Have you ever been accused of something that you didn’t do but couldn’t find your accuser to defend yourself?   Well I have, and my story involves a swimming pool, a steep hill and a large boulder.

If you are familiar my article, ‘Reviving the Spanish Revival’ you would know that we are in the middle of some serious house renovations.  Every weekend and most weekdays we work on the house - the ever-elusive moving day extend further and further into the future.  For the last three months our lives have revolved around the three Ps -paint, plaster and pain, we live and breathe renovations.

Our house is built on a hill and we live on the high side of the road. One Sunday afternoon I was taking time out from the busy renovation schedule to enjoy our view and noticed a stream of water flowing down our garden down the drive way and onto the road.  At first I thought our swimming pool was leaking but upon closer inspection we noticed that our neighbours were having the same issue – but even worse, their driveway was a small stream. We hunted around their garden to try and identify the source of the water. Perhaps a water main had burst?   In the meantime the flood of water was getting noticeable worse, I was thankful we had our tools on hand in case we needed to build an ark.

We knew the house directly behind us further up the hill had a pool so we made our way around the block to investigate further. We stuck our heads over their fence to discover that while he was doing some landscaping a large boulder had accidentally rolled into the pool causing the bottom to crack. He assured us that the water was now being emptied down the storm water drain instead of down the hill. So that was that, problem solved, we made our way back home after exchanging a few friendly neighbourly words and assumed that was the end of it.

Unless you are a hermit you would know there is water shortage in Australia. In Melbourne water restrictions come into play every time we open a tap – in particular though watering the garden is the most legislated.   Quite frankly I am not very concerned about water restrictions; you see the last time I even looked at my garden was when I noticed something brown and spiky trying to burrow into the dirt and then I discovered we actually had woodchips underneath thel overgrown bushes.  We live in the hills so we can get away with an unmanaged garden; it simply just blends in with the mountainous landscapes.

Julian was working at the house one day after work whilst I stayed home (to work on my blog of course) and calls me from his mobile.  He explains we have received a notice from the water company stating that we have breached water restrictions at 2.45 pm on Sunday.    ‘What were you doing with water?’ Julian asks me.

My mind frantically plays back the day searching for water clues, the only thing two things that come to mind are:

1. spending 20 minutes relaxing by the pool; and
2. rinsing my paintbrush in the laundry tub.

I know water is precious but surely looking at water isn’t breaching water restrictions (just yet) so I ruled the first option out which left the second option – rinsing my paintbrush. I became enraged, how could someone report me for rinsing my paintbrush in the laundry tub, did we have nosey neighbours that watched our every move from their window?  Did they think I was taking too long rinsing my paintbrush?  Hang on  - since when are we not allowed to rinse a paintbrush?  I just didn’t get it, how could they confuse this for breaching water restrictions.  I asked Julian to read over the letter again in case we missed any vital clues, he then mentioned the breach revolved around watering the garden.   Then it dawned on us - it was the pool incident – someone saw the pool of water trickling down our driveway and onto the road and assumed we had been watering our garden.

‘Oh my god’, I exclaimed to Julian, ‘we have a Mrs Mangle neighbour!’ For those of you are not familiar with Mrs Mangle, she was a painfully nosey and small minded woman from the early episodes of Neighbours who meddled with other people’s business.  Our meddling Mrs Mangle neighbour couldn’t even get her facts right.    I wanted to commit an act of violence.

A few scenarios played out in my mind, I decided to blow up the entire street in Arnold Schwarzenegger style, but then thought it might be slightly too harsh. I reconsidered and decided to hunt down the Mrs Mangle culprit and blow her up instead. I schemed about how I would try and ferret out Mrs Mangle by setting up surveillance cameras in the street, tapping phones and setting the bait by hosing down the drive way in broad daylight.

The next day I discussed the Mrs Mangle incident with my colleagues at work, everyone was incredulous but one person pointed out that having a Mrs Mangle neighbour can be a positive thing, it’s always the Mrs Mangle character that watches out for any suspicious looking people.  Well yes  true but I feared that Mrs Mangle would be watching my every move from behind her floral curtains.  Would she report me if one of the gum leaves fell from our  tree and accidentally blew onto her property or if I disposed of recyclables in the regular rubbish bin?

The water company was very sympathetic when I called them to explain that I wasn’t a water waster.  Apparently this kind of thing happens quite frequently. The Complaints Officer explained that neighbours often have feuds and there are frequentl misunderstandings and false reports about the misuse of water.  Gee that Mrs Mangle sure gets around.

What did I learn from all this?

1. Rage mellows with time.   Part of me still wants to hunt  Mrs Mangle down but I’ve decided it’s more important to maintain good relationships with the neighbours rather than kill them, at least until the next incident.
2. Someone who lives near us and breathes the same air is an un-neighborly tattletale.
3. I have the memory of an elephant – no matter how many years go by, when saying hello to a passing neighbour by I will always wonder – was it you?

This isn’t a ground breaking discovery but I am compelled to write about the U Chromosome.  I know what you are thinking there is no such thing as the U chromosome. That’s where you’d be wrong and at least 2 billion people on this planet can attest to its existence – the U Chromosome is the DNA molecule found in human males, and it stands for the ‘untidy’ chromosome. There is no cure for the U chromosome, once a male has inherited this gene it lies dormant waiting for the opportunity to unleash its fury on an unsuspecting world and once out of the cage, I’m sorry to say it’s unstoppable.  The U chromosome generally manifests whenever a man settles into his surroundings and feels comfortable that his fellow cohabiters will accept the unshackling of his defective gene.

I have proof.  Exhibit A – the car.  My partner Julian treats the back of the car like a garbage dump, every time a food item or beverage is consumed in the vehicle, the empty contents are casually placed behind the driver’s seat where they are discovered months later  - usually when I pop into the driver’s seat and try to adjust the seat forward only to find that it is stuck in a pile of empty coke bottles and Bakers Delight brown paper bags.  Julian argues that he ‘strategically places these items in the back in order to one day take them out’ but I know better, Julian is trying to hide (albeit badly) his U Chromosome from me.  Once he had been chatting to me on a drive home whilst taking sips from a bottle of coke, - out of the corner of my eye I saw him casually flick with a practiced twist of the wrist the empty bottle behind his shoulder into the backseat - remarkably reminiscent of early man throwing his freshly gnawed bone out of a cave entrance.  I’m confident he didn’t learn this in his lifetime, no not at all, in fact the U Chromosome  has been around a long time  and been transferred from the mists  of prehistory into the man of today.

