unnoticed again.As we drove past the customs control officer who was looking in all the car boots,our man signalled for the official to wave us through, so we were off again into anew country. Paraguay is a poor neighbour to Argentina and Brazil and it showed248DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 248

straight away just with the old wrecks of vehicles they were driving.We drove a short distance to the small town of Hohenau – if it sounds Germanthat is because it and many other towns around here are German colonies. Weparked up in Parque Manantial, an immaculate recreational park owned by athird generation German, Ruben and his family. It was very quiet at this time ofyear – the only other campers were of course German. We spent a couple of daysmaking use of the good facilities – a swimming pool and the best hot showerswe’d come across. Ruben showed us round his property. ‘Manantial’ meansspring and we drank water straight from the spring on his property. Colin, whois normally horrified by building workmanship in this part of the world, was inawe of the building work here – German precision as you’d expect. Ruben saidthe only other British they see here are on the overland trucks that pass throughand he was astounded by how much alcohol they consumed – unfortunately thisdoes seem to be the image we leave around the world.The people in this part of the world are huge tea drinkers, however it is notgood old Tetley, but a local brew called Mate – the national drink of Argentinaand Uruguay and very popular in Brazil and Paraguay. It is made out of herballeaves which are processed in a very specific way, being dry roasted and coarselyground, then left to mature for many months. Mate is drunk out of a pear shapeddecorated container called a mate or matecito, originally the hollowed out driedshell of a fruit, but now may be made of wood, metal or clay. The final importantpiece is the bombilla, a silver straw with one flattened end where you suck and abulbous shaped other end perforated to strain the herbs as you drink. Of courseyou now need hot water, so most people carry around a thermos flask and thereare always places providing hot water. The cup is half filled with leaves, the strawinserted and then very hot water is trickled behind the herbs to wet them frombelow. It is drunk by old and young alike and can be a very sociable drink, wheregroups pass it around, following certain etiquette. Mate is a stimulant, but gentlerCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | A SLICE OF ARGENTINA AND PARAGUAYBELOWJesuit Mission atTrinidadDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 249

than caffeine without the unwanted side effects of getting hyper and not sleeping.Apparently it also dulls the appetite and helps you lose weight, so forget yourSlimfast drinks and get onto Mate. There were more Jesuit ruins in this area. The most impressive is at a placecalled Trinidad which had some well preserved features, then a smaller less visitedsite at Jesus which had a nice position with views out over the surroundingcountryside.Our only other stop in Paraguay was at the capital Asuncion, a 400km drivefrom Hohenau. It was on good roads, but we did encounter one dodgy policemannot far into our trip. He definitely asked us for money, but we did what we do bestand stared blankly at him smiling. I asked if he could repeat his request a littlemore slowly and he looked very uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure he’d thought wewere Argentinean when he stopped us and was a bit thrown to find we wereEnglish. He muttered something about it being difficult to explain, then quicklywaved us on. Another thing that tickled us was a comment in a tourist guide toParaguay that Ruben had given us – ‘The traffic rules are according to theinternational standards – with a South American touch (right of way is ignored)’!!– how true.We parked in the car park of a German hotel/restaurant in Asuncion where wecould catch a bus into town. The owner’s daughters were incredibly helpful andlooked after us well. Asuncion is not an attractive place and we’d seen all the mainsites of the old quarter in a couple of hours. Our favourite site was the remains ofa statue of a former dictator. After his disposition it was crushed and put insidea block of concrete, with just his face and hands sticking out looking very comical.There were some beautiful crumbling old buildings, but there was a lot of povertymixed in with it. One of the main parks had a tented village of people living onit, and opposite the new flashy ugly congress building, there was a shanty town. A minor problem that we had with Betty was that the gas regulator for the gascooker, the fridge and heating was leaking. We were getting a very strong smell ofgas. By chance there was a gas engineer doing some work at the restaurant andColin persuaded him to have a look at our system. To make matters easier hisGerman boss appeared who spoke some English and they said we just needed toreplace the regulator – an easy job. Our only problem was that we have a doubleBELOW LEFTA former dictatorremembered in styleBELOW RIGHTShanty townopposite thegovernmentbuildingDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 250

valve, which they said we’d not be able to get in Paraguay, but not to worry as asingle one would do the job. The boss took Colin off in his car to buy one andhis worker fixed it. Easy! Colin still had a niggling doubt in his mind that theremust be a reason for having the double valve originally, but it seemed to work. Wealso managed to fill our gas tank in a petrol station – an all time first on this trip,as usually they don’t have the connections necessary, but as the girls at the hoteltold us ‘this is Paraguay – anything is possible legal or not!’So, after a brief dip in and out of Paraguay, we were heading back intoArgentina for our long trip to the tip of the continent. On our way out of townto the border we passed the ruins of a burnt out supermarket. In 2004 when a firebroke out, someone thought it would be a good idea to lock the doors to preventlooting which meant the 700 people left inside perished. It has been left as amemorial to all those people.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | A SLICE OF ARGENTINA AND PARAGUAY251DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 251

Vino and Vistas September 2007 : ArgentinaBACK IN ARGENTINA for our third time within a month we setoff across the country in the direction of Salta for what weknew would be a long journey. We drove 400km on route 11,a straight, flat, boring road, only stopping for the frequentpolice checks. Then we turned right onto Route 16 and droveon a straight, flat, boring road for 800km. All of this took thebest part of three days, spending two nights at the side of theroad in petrol stations.Our only other stop en route was to try and get Betty’sgas system fixed again. The repair in Paraguay involving thenew regulator lasted only two days. On the map Saenz Penaseemed to be the biggest town that we were going to pass. Aswe approached the crossroad, (notice the singular use of theword, it gives you an idea of the size of the place) I noticed acar dealer on the left and decided to ask if there was a gas repair man in town. Wewere royally greeted by Walter of Walter Automotives. Eventually we managed toexplain our problem with his pigeon English, our pigeon Spanish, a lot of handgestures and finally me sticking his nose into our gas compartment where he couldsmell the problem. He made a phone call and said that an engineer would be herein 20 minutes which he then revised to 30 minutes at which point Liz and I satdown in the car showroom for what we expected would be at least two hours. Once sat down we both noticed his office within the showroom. A red carpetled the way to the entrance which was up three steps and guarded by two largeplastic golden lions. Above the door written in big gold letters was ‘El Presidente’.It was circular on plan and constructed of artificial roman columns with smokedglass between. His desk was very large made of smoked glass with gold ornamentsand mounted on the wall above his desk was a big ‘W’ with a winner’s laurelaround it, all in a tasteful gold! We wanted to take a picture, but were worried thathe might think we were taking the mick – as if we would?252DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 252

Actually, he was a great character asking lots of questions about our trip andwanted to see the maps of our route so far. He then took great delight in tellinghis customers about our journey. He told us that he was a gypsy who had nowsettled down which kind of explained his four year old grandson’s silver toothand flashy gold ring.We were impressed when the gas man turned up after only an hour and a half.Within minutes, with a lot of hand signals and spanglish, he told us that weneeded a double regulator as there was too much pressure for a single one. Thiswas subsequently confirmed by a response to my email question to Betty’sCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | VINO AND VISTASDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 253

manufacturers back in the States. He also told us that we were unlikely to get oneoutside Buenos Aires. I put the old regulator back in so at least we could cook aslong as we switched the system off as soon as we had finished. We thanked themboth and continued on our straight, flat, boring road.During the last 50km of Route 16 we could see the mountains getting closer. Atthe end of Route 16 we went from one extreme to another driving through a valleybetween two mountains along a gravel road that was just wider than Frank &Betty with lots of hairpin bends. The next day we went up and over the nextmountain, again on a gravel road with lots of hairpin bends to a height of 3,290mwith the most stunning scenery. Towards the end of the day we turned onto Route 40, which was to be ourspiritual home for the next three months as the road goes down to Patagonia andfinishes 570km from Ushuaia where we hoped to be for Christmas. The firstkilometre marker read 4,508 so we have a long way to go. We will be zigzagging offthis road many times, never mind a little detour into Chile for a month.As we arrived in the quaint town of Cachi we saw a policeman and as Liz wasasking him for directions to the municipal campsite, a North American touriststood in the road to take photos of us, saying we were a long way from home asshe looked at our Texas plates.On arriving at the campsite we could barely hear the caretaker speak due to thenoise, loud music and kids at full volume coming from the open sided sports hallnext door. He explained that it was the end of term school party and would befinished by 7pm. At 9pm we started to worry, as we have learnt by now that LatinAmericans can and do regularly party through the night. We started to worry thatperhaps he meant 7am even though they were school children! Luckily it did finishnot too late. After another beautiful day’s drive on a dirt road through a mountain valley, wearrived at Cafayate, the start of the Argentine wine route. We found a campsite andRIGHTCachiDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 254

selected a spot at the back away from the traffic noise, remembering it wasSaturday night when they all party. At 10.30pm we had just got ourselves tucked up in bed with our books whenin the distance we could hear car horns. We assumed it was a wedding partydriving around town. We were right, but it got louder and louder until theystopped a couple of hundred metres from where we were parked on a road at theback of the campsite! The wedding speeches finished around 2.30am and thenthe music really cranked up. Liz says she really liked the choice of the smoochyrecords around 5.30am. How do they do it? Feeling rather tired, (well we had partied till 5.30 am), we decided on an easyday and got talking to a retired Argentine couple travelling around their countryin an old Mercedes campervan. They had obviously done this a few times andgave us some good suggestions of places to visit as well as some goat meatempanadas. They insisted that we visit them at their home when we pass throughPuerto Madryn in a few weeks time and they were happy for us to have a new gasregulator from the States sent to their address.On the Monday we were ready for the vineyards, or should I say bodegas, andheaded to the Etcharts bodega just as the previous tour was finishing, so we joinedthem for the tasting. The guide got out ten bottles and some very large glasses. Icould see Liz’s eyes light up, but you should have seen her disappointment whenthe guide talked through all the expensive ones and only offered three of thecheaper ones to taste. The wine however was good and we did buy a case whichdidn’t last very long.From Cafayate we continued south towards two large parks a couple of daysdrive away. En route we visited the pre-Inca fortress at Quilmes and a second at aplace called Londres (named in honour of Mary Tudor when she married the heirto the Spanish throne). We also had only our third puncture of the trip so we hadto have a little diversion to get it fixed. We are only carrying one spare and I findCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | VINO AND VISTAS255DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 255

it a bit uncomfortable that at times we could be a 150km from somewhere to getit repaired.The National Park of Talampaya is a canyon 150m deep of red sandstone. Weopted to do a guided cycle tour through the canyon which was wonderful as themorning sunlight illuminated the sandstone and the gentle pace enabled us to takeit all in. There were rock paintings made by the tribes who had inhabited the areaaround a thousand years ago. Also some trees there are supposedly from that sameperiod. We then continued on to the provincial park of Ischigualasto also known asMoon Valley (Valle de la Luna). The park is supposed to be a geologist’s dream,being unique as all stages of the 45 million year Triassic era are represented in itsrocks. We arrived mid afternoon and joined a guided car tour of the park whichhad lunar type landscapes, lots of rocks sandblasted by the strong winds thatshaped them into cannon balls and very high red sandstone cliffs. However, thelocals on the guided car tour seemed to photograph Frank & Betty as much as theamazing landscape.The following day we continued on our way to Mendoza. As we have driven256ABOVEValle de la LunaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 256

