Quill's Tour - Argentinian Steaks

3rd day in buenos aires. It's a pretty cool city. We´ve been out in bars pretty constant in between sleep. It gets going late here, clubs get going at 4-5 and then checking out of the hostel at 10.30 bit much. We´ve also been out eating steaks every night so far in traditional argentine parillas - mixed grill open bbq type places mainly for locals. Last nights was good.. very good, the night before was incredible (place called El Desnival for those who´ve been here) ... best steak ive ever had, forget kobi japanese beer reared stuff or gaucho grill, these guys are the undisputed daddys. The taste! I was stuffed but went on to order chorizo, sweetbreads and grilled provolone. Only men are allowed to cook at the bbq, just like in the UK!

Pool table in the hostel. All the travellers are shite. Numpty rules as well. One shot black merchants and can´t shoot backwards. Moved hostel from a grand central type place to a more mellow portobello road area called palermo viejo. Untold bars.

Made friends with two yanks so far - one wore a bandana around his head, and the other pronounced Chile "Chillay" as in "hey man do you like Chillayan food.. the surfs great in Chill-ay".

Quill's Tour - Boca Juniors vs River Plate

What a game.

When I heard I´d got tickets to the biggest, baddest derby on the planet I thought Santa had come early. Imagine the Merseyside or Manc derby and times it by 10. I kid you not.

I´d been speaking to a sound bloke (Boca fan) who worked at the Milhouse hostel we´d been staying in and had organised the bus trip to the game for all of us. He told me some recent history. Boca were top of the league. They´d won everything recently. They´re the best team in South America and are the holders of the equivalent of the european cup I believe - the copa or south american cup or whatever its called. They´ve won the Argentina championship the last three times. they´re an arrogant bunch that know they´re the best. This bloke was certain of the scoreline today. It was going to be 3-1 to Boca.

This time though the game was at the River stadium - a mad concrete urban hellhole of a thing which you have to go across a spaghetti junction to get through. Walking across the bridge to it I felt a bit of a buzz. I wouldn´t want to play here away. Forget that for a game of soldiers.

River by contrast were 2nd or 3rd in the league. Always been a good side but fallen on hard times recently, especially when it comes to playing boca. last won something two years ago (the championship - the championship here is 6 monthly by the way). They really needed a win to restore credibility and were 3/1 underdogs going into the game... and thats at home.

Becky and I both had quite big hangovers, having been to pacha till 6 and then up at around 10 to get to the game. The stadium holds around 70,000. we had to get there 2 hours early to get decent seats to avoid getting pis sed on by boca. Massive build up to the game - 2 whole football matches before it, one of them I think was boca reserves or yuth v river reserves or youth - a kid got sent off for over-celebrating. By the time the real game started the place was cooking. No alcohol allowed for any game in argentina and you can see why. This lot are mad for it, give them alcohol and you´d have a riot every game.

I´d already decided i was going to follow river because i hate mardonna cos of hand of goal. The dirty cheat used to play for boca, so boca could get screwed as far as i´m concerned. Charlie sniffing fat deigo.

To while away the time some mad dwarf next to me has bought a bin bag of newspapers and is handing them out to everyone to tear up into confetti to throw in the air when the team come out. There´s a serious 70 year old mafia looking bloke sat next to me, white hair slicked back, looking like he means business, all the locals for some reason have passed him their membership cards so he´s obviously some kind of daddy.

River fans are dressed in white and red, and believe me there´s a lot of them. The 70,000 stadium is completely full and 95% of them are River. These guys are screaming, singing chants, all in unison, seas of people.