This wayward chromosome causes many other problems, for example Julian loves his electronics - cameras, computers and basically all gadgets great and small.  As a consequence the house is completely overrun with computer components.  I have a suspicion that cables are living and breathing and capable of slithering around on their own because I find them in mysterious places like my shoe boxes, on top of my bookshelves, on my computer desk along with various portable hard drives, motherboards, power cables, RAM and memory sticks.   Julian also likes to keep the boxes these items came in just in case he sells them on Ebay one day.  This means much of the spare room is lined with various boxes somewhat reminiscent of a trip to Bunning’s - choose you’re your own box for your goods instead of a plastic bag!  I tried one day to help Julian organise his computer clutter, it was a futile exercise because a week later the cords appeared from their underground hiding places and emerged back onto the floor’s surface again.

For some reason the U chromosome also affects the male’s ability to pick up clothes from the floor.  Julian loves his floordrobe – I guess it’s easy to find clothes and shoes when they live on the floor, perhaps it’s a time saver?   Julian once tried to argue that he left his shoes on the floor because the bed was too close to his wardrobe and he could never bend over to take his shoes out or put them away.  So I came up with a solution, we moved the bed further to give him extra ‘bend over room’ but nothing changed – shoes still live on the floordrobe!  If I had known Julian preferred floors to cupboards we could have saved a lot of money by not buying bedroom wardrobes, dressers and hangers.

Julian’s filing system is also affected by the U chromosome, when there is a document to be filed; Julian simply stacks it away in a pile in his computer desk.  Months later I spy paperwork overflowing, but Julian assures me it is the best filing system he has ever had.    It beats the A-Z filing system he argues because it allows him to search in date order. How so you may ask?  He assures me that at the bottom of the stack are bills he paid 6 months ago, anything around 3 months ago is generally found in the middle and anything recent is closer to the top.  How can I argue with that?

But there is some irony in the story of the U chromosome – no matter how many lights are left on, computer cables lying around or Bakers Delight brown paper bags strategically placed in the back of the car, one thing surprises me, Julian will not tolerate an untidy kitchen bench – go figure?

This is dedicated to my friend Jackie who discovered the U chromosome and explained to me the concept of the floordrobe, love you heaps xxxx

Over the last month my grey hair has become greyer, my frown lines are more frowny and my temper is more temperish. Why is my physical and mental health comprised? I will tell you why -we are undertaking a house renovation nightmare project damn it! Excuse me while I take a moment to compose myself….

My tale of woe wasn’t always a tale of woe, in fact things looked quite positive when we were house hunting one fine Spring day. Perhaps it was the smell of blossoms that lured me into some sort of magic spell but when I saw this quirky and eccentric house -it called to me.

Our house in the hills was built in 1972 with a distinct Spanish hacienda flavour; the pool sits across the front of the property overlooking the hills with views of the distant city. The three split levels are specially designed to get lost in.  For example, you can enter the lounge room upstairs three different ways – by going up one flight of stairs via the kitchen, by going up two flights of stairs via a bedroom or by going downstairs via the study and then upstairs again – confused?  Who cares it’s fun to get lost in your own house right? My theory is that the house was built and designed by someone taking an acid trip.

Under normal circumstances we would sniff out a renovation trap but for some reason when you fall in love with a house all common sense and experience disappears into a vortex and suddenly reappears 90 days later on settlement day…

90 Days later…..

With ‘most’ of the evidence relating to the previous occupants gone, (and I say most because we have found a few interesting things in the house but more about that later) we had a chance to explore our unusual abode.  We agreed that we would give the place a once over clean and then move in the weekend later…. well it’s now been over a month and we are looking at another solid month or so before we actually move in – so what has happened?

Let’s start with the pool, the state of the pool did not actually prevent us from moving in but was certainly a sign of things to come. I was concerned that there were more leaves in the pool than on the surrounding trees; clearly the owners had decided not to bother with pool maintenance after they had found a buyer so we decided to focus our immediate attention on the pool while summer was still in full swing. We turned on a rather old looking filter in the hope that it would magically provide us with shimmering crystalline water but instead it spluttered and coughed out some brown gunk and gave up the ghost within a matter of hours. Wasting no time we called the pool doctor who diagnosed the pool with inattentive owner syndrome and performed emergency surgery on the filter, at the same time transplanting a salt chlorinator. Emergency pool surgery came to $2500. Mind you the pool still needed rehabilitation and so began the month long detox program, of vacuuming, chemical treating, filtering and sweeping until the bottom of the pool was visible. Proudly, we both stood by the pool, looking down, mesmerized by the little ripples of water; the spell was quickly broken when we discovered a strange object sitting at the bottom of the pool. Julian grabbed the net, plunged it into the pool and recovered a rather wicked looking carving knife… hmm we wondered where the dead body was hidden.

On the subject of water we then discovered that the study located on the sub level floor had a rising and penetrating damp problem, not really ideal for storing my precious book collection. I imagined my first edition Carrie or Gunslinger covered in mold and mildew. Julian removed a few bricks behind the back wall and discovered soil piled 2 meters high behind the wall so getting to the source of the problem was going to be pretty much impossible… $2200 later the damp specialists had installed a new damp proof course and ‘negative tanked’ the room which translates to water proofing the wall from the outside.

So began the tasks, clearly delineated male and female I might add, I started to clean and noticed the unusually high number of spider webs whilst Julian inspected the condition of the walls and ceilings and decided they needed to be painted. Looking back now, this was the exact defining moment – the tipping point for the renovation nightmare.

Julian convinced me that we should brighten up the place upstairs, paint the dingy mustard walls white, paint the horrible blue fire place and remove the 80s salmon carpet with a view to laying down some floating floor boards. Julian’s salesmanship was impeccable, he confidently assured me that it would delay the move by only a couple of weeks at most and it was worth getting it out of the way before moving the furniture in. For the moment it seemed the renovations were confined to the upstairs section of the house - the nightmare was contained at least for now!

inspection day -the blue fireplace, mustard walls and salmon carpet is not really our thing

earthy red fire place, white walls, chocolate beams and window frames, floating boards to come… can you see the vision?

On settlement day we had discovered a box of old photos moldering in a dark corner, at first we thought that the previous owners had forgotten them but upon closer examination we realized that was not the case given the photos were from the late 80s and the previous owners had been there for only four years. What amazed me was that it appeared this box of photos had been purposeful left in the house by at least two previous owners –clearly these photos belonged to the house.

I decided to take a break from painting one night and sat down with the box of photos, being the curious cat that I am, I flicked through the photos hungry to know more about the past owners and stumbled across a collection of photos of the actual house. It was strange standing in the kitchen, looking at a photo of the kitchen 25 years ago!