through Argentina we have seen many roadside shrines dedicated to Gaucho Gil.As we have driven further south, we have seen a different type of shrine, dedicatedto Difunta Correa which amongst other things have bottles of water surroundingthem. Reading the guidebooks, we were going to pass the village of Vallecitowhere the story happened so we made a slight deviation to visit the main shrine.The story is that in 1840 Deolinda Correa followed her conscript husband’sbattalion into the desert carrying their baby, some food and alas too little water.She died, and when her body was found the baby was alive and still nursing. Tocommemorate this ‘miracle’ a cross was erected. In the 1940s a number of othermiracles were attributed to her intervention and the cross grew into a full scaleshrine industry. There are now eighteen house-sized shrines, many with paintingsor sculptures of the first miracle. She has become the patron saint of travellers and many travellers leave amemento as thanks. The place is full of car number plates and other car bits,even the remains of cars where the person has survived the crash. To me she seemsto be in a win win situation. If your journey goes without hitch it’s becauseDifunta Correa has looked after you. If you have an accident and live, it’s becauseDifunta Correa has looked after you. If you die in the accident you won’t becomplaining! So now to protect us on our travels, we have a red ribbon hangingaround the rear view mirror ‘bless and protect our Ford’. Sorry Betty, they didn’thave one for Hallmark campers. We arrived in Mendoza late in the afternoon and were heading towards acampsite when a passing motorist pointed to our rear tyre, another puncture! Wehad just passed a garage so after a quick u-turn we pulled in to find a small tyrerepair shop at the rear – talk about lucky. I was busy with the tyre repair manwhen I came out to see Liz had an audience all wanting to know about ourjourney. In the midst of it was George (Jorges), a local who had lived in the StatesCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | VINO AND VISTASLEFTShrine of DifuntaCorreaDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 257

for seven years and insisted on looking after us whilst we were in his city. Tyrerepaired, we followed him back to his home to meet the family then on to thecampsite where he threatened the camp manager (or it seemed that way) to ensurethat we were looked after properly. I had asked him where the Ford dealer was,(Frank was due a service) and he insisted on accompanying us on Monday morningto ensure they understood us properly. Later that evening at the campsite (11pm to be precise) Liz had gone to bed andI was just finishing some photo editing when I looked out of the window to seequite a few cars arriving. They all got out and started lighting their asado. Fornon-Argentineans we would refer to it as a barbeque, but according to a touristmagazine they would be insulted if that’s what you called it. The difference beingthey only cook prime steaks or chunks of quality beef (no rubbish i.e. sausages orbeefburgers) on the ashes of wood. I can’t say what time they finished, butaccording to the magazine, the average Argentine eats their own body weight ofprime beef every year! The next day was spent ambling around Mendoza. It is a reasonably moderncity, the original city being destroyed by an earthquake in the late nineteenthcentury. The new city was designed with tree lined wide avenues for easyevacuation should another earthquake occur and the trees for shade in thescorching summer months. It’s nice without being picturesque. It even has aWalmart which had Liz hyperventilating! At the side of the city centre is a large park that houses a football stadium, avelodrome, motor racing circuit, tennis club, rowing club, a zoo, an open airtheatre, lots of open grass areas with lakes and fountains and a campsite where westopped. Yes, we liked Mendoza, you could easily live there especially with all thevineyards on your doorstep! We enjoyed strolling around the park on the Sundaywatching the locals in action in the fine weather.On Monday morning George took us to the Ford dealer where, with his help,the mechanic promised to do everything then promptly vanished, leaving someoneelse to do the work – a bit like in Chile, but the only difference there was that I gotstuck in with them and did the work myself. Here they wouldn’t let me into theworkshop. By the end of the day they assured me they had done everything, butlater that evening when I checked, that wasn’t quite the case.On Tuesday morning we were back at Ford where I grabbed the manager whohad made the mistake the previous day of speaking good English to us when hewanted to know about our trip. It eventually transpired that what they meant tosay was that they had done everything they could with the tools they had whichwasn’t a great deal! We did however get passed on to another Ford dealer whofinished off the work free of charge.George has now been back in Mendoza, his home town, for six months havingspent the last seven years in the States he decided to return home for the quality oflife. He felt that in the USA everyone works long hours with few holidays andforgets what life is really about. At the same time he said that he had earned four258BELOWColin with GeorgeDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 258

times what he could in Argentina, but the cost of living in theStates was also a lot higher. He also commented that it wassafer and friendlier for his children back here than in theStates. His daughter said that she had been expecting schoolto be much easier in Argentina, but was surprised at howmuch harder they pushed her. We said our goodbyes and headed all of 10 miles down theroad to the wine district of Maipu. First stop was a winemuseum cum vineyard so we did a tour of both and had ataster. Next was a small vineyard that offered tours. The guidewas excellent, obviously knowing his stuff and enjoyed hisjob, talking us through every bit of the process and spendingtime showing us how to taste properly. As a lot of you willknow, Liz has her own two glass technique to ensure she never runs out of wine,which he was most impressed with. We arrived at the campsite saying that we’d had our fill of wineries, then Lizread about the Cathedral of wineries which happened to be just off our plannedroute the next day! COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | VINO AND VISTAS259DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 259

Giant Creatures Past and Present October 2007: ArgentinaWE HEADED FOR YET ANOTHER WINE REGION, San Rafael, where our guidebook hadsaid it was ‘a must’ to visit the Bodega Salentein, known as the Wine Cathedral whichis owned by a Dutchman. It was actually a lot further off the main road than we’dbargained for, but it was worth the diversion. It is set with the Andes as a wonderfulbackdrop and is a super-modern building.The visitors’ centre had an art gallery, a museum and a lovely lookingrestaurant. We had an individual tour to the wine production area which producesfine wines for the Argentine market as well as for export. After the number of wine tours we’d done in the past few weeks we could havegiven them ourselves, but it was a lovely building to look around and the winecellar had been carefully laid out in the shape of a cross, with the barrels of thefinest wines in the centre. In fact with all the symbology and carefully laid outcomponents, we felt like we were in the middle of a Dan Brown novel. We weregiven a tasting of a delicious chardonnay and a pinot noir. Our guide told us thatthe latter had been made popular due to the amount drunk by the Brits – gladwe’ve done our bit for the wine producers. The next stop was San Rafael, a neat, clean little city and we were impressed tosee many of the locals using the cycle paths to get some exercise during their siestatime. Again there were many bodegas and olive farms dotted around, but we werehere to drive through the Canon del Atuel. The 75km canyon road is very scenicand connects two lakes. The section of the river near San Rafael was prettytouristy with lots of accommodation and white water rafting companies. Weparked up for the night in a nice campsite right by the river and waved to all therafters who drifted past.The next day we drove through the rest of the canyon which was pleasant withinteresting rock formations, but maybe not exceptional We stopped the night at thetown of Malargue. The mountain views in this region are stunning and it is veryclose to one of the most popular of Argentina’s ski resorts. 260DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 260

On the way out of town we visited the Caverna de Las Brujas (witches cave),a cave complex at an altitude of 2,000m. The 70km drive there was incrediblyscenic – very stark vegetation, but wonderful views of the sierras. We wereexpecting a little jaunt into the cave to see the nice stalactites and stalagmites andother interesting rock features. We were given miners’ helmets with head torchesand it was so pitch dark in the caves we had 10 minutes in the first chamber justto let our eyes adjust. Afterwards we were taken deeper into the cave and the easysandy path was soon replaced by slippery stone which we had to scramble over,often getting onto hands and knees to shimmy through narrow tunnels. It wasinteresting, but all we could think about was the fact we were getting our newlylaundered clothes filthy and wet again!We continued our journey on Route 40 planning to just park up off the roadthat night. Argentina is generally safer than many South American countries tofree camp. While we were on the lookout for somewhere suitable, we spotted asign for thermal pools which sounded inviting – the sun was still out and it wasn’ttoo cold yet. We drove a kilometre or so down a lane and found the place whichto be honest was a bit of a tip and stunk of sulphur. The owner showed us thepools which looked pretty grotty, but Colin gamely said he’d go in. The guylooked amused and Colin asked if the water was hot – it was bubbling away. Theguy just told him to touch it and Colin nearly had a heart attack when he put hishand in – it was freezing! The guy laughed and said it was only hot in summer,which confused us a bit as we thought thermal waters were hot all year round. Weparked up in his car park for the night which was nice and peaceful.With the long distances we are covering here we often cross from one provinceto the next in a day. Each province has sanitary controls as well as police checks.The sanitary controls are food controls and it is very hard to know what they aregoing to forbid you to carry across the border. The first few checks were just forfruit. Things like bananas were fine, but fruits with seeds seemed to beforbidden. In this area we had our first check looking for meat and animalproducts. We weren’t keen to lose the sausages we’d bought for that night’s tea,so I had to tell a few porkies to keep our porkies. It is a bit ofa nuisance though, as we can never stock up too much withfresh produce as it isn’t always clear where the next control willbe. The scenery became increasingly dull as we left themountains behind and all we could see ahead of us was a longstretch of dusty road. However this backwater of the countryhad been made famous in the late 1980s by some significantdiscoveries of dinosaur fossils including those of the largestherbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs ever found. Our firststop was at the Museo Carmen Funes, in a dusty littlepetroleum mining town called Plaza Huincul. Here they havea full sized reconstruction of an enormous dinosaur – 38mCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIANT CREATURES PAST AND PRESENT261DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 261

long, 18m high and it would have weighed as much as 50 elephants. Two of itsoriginal bones which were discovered are also displayed. The local sculptor whoreconstructed the model also worked on the dinosaur models for the film JurassicPark.We continued on to Villa El Chocon, a small town on the banks of ahydroelectric reservoir that has also had some amazing fossil finds. The Municipalmuseum here has a virtually complete 100 million year old skeleton of agiganotosaurus, found just 18km away, which allegedly makes the tyrannosaurusrex look namby pamby. It was 14m long, 4.7m tall and would have weighed 10tons. They also had many more fossils and reconstructions. The following morningwe drove further down the reservoir to see some actual dinosaur footprints at thewater’s edge – we’re not sure how they had been preserved for so long, butapparently local fishermen used them as barbeque pits for their fish beforesomeone realised what they were.After our experience at the Ford garage in Mendoza, where we said ‘neveragain’ I’m not sure how we ended up in the Ford garage at Neuquen, but we did.Colin thought he’d just ask if they had an oil filter for Frank. They said they didn’thave a filter, but they were sure they could supply us with one that would do thejob – they just needed to take the old one off to check the connection. Frank hadalso been dripping oil and Colin was sure it was from the sump gasket. Again theysaid they’d have a look at it and see if it could be repaired. As is the norm here, weended up with virtually all the mechanics around Frank (that Texas plate again),but with very little action. After an eternity the oil filter was removed and ofcourse they didn’t have anything suitable to replace it, but ever helpful, they saidthey’d send someone across town to get one. Several different people looked at thesump gasket and they concluded that they would need the vehicle in for two daysto lift out the engine to get at it. We didn’t like the sound of that, especially if theycouldn’t get the parts. I really wasn’t convinced they knew what they were doing262ABOVEMuseo CarmenFunesABOVE RIGHTDinosaur footprintsDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 262

at all. It was rapidly approaching lunchtime which means a whirlwind evacuationof the premises and we’d be locked out until after 3.30pm. The parts guy returnedsaying that couldn’t get the oil filter until after lunch, so we made them replacethe old one. They cleaned up our sump and we got everything back to how we’dbrought it in three hours ago. We then had a bit of a shock with the bill. Fordoing nothing they wanted to charge us pesos 350 (£60). Colin took great delightin taking the guy through the bill and returned 10 minutes later having paid pesos100 (£15)– basically one hours labour. We spent the rest of the day just driving. The roads were pretty quiet withnot a lot to look at. Our game of I-Spy was hard work. We had a night in apretty grim truckstop and with a final push the following morning, we arrived atPuerto Madryn. Puerto Madryn is the diving capital of Argentina, but at this time of year mostvisitors are here to see the whales and other marine life on Peninsular Valdes. Thetown was where the Welsh, escaping persecution in Britain, first arrived in 1865,and there are several Welsh communities nearby. We drove to a beach a fewkilometres from town to catch up with Gudrun and Toby who had found a greatcamping spot. As we arrived we spotted many whales swimming close to theshore. These southern right whales are the same as those we saw in Hermanus,South Africa two years ago. In fact some of the whales could well have been inHermanus when we were there. They come to this bay between May andDecember to breed and October is the peak time to see them. There are only3,000 of them in the world after heavy hunting made them endangered. Sadlythey are known as right whales as they were the right whales to hunt. They arenaturally curious so swim up to boats and once harpooned they float in the water(unlike many other whales which sink) making retrieval easy and they yield a lotof oil. Thankfully they are protected in Argentine waters, so as long as they don’tgo off course to Japan or Norway they should be relatively safe. We’d been invited by the couple living here for an asado, so we headed backinto town and met up with Carlos and his English speaking son Hernan. Theysaid this was a special holiday weekend (Columbus Day), so town would bepacked with Argentine tourists, with their souvenir shop being very busy, so wearranged that we would go to the peninsular for the weekend and meet them thefollowing week for our asado. We had also ordered a few things from the Statesto be delivered to the shop, so we hoped they would be there when we returned. We drove the 100km to Punta Piramides, the main town on the peninsular,and looked into whale watching boat trips which we’d been advised to do beforeall the holiday visitors arrived. Colin had got talking to a marine biologist theprevious day who said he also worked as a tour guide on one of the boats. He’dgot us very excited by telling us that killer whales (orcas) that the peninsular isalso famous for had been seen patrolling the waters in the last week. If youremember David Attenborough’s incredible Trials of Life footage of them comingup onto the beach to eat baby seals – well that is here.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIANT CREATURES PAST AND PRESENT263DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 263

