Glittery Cockroaches

Distance Traveled:   35,195 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF-CZ)

Time Difference: -9 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Just random stuff

Currently Inspired by:  People who live "irregular" lives.  I've been meeting a few lately

Stacks: None!
Words written: 59,631. Tried hard to break 60,000 but I wrote all the words from last week to this week in one sitting and it made me brain dead.

Yo, I'm a penguin

Wheee!

Loro Parque was fabulous.  It is a conservation park and has a large residence (hundreds) of varieties of rare parrots in breeding programs to try to save them from extinction, as well as a huge collection of sea creatures, scores of penguins, dolphins, killer whales, sea lions, huge turtles and alligators as well as a variety of chimps, marmosets and sloths.  Sloths are odd creatures, aren’t they?  There were also jaguars and tigers, although seeing a tiger from a distance can’t really cut it after having been up close and personal with three of them!  I watched a beautifully shot documentary on a large movie screen in which it was stated that humans are currently killing off 100 -150 species of plant and animal per DAY, which is very worrying.  They said by 2060 we could have about half the number of species on the planet that we currently do.  Does that upset anyone else?  Believe what you like about climate change, there will always be something to be said for trying to be more sustainable, preserving our resources and making our environment less toxic.  If everyone just makes a couple of little insignificant lifestyle changes maybe we can save a few of those species!  Anyway, it was a most impressive and entertaining, although exhausting, day.  You can click here to see the photo album of Loro Parque, but I warn you, it is a big album and it is all animals.  So if you don’t love them like I do, you may not be interested!

With the Bulgarian

I met some people through Couch Surfing who in turn had met other people through Couch Surfing who in turn... you get the picture, and ended up going out that night with a group that resembled the United Nations; particularly because we just stuffed around and didn’t accomplish anything constructive.  There were Finns, Spaniards, Argentinians, Bulgarians, Paddies, Germans, Frogs and of course an Aussie.  They all spoke English too, which was wonderful as we were all able to communicate easily, however I again squirmed about my lack of a second (or third or fourth) language.  I really need to choose one of the three I have some basics in and do further study to become at least intermediate with it.  I prefer the sound of French or Italian but I think Spanish would be most useful for travelling, even though it sounds like you’re trying to speak with a mouthful of sweets.  The night was basically a huge Latin American dance party, with everyone costumed up.  I didn’t have a costume but I bought a flashing bow for my hair and stole someone’s Spidey glasses, so it wasn’t bad for an impromptu effort.  I was pretty proud of my staying power;  Nanna managed to stay out until nearly 3am!  Haven’t seen that time for a while (Bart:  “There’s a four in the morning?”).  Even though my hotel was only a fifteen minute walk from the main stage, it took me over forty minutes to get back, because I had to negotiate my way through a drunken, predominantly transvestite crowd packed like a tin of sardines (wait, I am getting to the sardine) who kept grabbing me and dance kidnapping me.  It was sweaty and exhausting, and lots of fun!  I also now firmly believe that the majority of men secretly fantasise about dressing up as women, and are always glad for the opportunity.  You can click here to see the pictures from the first night out.

Mount Teide

Mount Teide is the third largest volcano in the world, the highest point in Spain, and it really is impressive.  You can click here to read more about it.  Four of us drove as close as you can get to it in a car (actually not that close) via a stunning and scenic route called La Esperanza, and props have to go to Kevin from Ireland who drove the hire car.  I think I would be too nervous to drive on the right hand side of the road!  You can hop off near the final turning point and have a walk through some really extraordinary volcanic landscape, some of which is a remnant of a giant caldera that collapsed in on itself, I don’t know how long ago, but for the purpose of this blog let’s say, oh, ten thousand years.  The only way up the mountain is via cable car and foot, and to get to the actual summit of it, you require permission from the local council, and only a certain number of permits are given out each year in the interest of preservation.  Again, I don’t know how many, but let’s say... 20,000.  Of course it is freezing at the top and there is a building about 500 metres below the summit (god knows how they built it) which contains accommodation.  The idea is that you go up in the afternoon, stay the night, and then get up early, climb to the peak and watch the sunrise above the clouds.  It sounds extraordinary, but I was content with the experience that I had (and the effort I put in to have it).  You can click here to see the pictures of Mount Teide.

After buying a wig, some glitter, long silver eyelashes and blue lipstick, I felt more than ready to tackle the next evening, but when I turned up at my friend Brendan’s place to have dinner with him and his brother Kevin and then go out, they had decided that they were too tired.  Again, props to Nanna for being ready to go again when two boys in their late 20s were too soft (although I was secretly relieved). We stayed in and ate pancakes for Pancake Tuesday and solved some of the world’s problems.  It was a good night.  The next night I got to do the full dress up, although after about six unsuccessful attempts at putting the eyelashes on I flung them across the room in a rage and went without.  Flinging something as light as eyelashes is really unsatisfying, just fyi.  They don’t break, or make a noise.  They just kind of gently float to the ground.  I cleaned up the glue that somehow managed to get all over my face and got to work on the rest.  The outfit didn’t require much, just a dark top and a long black skirt to represent being in mourning.  Why mourning?  Ok... 

