So here i sit at a table in a jazz bar in the caribbean, drinking a heineken that cost me about 1.20 pounds. The sunlight is fading but its still very warm and theres a candle on the table which is probably bright enough for me to read my book by. Tomorrow i will try to head to the beach, if there is a bus on sundays. Surely this is heaven?
Of course, i had to go through hell to get here. Heres a summary starting from around thr time i finished my last post.
I spent a few days with my parents in los angeles (mostly mum as dads flight was a few days sooner). This was great for a number of reasons: foremost being that its great to be seeing sights with somebody familiar. it also helped that my parents always have somewhere else they want to see (no aimless wandering like me!), they had a hire car, and they were paying for everything! The attractions of the city proved to be very elusive, with cloudy days to start with, and every possible tourist sight being closed on the one day we happened to arrive - the observatory shut on a monday, a famous house and gardens shut on tuesday, and so on. In the end though, we had a great time. The sun even put in a grand appearance on the last 2 days. I'm still finding sand in my pockets and shoes!
What followed was an exercise in futility. On the last night in LA i sat down with the internet to book some accomodation and look up transport in venezuela. After a few hours i concluded that finding cheap accomodation was going to be impossible, and anything else was WAY out of my price range. And so, i looked at going somewhere else instead! Somehow (no idea how!) I ended up looking at curacao, a caribbean island very close to venezuela. I found there were very reasonable flights too - 130 dollara from miami, and 120 dollars on to caracas in time to catch my flight to peru! Perfect! I booked the flights and emailed some qccomodation places, then slept soundly, worry-free. The next day, it all fell apart.
Arriving at LAX, i told american airlines i intended to catch the first flight to miami, but miss the connection and take my (also AA) flight to curacao. Yes i understood i would get no refund for the miami-caracas flight, but that was fine by me. They then told me i would have to pay 1400 dollars if i did not take the connection to caracas, as it would void my other flights from the same reservation (bolivia back to the uk). I gave them a look was a mixture of skepticism, outrage, humour and confusion. It was a complicated look, so i accompanied it with the words "you want me to pay 1400 dillars to NOT take a flight?". Apparently so. I then suggested a possible, though frustrating, alternative. Why not cancel the miami-curacao flight (i could get full refund on it), take the flight to caracas, then buy a new flight to curacao the same day? They looked at me, clearly recogniding my genius. I checked in. and went to the gate for my flight. Next to it was an info desk, where i asked for a list of fliflights from caracas to curacao after i was to arrive. This was smart, as i knew my spanish wasnt great so it would. be easier in the US. There were several flights with seats, i felt confident.
Then my flight was delayed 3 hours (though only 15mins at a time, so u couldnt walk off). This delay included the time at the end where they fixed the plane, boarded everyone, taxied to the runway, and THEN realised the fuel pump was still broken, so back to the terminal and onto a new plane. I was most frustrated by the fact this vindicated the idiot i overheard as we were boarding who said "says you should never board a flight after they SAY itd fixed." This meant i missed the connection they had so insisted on, but they booked me on the next one. However, this meant that only 1 flight would be available by the time i landed, instead of 5.
I landed in caracas to find my rucksack had been left in miami. After 2 hours queuing to find this out, they knew it would arrrive with the next flight, 30mins before the curacao flight i hoped to board would be - at 9pm (originally i was set to land at 9.45am). I went to the appropriate ticket desk to find it would cost me the equivalent of 500 dollars. No thanks! I'll book one on the internet for much less tomorrow! I wandered to the exit, askung various official-looking people if there was a hotel nearby. One said yes, and he could call a taxi too, and did i need currency exchange? I decided that all these things were good, so i ended up exchanging money with a car rental employee at $1 to 6.5BsF instead of the official 4BsF, counting it in the lift to avoid the eyes of the police and cameras (apparently). With a buddy, they then tried to persuade me they could get me a cheaper flight, but i decided to stick with the internet, and adked for the taxi to a hotel. One of the men took me outside, past the official taxis, to his car (having agreed a fee), at which point he removed the shoulder tab things (eppaulets maybe?) from his airport uniform. I admit to worrying when we drove through some dodgy areas of caracas, but it turned our he was honest. We got to a hotel (like a US motel) and i got a room which wasnt too expensive. It was noisy though. i think the windows were to blame, since i could feel a strong breeze when in bed, despite the window being shut (no ac or fan).