The kitchen in the 80s

We discovered a photo of a primary school class and bingo there she was – the previous owner was the teacher in the photo so we now had a name.  We also found a collection of old postcards from her son along with photos of him – bingo we had another name.

What to do with all this information? Well there is only one thing to do – detective Google work , type in her name, track her down and give her photos back, that easy hu? Yes indeed it was.  In a matter of 2 minutes Google gave me the answer I wanted, I tracked her down through her son who conveniently had his own website with a photo of himself which though much older matched the much one I had found….voila - magic!

Photos were not the only thing we found in this curious little house of ours, we found an old silver ring in one of the old unused ducted heating vents, an old silver key hidden behind the fire mantelpiece, some old coins and silver bracelets strategically placed in strange areas around the house – it was as though these thing were places for some purpose? When Julian began to roll up the carpet he found an old paper $20 note underneath the underlay – this made me wonder whether it was worth knocking down a few walls to try and uncover the pot of gold!

collection of house objects

Speaking of finding surprises under the carpet, we found a completely unfinished concrete slab resembling the surface of the moon, not an ideal surface to which to lay floating floor boards. After much debate we (Julian) decided to self level the surface of the moon using 28 giant sacks of the rather difficult to handle self leveling compound. Getting the ‘milk shake’ consistency was critical to the mission, failure to do so resulted in impossible to work fruit cake style dumpings in the middle of the floor. Timing was of the essence, each sack set within 10 minutes so we had to work extremely fast and efficiently. We think it has been successful but hey the floorboards aren’t down yet…

water proofing the moon surface concrete slab

self leveling the concrete floor, you can see the difference

We had the opportunity to meet our lovely neighbours who entertained us with many stories about the house. When you move into a new house you can’t help but wonder if anything bad went down, for example does the ghost of a murder victim haunt your corridors? (probably not in this case, I’m sure the ghost would have gotten lost in the split level maze). The last thing you expect to hear is that your house was a brothel. That is right folks a brothel. According to our neighbours, rumour has it that our house was once a place of debauchery and wickedness. Well that explains why each bedroom has a door instead of window leading outside.

Our neighbours also informed us that when it came to house maintenance our previous owners were ‘very very laid’ back, we soon found out this was an understatement, more accurate words might be lazy, apathetic, neglectful so on and so forth.

The pool was just the tip of the iceberg, the house had been previously infested by rats, how did we know this? Well, the electricity circuit upstairs was not working because rats had gnawed into the wiring; there were rat droppings in the old duct vents, linen cupboards and in the roof. Throw into the mix a couple of boxes of rat poisoning. The house advertisement had stated that this house was perfect for those wanting to step back from the rate race – how about more like stepping into the rat race!  Further to this I had wondered why all the spider webs had returned after I had spent a full day getting rid of them, was it be possible that the zillion spiders I had vacuumed had escaped from their prison cell – the vacuum bag? – No! Rather it was because the house was filled with gaps and holes and crevices – every ceiling beam had a gap, every gap had a gap – Julian nicknamed the house ‘Shrek’s barn’.

Shrek’s Barn!

With enough paint fumes to keep me going, we were motivated to solve this problem.

Part of the problem contributing to ‘Shrek’s barn syndrome’ in the kitchen were the cabinets backing right onto the naked brick wall -  allowing for creatures great and small to make our kitchen cupboards their home. Julian decided the back wall needed to be plastered over in order to solve this problem. I was a bit reluctant to cover the lovely back brick wall but Julian convinced me there was way too much brick work in the kitchen.  Shrek’s barn, he claimed was quickly becoming Shrek’s dungeon.  The thought of reaching for a saucepan and finding a spider inside wasn’t very appealing so plaster it was. Then something odd happened, one minute we were just going to plaster the wall the next minute, Julian had demolished the old kitchen claiming the only way to properly seal the wall was to was to remove everything.  Suddenly our move was pushed out from two weeks to eternity.

Then came the kitchen consultant who  wanted to redesign our house. The house was all wrong she said, as she sniffed the air suspeciously, as if afraid she might catch something. However she was right about one thing; we could not remodel the kitchen in its current state to allow for sufficient cabinetry. She suggested that we remove the three beautiful brick arches straddling our kitchen bench in order to have more room; initially I was extremely resistant to this idea. One of the things that drew us to the house were the many arches including those in the kitchen so she took it upon herself to inspect our house and suggest that we build our kitchen upstairs, knock down a wall and make it an open living area – why of course we could magically find an extra $50K lying around, perhaps now it was a good time to find that pot of gold. Sadly we had no choice but to demolish the arches in the kitchen, don’t get the wrong idea, we are not renovation barbarians – we despise destroying beautiful and original features in houses but the Shrek look was no longer welcome in our Spanish hacienda so out came the sledge hammer and the hammer drill.

kitchen on inspection day, arches are now gone sniff sniff!

demolishing arches

goodbye arches hello brick dust

goodbye arches hello moving bricks

removing the ceiling

walking on air

It’s not enough for us to destroy one room; we had decided to demolish the second bathroom in the down stairs bedroom to build a study, writing desk and computer nook. We assumed the previous owners had intended this room to be the master bedroom and tacked on a bathroom as an ensuite for good measure. Despite boasting the best views in the house this arrangement of amenities would only suit those suffering constipation but my dietary fibre requirements are fulfilled and my preference is to read in bed or in a chair – very unusual I know! I suspect the previous owners didn’t eat their veggies.

What is the obsession with having two bathrooms anyway? Why would you dedicate two entire rooms to bodily functions when one would do? We were then told to consider the resell value of the house, apparently two bathrooms really increase the value of the house… but we only just bought the house why we would be thinking about selling it? Not to mention I actually want to enjoy my space, why would I want another room that I would hardly use just for the sake of waiting years to make an extra $10,000. (if that). So against all advice we decided to ditch the bathroom, tear down the walls – just think about how much more inspired I will be when I write my blogs now.

PS Check out Reviving the Spanish Revival - the movie

demolishing the ensuite

goodbye ensuite

removing tile glue from concrete tiles..not a great job

In the meantime Julian is like some sort of one man renovating machine, pulling down walls and ceilings, installing insulation, all the while rubble and smashed wood work is being dumped on top of old carpet on the ever increasing rubbish pile… I get the fun jobs like scraping and chiseling glue off tiles that had been tiled over.

By now we had decided the original advertisement had clues to the house, it was like deciphering the Davinci Code. According to the ad we were meant to enjoy passing storms – this actually means when it rains the water literally gushes everywhere because the down pipes are not connected or they are not there at all. We even get to enjoy a bit of the passing storm as it enters the leaky ceiling in the kitchen and through some of the window panels upstairs.