Yup

The flammable sardine

After many conversations about this topic (some contradictory) this is my understanding and interpretation of the final, or Sardine Parade on Ash Wednesday.  Ash Wednesday is the last day before Lent.  For non Catholics, Lent is a 40 day period where you are supposed to go without something you love, like chocolate, or traditionally I believe it was meat, to represent the 40 days and nights Jesus was in the desert (I think, I haven’t had bizarre Catholic crap shoved down my throat for many years).  During this period a lot of Catholics used to eat fish, which is where I believe the idea of the sardine comes from.  For the purposes of this particular carnival, the paraders walk alongside both a hearse containing a large stuffed and glittery sardine, and a car with a huge sardine on top of it, made of chicken wire and flammable materials.  The paraders (predominantly men) are in black dresses, nun and priest robes, dominatrix outfits and wedding dresses, frequently either holding or wearing some kind of flashing dildo or whip or other sex toy.  They wail and cry “why, why?” the whole way, pretending to sob and grieve.  Every now and again one will fall down in a fit of hysterics and then the others run to surround them and pick them up.  The commitment from them is extraordinary, considering they are just regular (?) citizens and not actors.  The idea is that the death of the carnival (start of lent) = death of fun = death of sex life, so they gather to mourn the Sardine, which represents those things.  The parade ended down near the waterfront where they set the flammable sardine alight with fireworks, and we watched it burn.  After the sardine had burnt they put on a large and very impressive fireworks display, and that was that!  The final parade.  Spanish people are serious freaks, and I love them for it.  To see the pics from it, click here.

I wish I had taken a photo of my hotel room the next day.  It looked like a clown had exploded in it.  There were feathers and wigs and glitter and props and clothes and shoes strewn all over the floor.  At a late lunch with Brendan one day we got talking about the indestructibility of glitter and how you just use it once and it ends up sticking around for the rest of eternity.  We decided to amend the end of the world prophecy that all that would remain after a nuclear blast would be cockroaches, to all that would remain after a nuclear blast would be glitter and cockroaches.  Hence this particular blog title.  I don’t normally feel the need to explain them, but I felt this one might be a little obscure!  Ah, the kinds of important and life changing discussions one has during parties.  It was good to be able to use my words.  I have ever so many.  One thing I will not miss about Tenerife is their Tintoreria, or professional laundry service, to whom I gave my clothes the day before I left (they don’t really have Laundromats here).  I had to pick them up and pack quickly in order to check out so I didn’t get much of a chance to look at them, but I’ve never had problems previously so I kind of took for granted that everything would be fine.  On the ferry back, I have realised that they have actually lost or stolen every pair of knickers I gave them and one bra, leaving me with three pairs of knickers.  Now these were expensive and relatively new pieces of lingerie I bought before I left, at least five pairs but I think actually six or seven, some matched and now I don’t have all the proper sets.  They also returned only one sock out of four pairs.  ONE SOCK.  Leaving me with one and a half pairs.  Tut.  So I am going to have to do an emergency knicker and sock shop when I get to Cadiz.  In addition, the on / off / sleep / wake button on my phone has died after I dropped it, and the only way I can wake it up after it sleeps or when I change sims is to plug it into the charger :-/  And the list of destroyed or missing objects grows!  Not Happy Jan.  WHAT IS IT WITH ME AND STUFF?????

To sum up: I met some lovely Tenerife locals, some fun tourists and had a wonderful time, apart from the day after the main parade where I was bed ridden for most of the day with a cold and hangover.  I tried some simple but tasty Canarian food and drank my fill of sweetly delicious (decaf) Canarian coffee with cinnamon, condensed milk and preserved lemon peel in it.  I was kind of sad to say goodbye to Tenerife.  It really is both fun and relaxed and has some stunning topography.  I would go back there if I was in that part of the world again.  Although I would fly next time.  Currently I am writing this blog into Word whilst on the ferry on the way back to mainland Spain.  When I arrive back I really wanted to check out either Granada or Barcelona, however I only have three full days before having to fly from Seville to London, and those places are both too far from Cadiz for that to be practical.  I can’t believe I’ve been to Spain twice now, seen all these places, and never been to Barcelona!  It will have to stay on the list, along with Granada and Valencia, and the million other places on the planet I want to see.  This time around, thanks to my darling mother and her stubbor persistence, I upgraded to a cabin on the ferry.  The first trip really was quite nightmarish and not feeling 100% is probably not the best time to be getting broken and uncomfortable sleep.  So thank you Mumsy, for looking after me even though I’m so far away!  Even if I’m an argumentative monster at the time.  Love you :)

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

*Marius*

Happy Festivus!