I got on the internet, booked my flight (250dollars, more than i wanted but cheaper than the airport!). I also explained to my parents (and the people on whats app - shout out!) what had happened, and that all was well.
In the morning i collected my bag, decided against changing my clothes (i wad getting on another flight, after all). I checked my bag on the new flight (after taking out my phonr charger at last! It died just after the alarm i set in the morning). Ot turned iut to be a 30 minute flight (complimentary juice though) and i landed happily in the sun, with no idea where i was going. I shared a taxi to the capital, willemstad, and booked a room in the cheapest place i could find (still 60 dollars though!). It has a bed, a sidetable, a bathroom and a tv. Hardly my moneys worth, but i was content to spend 1 night there (i have since discp ered thats actually the cheapest). The shower dribbles out lukewarm water (there is only a cold tap). I left swiftly to explore the town.
And so here i sit with my beer in the dark, content to blather away on my blog listening to jazz, safe in the knowlege i have a place to sleep tonight. Lesson learnt since last post: gcse spanish doesnt cover "i have lost my baggage, but if i leave the terminal and book another flight for just after my bag arrives, can it be transferred directly across?"
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Change of Scenery
As promised, here is my next post!
I spent a few days in Vancouver, staying in the magnificent house of the Bhorgesi's. This was surprisingly peaceful, considering I never left the city. I spent a day wandering around downtown, including a visit to Grandville Island (a great little island in the middle of vancouver, with a public market, small shops and a guy playing calming guitar music in a little square with birds everywhere). I also visited the brewery there and tasted some of their beers: conclusion? I've tasted better! While in Vancouver I also went to the aquarium in Stanley Park - this was very nice because they had Beluga Whales, and a trio of dolphins which put on a show (no thanks to a cheeky seagull that stole one of their reward fish!). It also had a great little room where you can stand with butterflies circling you and big orange birds strolling between your feet, with a sloth hanging from the tree above your head. Good times!
From Vancouver I took a greyhound bus (I decided this had to be tried at least once!) to Seattle, where I only stayed one night. This was probably a mistake, as I arrived later than expected and so the main thing I wanted to do (an underground tour in the city) was already closed. However, I had a nice chat with a random person in a whiskey bar, and watched a film in the hostel's private theater. Sadly, I decided not to sit in the hostel's hot tub, since I felt I would look quite ridiculous outside in an alleyway, in a hot tub, on my own!
From Seattle I took the Amtrak train straight to Los Angeles. This was quite an ordeal! 36 hours in total from start to finish, and at no point leaving the confines of the train. It was reasonably luxurious - the seats reclined slightly, footrests came out a bit, there was a cafe, a restaurant and an observation car with big windows. However, it was just so SLOW. It is quicker to drive the distance, by several hours. To give you an idea of the slowness of the train, there was a point where we had to wait an unexpected 50 minutes because.... wait for it.... the engine wasn't powerful enough to pull the train up the next hill. They had to wait for another engine to come along, attach on the front, and pull it up. Let's not linger on considering why they didn't foresee this problem on a route that they do twice a day.
One of the plus sides of the train journey was that I had a chance to see some changing scenery. Theoretically. In practice, it was pretty much industrial sites the entire way (i've probably never seen so many scaffold bars in storage in my entire life). There was a brilliant sunrise though, and some spectacular moments where the train is passing through empty, desert-like hills and then suddenly you are surrounded by a giant field of cabbage or some such vegetable. The wonders of modern irrigation!