The game kicks off, confetti everywhere and river hit the bar twice in the first minute. River score first from scrappy ian rush type goal then boca equalise with decent goal against the angles. The 2nd river goal is mustard though. Bloke picks it up from halfway line dribbling it past people maradonna style then slots in home once he´s in the box. Crowd go completley mental.. people hugging each other like long lost brothers who haven´t seen each other for 20 years.. a flag comes down on half the stadium completely covering half of the river fans who are now smoke bombing themsleves out on purpose with red and white smoke bombs to show how much they care. I´m choking with smoke and I´m on the other side.. and not under a flag! One geezer falls off a bit of the stadium in excitement.. about 40 foot...paramedics everywhere

By the time the 3rd goal comes in river are really dominating. Every time they go forward they look like they´re going to score. The third goal is through the legs of the keeper, and this one means so much because the River fans know it means they´ve won it (only about 14 minutes left of the game). The dwarf is flailing his flid arms around everywhere like a lunatic, Mafia man is making SOS signs at the boca fans and is screaming with gloat. In fact every fan is raging at the small quiet boca bit of the stadium and are coating them off.... v signs, two fingers, shake the coffee beans, SOS signs. The stadium is shaking so much that becky is getting scared - this big concrete thing suddently seems like its made out of plastic!

when final whistle goes, all you can see are seas of arms in the air. Everyone has their shirts off, waving them in the air. The whole Riverstadium ae all like one massive heaving entity.. one beast. Everyone is doing co-ordinated dances and chants. Cos i´m hungover and all the adrenalin... I´m struggling to speak properly. I´d stopped trying to capture the moment on camera after the first 2 goals and decided just to take it all in and enjoy the moment.

Boca fans are setting fires everywhere and tearing off the seats, throwing them at river and climbing across the thin walls to try and get near them (if you fall, you´re dead.. like jam.. twin towers style). security don´t fancy it, fireman are getting involved, policeman.. three helicopters in the air.. boca surrounded. the best bit was that its all par for the course.. the river fans are too busy celebrating to give a sh it.. a few of the calmer ones are even reading the programme- hello!.. no one interested in the full scale riot going on.. its just a normal occurence... loads of hard deadly chairs falling down 100 feet onto river fans... pure lunacy.

We saw the boca bus on the way back, guarded by police motorcycles and a bullet proof van... matey boy from the hostel who´d predicted 3-1 the other way knocked a bloke out getting to the window of the bus. leaning out of it and screaming "its ok, you´re still the best, we´re gonna the win the league again, don´t worry about it" etc (all in argentinian).

After he´d finished, he sat back down, caught his breath and I said to him "well at least you got the score right mate"...

Quill's Tour - Lima and heading down south

Alright chaps

We´re in Peru now in a place called Nazca. South of Lima. Not much here apart from some crop circle type things that we couldn´t afford to see (50 dollars each in a plane)

We spent a night in capital city Lima before we met up with the group that we are spenidng the next 3 weeks with. Lima is rough as ass holes by the way and we were in the posh bit - a suburb called miraflores. we met up with our group, who are all nice but a bit soft and don´t drink. I thought if this lot are doing the inca trail, then I´ll be sprinting up it. the only other bloke on the trip is an older chap who is a professor in pottery and ceramics. you get the picture. one girl who is about 18-19 stone and can´t actually walk properly said she wasn´t doing the trail because she was worried about altitude!

Another girl from the group, a vegan called Gemma, had been out in miraflores (the posh bit, remember) that day and had two blokes smash the windows in the back of the cab whilst it was stuck in traffic, trying to get her bags and trying to rip rings off her finger.. blood everywhere from shards of glass.. geezers slashing their arms up trying to get the stuff... they didn´t get anything´but she was pretty shaken up. Anyhow, she was walking around miraflores later with a friend, went into a bookstore and the owners told her to stay in the shop because two geezers were following them. And this is the good bit of town.

Our peruvian tour guide is sound, likes a drink, and knows his stuff. I asked him if he thought miraflores was safe. "Yes", he said, "but downtown Lima?", then he just whistled and shook his head.