Distance Traveled:   34,895 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML-CZ-TF)

Time Difference: -10 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Into cheery pop music right now.  Gotye's new one, Jessie J, Beyonce

Currently Inspired by:  Ahh, my Mr Adams.  I thought of him, and this particular passage below, whilst on the Tenerife ferry.  It is my all time favourite piece of writing of his, and I have a tendency to spout it off as a party trick.  (OK, just realised I'm a gigantic geek).  Cried with laughter the first time I read it, and depending on my mood it can still bring a tear to my eye and a resounding strike to my funny bone.  Pure brilliance.

There is, for some reason, something especially grim about pubs near stations, a very particular kind of grubbiness, a special kind of pallor to the pork pies.

Worse than the pork pies, though, are the sandwiches.

There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

``Make 'em dry,'' is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, ``make 'em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week.''

It is by eating sandwiches in pubs on Saturday lunchtimes that the British seek to atone for whatever their national sins have been. They're not altogether clear what those sins are, and don't want to know either. Sins are not the sort of things one wants to know about. But whatever their sins are they are amply atoned for by the sandwiches they make themselves eat.

If there is anything worse than the sandwiches, it is the sausages which sit next to them. Joyless tubes, full of gristle, floating in a sea of something hot and sad, stuck with a plastic pin in the shape of a chef's hat: a memorial, one feels, for some chef who hated the world, and died, forgotten and alone among his cats on a back stair in Stepney.

The sausages are for the ones who know what their sins are and wish to atone for something specific. 

Stacks: Had one trip over a small lip in the floor in my room, causing me to basically throw my digital camera onto the tiles with great force.  It is fine, which is quite impressive.  Good to know it can survive a thorough dunking (Morocco) and also being hurled onto ceramic tiles!  Also I still have sea legs :(  See below.

Words written: 53,112.  Slow week, am being a tourist

Cadiz was my next stop, and I was really only there for one night and half a day before boarding my ferry to Tenerife, so I didn’t see that much.  It was a few degrees colder than Malaga and you definitely feel it at these temperatures!  I went for a long stroll on the second day and stopped at a couple of the lovely little cafes I encountered on the way and enjoyed some leisurely hot drinks and tasty tapas while people watching.  It’s nice to be able to eat out again, I must say.  The tapas experience in Spain is very different to Australia, no doubt due to the availability of ingredients and also the availability of tapas restaurants.  Here it is very seafood and cured meat based, and the idea is that you have one or two dishes at one place, and then move onto the next venue.  I like it, and although I frequently have little to no idea what I’m actually ordering, I haven’t had a bad dish yet.

Ship in Cadiz port (not my ship! I wish!)

I really need to learn not to have expectations about things.  Most of the time I’m a seasoned and well behaved enough traveller on these issues, but with the ferry I was so excited at the prospect of more than two days at sea I did a huge amount of online stalking of the operator and its fleet.  They didn’t say which ship we were getting but even the most basic ones they had sounded lovely.  Upon boarding I realised that they mustn’t have their entire fleet available for online inspection.  It had a “restaurant” which was really just a room full of plastic chairs and tables reminiscent of a high school cafeteria, bay maries included.  The food was of the overcooked beef, frozen fish, chips & peas variety, slopped haphazardly onto our plates by insouciant servers who couldn’t stop their conversations long enough to pay attention to what they were doing.  I half expected to see them standing there wearing torn hair nets and with fags hanging out the side of their mouths.  Still, mealtimes were a welcome relief from the monotony, with a large TV screen playing blockbuster movie after blockbuster movie, many of which I wanted to see, all of which had been overdubbed in Spanish.  On occasion the person putting them on would give us the English subtitles for which I was most grateful, and it was quite surreal watching an American film, overdubbed in Spanish, with English subtitles.  Sometimes I could tell from the actor’s mouths that the subtitles weren’t actually saying what they were saying.  Why do you think that is?

Coming up to Tenerife

These were the kinds of fascinating questions that absorbed me during my 50 hours on the rolling Mediterranean with no books (I haven’t been able to buy any books in English for ages).  I had booked a seat only as the cabins were outrageously expensive (much more than a flight) and only discovered once on there that the seats didn’t recline.  All of the online fleet had reclining seats.  Cheeky buggers!  Fortunately there were less than thirty people in the seated section so we all had pretty much at least a row of three seats to ourselves, and this is where I would stretch out for the night’s “sleep”.  They would leave the lights on all night, and the seating area was in the same room as the bar and restaurant so people would stay up talking until the wee hours and it wasn’t exactly comfortable as the seats were leather bucket seats, so it wasn’t an even surface.  Also it was a narrow space, and with the rolling of the ship, was difficult to stay on.  It was too cold and windy to spend any amount of time on deck so basically I sat alternating between two spots for two days, first in my chair, and when that became unbearable, I sat in the restaurant and looked out at the window.  You know, people say sea views are fabulous, and they can be, but they really require some perspective don’t they?  When it’s nothing but sea, and a grey sea under an overcast sky at that, it isn’t terribly exciting.  The first night I was so bored I bought some whiskey and got very drunk while watching episodes of the West Wing on my iPad.  The benefit of doing so is that I was so ill the next day, I couldn’t really feel that bored because I had a hangover to nurse.  Needless to say the remainder of the whiskey is sitting in my bag, glaring at me and serving as a solemn reminder of the evils of the devil’s nectar.  I feel funny when I look at it.  “Why didn’t you spend your time writing?” I hear you ask, and it’s a valid question.  I was in a fairly regular phase of hating my book and everyone in it, and wanting them all to die.  If I killed all my characters before I finished the book I wouldn’t have much else to write about!