So as you can see, this is where we are at so far with the renovation nightmare and it’s not over yet my friends. Stay tuned for the sequel, the return of the renovation nightmare where we get to lay floating floorboards and install the kitchen. Will it be the $3500 IKEA kitchen Julian seems keen on, or will it be the $8000 custom build? Will the floors go in, should we have used a professional installer, can the indefatigable Julian pull off another renovation miracle or will it be a $5000 blunder.

going a little crazy

safety first

Gypsy helping to install insulation

removing the pot belly stove flue

removing Shrek’s pot belly stove

a woman’s work is never done

Gypsy cleaning up

Gypsy cleaning up… her treats

It’s truly amazing how much ground you can cover during a five week journey on the ole Gringo trail in Peru, Bolivia and Chile… not to mention how totally exhausted your body becomes during this time.  Five weeks in South America passes very quickly yet the flood of sights, smells, sounds and emotions experienced fulfill and enrich the soul. By comparison normal life seems empty, slow and mundane, with little to mark the passage of time.

The experience began with a couple of days of hellish transit - Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to the obscure San Salvador, San Salvador to the grimy Lima and finally the first destination in our adventure – the ancient Peruvian city of Cusco.

Spending 13 hours in LA was enough to bring back the memories of flying into the US back in 1996, the pilots let me into the cock-pit and even allowed me to sit next to the pilot whilst the plane landed. Unheard of post 9/11. Security had ramped up a little – make that a lot. As I queued to remove my shoes and watch along with anything else I harbored in my pockets, I was reminded of the old black and white photos of the concentration camps. The ‘enhanced’ security processes (for our safety of course) seemed uncannily like some less pleasant processes during World War 2.

As I passed through the metal detector I prayed that I had not forgotten to purge anything that was going to make me ‘beep’ - I’d heard what happens if they can’t find the cause of the beep ….the slip slap sound of the rubber gloves.

The Immigration official enquired about the purpose of our trip to South America (was he suggesting we should actually stay in the US instead?) I was tempted to tell him of our plans to smuggle cocaine out of Columbia in 14 huge rubber condoms hidden in Julian’s small intestine but I knew I shouldn’t give away ALL our travel secrets – if they asked questions I could always explain the distended bulge in Julian’s stomach as the nasty result of an upsized Big Mac combo gone bad (in the US I’m sure this would be believable). Anyway why would they bother asking these questions, if people were really planning on smuggling drugs only Forrest Gump or Rainman would spill the plan at the border.

PERU

Arriving at Cusco, I was feeling confident that the nauseating affects of 3,310 meters would pass me by – after all it was nothing compared to the lofty heights of Kilimanjaro which I had conquered last year with no altitude problems.  Julian true to form started to complain of an altitude headache as we waited for our luggage to make its way round on the carousel, feeling rather smug I whistled a merry tune of healthy happiness (though not out loud of course because that would be odd).

This merry whistling ended abruptly when our luggage didn’t make its scheduled appearance. The last thing I wanted to do was loose my luggage in Peru especially when our trek to Machu Picchu was due to start in two days and our gear for the trek was in it.  To make things worse, I had discovered I had wrapped some well chewed spearmint gum in my Peruvian visa and done the right thing and put my trash in a convenient trash can. Now I don’t consider myself a stupid woman so when you drop a flimsy looking half torn scrap of paper in my passport why would I think it’s important? (Thankfully I resolved this problem prior to arriving at the Bolivian border, as I’m not sure how large the bribe would need to have been to make the problem go away).

The grumpiness dissipated as we drove from the airport to the hostel as I surveyed the old cobbled stone narrow streets and locals wearing strange colourful costumes and hats.  Our hostel, Piccola Locanda was a delightful and welcoming place with bright coloured walls and beautifully decorated with Spanish influence. It was immediately clear that a lack of the Spanish language was going to inhibit our communication with the locals, after much gesticulating, referring to some battered photocopies of a lonely planet phrase book and Julian and myself playing tag team charades we eventually we managed to secure our reservation – an exhausting process.

Wasting no time, we decided to explore the city of Cusco - the ancient capital of the Incan Empire.  Cusco is a curious blend of charming architecture, impressive mountains and annoying touts.  After we had been offered our umpteenth alpaca Peruvian tassled hat, and massage (the nature of which I was never brave enough to enquire) we sought refuge in a small café (Café Dos X 3) and greedily devoured the world’s best cheesecake and tiramisu while the owner chain smoked some dubious cigarettes.

My earlier confidence in avoiding altitude sickness dissolved as I became convinced of impending death during lunch at a little restaurant near our hostel.  The 100 metre walk up the cobbled steps leading back to Piccola Locanda proved to be one of the most torturous experiences, heart pounding, pulse racing, thumping headache and nausea – no escape for me this time.  We had later consulted our Lonely Planet to find that the street were staying on (Resbalosa) was known for its ‘choke and grab’ muggings.  I figured I would have been an easy target as I was able to choke on my own accord.

I crawled into bed for my afternoon siesta trying to be positive about altitude sickness – at least I know what it know feels like after missing out on Kilimanjaro I was kind of curious…. It’s all about character building right!

Travelling is indeed an interesting blend of torture, fatigue and excitement.

huffing and puffing

view of Cusco from our balcony

Machu Picchu

The Inca Trail was a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly.  The trek itself was spectacular, no question there and the arrival at the final destination – the Lost City was certainly worth it, but if you decide to trek on the standard Inca Trail route don’t expect a tranquil experience. I wonder about the traveler mentality, some travelers expect to be the only ones on the trail, and the only ones experiencing something unique for the first time - let’s face it this isn’t going to happen especially hiking the Inca Trail – one of the most famous treks in the world.  I don’t mind seeing other people and sharing my experience with hundreds of others but there was a particular vibe on the Inca Trail that annoyed the hell out of me.  Maybe I felt more annoyed because I was still jet lagged and suffering from the effects of altitude, so this amplified the experience but in addition to this something did not feel quite right and I learnt something interesting about human behaviour - more about that later.

Often you worry about landing an annoying person in your expedition, however we were lucky, our group was great (although I might have been that annoying person for someone!) Our porters clapped with enthusiasm every time we reached camp at the end of each day’s trek which while sweet was very cringe making, and probably in the most part engineered to result in a good tip on the final day.  It should have been us hikers giving a standing ovation to the porters, they work so much harder than us on less food, less sleep, and without a nice warm bed like us. Of course ‘hard’ is a relative word as I as found myself absolutely exhausted at the end of each day and overall I found the trail surprisingly difficult.  You would often find me at the back of our group, huffing and puffing and feeling grumpy.  I told Julian not to wait for me and he even took my day pack which he strapped on his chest in addition to his own heavy load!  I was grateful for purchasing the wooden walking stick from a local tout just prior to trek – not only was it useful to support my wobbly legs but I would often use it to trip energetic and jovial trekkers passing me by….