Anyhow. We all went out on masse in Lima that night, to a salsa bar in Miraflores (i don´t do salsa but i like cuban rum) and a couple of bars in a place called Baracca which is a more local type of area, lots of tasty looking mexicans (blokes). Couple of pitchers of beer later and i went for my first p1ss in a lima bar, not without some trepidation. Anyhow, sure as eggs are eggs, there´s a peru bloke in the toilet (he seemed alright to be fair) commenting on the smell (which was a mixture between strong weed and faeces - a common smell in peru, drains are not too clever.) So he pulls out a wrap of his finest flake and offers me some. I thought that didn´t take long. I declined (couldn´t tell you why), so he shrugged and starting caning into it, rubbing his gums and so on.

by the way, the vegan girl in our group.. whats all that about? you don´t eat meat, fish, cheese, eggs, milk. As Becky said, you come to south america where they eat pretty much anything, they´d probably eat themselves if they could... guinea pig, llama, monkey, cats... and then you don´t eat fish or anything else either. She´s not eating salad also cos its washed in dodgy local water, and they don´t really have much vegetables in peru, so what does that leave? Yesterday she basically had spaghetti and ketchup and then went to bed.

Yesterday by the way we had a good day, we went to the Ballestas island near a place called Pisco. Ballestas is like a mini gallapagos but as good.

Our El Capitan for the trip was a scraggy Peruvian called Luis. He was wearing a brown racing jacket with Panska racing written on the back. Old Luis smelt of p1ss and was a bit of a lunatic... I think he´d been watching too many episodes of Miami Vice, he was driving proper fast in this boat to get to the islands.

I must admit I got quite into these islands (pelicans, peguins, sea lions), I´ll probably end up buying the box set of Blue Planet or something when i get back! Quill Attenborough.

Later that day we went to the driest desert in the world (per millimeters of rain) and went sand buggying near an oasis called Huacachina.. brilliant.. we were in one of those off road open rally cars with just a metal frame around us, seatbelted in... our driver was another one like Luis.. we absolutely twatted our way across these massive sand dunes it was like being on a rollercoaster. The feeling of being in a desert, nothing but sand as far as you can see is a bit different, and when you get out you feel like you´re burning up.

And then to top it off we went sand boarding, which is like snowboarding but on sand. its the opposite to surfing in that you put the weight on your back foot to accelerate and front foot to slow down. I didnt really know how to turn so I just went straight and absolutely hurtled down this steep slope (big ant would have p1ssed himself).. I went flying at the bottom but you don´t hurt yourself. I ache today though. Walking up a sand dune for just a few minutes is exhausting. Becky gave it all a good go and was first down the steepest slope.

by the way, the beer here is surprisingly good. they have one beer called Cusquena which is as good a beer as i´ve ever had (outside of germany, belgium and prague i suppose).

Thats it for now. Laters

Quill

Quill's Tour - Sliding down Volcano Villarica (with the runs)

Yeah, so the day before yesterday we climbed up this volcano called Villarica above Pucon. Pucon by the way means "entry to the mountains". Villarica is an active volcano, not dormant or dead or whatever. It last erupted in 1984. It is 2500 metres tall and dominates the town and its surroundings. Wherever you are, from whatever angle its always there in your face, looking down at you, challenging you to climb it.

We set out at 7am. It takes out five hours to climb the thing. You get a chair lift up for a small bit of the way and then the ascent starts. The chair lift by the way had no bar. At some point on the chair lift I realised that I had a bit of an upset stomach, nothing too serious at this point but I remembered how the waitress the previous day had poured some local water into my fruit juice.

This volcano is basically completely covered in snow and you have to wear ski boots and clampons (iron spikes) to climb the thing. Its too steep to climb directly so you have to traverse it. You have an ice pick as well to support you and help you from falling back down into Pucon. About half way up the climb starts getting steeper, the altitude higher (so you start getting headaches) and the weather colder, meanwhile my stomach problem is developing into an issue and I realise that I´m not going to have any control over it. Funilly enough they don´t have any rest-rooms on the sides of snow-capped blizzard-ridden volcanos. I´ve explained my problem to the guide and come to the conclusion that I´ve got three options.

Option A is to walk back down and give up doing the volcano.

Option B which the guide suggested was to just dig a quick hole with the ice pick and go to the toilet on the side of the slope in front of everyone! "Oh don´t worry" the guide said "everyone will just be looking at the view". Bear in mind that our party is not the only party of people on the slope, and that there are no rocks, trees... nowhere to hide basically, just an open white slope. It´d be like going to the toilet whilst sk-iing on an big wide red run. Taking your jacket and gloves off in blizzard conditions, undoing your braces, pulling down both sets of trousers, and just squating, balls swinging above the snow on an almost vertical mountain...