Note:  It has been three nights since I got off the boat, and I am still experiencing “sea legs” where it feels like the ground is moving the same way the boat did.  It is causing me to stumble on occasion (like I needed help in the department!), I can’t really walk in a straight line, and at the parade I kept swaying into the people either side of me.  It’s embarrassing, and has now officially gone longer than the boat trip was.  Should I be worried?

One of the many fountains

Tenerife is funky, and much larger than I expected.  There are nearly a million people on this island, and about 300,000 of them live in the capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where I am staying.  I was planning to just pop over to another area called Playa de las Americas, a famous beach / resort town with lots of nightclubs in the hope of meeting some English speaking tourists, and it’s 70 kilometres away!  I don’t even know how to get there.  There are about 30 gazillion tourists here at the moment, however they all appear to me to be Spanish, and Spanish speaking.  I’ve encountered a couple of people who I believe were some other type of Europeans, after eavesdropping on their conversations.  What does a girl have to do to meet some English speakers around here?  Talk about language barriers.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I have learned SOME Spanish while I’ve been here, enough to be able to ask a variety of pertinent questions and understand the responses, but I certainly can’t converse on any meaningful level.  

Lots of people have no idea about where I am at the moment.  Click here to read about the Canary Islands.

The Shouty Men

Fortunately, music and dancing are universal, and there is muchos musica y bailar to be had.  The first night I was here saw a huge parade to kick off the festivities properly, so my timing was perfect.  I have never seen costumes as elaborate and detailed as there were in this parade, and it went forever.  Unfortunately I left my brain in the hotel room, along with my wallet and my camera, so I couldn’t get any photos of the parade!  Tut.  My favourite part about this whole festival is that just about half the town wears fancy dress around the streets, whether they are performing or part of a group or just coming along to watch.  There are so many costume shops in this place.  I have seen at least half a dozen, and only three supermarkets, if that gives you any indication.  I have a feeling it is a fun place, year round.  The funniest part is getting up and going for a walk in the morning and seeing people still in their costumes from the night before, makeup smeared, wigs askew, shoes covered in beer, looking and smelling absolutely worse for wear.  You know you’re getting old when instead of thinking “looks like a top night” you think “Gee I’m grateful for my good sleep last night, and the fact that I am clean and smelling good right now.”  The costumes are so great though.  I have encountered lady bugs and cows and kitties and birds.  Flamenco dancers tango with nuns, and monks walk arm in arm with criminals.  Batman fights Superman fights Wonderwoman fights Darth Vader.  Big shiny smiley faces hop around putting smiles on our faces, clowns of every shape, size, colour and demeanour cavort and sing at the drop of a hat.  Nasty hockey and Ghostface masks keep us on our toes and the sexy police keep everything above board... from the waist up.  There are an inordinate number of men in dresses, wigs and makeup, just the way a gigantic fancy dress party should be.  My favourite characters so far were Bender, Fry , Leila and the Professor from Futurama.  Classic.  I really wish I had brought my camera to the parade!

It's sad that he looks better in that than I would

I have basically just been wandering around every afternoon and evening until I locate a pocket of chaos, colour and noise.  It doesn’t take long.  There have been nearly constant musical groups on a variety of stages, from traditional Spanish (terrific) to modern acapella and percussion groups, who I find too shouty and aggressive, and not terribly musical at all.  It’s basically a whole stack of men yelling in three part harmonies into too many microphones, with a percussion group playing behind them.  Today I stumbled across what can only be described as a large outdoor rave, with a main stage, DJs, tons of dancers, singers, performers, guys shooting beer cans out of big gun things and lots of jumping and screaming people.  Helicopters kept going overhead and the ground was literally shaking from the bass in the speakers.  It was insane!  Especially in the middle of the day, outdoors and with children everywhere.  I have never been to something like that sober and it was quite a hot and heady experience.  I was enjoying the dancing and cheering, I couldn’t understand anything the MC was saying of course but I just screamed when everyone else was.  Caught up in the moment, you know.  I can only hope he wasn’t saying “Give it up for a privatised healthcare system!” or “Shout if you love Jesus!”  I think I was pretty safe.  I danced and smiled and gambolled around with the best of them and only decided I’d had enough when a small boy threw up at my feet.  Thus far I have managed to ignore all of the naughty food stalls except for one very small (and expensive) hot dog the other night when I was starving.  Just the smell of all the fried dough and sugar gets me high, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, and I worry that the longer I hold out, the worse the binge is going to be when I finally cave.  They have toffee apples.  TOFFEE APPLES.