The scenery over the four days was incredible and although it rained at times, this did not make a difference to the spectacular views comprising of beautiful cloud forests, mountains, subtropical jungle and ancient temple ruins. The second day involved crawling our way to the highest pass ironically called Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,200m.  I reached the summit, soaked and sore on my hands and knees (nearly), praying for death so the Incas must have known I was coming and named it after me - it was an enduring 1.5 hours climb in the wind and rain.

The Inca trail delivers all kinds of weather, one minute you will be freezing cold and the next moment you will be peeling off layers in the stinking heat – don’t be too fussed by this it’s all part of the adventure!
So let’s get back to my story of human behaviour.

On the last day of the trek, the camp was packed with over 100 hikers.  We were forced to wake up at 3:30 am in preparation for a two hour walk to the Sun Gate in time for sun rise -it’s supposed to be a spectacular sight.  Unfortunately five minutes into our walk we became stuck at one of the many bureaucratic checkpoints and were forced to wait an additional hour while the official enjoyed his beauty sleep. After finally starting out I knew we were not going to make it before sun rise (the sun was already up!) so I didn’t care about making haste but the hundreds of impatient people behind me certainly did  - the trail was crowded with anxious hikers, running, sprinting, shoving, all trying to make it to the Sun Gate first.  No one told me this was a race? Did they know something I didn’t, perhaps the Sun Gate was somehow going to magically disappear if they didn’t get their first?  Ah yes of course silly me, it’s called the lost city because if you don’t get there first the city will disappear forever!

A young girl Caroline was not used to hiking in difficult terrain and found it tricky maneuvering down-hill, on the day of the ‘race’ her friends whizzed past her with obvious impatience.  I overheard their conversation:

‘Are you in a rush?, asked Caroline with a friendly smile on her face.

‘Nope, we are just faster than you’, came the intentially smart ass reply.

Nice friends hu.

An elderly woman pushed past me to get to her precious Sun Gate, her white hair flapping as she extended her arms and used her walking poles to keep her momentum. She was red faced and tight lipped and muttering some incantation manically to herself - clearly disgruntled with the fact that slower trekkers were holding her up. She reminded me of some kind of creature out of a horror movie, her walking poles like mechanical arm extensions rhythmically clawing at the trail and threatening the slow hikers to move out of the way.

Ironically when we arrived at the Sun Gate those that had desperately battled to get there first (including spider walking pole woman) were squashed up like sweaty sardines trying to take photos. We waited patiently until the sardines had swum off in their shoal down they valley towards Machu Picchu.  Spider walking pole woman extended her mechanical arms demanding clearance of the path and joined the quest to make first ranked sardine.

A small group of us remained and silently took in our surroundings.  The sun beamed down onto the lush green terraced valley with its impressive ancient stone structures, I marveled at the purpose of this mystical place which is still not fully understood - had I stepped out of a time machine?
My mystical thoughts were interrupted when Karyn from our group exclaimed, ‘in thousands of years people will wonder about the mystical purpose of the Sydney Opera House, why do we have to assume Machu Picchu served some mystical purpose?  I had to laugh.

Whilst I am not quite sure about the Sydney Opera House, there is no doubt Machu Picchu is an architectural gem. Some of the stone structures weigh over 50, 000 kilos and are so perfectly carved and fitted without mortar that a blade could not be inserted into their joints.

Walking down the valley towards Machu Picchu was incredible with its impressive citadels, temples and llama’s grazing on agricultural terraces.  I felt like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.  Our guide attempted to delight us in a 2 hour tour of the ruins but I was so tired from the four day journey that I could hardly concentrate on what he was saying.  In addition I had no hat so my scalp was burning and my thigh muscles were aching with every step.

When the train arrived to take us back to Cusco I noticed the ‘dual’ transport system. Local trains vs gringo trains.  Our guide traveled back to Cusco on his local train whilst we went to the gringo platform and waited for our gringo train.  No doubt his trip was only a few dollars compared to our $US50 ticket – I wonder what would happen if I wanted to catch the local train?
I was beyond exhausted and looking forward to catching forty winks on the four hour journey back…. unfortunately we had a carriage filled with Irish drunk singing at the top of their voices… for FOUR hours.

My anger eventually gave way to amusement and finally I was impressed that a bunch of drunks could sustain singing for that amount of time without stopping and without recycling songs – it was like listening to a CD called ‘Machu Picchu train ride classics.’  Their repertoire included the ever popular Neighbours theme song, the Flying Doctor’s theme song, Changes by David Bowie, and various U2 songs…. Don’t expect the album any time soon.

The Inca Trail was a mixed bag for me, on the one hand the scenery was incredible but on the other I was annoyed by some of the people.  I understand that people who travel have different interests, expectations and are at different stages in life, but I did feel disappointed that many hikers were there to ‘tick a box’ or get blind drunk afterwards.

smiling on the outside, altitude sickness on the inside!

a camp dog

happy little vegemites

yet another steep ascent

Dead  Woman’s Pass - named after me??!!

Making our way to Machu Picchu

grazing llamas

Machu Picchu… at last

cool terraces

Every time I touched a stone a guard would tell me off!

A sleepy stall market cat

Polly the restaurant mascot

BOLIVIA

Bolivia was like visiting another planet.  It was decided the night before (we’re so organized) that sunny Copacabana on the shores of lake Titicaca would be our first stop, trust me this very much not the Copacabana from the “Copa Copacabana” song).  It enjoys the reputation of being one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world, in fact it’s at a dizzying 4300 meters.

The 12 hour overnight bus journey was quite the adventure, While we waited to board our bus a small child tripped and ‘fell’ into Julian, a predictable cliché for a pickpocket.  Fortunately for Julian, feeling a hand slide into his pocket returned the favor with an elbow.

After this incident, I was reluctant to try sleep on the bus – there was a suspiciously high ratio of locals to gringos on board. Feeling rather nervous that I would wake to find my day pack slashed and my camera missing, I secured my day pack over my stomach, slung my arms through the straps and then wrapped my sarong over it just for good measure.  At about 3.00 pm I woke to find a young local girl hovering over me.  I thought she was planning to breach my security perimeter but then realized she was bus sick and would probably throw up all over me. Great. Fortunately her boyfriend encouraged her to keep moving to the toilet - something I had been avoiding all night due to unsavory smell leaching from its door.