Even though we had seen the whales very close up from the beach, the boat tripwas wonderful. We headed round into another bay and saw many sets of mothersand calves who came right up to the boat sticking their heads out to have a look.We were then treated to a great display of breaching where they launch themselvesout of the water, twisting their bodies and come back down with a big crash -adults are the size of an articulated lorry and at 40 tons, the same weight, so it’squite a splash. No-one really knows why they do this – theories include it is forcommunication purposes, it builds up strength in the young calves before their bigjourney across the oceans, or maybe they just like the feel of it. We were certainlyon a high after the two hour trip. The next day we went to park up in the bay where we’d been taken on the boat.Officially we’d been told that camping was only permitted in the municipal site intown, but European vehicle drivers had obviously discovered you could camp onthe beach here. When we arrived there were several other motorhomes fromGermany, Switzerland, France and Belgium. Paradelas Bay was a magical place ina beautiful setting. We spent a couple of days there walking up and down theheadlands, taking a pew on the barnacle encrusted rocks to watch the whalesgently glide past, or maybe have a more energetic display of breaching, flipper and264DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 264

tail slapping, or rolling around. We’d also get the occasional sighting of a sea lionand once were lucky enough to see a group of dolphins swim past. We were veryamused when one of the Swiss ladies told us that she’d read in the newspaperthat lots more tourists were expected soon as an albino whale had been sighted.She was a bit upset when we told her we’d seen it just half an hour ago when itliterally swam straight past us! On our final day we had a drive around the rest of the peninsular. The roadswere deadly boring and dusty, but the various coastal sites were stunning. Ourfirst stop was Punta Norte, where the killer whales beach, but mainly in Marchat the height of the sea lion season. The park ranger told us orcas had been therejust yesterday, but they were more likely to beach at this time of the year furtherdown the coast. We hung around for an hour approaching high tide hoping we’dstrike lucky, but eventually decided we’d head to Caleta Valdes midway on thepeninsular to see if they were there. We had a brief stop to look at a smallpenguin colony, but the wind was so strong we could barely stand up let alonefocus our cameras. It was busy at Caleta Valdes, but when we checked thesightings board we saw they’d already seen orcas that day. We were a bit guttedto find we’d missed them by just half an hour. It was horribly windy there too and265DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 265

we got completely sand blasted watching the elephant seals on the beach. Back at the campsite in Punta Piramides we were a bit horrified by the amountof litter and discarded food the holiday weekend tourists had left behind. Thebeach was also caked in rotting plastic bags – not what you want to see in animportant marine conservation area. While we were sweeping sand and dust outof Betty, a young Swiss guy knocked on our door and subtly said his camping stovewasn’t working so could he eat with us – we liked his style, so told him to comeback in an hour and we’d knock up some pasta. He’d been on the road (cycling)for just three weeks and planned to spend a year in South America. With the strongwinds and dust in Patagonia we didn’t think that cycling would be a pleasantexperience at this time of year.Back in Puerto Madryn we met up with Carlos again, who kindly took us to amechanic to check out our oil leak. Luckily for us he had an assistant who spokeperfect English after living in Australia for 14 years (if you can call Australianperfect English) and they were sure it wasn’t an oil leak that was our problem, butthat our fuel pump was leaking and dripping down over the sump gasket. Theysaid it wasn’t a serious problem, again we’d have no chance of being able to buya new one in Argentina, but we should try and get it replaced in Chile. Carlostold us we were invited to his house for the asado that night at 9pm which panickedus as it was virtually our bedtime.We had a lovely night and you’ll be glad to hear we didmanage to stay awake. Hernan and his wife were there too tohelp out with translating. Carlos cooked a delicious array ofmeats – lamb, big meaty sausages and blood sausage (blackpudding). We had an interesting time learning a bit moreabout Argentine customs and them about English ones – ofcourse football had to come up at some point. I got a bittwitchy when Hernan mentioned that Argentina had suffereda similar hand of god incident at the hands of the Brazilians,and Colin said ‘serves you right’ a bit too quickly! Not reallythe way to treat your generous hosts!As there was no sign of our parcel we returned to thepeninsular. En route we stopped at the visitors’ centre to checktide times at the points where the orcas could be seen. The ranger said they’d beenat Caleta Valdes for the past four days, but the time of the high tide was in themiddle of the night or late afternoon. The following day was our only realisticchance of being there two hours each side of high tide, the most likely time to seethe orcas. 266DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 266

The beach at Paradelas Bay had more European trucks on it than ever – theSwiss giving the Germans a run for their money in numbers. Alex the Swiss cyclistwas there too, being fed and looked after by all his fellow countrymen. We parkednext to Frank and his family in a beaten up VW van. We’d met them back in Mayat Arequipa in Peru. We had a good chat with them in the evening and shared ourfears of whether we would be able to settle back into life in our home countries. Before we set off orca spotting the following afternoon, we had our closest onshore encounters with the whales yet – they came past the headland maybe onlytwo metres out. Back at Caleta Valdes, we had a walk around the trails andwatched the dozing elephant seals which made revolting squelchy noises. Aftertwo hours it was close to high tide, but there was no sign of the orcas. We wereall happily chatting, when a Swiss lady screamed down to us that the orcas hadbeen spotted further down the beach. There was a mad scramble back up thepath and a dash down the other path to where we could see them. Unfortunatelythey were quite a distance from where we could stand, but they were heading intoa section of water enclosed by a spit. There must have been at least six of themand they move incredibly fast. We could see them working as a team roundingup fish. We could also see they were chasing seals towards the beach and couldjust make out one beaching – awesome (don’t worry – the seal escaped). Seeinga nine ton killer whale charge up onto a beach is a sight we won’t forget in ahurry.The following day was blissful – a beautiful clear sunny day, the sea was likeCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIANT CREATURES PAST AND PRESENTDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 267

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a millpond and the whales did some nice performances for us. Sure beats Mondaymorning at the office. We tore ourselves away from the bay and headed back to Puerto Madryn, butthere was still no news of our parcel. In fact the US Postal Service kindly told usthat they didn’t have a clue where it had gone once it left their territory – thanksguys! I finally had the idea that we should try the customs offices in town to seeif they could track it down for us. After finding the main office in town shut, wewent into the tourist office who kindly made a phone call for us and put us on toan English speaking man at the customs at the port. We raced down to meet himand he then made a couple more calls for us, discovering that our package was atthe Post Office and we could collect it the following morning. We tried not to gettoo excited about this just in case it wasn’t our package, but we were elated to findit was. Not only did we have our new gas regulator, but we had Harry Potter 5and some chocolate goodies (Madeline and Ben – thanks for the empty AfterEight wrappers that spilled out all over the customs officers desk!). Colin fitted the new gas regulator and we were finally ready to head on.However it was full moon in a couple of days time which we thought would benice to spend on the beach. When we arrived at the beach outside town all themotorhomes we’d seen on the peninsular were there! We parked up near Frankand family again and enjoyed a lovely spectacle of whales swimming just feetaway from the beach. A female was having a good flirt with several males. Thefollowing morning we were treated to the same performance after being wokenby them at 6.30am. Unfortunately the full moon was a bit of a letdown. Thewind picked up so we couldn’t sit outside and clouds obscured the moon. Wesaid a final goodbye to Carlos before leaving town – but we may end up seeing himagain in a month’s time as he will be fishing for trout in a lake further south inPatagonia and he said he’d cook one for us if we turned up.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GIANT CREATURES PAST AND PRESENT269DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 269

Cakes and Lakes October 2007: ArgentinaIT WAS GOOD TO BE BACK on the road again after our extended stay in PuertoMadryn, even if we didn’t go too far the first day. We had just an hour’s drive tothe Welsh town of Trelew. It wasn’t the most attractive of places, so we juststopped to visit a palaeontology museum that had been recommended, butalthough interesting, we preferred the ones we’d visited near Neuquen.A few more kilometres down the road we arrived at the slightly morepicturesque Welsh town of Gaiman. We were only here to visit the Welshtearooms, but with a couple of hours to kill before they opened we had a veryworthwhile diversion to a palaeontology park. Here we had a walk on a trail upto a viewpoint of the valley which took us through stratified fossil beds datingback 40 million years. At points along the trail they exhibited fossilised bones ofcreatures they’d found at the various levels that had lived here between 10 and 40million years ago, including seals, dolphins, penguins, armadillos and whales plusa few extinct creatures. Being 100km from the coast it was incredible to think thisregion was once under water. Back in town we were the first into our chosen tearoom. It was set out withchintzy white china and tablecloths as you’d expect. We weren’t exactly sure whatwe’d be given, but after a little wait the waitress returned with a pot of tea and twoplates containing 20 cakes (and that didn’t include the bread and butter). Wesurveyed the plates which included hot cheese scones, apple pie, banana cake,custard tart, lemon tart, fruit cakes etc etc and with a deep breath we tucked in.Half an hour later we’d drained our teapot and polished off all but five cakes – andthis is two people who swear that they prefer savoury food – we felt stuffed! We waddled away from here and drove a little further to a recreational resortcalled Dique Florentino Ameghino. It was a small village by a dammed lakesurrounded by dark red rocky hills with a green river running through. Thecampground wasn’t anything special, but we found Alex the Swiss cyclist alreadycamped. We disappointed him by telling him we weren’t cooking tea tonight after270DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 270

our cakefest, but he happily accepted the use of our kitchen to cook his pasta. Wewere a bit staggered at how much he could eat – he polished off a whole 500gpacket of pasta with a sauce and packet of parmesan cheese – cycling is hungrywork. He’d left before us the following morning to try and beat the wind, but as thedust was swirling when we pulled away we knew he’d be having a rough timecycling headlong into this. After an hour we’d still not seen him and we haddecided he’d either been blown backwards in the other direction or had picked upa lift. We finally spotted him in the distance with another cyclist that we’d seenthe day before. They were weaving around on the road with their effort to goforward. We pulled over and found the other guy was from France and also calledAlex. Swiss Alex had met him that morning when a truck pulled over to offer hima lift and he was already in it. He definitely looked a bit cheesed off with thewhole wind situation, while Swiss Alex was managing to keep his sense ofhumour about cycling 600km across a long straight road into a strong headwindwith no trees to shelter them and more than 100km between each small dustysettlement. We filled up their water bottles, gave them the last of our CadburysChocolate Éclairs (a great sacrifice) and wished them well. We made good progress and arrived in the tourist town of Esquel by earlyevening. We were back in picturesque scenery – snow topped mountains, greenvalleys and bright pink flamingos on the lakes. We were also back in the cold –COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | CAKES AND LAKESBELOWParque NacionalLos AlercesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 271

a rude awakening after the warm weather on the Atlantic coast. The next day we headed into Parque Nacional Los Alerces, named after theredwood pine trees that grow there, a very beautiful forested park with severallakes and surrounded by snowy peaks. At this time of year there are very fewvisitors as most of the accommodation and activities are closed, but there are manyfabulous free camping sites around the lake. We spent two days in the park,walking on a few of the many trails and camping in different lakeside spots. Weweren’t so lucky with the weather on the second afternoon and it was raining quitesteadily by the time we parked up for the evening. As we were warming up with acup of coffee, two more Swiss cyclists arrived. Much as we love cycling, we are sograteful we’re not travelling this way in this part of the world. The thought ofarriving wet through at a campsite with no facilities and having to pitch a tent justwasn’t appealing as we sat watching them from our cosy heated comfortable Betty.We invited them in for a coffee and once they got themselves set up they joined usfor the evening. As the rain didn’t look like it was going to stop we cooked dinnerfor them too and plied them with red wine. Thankfully the weather the next morning was beautiful when we waved themoff. They’re heading towards Ushuaia for Christmas also so we expect we’ll passthem again on our travels south. We headed out of the park towards El Bolson,another popular resort with beautiful scenery. En route we stopped for a brieflook at an old wooden shack that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid supposedlylived in for some time in the early 1900’s. 272DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 272