Arriving into Los Angeles, a mere 1 hour later than expected (frankly amazing considering the problems, and the length of the journey - take note london midlands!), I was met unexpectedly by my parents at the station. I was expecting to meet them of course, but not until the hotel. This made it far easier for me to travel from the station (I had vague directions written down and I was manfully planning to walk the whole 45mins or so). And what hotel are my parents hosting me at? Why it's the J W Marriott of course! Only a 5* hotel in downtown Los Angeles! Thank you UCL funding! Of course, I am sharing my parents' room, but that's fine since there are 2 double beds.
Being here truly made me feel out of place with my unkempt beard and dirty clothes, so I have made some efforts to improve my appearance - even going so far as to brush my hair for the first time in 3 weeks!
Alas, I must hurry off now. Having spent the morning walking along the sandy beaches of Malibu up to my ankles in the gentle surf, and the afternoon luxuriating in the rooftop pool, it's time now to go to the bar to meet my parents and have a nice evening meal.
Change of scenery indeed!
Monday, 17 October 2011
Coming In From The Cold
Greetings one and all!
I have successfully traversed the Alaska Highway and more besides to complete the longest leg of my journey - Anchorage to Vancouver! Google maps tells me that's 2,194 miles, and I can tell you it sure felt like a long way! With Katie as my personal chauffeur for the journey, all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the views (and pay for half the gas) and enjoy them I did! To summarise: Alaska's interior has some really fantastic mountains, the Yukon has vast forests and impressively grey landscapes, and British Columbia has some wonderful lakes, rivers, and canyons. One thing they all seemed to have in common, however, is cold nights! Sleeping in a car seems so much easier when you are cruising along in the passenger seat, with the sun shining down on you keeping you warm during the day. But when the chill of night sets in, and the electrically heated seats (hell yes) shut down, it can get real cold!
My conclusion? Somebody needs to invent a nose-warming device for sleeping. Always, without fail, it was my nose that seemed to wake me in the night screaming "ARE YOU TRYING TO FREEZE ME TO DEATH?". Various efforts to cover my face to keep my nose warm (for example, using my buff or the hood of my sleeping back) resulted in a slow suffocation which was not conducive to peaceful sleep at all. As a result, my nights were a constant battle between oxygen supply and heat conservation.
One of the hardest things with such a long drive, is finding a way to fill your evenings without spending a lot of money. After 8-9 hours of driving each day, you certainly don't feel like going straight to bed in that very same vehicle. The things you crave are contact with the outside world, and a nice beverage of the alcoholic variety. As a result, we took part in a daily cruise of whichever settlement we were in, regardless of size, in order to discover the holy grail - a pub with cheap drinks and free wifi! Such a place is indeed a treasure of mythical proportions, and as such are exceedingly rare. To purchase a beer for $5 was the best we could hope for, and usually free wifi was obtained instead by parking outside a hotel for the night (also useful for free breakfasts in the morning!).
What could you, as a traveller following in my trail, experience along such a voyage?
Tok - This is a small town which clearly exists for just one purpose: it is the junction where people heading into alaska decide if they are aiming for Anchorage or Fairbanks. As such, there is nothing much to see, though we did experience several inches of snow so that was fun :)
Whitehorse - Probably the biggest city in the Yukon, there are many touristy shops where you can buy hand-crafted-just-about-anything. They also seem to believe it is important to have two of everything in a square mile, so there are two tim hortons, two starbucks, and so forth. If you truly wish to follow my footsteps, you will have to sleep on the sofa of total strangers (discovered on couchsurfing by Katie), in a house which has possibly never been cleaned, at all. This house is also the residence of a dog who feels it is his DUTY to bark extremely loudly at every person who approaches the front door, regardless if they only left the house for a minute. Few Z's were caught here.