At 4.00 am we were sleepily disembarked from our bus to endure a 3 hour transit wait. It was cold and the seats were hard and uncomfortable and I quickly grew grumpy at waiting for so long. At around 5.00 am my stomach was churning and I realized I had to make a run for the public toilets. The toilet attendant charged me and handed over one small sheet of paper, thankfully I was well stocked with my own toilet roll.  Previous trips had taught me the value of providing your own toilet paper, this is right up there with carrying your passport at all times – really can imagine how useless one sheet of paper was going to be in a time of bowel crisis!

Speaking of passports and toilets, I marveled at how often you had to show your passport in Bolivia, it was a must for everything, purchasing bus tickets, getting on busses, boats – anything and everything I was actually quite surprised that I didn’t need to show it for purchasing a ticket for the use of the public toilet.

A Bolivian family sat in front of us at the terminal and I couldn’t help but stare at the wife’s traditional clothing, strange puffy skirt, 1920’s bowler hat and a colourful woven blanket carefully tied to carry her bundle of whatever.

This all-purpose blanket is used to carrying children, food, baby llamas, weapons (probably not) and also serves as a comfy place to sit!  The little bowler hats are quite ridiculous, and a hangover from British railway workers 100 years ago.  I later found out that wearing a bowler hat tilted at a jaunty angle meant the woman in question was single and available, whilst a hat placed straight on the women’s head indicated she was married and not to be messed with (you never know what type of defenses she has in the blanket).

By the time our bus arrived at the Bolivian border I was exhausted and my stomach was cramping and making noises that sounded quite demonic.  Our bus driver explained (thankfully in English) that we had to make our way into two buildings, one before the border and one after to arrange for the stamping of the passports, he also mentioned we had to pay one boliviano, (about 20c) to cross the border.  Later we found out this payment was not necessary and the bus driver and taken us for a ride of a different kind – admittedly I was quite impressed at how he had worked that little number into his speech, informing us that it was town tax, he was quite convincing.

The effects of altitude were still obvious, as Copacobana is around 4,000 metres.  My demon possessed stomach protested as Julian slung my heavy back pack on (as well as his own) and made the pilgrimage from the bus stop to the hostel.  A 20 minute walk felt like a 20 hour walk, as I huffed and puffed and yet again found myself having to do battle with steep coble stone stairs – perhaps they are attracted to me, drawn to me like bees drawn to nectar?  The arrival at our cozy little hostel made it all worthwhile – La Capula, with its Arabic style architecture and great views. Although La Capula was budget accommodation, I felt like I had arrived at five star resort.

We explored the small village of Copacobana, like Peru the streets were lined with merchants selling a range of colourful textiles but thankfully we were left alone to look around at our leisure. Our complete lack of any Spanish frustrated some of the sellers as we were forced to use fingers to try and work out how much money something cost. Julian was tempted to make everything cost two fingers, and that was more fun… At least the local dogs had no problem with our lack of Spanish, the local dogs were friendly and demanded pats in exchange for frenzied tail wags.

Isla Del Sol

In the early hours of the morning, we walked down to the jetty and climbed aboard a rusty old boat heading out to the Isla Del Sol – the birthplace of the sun according to Incan legend.  We met a few other Aussies who had been travelling around the continent and listened to some of their stories.  Adam had volunteered at a jaguar (the cat not the car) shelter a few months back.  On his first day a jaguar ran towards Adam and in one leap hurtled him to the ground… Adam thought the jag was going to attack him until he realized the Jag was lying on top of him humping forcibly away at this leg… one of the other workers wasn’t overly concerned at this but did warn Adam not to move otherwise this would interrupt the concentration of the Jag and was liable to make the jag violently angry… Poor Adam had to lie very still and endure this for half an hour – he was going to need some expensive therapy when he got back to the real world.

The Isla Del Sol was a fascinating place - at least I am sure it would have been if I had understood what our guide was saying.  Ah well that is what Google is for, but we did enjoy spending the day exploring and walking around the island with its incredible views.

By the end of the day, I clearly understood why the Incan’s thought this was the birthplace of the sun - my face was truly fried and I had suffered intense sunstroke.  If you visit this island make sure you don’t forget your two best friends – your hat and your sunscreen.

taking in the island sights and sounds

this island has no cars.. the residents get around on sheep instead!

La Paz

While waiting for our bus from Copacabana to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, I watched three local girls playing a game on the streets, they each had an orange and they were rolling their oranges down the slope of the street trying to beat the other’s orange.  They would laugh hysterically when their oranges came to a stop, run down the hill, fetch the oranges and start over again. This lasted for ages.  I couldn’t visualize any children playing this game back at home in Australia, unless of course it involved shooting demon oranges on the PS3.

It was a bit of a shock arriving into La Paz after spending time in the quiet town of Copacabana.  This busy city is nestled in a mountain basin which makes for a spectacular view driving in.  Our hotel, Hotel Rosario had many rooms and didn’t look overly busy, yet for some unknown reason we were given the room on the top floor naturally there were no elevators which meant I had to endure more steps,…with luggage – La Paz is the highest city in the world, at 4,200 metres above sea level so you can imagine how I felt about trudging up stairs in this altitude yet again!

Apparently you should never fly directly into La Paz without acclimatizing first, we had been acclimatizing for two weeks now and I still felt quite unwell, often tired, out of breath and dizzy, We met a woman who had flown in a few days earlier, she told us she had spent days in bed and felt like she had been hit by a truck.

Nevertheless I was keen to explore the city and the witches market where you can purchase llama fetuses… apparently you are supposed to bury them under your new house for good luck- just what I had been looking for!  Like everywhere else, La Paz was filled with colourful markets, but by this stage I was over handicrafts so the llama fetuses were quite the novelty.  Feeling rather daring Julian (or Hoolian as the South American’s pronounced) decided to try the llama for dinner; personally I can’t eat anything that vaguely resembles a cute and fluffy pet so I stuck with the regular type of meat.

In the lobby of our hotel; I had been speaking to front reception asking about the laundry services, thankfully they spoke English.  A Sweedish tourist who had overhead me approached me and asked,

‘what type of English are you speaking, I have never heard that that English before?’

I was quite amused but instead of telling him I was from Australia, I replied, ‘I am speaking Australian’.

I thought everyone had heard an Aussie accent these days but obviously my accent was hard to identify….and I had just invented a new English language – Australian.

Julian had been struggling with his mobile phone.  Since arriving in Bolivia his SIM card and pre-paid credit had not been working. In the mobile phone shop, our lack of Spanish prevented any form of progress so back at the hotel we hoped that sheer luck would get it working again.