Click here to see the photos of Tenerife I haven't taken that many of the actual town, because honestly apart from the festival activities there isn't that much that sets it apart from mainland Spain.  The same architecture, cute streets, lovely gardens, lots of monuments and fountains.  When I get out of the city and onto the beaches and up the volcano, that will change, no doubt.

This afternoon's madness

Tomorrow there is not much happening here during the day, festival wise, so I am getting a bus to another region called Puerta de la Cruz which has a large attraction called Loro Parque.  Basically it sounds like SeaWorld with the addition of the world’s largest “collection” of parrots.  (Is it called a collection?  That doesn’t seem right).  Then more festivities at night.  Every night until I leave there is something happening, so I will no doubt have many more colourful photos for next week’s blog.  I am also going to attempt to go up to the highest point on the island (and in Spain) Mount Teide, which is the third largest volcano in the world.  Exciting times ahead!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

Me Gusta

Distance Traveled:   33,425 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF-AC-LL-ML)

Time Difference: -9 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: Nothing really at the moment

Currently Inspired by: As above.  Taking a break to be a tourist for a little while.

Stacks: Nada!

Words written: 50,168 

As pretty as Tarifa was, it was a relief to go somewhere a little larger and more happening (although not much more happening).  Algeciras - pronounced Ahl-heh-THEER-ahs - is a port town, and its huge bustling docks are the major feature of it.  I haven’t been to many port cities, but they seem to have a reputation for being a bit rough and this was no exception.  Dirty streets, dirty folks, air of repressed violence, but very impressive docks.  My hotel was a lovely grand dame about a twenty five minute walk out of the town centre, faded around the edges and with her glory days most definitely behind her, but still retaining an air of her former gentility.  The grounds were extensive and immaculately kept, and deserved a stroll of their very own.  The best feature was an indoor swimming pool that was built outside in enclosed glass patio.  I spent a morning, in European winter, completely protected and sunbaking behind the glass.  I even went for a swim!  Such a mood lifter.  My first room reeked of filthy cigarettes and neither the phone nor wifi worked, but they moved me with no fuss.  The staff were excellent and all spoke virtually flawless English, so it was a wonderful relief after the last few weeks of struggling with the language barrier.  I’m sick of saying “no comprendo”.  Algeciras is where I hit 50,000 words, hence why most of the photos are of the hotel. 

After two nights in Algeciras I treated myself to a taxi to my next destination.  It would have been 5 euro to the bus station, 5 euro on the bus and then probably another 5 euro from the other bus station to my hotel, or just 20 euro in a cab, with the convenience of not having to lug my hideous suitcase about.  Not being able to go out and eat much due to just about the entire Mediterranean being closed down, I’ve been saving some money so I thought “why not?”  I got dropped off at La Linea de Concepcion, another grubby port town, famous and I imagine visited by tourists only due to its proximity to Gibraltar.  On my first afternoon I went for a long walk and stumbled across some markets run by... Spanish carnies, is the only way to describe them.  This was the first time I noticed that Spanish female mannequins, like Spanish women, all have nice big, round bottoms!  It got me thinking.  If the average Australia woman is a size 14, why don’t we also have realistic mannequins in stores?  Also on the walk I discovered Cream of Brie and Cream of Camembert cheese spreads, the World’s Greatest Idea and my latest addiction. (NB: these are not fake cheese things that sit on the shelf.  They are made from the real deal and require refrigeration).  No wonder the mannequins have big bums.  My new favourite thing is a fresh crusty multigrain roll, with Cream of Brie spread, smoked salmon and asparagus. Drool.  Who says you can’t improvise a nice meal when you have no cooking facilities?

The Rock from La Linea

I originally attempted to book accommodation in Gibraltar itself but the hotels were all closed for bookings in January and February.  I had visions of this cold, rainy, brooding rock jutting out into the ocean, with a few dark and spooky hotels with peeling paint and a tiny little tourist office staffed by a cackling old man with one eye who gives out damp maps and dire warnings to the few mad tourists who dare climb the rock in winter.  Err, I don’t know where I got that from, but Gibraltar is massive and super busy, has a large town of 28,000 pax, a whole bunch of OPEN hotels (wtf?), a large sunny square, a central business district, red double decker buses and red telephone boxes, and a main street that resembles nothing more than a small, thriving English town full of Marks and Spencer and Top Shop and pubs selling “London Fish and Chips”. As it is an English territory, a passport was required to get in, although they barely glanced at it, and the woman in front of me walked past them with it closed and just flashed the front cover.  It could have been anyone’s!  I can honestly say that I have never walked ten minutes from my hotel into another country before, it was very strange, and the other thing that amazed me was how DIFFERENT it was.  Really.  Almost as different as England and Spain are, except more like England with just a lot of Spanish tourists.   