Although very touristy, El Bolson is a nice little place – very chilled, being anold hippy hangout from the 70’s. There’s a market several days a week wherethey sell homemade cheeses, beers and jams as well as handicrafts. There’s notmuch to do in the town itself, but we visited some nice viewpoints above the townand sampled some of the locally brewed beer at a Cervecaria. It produces finefruit beers as well as blond, wheat and dark winter beers. However, one of thebest things in El Bolson is an empanada shop. I’m sure we’ve mentioned thesebefore, but they are like little hot pasty snacks unique to South America. We’venot been too impressed with Argentina’s so far, but this shop more than made upfor it. They had about 28 different varieties (including exotic ones like trout androquefort) of which we sampled a fair few.Our next destination was the main tourist town of the Argentine Lake District,Bariloche. On our first day there we drove around the area south of the town,visiting an out of season ski resort. Being there between the main holiday seasons,we found many things had either just shut down at the end of their winter season,or had not quite opened yet for spring/summer season. We also drove most of the Circuito Chico, a 60km route around the lakes southof Bariloche, passing through a Provincial Park, Llao Llao, where short trails takeyou through to scenic viewpoints of the lakes. We camped in a lovely spot by oneof the lakes. The next day we drove the Circuito Grande, a 240km route north ofBariloche and also incredibly scenic. The route took us through the beautiful ValleEncantado which has a clear blue, bubbling river running through a valley offorested slopes, the mountain tops being weird jagged shapes. We continued ona dirt road to Villa Traful which is situated on a deep blue lake of the same name– a popular place with fishermen. We came back round towards Bariloche, thistime camping at Villa Angostura, another tourist centre on the lakes. We’d read that there is a 12km trail to get to a wood with some special trees(arrayanes) in the local National Park. With Colin’s knee continuing to be apainful problem we didn’t think a 24km return walk would do it much good andwith the cycle path closed we opted for a tame boat trip. It was pleasant, but itwas one of the cold gloomy days and the views on the lake weren’t as clear asthey could be. The trees at the tip of the peninsular were attractive though – theyhave flaky cinnamon coloured bark, grow in interesting shapes and were said tobe up to 600 years old.It was another cold night, but we managed a great barbeque in the shelteredstands at the campsite. Argentine steak is the business. Tomorrow’s dinner willbe in Chile. COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | CAKES AND LAKES273DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 273

What Volcanoes? November 2007 : ChileAFTER PASSING THROUGH THE Argentine customs we climbed higher over the top ofthe Andes, where in places the snow at the side of the road was taller than Frank& Betty. We arrived at the Chilean customs and signed the vehicle import papers. Thecustoms man said ‘thank you, you have just signed over your motorhome to me –thanks for the present!’ As he said this in Spanish it took us five minutes to get hisjoke. The customs lady then confiscated Liz’s currants even though we tried topersuade her that being dried they didn’t count as fresh fruit. Liz did howevercontinue the tradition of smuggling garlic and an onion into the country.Our first night back in Chile was at a petrol station at the side of Route 5, whichforms part of the Pan American highway that we first met back in Mexico andhave crossed many times in the last 16 months. Before you form a picture of usparking in a petrol station back home, let us explain that in Chile it is completelydifferent from those we have previously stayed at in other countries. First, theyhave a tarmac parking area with well kept flower beds and a coffee shop wherethey bake pastries, while you use the free Wi-Fi. They even have electric sockets toplug in your computer. Also for a small fee you can use the spotlessly clean hotshowers. The next day we set off in the direction of the Island of Chiloe, stopping off enroute in Osorno to order a new fuel pump for Frank who has been continuing toleak diesel which is pretty expensive in Chile at 50p per litre – well it’s double whatwe were paying in Argentina. After arranging to pick up the part in a week’s time,we continued on to Puerto Montt.According to our guidebook the road we were taking would pass the amazingview of a perfectly shaped conical volcano covered in snow. After seeing nothingbut clouds we decided that someone had stolen the volcano.For those of you worried about our diet (OK then, my mother!), in Argentinawe have been eating the finest steaks we have ever had, they just melt in your mouth274DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 274

and they cost less than vegetables. In Chile, the Lake District area is the numbertwo area in the world for salmon and number one for wild trout and we can assureyou that both are delicious. The salmon we had at Puerto Montt smelledparticularly fresh – well our campsite was 100m from the sea, or was it that wewere 50m from the fish factory next door?The next morning, smelling of fish even after a shower, we headed for the ferryto the Island of Chiloe and by lunchtime we found ourselves in a remote bay onthe island eating oysters with a glass of white wine, watching the black neckedswans in the bay. We can’t wait to get home and back to work! In the afternoonwe continued to the National Park of Chiloe where we camped on the edge of thebeach, watching and listening to the Pacific Ocean pounding the shore.The following morning was the start of what could be described as a ‘characterbuilding’ two days. After a lovely walk on the deserted beach amongst the sanddunes, I turned the keys in Frank’s ignition and absolutely nothing but a groanoccurred. At this point, my mind retraced the last 18 hours since our arrival – wehad seen one person, heard two vehicles and the nearest town was 100kmaway. Help!As we stood there staring at each other wondering what to do, I heard a vehiclein the distance and ran to the track to flag the truck down I explained in my bestSpanish, with a lot of hand gestures and a bit of French (‘no vava-voom’) what theproblem was. He followed me down to the beach and we tried connecting hisbattery to Frank’s but it made no difference – just the same groan. Frank didhowever burst into life when we bump started him with a tow from the truck.After plenty of ‘gracias’ we headed for the town quickly!En route we wanted to visit a historic church and as it was on a slope weswitched off the engine. Again we only got a groan when we tried restarting it. Atthis point I suspected the starter motor was the problem. This was later confirmedwhen we visited a mechanic on the outskirts of town. We arrived in the rain at a dirty, grotty back street garage. I switched off the275LEFTThe National Parkof ChiloeBELOWOne of manyhistoric timberchurchesDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 275

engine on the sloping yard in front of the workshop, so he had no choice but to dothe repair as no other vehicle could get in or out. Nelson greeted us with a grunt– in fact we only ever got grunts from him during the whole time we were there.His sister interpreted them for us. The first grunt meant it was lunchtime and weshould come back in an hour and a half. We explained that we couldn’t goanywhere and would wait. His mother (they all lived in the house that is part ofthe garage) invited us in for a coffee and biscuits which we really appreciated as ithad become very cold as well as wet.After his lunchbreak he performed a lot of tests and kept insisting that thebatteries were the problem which I knew was incorrect. After a frustrating 90minutes he decided it was the starter motor – ‘Alleluia’ and through his gruntssaid he would have it repaired in three hours. Within an hour there were bits of ourstarter motor all over his workshop, mixed in with bits of every other starter thathe had ever dissected. After five hours he told us that it was really knackered andhe didn’t believe there would be another one in Chile, but he would send it in a taxito a friend to see if he could repair it.We had to set up home in his yard for the night and to add insult to injury ourgas ran out, meaning we had a very cold evening with no heating. Every time weopened the door we had to fight with his guard dog – yes, the dog also thought itwas too cold and kept trying to get in. It was also covered in oil from life in thegarage.We were awoken by the sound of an old military truck’s engine being revvedand Nelson attaching a metal towing bar to the front of us with the aim ofpushing us out of the way so he could get on with some other work. He at leastgave me time to get behind the wheel. He told us that his mate thought he couldfix the starter and we should come back at 5pm – in other words ‘get out of myhair for the day’. So we set off into Castro and by 10am we had seen everythingthe town had to offer. It is famous for its colourful stilted houses on thewaterfront known as palafitos. Before heading into an internet café, we had alook around all the hotels/hostels and booked one for the night – we had thatmuch confidence.We arrived back at Nelsons yard at 4.30pm and he told us tostart up Frank which we did! We just stared at each other indisbelief and shock – even Nelson managed a grimace. It appearsthat they had completely rebuilt the starter from scratch, justusing the original casing. We headed back into town and enjoyed the luxury of ourhotel for the night and toasted our man Nelson. We enjoyed thehotel so much, that we stopped another night. During the daywe visited another island called Quinchao, which had more nicebuildings and is famous for its seafood.We headed back to the mainland in the rain to find thosevolcanoes were still missing. All we could see was mist and276DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 276

clouds where we presumed they should be – they had definitely been stolen! Wevisited the parts supplier to collect the fuel pump and we parked up on a lakesidecampsite for a couple of days to enable me to get the jobs done on Frank whilstLiz did a few domestic jobs in Betty. The following day the weather was better, butstill no signs of those blessed volcanoes. It took all day, but I did manage to getall the maintenance jobs done and replaced the fuel pump after the old one putup a strong fight!We woke to the most beautiful spring day – not a cloud, or a volcano for thatmatter, in sight. We headed out of the campsite up the hill to the main road andthere straight in front of us were the most perfectly shaped snow cappedvolcanoes. I think we spent the whole day just taking photos of them fromdifferent angles. Finally, we parked up on a volcanic beach and did a boat trip ofLago Todos los Santos with a backdrop of volcano Osorno and many otherbeautiful mountains bordering Argentina. We stopped the night on the beach,which we had to ourselves, enjoying the most amazing views and a stunningsunset – it doesn’t get much better.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | WHAT VOLCANOES?BELOWVolcano OsornoDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 277

The next morning the weather was just as good so we hired kayaks for a coupleof hours, then visited some waterfalls, before driving to another lake. We parkedon the edge of the beach enjoying the weather and views of another volcano(Calbuco). Over the next two days we headed towards the resort town of Pucon stoppingthe night en route at Valdivia which has a renowned fish market. Sea lions standat the back of the market stalls and catch all the fish heads as the fishmongersthrow them over their shoulders whilst cleaning and preparing the fish. They aredefinitely the biggest sea lions we have ever seen. I bet they don’t even know howto catch their own fish! There was a raft they climbed on for a rest in the estuary– you should see it lean as they struggled to climb on.Pucon is in the most beautiful setting, on the edge of Lake Villarrica withstunning mountains on the opposite lakeshore and behind the town, anotherperfectly conical shaped, snow capped volcano. Volcano Villarrica differs from theothers in the Lake District region in that it is very active and you can see the smokerising from the funnel. The town has a warning system like traffic lights whichwarns the residents of the current danger from the volcano. It was on green whichwas good news for us! It is very much a tourist town, where you can partake in adventure activities. Wespent five days doing a number of activities and just enjoying the perfect weatherin such an outstanding setting. We did a 40km bike ride along a valley to somewaterfalls and also hiked to some small lakes in the mountains in the NationalPark Huerquehue. As we approached the top we had to climb through snow toreach the lakes.Our most enjoyable day was spent horseriding in the mountains with the mostresponsive horses we have ever ridden. We went with a very charismatic Chileanwho had in the past trained both the Chilean and Spanish equestrian teams. As Lizwas the most experienced of the six of us (two more Brits and a Danish couple)278ABOVEA perfect campingspot with anamazing view of thesun going down DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 278

he gave her a horse saying that it was one she wouldn’t have time to relax on ortake photos. Once she was in the saddle the horse walked around the paddock asthough it was waiting for the flag to drop at the races! She handled him welland when we did get the chance to race off, Liz soon passed us all. We climbedto quite a height with great views down the valley and continued up to thesnow line where we dismounted to throw snow balls at each other. Lunch wasa barbeque accompanied by good wine with views across the valley to moresnow capped mountains, and all this in warm sunshine. At night we parkedon their farm (estancia), next to some accommodation they own and watchedthe sun go down drinking wine with the other English couple – another perfectday.En route to the border we visited some thermal springs and soaked awaysome of the aches and pains from the last few days. Leaving the springs,we climbed up the mountain pass Mamul Malal, over the snow coveredAndes and the first we saw of Argentina was Volcano Lanin – common thesevolcanoes!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | WHAT VOLCANOES?DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 279