With that in mind I went for Option C.

Its a tough repetitive trudging climb up snow, because there´s no variation, everything is just smooth and steep... you can see where you have to get to, and the summit doesn´t seem to get any closer. I wasn´t able to have anything to eat or drink either (what goes in, must come out), so I had no energy and hardly any water! It was a lonely business as well, with only the occassional warm flurry for company.

Now I know how Rums felt that time at the Carnival. Its probably my bad karma for not helping him to the khazis.

When we got to top it was spectacular. You look over the edge and can see right inside this volcano (no lava though - not that time of the year). You see two other smoking volcanos from the top, and well as lakes, forests, towns... everyone is looking at all this whilst I´m plugging myself up.

But in all seriousness I was enjoying it up there... the guide was shaking our hands and congratulating us.

Then comes the fun part. The way that you get down this volcano is by "luge-ing" down, ie sliding down snow paths on your backside, so off we go. Actually I was a bit nervous about it for a couple of reasons. Kieran had also told me a horror story about when he did it and saw the worman who went before him at the bottom, with broken leg jutting out at right angles! Anyway this time the snow wasn´t as compact and we didn´t speed down. Also the cold from the snow kind of cancelled out the warm inside my trousers, and gives me the illusion that everything was ok. Anyhow we made it down at about 6pm. Becky said that climbing the volcano was the hardest thing she´d ever done.

yesterday we went white water rafting, which was the business. Far better than the previous time we´d done in it in Sri Lanka. That time we did grade 2 (beginner), this time was grade 3-4 (intermediate). Now I know what the fuss is about... good rush. I hear Queenstown, NZ and Tasmania are really good for it. Any other sugestions from rafting geeks (rich?) would be welcome. After the rafting we had some Pisco Sour that the guide had bought and then sat in some hot springs till midnight drinking the local beer, Cristal, out of cold litre bottles, nice and relaxing.

Pisco Sour by the way is a decent drink (a lot better than it sounds!). Its the local drink here. It consists of Chilean white brandy (called Pisco), mixed with lemon juice and sugar, like a Side Car cocktail in England/ US. Just my kind of drink. They make them nice and strong across the road in the Mamas and Tapas bar.

Today we are chilling out with an aussie called Brett who did the rafting and springs with us. Tonight we catch overnight bus to Santiago. And on wednesday morning at 7am we fly to Lima. We do the Inca Trail on the 7th November.

Quill's Tour - Crossing the Andes

Alright chaps,

We´re in Pucon, Chile, now. Arrived today.

Everything is all good, we´ve been doing large amounts of walking. 8 hours one day, 5 the next, 5 the next and so on. Walking up punishing 1400m mountains on hangovers all in training for the inca trail. Altitude sickness is meant to be like an hangover so best to get twatted the night before walking.

In Pucon we will climb a volcano as well and then do some trekking in Peru before the inca trail which is in about two weeks time. You need walking poles to do it because you have to climb hundreds of large steps and after a while it gets really tough on the knees.

I tell you what there´s loads of stray barking dogs in Argentina and Chile. I got barked off a fcking mountain the day before yesterday. We´ve got one outside our hostel now that never gives up.

Asking for things in Argentina can also be frustrating. The people here are sound and don´t give you a hard time, they do their best to communicate with you.. but sometimes it seems like you´ll say the right word in spanish and they still don´t get it. Becky asked for a coca cola yesterday and the waiter didn´t understand, like manuel out of faulty towers. Becky repeated it again"coca cola" and he didn´t understand and then the third time the penny dropped and he said "ah.. coca cola" which leaves you wondering where you went wrong.

The hostel we´ve just left (hostel Puma in san martin de los andes) is clean and cheap about a fiver each per night, but loads of lame rules everywhere, its like being back at boarding school. Here are only some of them:

"please leave your room by 10.30 during the day every day so we can clean your room"
"don´t touch anything thats not yours"

"please respect other peoples stuff.. if you´re not sure then ask us."
"be silent after 11pm"

"check out at 10.30, NO EXCEPTIONS"
"cooking between 7 and 11 only, NO EXCEPTIONS"

and my favourite... "your mother doesn´t work here, please wash up after you and put dishes in their right place"

today we left the place. They provide breakfast included by the way, which we didn´t have time for, but as i walked out i saw a sign above the breakfast table saying "Please be moderate, this is your breakfast not your lunch!".