Watson Lake - Small town with big drama! There is 1 bar here (it has wifi!), and it is huge with a grand total of 3 other people in it. However, as the night progresses, you may experience a strange phenomenon - a middle-aged woman might appear, ghostlike, and purchase shots for everyone present (eventually over 10 people by the end of the evening), repeatedly and without pause. Such shots will invariably be B52s, since that is all the bar staff know how to make, or tequila. Several hours will pass, with many a cry of "cheers!" before relations break-down and the very same kindly purchaser of spirits will turn into a mentalist, attack one person, bite another, and end up getting arrested without ever paying for the drinks. Good times all round! On another note, there is an astonishing number of signs in the "Signpost Forest" here. Something like 50,000 by my estimate! If you ever wondered where those stolen road signs end up, look no further!
Dawson Creek - Not, as you might suspect, the location for a famous 90s television series! It is in-fact the end (or start, depending on your outlook) of the Alaska Highway. Mile 0, as every hotel, bar and cafe will tell you.
Quesnel - City of bridges! We performed a total of 13 bridge crossings during our stay in this location, partially because we couldn't find the way to the pub we wanted to attend, but also because there are a number of footbridges which could be described variously as "quaint" and "entirely pointless". What else does this wondrous location have going for it? Free pool at the bar!
Well I think that is, if anything, too long a blog post so I will keep my future plans a secret and post again (possibly) when I reach Los Angeles!
I have successfully traversed the Alaska Highway and more besides to complete the longest leg of my journey - Anchorage to Vancouver! Google maps tells me that's 2,194 miles, and I can tell you it sure felt like a long way! With Katie as my personal chauffeur for the journey, all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the views (and pay for half the gas) and enjoy them I did! To summarise: Alaska's interior has some really fantastic mountains, the Yukon has vast forests and impressively grey landscapes, and British Columbia has some wonderful lakes, rivers, and canyons. One thing they all seemed to have in common, however, is cold nights! Sleeping in a car seems so much easier when you are cruising along in the passenger seat, with the sun shining down on you keeping you warm during the day. But when the chill of night sets in, and the electrically heated seats (hell yes) shut down, it can get real cold!
My conclusion? Somebody needs to invent a nose-warming device for sleeping. Always, without fail, it was my nose that seemed to wake me in the night screaming "ARE YOU TRYING TO FREEZE ME TO DEATH?". Various efforts to cover my face to keep my nose warm (for example, using my buff or the hood of my sleeping back) resulted in a slow suffocation which was not conducive to peaceful sleep at all. As a result, my nights were a constant battle between oxygen supply and heat conservation.
One of the hardest things with such a long drive, is finding a way to fill your evenings without spending a lot of money. After 8-9 hours of driving each day, you certainly don't feel like going straight to bed in that very same vehicle. The things you crave are contact with the outside world, and a nice beverage of the alcoholic variety. As a result, we took part in a daily cruise of whichever settlement we were in, regardless of size, in order to discover the holy grail - a pub with cheap drinks and free wifi! Such a place is indeed a treasure of mythical proportions, and as such are exceedingly rare. To purchase a beer for $5 was the best we could hope for, and usually free wifi was obtained instead by parking outside a hotel for the night (also useful for free breakfasts in the morning!).
What could you, as a traveller following in my trail, experience along such a voyage?
Tok - This is a small town which clearly exists for just one purpose: it is the junction where people heading into alaska decide if they are aiming for Anchorage or Fairbanks. As such, there is nothing much to see, though we did experience several inches of snow so that was fun :)
Whitehorse - Probably the biggest city in the Yukon, there are many touristy shops where you can buy hand-crafted-just-about-anything. They also seem to believe it is important to have two of everything in a square mile, so there are two tim hortons, two starbucks, and so forth. If you truly wish to follow my footsteps, you will have to sleep on the sofa of total strangers (discovered on couchsurfing by Katie), in a house which has possibly never been cleaned, at all. This house is also the residence of a dog who feels it is his DUTY to bark extremely loudly at every person who approaches the front door, regardless if they only left the house for a minute. Few Z's were caught here.