The main drag was absolutely packed and thrumming with shoppers and lunchers and boozers.  After the ghost towns I’ve been in it was quite a shock to my senses!  I heard posh English accents chatting to their friends and then asking waiters for “dos cervezas, por favor” (two beers, please) and people who looked and sounded perfectly Spanish, turning around and shouting out to another friend in clipped British tones.  For some reason every second shop was a liquor store, with huge window displays of litre bottles of spirits for less than ten euros.  Some signs were in pounds, some signs were in euros, although all shops took both.  It was kind of annoying that I’m not drinking at the moment and also that I have a “no carrying alcohol around” policy because I’m sure some of those bottles would have come in handy at the Tenerife festival, which is no doubt going to have massively inflated booze prices.  On the way out of Gibraltar you have to show your passport again but there was no bag checking or customs or immigration.  Gibraltar is also a huge port as well, so if you were wondering how drugs gets from Africa to mainland Europe, I’d be guessing that’s the way.

Of course the rock is the main feature of Gibraltar, and I walked around the town for a good 2 hours before I finally figured out how to get onto the damn thing (my map was useless).  By this time it was afternoon and I was concerned about timing because it’s a 2.5 – 3 hour walk to the top and I didn’t want to be walking back down in the dark.  Fortunately, I found a tour guide who offered to take me up there in his van with another group.  I didn’t bring enough cash to pay the whole amount and I don’t walk around with my bank cards on me, so he took what I had in my wallet which was about half the price.  Nice fella, and a real Gibraltarian (isn't that awkward?  I would call them Gibraltans) as his father was Engligh and his mother was Spanish.  There were three main stops.  One to check out St Michael’s cave, which is a beautiful in a creepy, Gothic sort of way.  There is a large cavern in the cave that forms kind of a natural ampitheatre, so they built some steps / seating in there and a stage, and they actually have orchestra concerts and other performances in there.  Can you imagine going to see a concert, in a huge natural cave, in the rock of Gibraltar?  The thing is 200 million years old and made of Jurassic limestone.  I mean... wow.  The second stop was the peak of the rock, and the third stop was some siege tunnels.  Kilometres of them, carved rather impressively, with hand tools. 

The thieving one

All of those things were well and good but really, everyone goes there for the apes.  It is the only place in Europe where they live, and in fact, although they are known as Barbary Apes, they are not apes at all, they are monkeys.  Macaques, to be precise.  There is a saying that when the apes leave the rock, so will the British.  Apparently Winston Churchill had some more brought in from Africa when their numbers were dwindling, that’s how paranoid he was about it.  They are really thriving now, although if people ever leave the rock I don’t know what they’ll do because they are fed by the humans every day.  Tourists are not allowed to feed them though in case it makes them obese and there are hefty fines for doing so, or for touching them with your hands as they bite.  They are allowed to touch you if they want to however, and it would seem that they all wanted to touch me.  I had three jump on me to go for a ride on my head / shoulders, and they climbed up and down me like a bloody playground in a park whenever they felt like it.  It was cool and fun at first, until I got a whiff of them.  WOOF!  They stink.  And I only have one jacket.  Also the third one took my CK sunnies right off my face and pissed off with them.  A nice man got them back for me, but not before the monkey had scraped them along the ground and scratched my left lens.  Is anything I own allowed to remain a. With me and b. Undamaged?  I’m not asking for much, everything I own is in my damn suitcase!  What’s the deal?  Anyway, they were super cute, and I got HEAPS of photos of them and the simply spectacular view from the top of the rock.  Click here to see all the photos from Algeciras and Gibraltar.

One of the many views from Alcazabar

Malaga was the next stop, and I’m really glad I came here.  You can’t walk three metres without bumping into a ruin, a church or a museum.  I got here yesterday afternoon and will leave tomorrow, but really I could spend another three or four days here seeing everything.  There are about 60 attractions, according to the incredibly helpful city council tourist information, and about 30 of them are museums.  They also use the word museum for gallery here, so basically you just take pot luck and see what you end up looking at once you’re in there.  When I arrived yesterday I had a headache and decided that a long walk in the fresh air might be the ticket to get rid of it.  I got to the bottom of a very large hill and saw some people quite high above at a lookout.  “That will fix me right up”, I thought.  Ha. Ha. Ha.  Oh, man.  Of course once I started I didn’t want to give up, but WOW.  I finally arrived, panting and sweating, but I must say the view was absolutely worth it.  Stunning.  I noticed that the road continued up, so I braved it and was rewarded with an absolutely giant and ancient (11^th century) fort and castle called the Alcazabar of Malaga.  I have absolutely NFI how they brought up the stones and materials to build that place, but however they did it, it’s incredibly impressive.