The automated female voice began her spiel of instructions in Spanish, and Julian punched away at the key pad.

‘Ah, I believe the phone is now going to work’, Julian announced.

‘Why is that?’ I asked.

‘Well, her voice had quite a positive tone; I think her voice would have sounded more negative if there was a problem,’ came his response.

He was wrong…the phone still didn’t work.

La Paz and me!

Sucre

Given our short time in South America we decided that planes might be more efficient as a means of travel not to mention we were growing tired of buses so we booked a flight from La Paz to Sucre.  Take off from La Paz airport was quite interesting.  At high altitude a plane takes a long time to take off so the runway at La Paz was extraordinarily long and take off was shaky and daunting.  However the landing at Sucre was quite the opposite in that the runway was short and I became extremely alarmed when the old ratty plane screeched to a halt a few meters from the end of the runway. I tried to gain comfort in the fact that the pilots do this many times.

Sucre was a clean, tidy and pretty but felt like the South American version of the Stepford Wives.  In some way it was nice to have relief from some of the poorer parts of Bolivia but still I yearned for underdeveloped and patchy buildings rather than Sucre’s perfect-whitewashed walls.

One of the most memorable experiences in Sucre was the visit to the chocolate shops; it’s a chocoholic’s delight with many fine dirt cheap chocolates to be sampled.  During our two day stay in Sucre, we visited the chocolate shop five times with the aim of trying most of the chocolates in the shop!

white washed or Stepford Wives Sucre

Potosi

Continuing on with the trend of avoiding buses, we decided to travel to our next destination Potosi by taxi. 300 years ago Potosi was one of the richest city in the world because of its largest deposits of silver known to man.  It was once said that you could build a bridge from Boliva to Spain with all the silver and still continue mining.

For a mere $20, our taxi driver Hans drove for 2.5 hours entertaining us with his 1980s cassette tape collection and complimenting mullet hairstyle.  The tape deck pumped out groovy 80s tunes like ‘Just an illusion’ by Imagination, and ‘One way ticket’ by Boney M, but somehow this did not match up with the striking Bolivian landscapes. When rap from the movie ‘Beat Street’ filled my ears it felt like we should have been driving down the streets of the Bronx with my tracksuit pants and spray can in hand.  Nevertheless Hans the 80s Grandmaster rapper was able to drive as smoothly as his music, the ‘road’ from Sucre to Potosi was unsealed and rough but Hans knew where all the potholes and bumps were and maneuvered his vehicle beautifully.  I took the opportunity to review the condition of my scalp which had been fried from the visit to the Isle Del Sol – it was flaking chunks, as though there had been a blizzard in my hair – very attractive.

The Lonely Planet described our hotel in Potosi as needing a cosmetic update. A gross gross understatement – it was room out of cold war Russia.  However we enjoyed Potosi more than Sucre because it was more raw and alive.

By now my Spanish vocabulary had increased (or so I thought) so at dinner I decided to be a little spontaneous and ordered something called ‘special beef with locoto’. When my dish arrived, I greedily took a large bite, paused for a second and then began to wildly cough and splutter – it turned out locoto was a red hot pepper. But despite my earlier ordering failure I was quite proud of myself when I was able to avoid the usual charades and asked for the ‘la quenta’ (the bill).

our cold war Russia room

Uyuni

The purpose of making our way though to Sucre and Potosi was too ultimately reach Uyuni in order to book our jeep tour around the Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats).  Unfortunately this meant a return to the bus as a means of transportation and what an adventure it was.  We arrived at the typically busy and chaotic terminal to purchase a ticket for the midday departure but again our lack of Spanish got us into a spot of bother, it took a while to understand the ticket women and eventually we figured there were no more tickets to Uyuni available at midday.  This was unfortunate because there were only two buses leaving for Uyuni, one was midday the other was 7.00 pm and we weren’t keen on a 7 hour journey on a bumpy and notoriously dangerous road in the dark. By sheer luck we found ourselves on the 12.00am bus, apparently two people had failed to turn up so it was a last minute ‘right place, right time’ situation. The bus was a dreadful and ancient clunker, our luggage was tied to the top of the rusty roof and we were the only tourists on board the smelly hot bus.  I guess there are no safety rules in Bolivia, and the driver allowed passengers to fill the aisles and a women sitting on a bucket kept nodding off on my shoulder whilst her small child’s head lay on my foot.  Things weren’t that bad though, we had the pleasure of listening to awful looped Spanish love songs on a skipping CD for seven hours.

Uyuni reminded me of one of those Mexican towns you see in an old Western with rolling tumble weeds and dusty roads.  After we dumped our luggage in our hostel, we wandered down the streets to scout for a tour company to take us out onto the salt flats the next day in a 4wd.  We didn’t have to search for long as we were swamped by sprukers a-plenty.  We were due to meet up with a couple of friends Liam and Anna and we had promised them that we would do our research very carefully and would ask all of the appropriate questions.  Top on our list of priorities was to ensure that the tour group would not exceed more six – the 4wd’s only hold six plus a driver comfortably.  We had heard stories of groups trying to bargain the cost of their tour with operators then finding out the operators had cut costs by cramming more people into the jeep – this is last thing you want when you are driving in a small jeep for hours on end over three days.  So we made the tour operator promise that there would be no more than 6 people in our group tomorrow and I was convinced we had found the best tour operators for our group -Expendiciones Lipez, but as we found out the next day, I was so wrong!

Uyuni aka Mexican town

The Salt flats (Salar de Uyuni)

We arrived at the tour operator at 10.00 am as instructed after being told we were going to be leaving no later than 10.30 am.  It was a particularly hot day and we had to hang around in the sun waiting for the jeep preparation.  This did not impress me as my scalp was finally recovering from its chunking problem.  By 11.30 am we were wondering why all the other groups had left and our driver was still running around doing last minute things.  Finally we all bundled into the jeep feeling relieved there were only 6 of us.  Our driver Franco (who didn’t speak a word of English – no surprise there) was a round, jovial kind of fellow who kept making jokes, well I assumed he was joking because he would also crack up laughing at the end of his own sentences.  Franco drove for a few minutes before stopping in front of a house. Before we knew what was going on, a woman (Franco’s wife) approached the jeep holding a baby.  We assumed he was making a quick pit stop to pick up some supplies but when she tried to climb into the jeep with the baby we knew something was not quite right.  Thankfully, Anna (another member of our group) was able to speak some Spanish and translated the situation for us.  Apparently we didn’t have a cook and Franco’s wife was coming with us to cook our food, and the baby had to come along because he was still breastfeeding!  Thank God, another member of our group, Liam, took charge. He insisted we drive back to the tour operator and clear this up, there was not way we were going to have an extra person and a baby in the jeep over the next 3 days!