Blown Away in PatagoniaNovember 2007 : Argentina and ChileOUR FIRST NIGHT BACK IN ARGENTINA was spent looking up at the 3,800m VolcanoLanin. In the morning we couldn’t even see the volcano any more with low cloudsobscuring it, but by the time we’d gone downhill and reached the attractive touristtown of San Martin de los Andes, we were in glorious sunshine again. Since we’dlast been in Argentina, spring had definitely sprung and everywhere was a riot ofcolour – bright yellow broom and blue and pink lupins everywhere.280RIGHTLago Lacar at SanMartin de los Andes DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 280

Whilst in town, we finally managed to secure our Rio carnival tickets andhotel. Booking these was not a nice experience with everybody trying to rip us off.Hotels at least quadruple their prices for Carnival week insisting on a minimumstay of seven nights. It felt as if the price of the samba parade tickets increaseddaily and everything had to be paid in full at the time of booking, but hopefullyit will mark a colourful end to our trip.The beautiful weather continued as we drove south down the Seven LakesRoute, supposedly one of the most beautiful drives in Argentina. It was veryscenic, with views of seven lakes surprisingly, and lovely mountain views, but weare not sure it was the most scenic. We spent the night by Lago Espejo, the lastlake on the route before continuing south of Bariloche to Lago Mascardi. Thiswas a beautiful area, popular with fishermen and packed with people when wearrived on Sunday afternoon, but by night time we nearly had it all to ourselves.The water flowing under a bridge next to the campsite was crystal clear and wecould watch trout swimming against the current.We had a day trip to Cerro Tronador, a 3,478m snow covered mountain, witha ‘black’ (dirty looking) glacier running off it. This area, called Pampa Linda, waslike beautiful Alpine scenery with walking trails (many still closed due to snow)and waterfalls nearby. We headed back through El Bolson where we had a couple of nights again,one night camping at the brewery – not as good as it sounds however as there areCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BLOWNAWAYINPATAGONIA281DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 281

much nicer campsites in town and although the beer was good, the food wasn’t.We bumped into German Frank and his family (last seen in Puerto Madryn),sampled more of our favourite empanadas, and discovered excellent ice cream –not sure how we missed that on our first visit.Our long run of great weather broke as we headed back to Esquel. We hadplanned to camp in the beautiful Los Alerces park again, but as we headed into thepark the weather was closing in and we hit a roadblock so had to forget the ideaaltogether. We drove on to Trevelin, the nearest town to the Chilean border. In themorning, we awoke to find the campsite owner having a good look at Frank &Betty. He was in love with Betty and said he’d buy her from us there and then. Hethen proceeded to take us around his campsite showing us his old vehicles, caravansand even an amphibious caravan which could go in the water to fish from. Hekept telling us how loving his little dog was, even though Colin had nearly beencaught giving it a Johnny Wilkinson kick the previous evening as it ran at himsnarling. We had to go through all of his photo albums, the visitors’ book, andwere finally shown the ears of a previous dog which were pinned to the wall! Icould see Colin’s patience evaporating, so after a couple of hours we finally madeour exit and broke for the border.We had a few cattle jams on our way to the border, then we got behind a groupof 20 motorcyclists (or rather they overtook us) which made progress through boththe Argentine and Chilean controls a bit lengthier than usual. The border town onthe Chilean side was a wild place called Futaleufu (sounds like somewhere inYorkshire to me). It is apparently famous for its world class white water rafting,but we only hung around long enough to buy fresh food (if you can call the soggywilted veg on offer fresh – a little bit annoying when you are made to hand in allyour really fresh stuff to the customs as you enter the country).We drove a little way on a pleasant dirt road before joining the CarreteraAustral, known as the southern highway of Chile, being the only north-south roadand infamous for its rutted corrugated condition, running through undevelopedand unspoilt landscapes. The weather in this part of the world can change severaltimes within an hour, but this day we were enjoying clear viewsof the lovely lakes and mountains. We’d been recommended tocamp in the Quelat National Park and as we rolled up at thegates early in the evening, we were disappointed to be told bythe Guardaparque that the campsite was closed. We asked ifwe could at least just come in and park up in the car park andhe eventually relented and let us enter and use one of the propersites for free. It was a wet night, but in the morning it haltedlong enough for us to do a walk up to a viewpoint of theColgante hanging glacier. Back on the road we continued to pass through stunningscenery – if only we could see it through the clouds. We cameupon a truck at the side of the road which had a puncture. We282BELOWTypical scene on theCarretera AustralDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 282

offered the use of our small jack, but a woman and her daughter who lookedchilled to their bones asked if they could have a lift to the nearest town. It was aheck of a squeeze – four of us on Frank’s front bench seat, but they were verygrateful to have our heating. When we reached their home half an hour away, wewere invited in and the mother insisted on giving us a large glass of a chocolateliqueur saying it would warm us up (she downed a glass twice the size of ours inone). As I had to drink Colin’s too, my cheeks were certainly burning by the timewe left. The daughter Carla, who was a larger than life 12 year old, gave uspackets of biscuits, sweets and a handmade bead hair decoration. She thenshowed us her English schoolbooks and even had me playing a game with her. Shedidn’t seem to want us to leave and there were lots of hugs from her and hermother as we went on our way. Much of this middle section of the Carretera Austral is now paved, which wasa welcome relief after bouncing along dusty stony roads and running the gauntletof oncoming Chilean drivers who do not see the need to slow down on blindbends and hills, forcing us to pull over or duck from flying stones. Our windscreennow has seven stone chips and a big crack.After a night camping at a site near the largest town in the region, Coyhaique,we went into the town to buy some nicer fresh food (Colin was impressed that thefemale shelf stackers all wore mini Santa outfits). By late afternoon we arrivedat the huge Lago General Carrera (South America’s second largest lake) and thesun came out so we could see the superb views of the mountains. We found a nicespot to pull off the road for the night and admire the views.The following morning we left the Carretera Austral and followed the windingnarrow road alongside the lake all the way back to Argentina. We stopped in theborder town of Chile Chico for a bit of lunch, before crossing back into Argentinafor the fifth time of this trip. The border town here, Los Antiguos, doesn’t havea lot to offer unless you’re a fisherman, although it is nicely situated on LagoBuenos Aries (same lake as General Carrera). Carlos and Stella from PuertoMadryn had told us that they may be here doing a spot of fishing in earlyDecember and we found them parked up next to the lake. They kindly invited usto join them for lunch the following day. We met them on the beach while theycarried on trout fishing. They left us with their rods while they went to tend tothe food. Neither of us are the least bit interested in fishing and to be honestafter 10 minutes we’d had enough. At that moment Colin got a pull on his line –now what? I ran to get the others. They couldn’t believe it and were veryimpressed when they came and pulled it out. It was a decent sized trout at 1.77kgs and a metre long according to Colin. They kept chuckling about hisbeginner’s luck.We enjoyed a nice lunch of Patagonian lamb cooked on the wood fire withlovely local wine. We were grateful that Carlos cleaned up the fish for us. Back atthe campsite a Dutch couple had arrived and they couldn’t believe their luck tobe offered two large fresh trout fillets. That evening we got a fire going and bakedCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BLOWNAWAYINPATAGONIA283DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 283

the trout which was very tasty, but I don’t think we’ll be rushing out to buy a rod.While we were at Los Antiguos we found our big Texan front bumper had snapped– the Carretera Austral must have been rougher than we’d realised. Luckily Carlosknew of a good welder on the outskirts of town and we managed to get it weldedwithout too much bother.We set off back towards Ruta 40 which would take us due south into Patagonia.On the outskirts of a small town called Perito Moreno, we heard a horriblewhirring noise under our bonnet. Colin was not at all happy when he had a closerlook – it looked like a bearing had gone in the alternator. We asked at the petrolstation and they directed us to a mechanic in town, but we had a two hour wait forthe Argentine siesta to finish. The mechanic came out with a stethoscope and toldus the problem wasn’t what we’d suspected at all – it was a bearing on the belttensioner. He said he was too busy today, but offered that we could park in his yardfor the night, thankfully level this time, and he’d look at it first thing in themorning.That evening, as we made ourselves comfortable in our scenic campsite (parkednext to an old German hearse), Colin helped the guy finish off his current job –fixing a starter motor. It was about 8pm and we were a bit surprised when hestarted to look at our problem. It is light in this part of the world until way after10pm at this time off the year. As he dismantled the bearing it all just fell apart inhis hand, so it didn’t look like we’d have got much further in its condition – whata relief to get it sorted before we continued onto ‘Argentina’s most lonely road’.Colin was very impressed with the guy – he got a new bearing and had it all backand working within the hour. He showed us around his place. He just lived in anold caravan in his backyard with a manky old dog and some cats. We had a lousynight’s sleep. The town was incredibly noisy all night – these Argentineans mustnever sleep.We now faced a 600km drive to reach El Chalten our next destination. Thestretch of Ruta 40 from Perito Moreno south to Tres Lagos is known as theloneliest stretch of road in Argentina. Shortly after the paved road ran out, wetook a diversion to visit some famous cave paintings at Cueva delas Manos. We could access them through an Estancia whichwas 7km off the road with a further 18km on a rough track tothe edge of a canyon. Here we parked up and looked at hownear yet how far the caves were – just a stone’s throw across thevalley, but first we had to go down and climb back up the otherside. It was a nice walk if not a bit slippery on the steep shalepath and we slipped our way down to the river (Rio Pintura).We were nicely out of puff by the time we reached the visitorscentre. We were a bit taken aback to be accompanied by asecurity guard and a guide. There had been vandalism of thepaintings in the past, but now a big metal fence stops access, soa guard for just the two of us seemed a bit extreme. The hand284DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 284

paintings could have been modern day graffiti – it was hard to believe some partswere over 9,000 years old (7,200 BC), but the fact that they were in a shelteredposition had preserved their natural colours amazingly.The next section of Ruta 40 really takes you into the middle of nowhere. Therewere signs for ‘Camping at the next house-250km’ which gives you a measure ofdistances, with nothing in-between. We passed few vehicles with most being usedby a construction team who were upgrading a huge stretch of the road. Parts ofthe old road were in a horrible state making for a bone jarring ride. There was astrong cross wind and we saw two motorcyclists who came past us fighting tostay on. We needed to find a sheltered spot to park or we’d be seasick that night,but there were no trees, only barren landscape. It was 9pm before we finally founda works gravel pit which would give us some respite from the wind. We continued the next morning. The motorcyclists passed us again, stilllooking precarious as they fought with the wind. We passed a bright blue lake inthe middle of all this barren scenery – there was an Estancia there aptly calledSiberia. It was nearly midday when we reached Tres Lagos which for us meant awelcome stop at a fuel station for a cup of coffee. As we got closer to El Chaltenwe could see the magnificent sight of the mountains, with the impressive peaksof Fitzroy and Cerro Torres – both challenges to mountaineers. We were drivingheadlong into the strong wind, when we passed a European cyclist (a girl we’dseen on Chiloe a month ago). She was grinning from ear to ear as she was beingblown in the other direction at 45km per hour without having to pedal! El Chalten is a hiker’s paradise, but it also has some day hikes which wewanted to try. It’s a bleak windswept town, but there were more tourists thanwe’d seen for some time. The rangers at the Parks Office had told us if wecouldn’t see the mountain tops in the morning from town, then there wasn’t muchpoint setting out. Our first morning was pretty overcast, but we decided to go285LEFTArgentina’s mostlonely road DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 285