I only made it to three of the museums unfortunately.  One was a free, and very strange mix of old and modern art.  I really hate most modern art, I have to say.  It’s just stupid.  Why would anyone buy something that looks like something a kid could do at pre-school?  I was the only visitor, and the security guard was clearly wetting-her-pants excited to have something to do finally, and she followed me around as I was looking at all the exhibits.  My trainers make a terrible squeak on polished stone floors, and her shoes made sort of a swishing sound.  So in the deathly silence of the museum, I would look at one piece with my discerning art face on, go “hmmm” intelligently, and then move to the next one.  Squeak, squeak, squeak.  Swish-swish-swish.  “Hmmm.”  Next piece.  Squeak, squeak, squeak. Swish-swish-swish.  I have to say I became incredibly self conscious in there after a while!  It was a great collection though, particularly the older stuff.

First records

Speaking of art that a child could do, Picasso was born and raised here in Malaga, so of course they have a huge collection of his.  I dragged myself to it, in the hope that seeing more than just half a dozen of his paintings that I saw years ago in Amsterdam might kindle some kind of appreciation within me.  I remain unimpressed.  I think, especially later in life, he was just an undiagnosed mental case who got popular for some reason.  If that’s really how he “saw” the world... I mean come on!  It’s like those ink blots tests.  He was actively trying to TELL people he was crazy. The third museum I went to was fantabulasticous.  I mean, really.  It was an interactive museum of musical instruments throughout time.  It had a massive collection of instruments, some crazy modern ones that you were allowed to play with, this one where you dropped stones into water and some tubes and other weird stuff.  Also they had your classical instruments on display through the ages and from the countries in which they originated, and well as lots of percussion instruments that you could bang on, and some digital instruments and sound booths and the earliest versions of records and pianos and pianolas and many other exciting and fandangled doodads.  I had a field day, and made so much noise.  They even had guitar-like instruments made out of animal shells?!  (I don’t condone that of course, but they were very old).  Click here to see all the pics from Malaga.

This blog is super long, and I haven’t even finished what I’ve done in Malaga so I’ll be short.  Visited street carnival, ate tapas, swung in the kid's playground, walked on the beach, listened to some street singers, met some French tourists, looked unsuccessfully for a laundry.  There you go.  Tomorrow is Cadiz for one night, then two nights on the boat to Tenerife for paaarrrtaaaayyy time woohoo!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

What is Six Times Seven? Nope, Not There Yet.

Distance Traveled:   33,275 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L-MR-AG-SV-TF)

Time Difference: -9 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: I have enjoying some of the grunge stuff I loved so much in high school, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains etc.

Currently Inspired by: Atticus: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what"

Stacks: Nada!
Words written: 47,935. (Yay!)

I am sitting here, with the heating on high, layers and a scarf, and I’m still cold.  Having said that, I think where I am, right down on the most southern tip of Spain, is probably the warmest spot in Europe right now.  Have you seen the news about this crazy European cold snap?  Something like 220 people dead as of yesterday.  Here it’s been between 3 (at night) and 15 during the day, although during the day there is a constant freezing wind that makes it seem much colder.  Friday was the worst so far.  I actually got dressed, went outside for my daily meander, turned around straight away and came back inside!  Needless to say I am bored out of my brain.  You would think that inactivity would be good for the book, but instead my brain shuts down without stimulation and I have trouble accessing  my creativity or my motivation.  It doesn’t help that I haven’t had a non-transactional face to face conversation since those three days in Marrakech with Nadim, and before that London over Xmas and New Year.  I think the lack of company and activity is making me slightly insane, particularly after so many years of being the busiest person in the world.  As I have almost another month in Spain before I get back to London and my friends, I had better find a way to meet some people quick smart, lest I become a full blown lunatic and begin walking around unshowered, with hair hanging down in my face, gibbering and shouting at the trees.

I have been in Tarifa since I left Seville on Monday, and really I had done and seen everything that there was to do and see here by the end of my second day.  It’s a very small, very cute place, that clearly bustles with activity in summer but is a virtual ghost town in the low season, which is now.  I would say that you can walk pretty much the entire town in somewhere between 2 – 3 hours, and that I have seen in excess of 50 cafes and restaurants in that small area.  Unfortunately, 98% of them are closed and locked up, and the few that are open don’t have chefs, so you can’t eat at them, only drink tea, coffee and alcohol.  The residents appear happy with this arrangement and spend huge chunks of their days sitting at these cafes, drinking and smoking their heads off.  However for a tourist who is staying in a room without breakfast, restaurant or cooking facilities, it has proved troublesome.  My diet since I have been here has consisted of fruit, homemade ham and cream cheese sandwiches made with increasingly stale bread (my fridge is my balcony), wine and a couple of pizzas from the kebab and pizza shop, the only food establishment I can find that is open regularly (except Tuesdays and Wednesdays!)  When I realised that I wasn’t getting enough veggies and went to buy some salads, there was nothing appropriate at the grocer so I came back with a can of green beans, a jar of roasted capsicums and a jar of olives, which I have been eating straight from the containers with my chopsticks from Thailand, the only cutlery I have.  Talk about improvising!  I feel like a 17 year old student again.