We crossed the andes today at 6 in the morning. The bus I have to say was full of the biggest bunch of smelly border-crossing invalids you can imagine, all with bad colds and on their last legs. More like a chicken bus in Delhi than trans-andes coach crossing. All coughing away and spluttering, sneezing - all in a big chorus together... gobbing and splotting, phlemming, honking, hacking and hawking.. it was absolutely fcking disgusting. This wretched lot need to get some more vitamin c inside them, I tell you. Maybe they´ve run out of oranges in Chile.

Anyhow, we are now in Pucon, Chile now, and this is a cool place. On driving into it it looks a bit more third world but thats not really so. The chileans by the way are not european-looking like the argentinians, they are a bit darker, more like indians some of them. The sun is shining and there´s no wind... and its nice just to get some sun, pure and simple.

Hostel here is very nice rooms, looks like good vegetarian resturant and only about 10 quid a night for the room. Don´t speak great english though and the woman at reception is a sour grumpy old thing, no speak english and face liked smacked arse.

Tomorrow we are up at 6.30 to climb this volcano called Villarica, ice picks and all... and then to the hot springs in the evening, what a day!

Its 9 pm now, and I´ve just had my head shaved. Yes, finally - I´ve done it. To be fair it looks alright... the hairline and shape of head was better than I expected, I thought I might have pinball head or bean head.... obviously it is quite a shock to the system though... I look like a proper nutcase actually, like the neo-nazi bloke out of Romper Stomper. I´ll try and get you a picture when I can. Good job I never liked going to Brixton anyway. I´d best start doing some swimming or weights or something... if I rock up somewhere funny I´m gonna get the sh1t beaten out of me.

Laters.

Quill's World Tour

My mate Quill left the UK to travel the world for a year with his new bride - finally ending up with me in Feb/March next year before off on the home leg.

As a few of my "loyal readers" know who he is - and because his e-mail updates are more funny and interesting than mine - I thought I'd post them here...

I'll post the first three and then as often as he sends them. Language may be inappropriate for younger readers at times.

Settling into Auckland

The Girls: Emily, Mummy, Lauren, Amy, Jessica (in arms) & Fiona

Been in the new job for a week now and (so far!) I'm loving it...

Auckland is a much better place than I remembered and being back in the media business is meaning that I'm getting to see a lot of it in the course of my business day. My office is right in the corner of the ACP building -partially- overlooking the harbour in the Viaduct, where the best and most expensive restaurants are. Needless to say, I'm bringing in my own lunch.

I took a house share in Parnell (in the UK this would be Covent Garden) without seeing it and managed to get a result. The rent is cheap, the flat mates are a laugh at the weekend and silent the rest of the week. All in all, I'd say I was born under a lucky star.

I've been missing the girls terribly, particularly Clare - which I suppose surprised me. There's been many calls back and forth but I'm not the greatest at maintaining a phone relationship and I miss my best mate.

Molly has been playing up while I've been away and has been putting lots of pressure on Clare. I've tried to help out but there's no way of disciplining from distance. Molly gets on the phone and says "Hello Daddy, I love you Daddy and I miss you. Got to gooooooo". She knows she's due a talking to and is smart enough to leg it at the first chance.

I'm heading back down to Bulls next Friday early afternoon so should have completed the 550km journey by late evening for a long weekend. Then on Tuesday my job begins proper and the real pressure begins.

Heading over to the Sky Tower this Saturday for the Autotrader Awards which should be nice and keeps my mind busy.

Haven't taken any pics yet - but put up a a couple of shots of Amy's 21st birthday party.

Krause & Family - Steve's been getting extra cash as a stand-in on My Name Is Earl (as Earl AND Randy)

Three weeks till my Mummy arrives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!