ahead with the walk and hope it cleared. We did a lovely three hour walk to LagoTorres which sits at the foot of the dramatic mountain peak and also has a glacierrunning into it. The weather held and although the clouds did cover the top of themountain we had some nice views. As we walked back the clouds really started toturn dark and there was rain in the air. As we went up and onto a hill over thetown, we were nearly knocked off our feet with the wind blowing through thevalley. It was hard work walking up the road to our campsite. There was lots ofdust and grit being blown with it and we couldn’t raise our heads.We were extremely relieved we’d decided to put Betty’s roof down that morningand we weren’t sure we should raise it now, but we needed to get things fromcupboards that meant we would have to. I normally have to use quite a bit of forceto wind the roof up, but as we opened our back door it went up on its own whichalarmed us! I ran off for a shower and when I got back I couldn’t understand whyColin had moved the truck. He was looking a little shaken when I found him.He’d been in Betty on the bed sorting out some stuff, when he’d looked out of thewindow to find Frank & Betty were being blown along. He’d had to leap out, runaround to the cab and slam the brakes on! We ended up moving them next to thewall of the house, but this didn’t really offer us sufficient shelter. We decided we’dneed to drop the roof and for the first time sleep on the bed we can make out ofBELOWApprocahing ElChalten DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 286

our dining table. As we couldn’t cook with the roof down we headed to a micro-brewery restaurant down the road. It was nice and cosy, but the wind was sostrong we could see the glass windows bowing and people were literally beingblown past. Neither of us had slept particularly well in our mini bed, but we were glad tofind the wind was much reduced in the morning. Colin’s knees were a sorry stateafter our walk the previous day, which ruled out any further walking. As theweather looked poor again, we decided to continue to El Calafate, the jumpingoff point to see the immense glaciers of this region. El Calafate is one of themost visited towns in Argentina and the centre of town was just a mass of touragencies, souvenir shops and eating places. The following day we headed to the Perito Moreno glacier. It really is anamazing sight – a face 4km wide and up to 60m high – a huge expanse of bluecracked ice. Walkways lead you to different views and we spent the whole daygazing at the hypnotic ice, listening to the huge cracks occurring and hoping tocatch the moment on film when a large piece of ice thundered into the water. Wehad planned to park up there for the night, but it is bitterly cold as the windcomes off the glacier, so we drove about 40km to the other side of the lake (LagoRoca) and camped in a lovely sheltered spot. From the lake we could see theCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BLOWNAWAYINPATAGONIADysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 287

upper section of the glacier.We’d been so impressed with the glacier that we booked ourselves on a dayboat trip to see the more inaccessible glaciers in the park. Unfortunately it was awet, cold day so we didn’t get super clear views, but we sailed past many largeicebergs of incredible colours and shapes. We landed at a bay and had a short walkto Lago Onelli with views of Glacier Onelli. There were huge chunks of ice in thelake. We then sailed to Glacier Upsala, which at 60km long and 6km wide is quitea sight. The most impressive was Glacier Spegazzini – slinking down a hill withthe frontage up to 130m high it is an awesome sight.It was time to head back into Chile again to visit the Torres del Paine NationalPark. We’d visited here on a holiday four years ago, and I always remember it asbeing one of the most stunning parks we’ve been to, so I was worried that afterseeing so many other awesome sights on our travels it may not seem so special.There was no need to worry – it is still without a doubt, one of the most beautifulparks, its centrepiece being the vertical granite towers (torres), then numerousglacial blue lakes, glaciers and plenty of fauna thrown in. Being late springtime,we saw lots of young animals – fox cubs, skunks, rheas (small ostrich like birds)and guanacos.The weather here is famously unpredictable, but we managed three perfect daysin the park. We had two nights at a campsite by Lago Pehoe which has a wonderfulview across the lake to the Torres. We spent one of the evenings with a very niceGerman couple who were travelling in a motor home for six months (paternityleave) with their four kids aged from 16 years to 10 months! Who says you can’t288DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 288

travel with children? We also had a night at Laguna Azul, a less visited area of thepark.We now had four days to get to Ushuaia to meet up with Gudrun and Toby.We had a night in Puerto Natales, the main town that tourists pass through to getto the park. We also had an overnight at Punta Arenas, the southernmost city ofChile. Again, we’d visited both these places four years ago and we thought theylooked much nicer and cleaner now – or maybe our perception of places haschanged with our travels.A short ferry crossing had us on Tierra del Fuego, an island divided betweenChile and Argentina. You have to be made of strong stuff to live in this part ofthe world – cold, wet, windy and barren landscape – even the sheep looked cold.You have to drive through Chile to reach the larger Argentine towns of RioGrande then Ushuaia, and the Chileans have provided a hard gravel road to reachthe Argentine border. We were shocked at how much traffic there was on thisroad to the end of the world and the local drivers were some of the mostinconsiderate we’ve come across. Lorries refused to slow down or move over,often forcing us right to the edge of the road where we’d slide in thick gravel. Totop it all, we got within 100m of the border and had a lorry fire a stone at uswhich left another big crack in our screen.On 20thDecember we rolled into Ushuaia and posed for photos with the sign‘Welcome to Ushuaia the southernmost city in the world.’ Having done 62,000kmin Frank & Betty we felt mixed emotions – reaching our goal, but nearing the endof our adventure. There’s only one way to go from here – North!COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | BLOWNAWAYINPATAGONIA289DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 289

Goodbye Frank and BettyDecember 2007: Argentina and BrazilUSHUAIA IS RENOWNED AMONGST TRAVELLERS as the place to be for Christmas. A lotof the people we had met on our journey through South America, backpackers,cyclists and fellow ‘truckers’ aim to spend their Christmas here. So it was no surprisewhen we pulled into the campsite to see a collection of twenty motorhomes/expedition vehicles already there, with a steady stream of new vehicles arriving eachday. The Andino campsite operates as a ski club for most of the year and a campsitein their summer. It has amazing views over the town and the Beagle channel, namedafter Charles Darwin’s ship in which he discovered the area.There, waiting for us, were Toby and Gudrun who had just returned from acruise to Antarctica. It was good to see them again and we quickly arranged anasado for later that afternoon. We spent the afternoon and evening swapping travelstories whilst it remained light till after 11pm. Normally when meeting up withthem, Gudrun leads us astray making us drink too much, but it was Toby who wason a mission that night and, as it turned out, for the next three nights. He forcedus to drink far too much against our will! Christmas had started in earnest.On 23rd December we waved them off, as they understandably didn’t want tospend Christmas with a load of Germans! Between them and the Swiss they hadtaken over the campsite by this stage.We headed in to town to meet up with Mad Mack (or Big Daddy Mack as hecalled himself), the American we had originally met in Uruguay. On the way therewe met a Scottish couple who had arrived at the campsite the previous evening. Weinvited them to join us for a drink with Mack. Next, we bumped into the Swisscyclists we had previously met in an Argentinean national park and they alsojoined us. Nicely settled in the bar and introductions completed, the conversationof how we had all got to Ushuaia started. Mad Mack had spent time at last year’sRio carnival before travelling down to Buenos Aires, bought a bicycle and througha combination of cycling and buses had made his way down to the southern tip.En route he had taken every opportunity to indulge his passion of skydiving, doing25 jumps at various places. Not bad for a 66 year old! The Scots had sold their290DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 290

business back home and set sail in a 47ft yacht with their twochildren, heading down the West African coast before crossingthe Atlantic to Salvador in Brazil. Here they bought a pickuptruck and a massive caravan and drove from there, arriving inUshuaia two and a half years after leaving home. The Swisshad cycled from Peru, 6,000km, got a last minute deal for a tripto Antarctica and were married by the Russian captain onboard. We felt humbled amongst these travellers.On Christmas Eve we had arranged to join some othertravellers at the campsite for a few drinks and nibbles. Therewas a French couple in their 25 year old Citroen van, who werecurrently three months into their around the world trip, payingfor the trip as they travelled, working as journalists. They hadcontracts to write articles about the trip for magazines and were also doing somehotel reviews. A Dutch couple who had set off east from Holland in theirLandcruiser in May 2003 (four and a half years ago) having been through Iran,the Middle East, India, Pakistan and Asia before shipping into South America. Aretired Canadian couple who had set off from British Columbia a year ago andplanned on taking even longer on the return leg of their journey. Again we had alovely evening enjoying each other’s ‘on the road stories’.On Christmas morning we made the nice mistake of sticking our headsthrough the door of the Scots caravan to wish them a Merry Christmas andwithin seconds a glass of wine was thrust into our hands. The glasses stayed stuckto our hands until it was officially the 26th! Mid afternoon Mad Mack joined usbringing a cake with birthday wishes to Jesus on it. As the day began to flow,Mack got out his mouth organ and started playing some songs he says he wrote.One in particular sticks in my mind – ‘Wild Women, Whisky and Weed!’ Laterstill, the Swiss cyclists turned up and joined us. We all then joined the group wehad spent Christmas Eve with for an asado. It was a very memorable ChristmasDay – great fun with some really nice inspiring people from different parts of theworld. On 26thDecember we vowed not to drink all day, recover and get ourselves andFrank & Betty ready for our long journey north. However that plan fell apartwhen we went round everyone saying our goodbyes. We were talked into a glassof wine with the Canadian couple and then with the German family with fourchildren we had first met in Torres Del Paine National Park. After leaving themwe had to get past the Scots caravan and failed, spending the rest of the eveningand some of the next morning extolling the virtues of good Argentine wine. We did manage to leave on the 27th December, pointing Frank & Betty northfor the 5,700km drive to Bombinhas in Brazil. We may have been heading north,but our compass continued to point south and to think we had been using it tonavigate all this time! Over the next four days, we left Argentina into Chile, thenwent back into Argentina and caught a ferry across the Magellan Straits whichCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOODBYE FRANK & BETTY291ABOVEMore drinks and anasado with Gudrunand TobyDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 291

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separates the mainland from the Tierra del Fuego. We visited a petrified forestwith the remains of trees that are 150 million years old and are now stone. We alsovisited the Punta Tombo National Park which has the largest Magellan penguincolony in the world with 175,000 breeding pairs and at this time of the year a lotof chicks.After 1,800km we arrived in Puerto Madryn where the temperature was in themid 30’s. We were taken aback by the number of people, as the last time we hadbeen there in late October, we probably would have passed four cars on thejourney to the campsite and now there wasn’t a space to park on either side of theroad for four kilometres. We had planned to spend a quiet New Year there, butas we drove into the campsite we met the German family with the four childrenagain and the Swiss cyclists who had caught the bus up from Ushuaia. So the quiet New Year’s Eve didn’t happen. We had an asado alongside lots ofArgentinean. At midnight we joined holidaymakers and locals on the headlandoverlooking town and watched a very spectacular display of fireworks, just letoff by individuals around the bay and more bizarrely watching all the menrunning around putting out the fires caused by the fireworks. It did seem ratherreckless to be setting off fireworks all around a town where it hadn’t rained for10 months! Whilst in Puerto Madryn, we also met up with Carlos, Stella and family againfor one last time, receiving a warm welcome as always. On 2ndJanuary wecontinued north, on very flat straight roads with minimal traffic. We would switchon the cruise control at 80kph and point Frank & Betty for 10 hours a day, onlystopping for fuel, food and comfort breaks. We did have a day off at a lovelymunicipal campsite in the middle of nowhere doing the jobs we had failed to doover the New Year. We had planned to avoid the regions of Entre Rios and Corrientes, these beingthe two states with corrupt traffic police that we have mentioned previously. As we approached the region we asked some truck drivers for suggestedalternative routes, but they insisted we would be fine. As the alternative would adda full day’s drive to the journey we went for it. As we approached a checkpointthey waved us down very excitedly pointing to Frank’s big Texan bumper. Beforewe had even stopped they were shouting ‘fine’, in Spanish of course! They insistedon seeing all our documents and without even a greeting, walked off with them.I followed and it became very clear we weren’t going to get them back until we hadhanded over some money.We have had some experiences in dealing with police ‘demands’ in SouthAmerica – you need to keep calm at all times, be overly friendly and appear to behelpful. So I didn’t help the situation by yelling at them to “go and get stuffed –I am not paying you corrupt police officers anything” within the first minute! Lizon the other hand held it together better and as the conversation went on they toldus that the big bars on the front of the truck were illegal in Argentina. Liz pointedout that we had been in Argentina for four months, had driven from the top to theCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOODBYE FRANK & BETTY293DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 293