Los Lances Beach

An insane gentleman

The positives about this place are many.  It has one of the most gorgeous (and hugest) beaches I’ve ever seen.  Second only in beauty to some of the island beaches I saw in Fiji a couple of years ago.  This beach is absolutely massive, the sand is really clean and the water is a mix of that really glistening turquoise, clear light green and darker blue.  It is so stunning, and very calm.  I have been for a long walk on the beach every day except yesterday, and it is a fabulous place to walk, or just sit and meditate.  Completely unspoiled and mercifully free of tourists.  I can just imagine how packed it gets in summer with eleventy million pale English tourists baking themselves a pleasant crimson.  There are usually at least a handful of other people walking their dogs at the same time.  I was fortunate to catch that snap in such a way as though it looked like I had the entire stretch to myself!  One day I started at the far end and walked, fairly quickly for two straight hours and got about halfway down it.  It's BIG.  A few mads hang out in the water, windsurfing or paddleboarding, which the conditions are both windy and calm enough to facilitate, albeit freezing.

Africa is behind me

Sunset on the buildings

You can see the mountains of Northern Africa clearly from the ferry docks, and they look pretty impressive from that distance and over the water.  As for the town itself, the streets are paved with cobblestones, there is no nasty CBD or city centre with skyscrapers, and the residential architecture is made up of those typically Spanish, elongated, flat topped buildings, mostly painted white and with those ornate black railings on the balconies. The white of the buildings makes sunset particularly spectacular. People have a lot of flowerboxes in their windows too, which is just gorgeous and adds nice a splash of colour to the surroundings.  It's a quaint little town.  Here and there are locals working on sprucing the place up, no doubt in preparation for high season.  There are people everywhere up on scaffolding refreshing signage, repairing roads and pavements, painting railings and balconies.  They are all pleasant and will greet you when you walk past, not in a "please buy something" or "you're hot, let's get it on" kind of way.  Just a polite, courteous, "hello" kind of way. The people are friendly as far as I can tell, and seem to enjoy the good life, lots of friends and socialising (am jealous!) and not a huge amount of work. I must look Spanish because as soon as I say "Hola" to anyone they begin jibberjabbering away at me at a million miles an hour.  This is my face when that happens O.O 

Some residence, not sure

From the top of Castillo de Guzman

There are a few ancient ruins here, just sitting around.  A residence, a fort, a few others I don’t know anything about.  I have only been around most of them, not into them, because I haven’t seen anyone going into them and there isn’t any information about them and I’m not actually sure if you’re allowed to. The only place I have been actually into was the Castillo de Guzman, a large castle at the end of my street that has been closed since I arrived but for some reason was open for a couple of hours this morning, enabling me to go through. Even though I have previously said that I am tired of castles, churches, mosques, palaces and cathedrals, I have discovered that extreme boredom can override this feeling.  Once again I was excited to be in a place that had been built so long ago (in 960 to be precise) and was still standing, and incredibly well preserved.  I stood on the walkway at the top, peering over the wall at the town below and imagining myself with an arrow trained on my advancing enemy who were disembarking from their boats and clambering up the hillside.  It was fun, although as I was standing there in full battle stance giving the evil eye to an army of imaginary Moroccans, a foursome of Spanish tourists came up onto the walkway with me, which was rather embarrassing.  I told you I was going nuts. Overall, Tarifa is a very attractive, friendly, sunny and fun place to be (I have to imagine the fun part).  I would definitely come back here, in summer, and with friends. To see the pics of Tarifa, click here.

I am very very very excited about the plans I have once I leave here.  Monday I am checking out and then spending two nights in a port town to the east called Algeciras which according to Lonely Planet is a major drug smuggling centre, which strikes me as a rather strange thing for Lonely Planet to say, and then I am trying to pop over to Gibraltar for three nights.  I really really really want to see a Barbary Ape!!  The reason I say I am trying is because just about all the accommodation in Gibraltar appears to be closed in January, which doesn't bode well.  I have heard that the weather there in December and January is really terrible.  There is another town nearby called La Linea de Concepcion or something like that, from where you can walk into Gibraltar, so I will make a decision when I get to Algeciras.  I couldn't bear to be so close to it and not actually go there!  From Gibraltar-ish I am going to Malaga for two or three nights, and then from Malaga I am catching a bus back this way and a little further west to another port town called Cadiz, where I shall spend one night before getting the ferry to Tenerife, for the Carnival of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, second largest carnival in the world (Rio is the largest).  I am spending 8 exotic and festival filled days in Tenerife (Canary Islands) and then will come back to Cadiz, where I will decide what to do with my last 8 days or so in Spain.  Interesting fact: the ferry to Tenerife takes 50 hours!! (and also back obviously).  I don’t think I’ve ever been on a boat for that long, and I’m looking forward to it.  You can click here to read about the SantaCruz de Tenerife Festival.  Nice short blog for you!

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N