Watson Lake - Small town with big drama! There is 1 bar here (it has wifi!), and it is huge with a grand total of 3 other people in it. However, as the night progresses, you may experience a strange phenomenon - a middle-aged woman might appear, ghostlike, and purchase shots for everyone present (eventually over 10 people by the end of the evening), repeatedly and without pause. Such shots will invariably be B52s, since that is all the bar staff know how to make, or tequila. Several hours will pass, with many a cry of "cheers!" before relations break-down and the very same kindly purchaser of spirits will turn into a mentalist, attack one person, bite another, and end up getting arrested without ever paying for the drinks. Good times all round! On another note, there is an astonishing number of signs in the "Signpost Forest" here. Something like 50,000 by my estimate! If you ever wondered where those stolen road signs end up, look no further!
Dawson Creek - Not, as you might suspect, the location for a famous 90s television series! It is in-fact the end (or start, depending on your outlook) of the Alaska Highway. Mile 0, as every hotel, bar and cafe will tell you.
Quesnel - City of bridges! We performed a total of 13 bridge crossings during our stay in this location, partially because we couldn't find the way to the pub we wanted to attend, but also because there are a number of footbridges which could be described variously as "quaint" and "entirely pointless". What else does this wondrous location have going for it? Free pool at the bar!
Well I think that is, if anything, too long a blog post so I will keep my future plans a secret and post again (possibly) when I reach Los Angeles!
Thursday, 6 October 2011
5 minutes of thoughts
So i have 5 minutes left of my time on this internet connection, here's what I've been thinking.
Alaska seems to be the place where normal people go to do crazy things, and crazy people go to do normal things. This may be a skewed opinion based on the outrageous amount of time I spend on the public buses, but there are a LOT of drunk, homeless, or just crazy people around town. Even normal people on the bus seem to be determined to have at least 1 argument with someone each trip. Strangely though, everyone (EVERYONE) thanks the bus driver when they get off at their stop. And they are all sincere when they say it, it's not just an automatic response!
As for normal people doing crazy things, when I got a lift to Eagle River (about 30mins outside anchorage) to begin my 3-day hike, it was in a car with a very normal driver, and two people who were definitely some breed of hippy. At least, that seemed to be their attitude, but they were really normal people otherwise. And the crazy bit? They had CYCLED to alaska from the lower 48, taking a total of 3 months. Wearing the same clothes. Why would you do that? I can't work it out, and I was stupid enough to think I could do a 3-day trek over a higher mountain than I've ever climbed, in alaska, in october, on my own. I failed, got very wet and cold, and was extremely hungry and thirsty by the end of it (all my food got ruined, and my water ran out because my fuel wasnt working to boil more). Thats all my time, cya!
Alaska seems to be the place where normal people go to do crazy things, and crazy people go to do normal things. This may be a skewed opinion based on the outrageous amount of time I spend on the public buses, but there are a LOT of drunk, homeless, or just crazy people around town. Even normal people on the bus seem to be determined to have at least 1 argument with someone each trip. Strangely though, everyone (EVERYONE) thanks the bus driver when they get off at their stop. And they are all sincere when they say it, it's not just an automatic response!
As for normal people doing crazy things, when I got a lift to Eagle River (about 30mins outside anchorage) to begin my 3-day hike, it was in a car with a very normal driver, and two people who were definitely some breed of hippy. At least, that seemed to be their attitude, but they were really normal people otherwise. And the crazy bit? They had CYCLED to alaska from the lower 48, taking a total of 3 months. Wearing the same clothes. Why would you do that? I can't work it out, and I was stupid enough to think I could do a 3-day trek over a higher mountain than I've ever climbed, in alaska, in october, on my own. I failed, got very wet and cold, and was extremely hungry and thirsty by the end of it (all my food got ruined, and my water ran out because my fuel wasnt working to boil more). Thats all my time, cya!
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