bottom and back, had been stopped by the police at least once a day and it hadnever been a problem before. He then changed his tune and told us it was illegalin the region of Entre Rios! We asked to see the law and they produced it – it evenhad the fine written on it – 368 pesos. We told them that we didn’t need to complyas our truck was registered in the USA thus complying with the laws there andthat Argentine customs had granted us permission to travel with the vehicle for aperiod of time in the country (it worked in Peru!). They were having none of it –they weren’t even listening and just kept saying multa – (fine).Other travellers had told us that when they were in such situations, they just satthere and waited for the officers to get bored or to go home at the end of theirshift. However after an hour two new policemen, one more senior, arrived andtook over saying exactly the same. He said if we paid them cash they would giveus 25% discount and he produced a schedule of fines which clearly showeddiscount for cash. We’d had enough by now and decided we would pay up just toget away. I said we would pay as long as we get an official receipt and that I couldtake a photo of him so I can check it with his superiors. I was just being awkward.I refused the receipt in the duplicate pad as it had marks on it. He radioed hissuperiors for permission to use another receipt. Next we told him we didn’t havepesos so we would have to pay in dollars, so we argued over the exchange rate,then I wrote across the receipt/duplicate pad PAID CASH $92 which definitelycheesed him off. I then got out the camera as Liz started to drag me away. Herefused to have his photo taken! As soon as Liz had escorted me far enough awayfrom the police officer she returned to him saying “I don’t want to offend you, butyou have a terrible reputation for fining foreign tourists driving through and mostof them now prefer to drive around your region rather than through it which is294DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 294

bad for the people here”. He just shrugged! They never looked at anything else inor on Frank. It was as others had told us, we had to pay our fee to travel thoughtheir region. Another 50km down the road we were stopped again, still in the same region.The policeman asked to see our documents and having checked them waved us onwith no mention of Frank’s big front end! Feeling rather disgruntled and down on anything Argentine we were notlooking forward to driving through the supposedly worse region of Corrientes thenext day. We pulled into the little town of Yapeyu and were pleasantly surprisedas it was a lovely little place with a beautiful square and some historic Jesuitmission buildings. We found a municipal campsite and on entering we asked if ithad showers and how much it cost. The site manager’s response was “yes it has 24hour hot water showers and it is free!” (Albeit we didn’t need hot water as it wasnow in the high 30’s). We parked up on the banks of the Rio Uruguay with viewsacross to Brazil. It was a wonderful place. I asked the site manager where we couldbuy some cold beer and he instantly organised his son to take me to the shop – itwas nice and restored our faith in Argentina and Argentineans.It was so nice we stayed another day. We swam in the river and explored thetown. We found out that it was the birthplace of General San Martin who was akey figure in the battle for independence in South America and many Argentineanscome here to pay homage. In the main square there was a half built arch tocommemorate the war dead of the Malvinas (Falklands) conflict and it’s said thatthe arch will be completed when the Islands are returned to Argentine sovereignty.Feeling refreshed, we hit the road again for our final 600km drive in Argentinato Puerto Iguacu, with our fingers crossed that we would avoid the Corrientespolice. As it turned out we were only stopped by the police at the border of theMissiones region who only asked if he and his colleague could have a look in theTexan truck and camper. It was a pleasure!The campsite in Puerto Iguaçu was packed with Argentine holidaymakers, butwe were lucky enough to find a quiet corner where we set up camp for a few daysplanning our border crossing and our route across Brazil to deliver Frank & Bettyto their new owners.COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOODBYE FRANK & BETTY295DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 295

We crossed into Brazil and spent a few days back at a campsite we had stoppedat on our previous time here, six months ago. Whilst here we visited the falls againto see if they looked any different in the summer months. Even with slightly lessvolume of water they still looked magnificent. At the campsite we met a retired airline pilot from the USA, Ruben now livingand working in Brazil, training pilots on simulators. He gave us lots of usefuladvice on driving on the roads of Brazil and commented that 10 to 50 Reais ($5 to$20) will sort out any police problems here. He and his wife Marta gave us somegood Brazilian style hospitality inviting us to a barbeque.From Iguacu we had two full days driving to Bombinhas spending our finalnight on the road at a tranquil lakeside campsite. The next three days were sad days, clearing everything out of Frank & Betty. Wesent some stuff back to the UK and spent time organising flights and hotels/hostelsfor our last few weeks. We had a sad final evening, sitting on the front seats ofFrank with a bottle of wine, reminiscing about our trip from Texas throughMexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama,Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentinaduring the last 18 months. I fired up the engine for one last time to hear Frank’sglorious 7.3 litre turbo diesel engine – one of my favourite sounds.In the morning we became backpackers again when we lifted our bags onto ourshoulders and headed for the bus stop only pausing to say “Goodbye Frank &Betty”.296DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 296

Going Out With a Bang February 2008 : BrazilWE HAD TO KEEP A BRITISH stiff upper lip in front of the new owners of Frank &Betty as we said goodbye when they dropped us at the bus station. We hadsomething to take our mind off the situation however – all of the money theyhad paid us was strapped to Colin’s waist, something we didn’t feel verycomfortable with in a country with Brazil’s reputation. We had been expectingthem to be able to wire us the money to our UK account, but when we arrived theysaid they’d got American dollars cash for us.We had a four hour bus trip north to Curitiba. Despite being on one ofBrazil’s major highways, the road was in a dreadful condition with enormouspotholes. Most of the money allocated to road maintenance contracts in Brazildoesn’t reach its destination, but there are quite a few individuals with fantastichouses!Curitiba is known as a model city in Brazil for quality of life having aEuropean feel with clean, tree lined avenues and squares. We decided to spendthree days here, primarily to try and wire our dollars home and to adapt to lifewithout Frank & Betty. We arrived in brilliant sunshine and checked into a touristhotel right in the centre of town. It did feel very pleasant with pedestrianisedshopping streets and street cafes. Wiring the money back to the UK turned out to be virtually impossible and wehad many frustrating hours trying to find a solution, but with the exchange ratesand fees offered, we reckoned we’d lose up to 20% of our money. After a coupleof days mulling over whether to get robbed by the banks or get robbed on thestreet we decided that as there were no guarantees of being robbed on the streets,we would keep it with us.Unfortunately, the fine weather was soon replaced by cloud and rain and itbecame quite cool (20˚C). The main tourist attraction in the city is billed as oneof the world’s most spectacular railway journeys so we booked ourselves onto it.It was mainly Brazilian tourists on the train who, having no passenger rail297DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 297

network in their country, find it a novel experience. It was a nice relaxing threehour journey, the train only rattling along at 30kph. It climbed up the forestedslopes of the Marumbi National Park mountain range, passing through tunnels,over high bridges and past deep gorges with waterfalls and rivers. Although muchof the spectacular views were covered by mist and low cloud (well it is coastalrainforest), we did enjoy the scenery and tropical flowers along the way. We gotoff after 70km at the beautiful colonial town of Morretes which was a nice placeto while away a few hours. The town has a small historical centre of beautifulwhitewashed and colourful colonial buildings, with a river running through themiddle of it, palm trees and forested mountains in the background. There wereendless restaurants offering the local speciality, Barreado, a meat stew cookedslowly in a clay pot (originally developed so the ladies could prepare it the daybefore carnival, then let their hair down on the day). We found a nice riversiderestaurant and enjoyed a long lunch having the stew (into which the waiter stirredin manioc flour to thicken it up and then held the dish over Colin’s head – eventhough I took my time to take a photo it didn’t spill out…shame). From Curitiba we had an eight hour bus journey to Campinas, a city in SaoPaulo state where our friend Paulo was waiting for us. We first met Paulo back inBonito near the Pantanal last July where he was holidaying in his big converted busmotorhome. He had made us promise to come and stay on his farm before wefinished our trip. When we had been organising how to get to his place he hadMarcel, the new Dutch owner of Frank & Betty, in stitches on the phone when hetold him “I am not a homosexual, but Colin is the first man I have real passionfor!” Colin laughed a bit nervously at this! Paulo drove us the 40km to his home on a family farm which was in a lovelysetting. His family has owned the land for many years and use it as a weekendand holiday retreat away from the bustle of Sao Paulo. Paulo lives herepermanently, managing the development and maintenance of the farm. Hisprojects include a swimming pool, tennis courts and a walking track. He also usespart of the land to grow strawberry plants which he sells to strawberry farms, andalso grows courgettes, ricola and cauliflowers in between the strawberry crops.He told us that by using the land even for limited farming, means they avoid payingtaxes which would be due on unused land. We have to confess, we’d not thought out how much time we had betweenhanding over Frank & Betty and getting to Rio, so we turned up at the farm with10 days at our disposal. Paulo has his own house on the farm, but we were put upin the main house belonging to his parents which had maid service. Maids andworkers are a normal way of life for wealthier Brazilians, much like in Africa, butnot being used to it we felt uncomfortable having someone running around afterus. We felt a bit intrusive when the whole family turned up for the weekend, butwe couldn’t have been made more welcome. His parents are both in their late 70’sbut are as sharp and active as someone 20 years younger. Paulo’s sister Sonja andher sons, Daniel, Celso and Andre, whom we’d met with Paulo last July, also came298DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 298

for the weekend, plus Sonja’s husband Moses. We were treated to fantastic food at the big family meals. They were keen forus to try all the local Brazilian dishes. The weather had continued to be out ofcharacter for this time of year. It looks like Colin and I definitely jinx theBrazilian weather, as we had precisely the same comments from locals when wewere in South Brazil last August – their worst winter ever. We just kept tellingthem that we were treating them to a British summer.Colin enjoyed playing snooker with Paulo’s father and he also taught Danieland Andre how to play pool. I spent time pacing around the walking track withSonja trying to walk off some of the food. Sonja and Moses also took Colin andI to a nice shopping mall in Curitiba to buy some wine and they also took me tosee a movie – we hadn’t realised that most Brazilian cinemas show films withsubtitles, not dubbed. Most of the family returned to Sao Paulo at the end of theweekend, but Sonja and Andre remained with us. Colin spent time helping Paulowith a few jobs on vehicles and building works, and also continued to play poolwith Andre, while I spent time with Sonja and brought my diary up to date. We were amazed at how cheaply land can be acquired in Brazil at that time.Paulo’s father had bought an adjoining plot of land after the last owner died. Itcovers 200,000 square metres, has a very big house, a three apartment guest houseand workers’ quarters, a swimming pool and a football pitch. They are trying tosell it for just $300,000 (£150,000). Even at this price no-one has made an offer –we were told that Brazilians never offer cash for big purchases, instead offeringswaps for other houses, cars, jewellery and the mother-in-law for good measure.Paulo said the rate of interest they get in the bank is so high, it is better to keepyour money there rather than invest in property.We really enjoyed our time with Paulo and his family and were overwhelmedby their generosity and hospitality – we just hope we get a chance to repay someof it if they visit the UK.We had another eight hour bus ride into Rio, an exciting prospect as Rio forus, is one of those iconic cities in the world. We felt quite nervous as we arrived299LEFTPaulo with hisfamilyDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 299

at the bus station, never nice places to hang around, with our thousands of dollarsstrapped to us, especially after all the stories of robberies and kidnap we had heard,none more so than from other Brazilians. We’d read that even the official taxis inRio aren’t safe so we paid a bit extra to go in a prepaid one from inside the busstation. The driver spoke a little English and gave us a bit of a guided tour on theway to the seaside suburb of Ipanema where we were staying. He asked where wewere from and when we told him he said ‘England – English people are supposedto be hooligans – I hope you’re not going to damage my taxi!’ We arrived on the first official day of Carnival and that evening we went alongto experience a street bloco in our district. A bloco is an organised neighbourhoodcarnival group that use an open topped truck carrying a band and singers, withgroups of percussionists and revellers walking at the front or rear of the trucktogether with mobile bars (cool boxes of beer on wheels). The groups tend to havedistinctive t-shirts for those officially involved, but anyone can turn up and join inthe fun. We’d been told it was due to start at 7pm, but as with all things LatinAmerican, it took a couple of hours for it to start moving. In the meantime thecrowds started to increase, many in whacky headgear and outfits, and the beersstarted to flow – there seems to be much more of a drinking culture in Brazilcompared to Argentina, but you still didn’t see much drunken behaviour on thestreets – just good humoured fun. The group tends to sing just one theme song asit all moves along erratically at a snail’s pace – we actually went off to have dinnerand came back to find it had only moved about 100m. The next day was hot and sunny and we went to Sugar Loaf Mountain, thefamous 400m high granite rock with wonderful views over the bay. There are twoseparate cable cars to take you to the top (remember James Bond and Jaws inMoonraker?) and although it was hazy we had fabulous views of the local beachesand islands. There was a shady terrace at the first cable car station where weenjoyed taking it all in.300BELOWIconic views fromSugar LoafmountainDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 300

On Sunday, we’d planned to go to the other ‘must see’ landmark, Corcovardo,the 700m peak with the statue of Christ the Redeemer sat on top. We peeked outof the window to see it was lashing down with rain and there was no sign of thehilltops. A check on several weather pages on the internet didn’t fill us withconfidence – all showed rain for the rest of the week. That afternoon we had awalk down the beachfront that was now largely deserted with lots of miserablelooking chair and umbrella attendants. A bloco was just starting and was a lotlivelier than our last one, with a good catchy song and beat, so we joined in.Monday was our day to go to the Sambodromo where that night and theprevious night the top 12 Samba schools were competing to win this year’shonours. For us it meant we’d have to be up all night, and as it was pouring withrain again we didn’t have much trouble taking it easy in the hotel. We spent halfthe day with a young English/Welsh couple who were travelling for two years andwe ran through where they should visit in South America. They looked a bitbewildered by the end of it, as they’d only got two and a half months to coverwhat took us a year.We arrived at 7.30pm ready for the parade to start at 9pm and our sector wasalready filling up fast. We had pretty good seats (well they were until two guyswho must play for the US basketball team chose to sit in front of us), but with alast minute rush of people arriving we were eventually shoehorned onto theconcrete steps – it felt like we were back at the Boca Juniors and we ended upstanding with everyone else for the rest of the night. I believe the stadium seats43,000, but with all the competitors and officials there must have been around70,000 there in total. The Samba schools are bit like professional football teams. They have devoutfans that follow their schools religiously. The schools have shops sellingmerchandise and all this for one event each year. The schools will have beenpreparing for these nights for months on end, with full time paid staff. We readthat one school has five professional dance choreographers.We were treated to nine hours of spectacular parades by six schools. Thecolours, costume design, floats, dancing and energy of approximately 6,000people per team were astounding – words can’t express it all, there was so muchto take in. The logistics of getting their thousands of performers into theSambodromo, dressed and made up, and into place to parade down the 600mtrack is mind boggling. Each school had a theme to their parade – for instanceslavery, colonisation, or nature. They had to have a tune and words to reflect thistheme, set to a catchy beat which was played non-stop by a percussion band forthe whole 65 to 80 minutes while they were parading down the track. A team ofjudges sat just beyond our sector and the performers gave their all as they passedthem as they were being marked on theme, song, costume, enthusiasm and gotpenalised if they over or under ran their time. Each team must have had five orsix incredible floats, many with hydraulic moving platforms and parts. The blokesin the audience (well the straight ones) were treated to many samba queen dancersCOLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOING OUT WITH A BANG301DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 301

(some of whom are celebrities here), wearing just a few sequins and feathers doinga lot of jiggling around. Colin’s favourite float was a rainforest scene with raincoming down over almost naked girls – he gave this one top marks strangely.We were worried that we would struggle to stay awake all night, but it passedquite quickly, the final school finishing just before 6am. By then we had seenaround 24,000 people dance past us. With weary aching legs from so muchstanding we headed off to get a taxi back to our hotel making it back by 7.30am.We had breakfast and crashed out for half the day with the beats of the final schoolstill swimming in our heads.Tuesday is the last official day of Carnival, so in the late afternoon we watchedanother bloco on the seafront which was competing with a group of drummers.Tuesday night is also the Gay Ball and there were lots of transvestites and colourfulcharacters posing in the crowds that day.We had to endure one more day of pouring rain however, ending up in a modernshopping mall taking in a film. While here we also watched on television thejudges announcing their marking of the parades. It was a long, drawn out processand although it must be hard to judge the finer points of each team as they alllooked so incredible, the judging didn’t seem overly critical. Each area is markedout of 10, and we didn’t see one group get less than nine for anything. In fact thewinners, Beija-Flor, who were the last group to perform on our night, won with399.3 out of a possible 400 points. I think they need Simon Cowell to spice up theproceedings, although we read Beija-Flor, who have won five out of the last sixyears, were accused of intimidating judges last year. Several Brazilians have toldus that the schools are in the pockets of the drug cartels which must limit thejudges’ scope somewhat.We finally made it up to the statue of Christ, which we reached by taking an oldtrain through the forested hills. The clouds were swirling in and out, but the viewsof the various districts of Rio are wonderful from up there. We also took a traminto the district of Santa Teresa which is a very fashionable arty area of the city.The streets are lined with old crumbling colonial houses with fantastic views backdown into the city. Our guidebook says this is where Ronnie Biggs once lived.Colin couldn’t resist the prospect of seeing a football match at the MaracanaStadium, once the largest football ground in the world holding 200,000 people.302DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 302

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Now after a refurbishment, it is all seater and holds just 95,000. The Brazilianleague doesn’t play at this time of year, but there was a pre-season tournamenttaking place and we watched Flamengo (Rio’s premier team) beat Volta Redonda2-1. The ground was only partially filled so we didn’t get the full-on atmosphere,but we got a glimpse of the passionate Flamengo fans and discovered that somePortuguese swear words are the same as Spanish.On our final full day in Rio we hired bikes and cycled around the Lagoa Park,an exclusive suburb, which is at the back of Ipanema. There was a 7km cyclepath all the way around the lake with good views of the statue of Christ. We thencycled all the way down the beachfront cycle lane of Ipanema and Copacabana –about 12km there and back. After dropping the bikes off we had an hour on thebeach. Although we thought it was overcast, we both got burnt – we should knowbetter by now. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Rio and think it’s a beautifulcity – the people with money here must have a very nice lifestyle. We could have taken a one hour flight to Salvador, but opted for the 27 hourbus journey. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The bus had more leg room than youraverage airplane, the seats reclined well and it also saved us the cost of a hotel forthe night. We departed mid afternoon and soon left behind the opulent Rio andstarted to see the poorer reality for Brazilians living in northern Brazil. We arrivedin sunny Salvador, our final new destination at around 5.30pm the following day.We have had a week here in Salvador and it feels strange telling people ‘this is305COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOING OUT WITH A BANGLEFTIpanema beachDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 305

our last stop of a three year trip’. We’re staying in an excellent Bed and Breakfastrun by an Irish chap who’s enjoying the more liberal lifestyle that a good catholicboy couldn’t in Ireland if you get our gist. He’s been great at recommending thingsto see and each day he let us know what was going on where in the city. Salvador’scarnival is said to be the biggest street party in the world and although Rio’sremains more famous, many Brazilians would recommend carnival here as beinga more authentic experience. When we arrived it definitely had the feel of a placethat had just had a damn good party. A local told us that although everyone,including himself, was knackered there was still plenty of music and dance to beseen.The real gem of Salvador is the historic centre. We knew it was supposed to benice, but we were bowled over by it. The colonial buildings painted in pastelcolours, around squares and narrow cobbled streets are stunning and its laid backAfrican atmosphere, with live music coming out of different buildings, makes it awonderful place to spend time. Salvador was built up on the back of sugar cane and tobacco plantations. Afterthree centuries of slave trading it is definitely very African in people, religion,music and food. We’ve tried several of the local delicacies – moqueca, a deliciousdish of seafood in a sauce of coconut milk, tomatoes,peppers and fresh coriander and street stall food ofacarajes which are kidney bean fried dumplings servedwith dried shrimp and sauces.We’ve had several nights in the old town going tovarious musical events. The first, a music anddrumming show, was so loud that when it started, aDutch lady walking past us nearly fell over as the forceof the music made her jump out of her skin. We hadanother evening watching a popular singer, Geronimo,and his band practice with a free show to a crowd onthe steps of a church – a lovely setting, the ambiencebeing further enhanced by some very herbal cigarettesbeing smoked all around us. We’ve followed someterrific drumming groups around the streets and lastnight we watched another drumming group, Olodum,perform.The beach in Barra held a 24 hour concert, with thestage floating in the sea and we were treated to morecolourful street parades. This is Salvador in a postcarnival lull? They don’t stop!Colin came back looking very shaky and complainingafter getting his hair cut on our first day here. All thebeautiful girls here and he gets his hair cut by a he/she.He went into a unisex place and was sat down when a306DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 306

transsexual came out to cut his hair. Clippers are needed to do the number onestyle he boasts these days, but he was alarmed when he/she started cutting hishair by hand telling him his/her clippers were broken. You wouldn’t think anyonecould mess up Colin’s hairstyle, but he/she managed it! When we walked past thesalon a couple of days later, Colin deliberately kept on the other side of the road,while I crossed hoping to get a look at this person who had scared him so much.Just as I was half way across the road a ‘lady’ ran to the doorway and wasshouting at Colin blowing him kisses – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him blushlike that in the 20 years I’ve known him! He now won’t let us walk down thatstreet.On Monday 18thFebruary and at 11.30pm we took off, bound for Europe. Welanded back in London late on 19thFebruary exactly three years to the day sincewe left. So this was the end of this adventure, but with a new adventure ahead ofus...what the heck were we going to do next?COLIN & LIZ ON TOUR | GOING OUT WITH A BANGBELOWSunset on our last dayDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 307

AcknowledgementsOUR TRIP TOOK US THROUGH 40 different countries. The inevitable question weget asked is which was our favourite – to this we answer it is impossible to say foreach has different things which made it enjoyable for us, be it the people orwildlife or amazing landscapes or maybe new or challenging experiences weencountered. All we can say is that we had nothing but good experiences in ourthree years – yes we were lucky to some extent, but never underestimate theDysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 308

kindness of people and their willingness to help you in any way they can –something we are too scared to do in the UK. We found that in the so called‘dangerous’ countries (for example Columbia, Brazil and parts of Africa) we weremade to feel very welcome and the people went out of their way to ensure we feltsafe and happy. We know for certain that our media sells on bad news, giving usonly a negative impression on what’s going on in the world. We have had somevery humbling experiences in poor countries finding those with less will sharemore with you. The more we have in our lives, the more we are afraid it will betaken away. When most people find out how long we were travelling for they tell us howlucky we were. We were fortunate that we had the means to do the trip, butanyone can do what we have done (even with children) if they stop finding reasonsnot to do it. That’s how we made the decision back in 2004, by turning thequestion of ‘to travel or not to travel’ on its head and asking ourselves whyshouldn’t we do this trip now? No reason other than it was scary to step out ofour comfortable lives. We read a wonderful book on our travels called Spark YourDream written by an Argentine couple who drove from Argentina to Alaska in a1928 vintage car. The message of the book is that any dream can be achieved ifyou just start it – we can vouch that making the decision was the hardest part, butas soon as we set off it was easy. We know travel isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, butwe highly recommend a career break to everyone. We found it a liberatingexperience to step away from a fast paced life with long working hours, to havingtime to appreciate life and people again and get a new perspective on life.We would like to give a special thanks to our good friend Steve Elsigood wholooked after our affairs in the UK while we enjoyed ourselves. A big thank you toStephanie Dixon who had the challenge and patience to convert our ramblingsinto readable text. To our families, some of whom took delivery of cherisheditems sent home for safekeeping and others who sent much needed truck parts tofar flung places in the world. Finally, enormous thanks to all the people we met along the way whocontributed to or shared in the unforgettable adventure. DysonText_Layout 1 29/06/2010 12:57 Page 309

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