After the operator confirmed that Franco’s wife was not coming with us we finally started the tour.  Unfortunately things were different with Franco and he was no longer jovial or laughing at the end of his sentences, in fact he was not even speaking to us at all. I could see his glaring eyes in the revision mirror and I wondered if he was planning on dumping us in the middle of the salt flats to die….

It wasn’t long before we realised Franco was a coca leaf addict.  Coca leaves come from the coca plant and from the coca plant cocaine is made. Taken orally the leaves are known to be a stimulant and Franco frequently dipped into his stash of leaves over the three days.  This curious ritual involved Franco inserting a few leaves into the side of his mouth for a couple of hours leaving them to brew, he would then proceed to spit out a huge maturated globule of leaves – real classy stuff!  He reminded us of a Koala eating gum leaves!

It wasn’t long before we reached one of the most stunning and curious sights I had ever seen – the salt flats.  Some 40, 000 years ago, the area was part of an ocean, after it dried out over 10 billion tons of salt were left behind. You can only drive over the salt flats when they are dry – during this time they are a blinding white surface of desert like nothingness that go for miles and miles when wet the surface is a perfect reflection of the blue sky and clouds.

When you visit the salt flats you cannot resist the temptation along with other tourists to line your camera up for a false perspective shot.  With no horizon and miles and miles of nothingness, this creates a lack of perspective and is an ideal place to partner up and take some pretty cool shots, word of warning – the salt surface is incredibly sharp and you will get cut if you are not careful.

Visiting the salt flats is like visiting another planet…. we came across a massive island of dried up coral covered in huge cacti surrounded by an ocean of white salt, walking on the trails I felt like I had been transported into a Salvador Dali painting.

Being so long on the road, you get an opportunity to get to know your group and like Machu Picchu we were fortunate enough to have great bunch of people.  We already knew Liam and Anna from the UK so it was two other Aussies -Charlotte and Steve that we met and took an instant liking to.  Charlotte had an interesting phobia, one that I had never come across before – a fear of bananas.  Charlotte could not explain how this phobia came about but I knew she was deadly serious when I saw her reaction to the fried banana that was served to us during the course of the trip.   Along with phobia conversations, it’s also natural to exchange horror toilet travelling stories with people you have just met - it’s also quite normal to discuss these topics over dinner.

Speaking of dinner, don’t expect to dine well while you on this expedition, after being promised pancakes for breakfast one morning, we just received dry vinegary bread – dinner wasn’t much better.  One evening I skipped dinner altogether, choosing to opt for my stash of chips and chocolate instead.  On a brighter note, I discovered the most delicious spread by the name of Dulce de leche – a milky based caramel spread which I pretty much lived on for the rest of my time in South America.

During one night, we stayed in a hotel made completely from salt, walls, and floors, even the beds. We were entertained by a bunch of local children who performed a traditional dance with some strange music that involved a drum and various other sorts of percussion instruments.  I couldn’t work out why the music was supposed to be out of rhythm, it actually sounded quite awful, nevertheless we had fun clapping along out of rhythm of course!  The kids also pulled me up for a dance which involved an awkward and yes out of rhythm backwards and forwards shuffling maneuver.  All the kicking caused the salt from the ground to loosen into the air like dust which eventually filled the room with choking salt dust.

Over the three days, I was constantly amazed at the changing landscapes of rugged and raw mountain beauty, eerie windy deserts and icy mineral lagoons with strutting flamingoes. Franco eventually chilled out a little but we were concerned he was going to fall asleep at the wheel.  We decided to go on ‘Franco watch’, whoever sat at the front would be responsible for ensuring Franco did not nod off, we all got a turn as we rotated seats.  Sometimes we would catch glimpses of Franco’s red bleary eyes through the revision mirror – the more he chewed on coca leaves the worse he became bleary eyed.

Day 2 was one of the most spectacular of scenic days, Laguna Colorada is indeed a incredible and unexpected sight - its a huge red fiery lake lined with flamingos, the Bolivian’s are trying to secure this as one of the seven wonders of the world.  We arrived at our camp and our group of 6 shared one room, I was amused at the bedspread covers - bright and velvety 1980s style with large animal prints (where was Hans our taxi driver).  I took the bed with the bright blue cover and horse head located next to the window that was covered by a shower curtain!   That night Franco told us we must leave at 4.00 am the next day in order to have enough time to visit the Geyser Basin and make our way to the bus at the Chilean border so I sank my tired body under my horsey bedspread to get some shut eye.  Our heads had hardly touched the pillow, when we were rudely awoken by the cook at 3.50 am, it was indeed an effective wake up call, he simply marched into the room, switched on the overhead lights and told us to get moving. Nice.

We were rewarded when we reached the geysers around 6am – the steaming and bubbling geothermal wonders.  We were told not to get too close given the toxic fumes and potential to get seriously burnt, I had no problem with these instructions, particularly because the eggish like sulphur fumes made me nauseas. What a raw country this was, with the absence of danger signs and safety barriers, you could easily trip and fall into a boiling pool of mud and have the flesh striped off your bones in seconds.

On our way to some natural hot springs where we could swim (or at least soak) we noticed the large number of jeeps from the other tour operators that were breaking down, clearly by the third day the harsh terrain had taken its toll. We all felt a little nervous what might happen to our scheduled border crossing if we had a breakdown.

Franco dropped us off at the springs and returned to help the broken down jeeps whilst some of us sank into the delightfully warm hot mineral springs.  There was no time for a sit down breakfast by the time Franco got back so we quickly guzzled down some dry bread and Dulce de leche and looked to our stash of chocolate bars for some further relief.

The last leg of the trip involved passing through barren country with stunning rock formations known as the Salvador Dali desert, unfortunately our breakdown fears came true as we felt the jeep pull to the side and heard Franco deliver a groan - a flat tyre.  Franco hurried to fix the tyre along with the help from the guys in our group.  The one good thing about the flat tyre was that it forced us outside and I really got an appreciation of the vast and desolate country.

having fun with perspective shots in the Salt Flats

Julian has me eating out of the palm of his hand!

this island of cacti was like being in a Salvadore Dali painting

cactus hugging hippie!

too much salt makes you serious!

kicking up a salt storm with the local children

when Harry met Sally

the desert is full of suprises

Laguna Colarada

our 1980s animal print bedspreads

Kicking back in the hot springs

you feel quite insignificant in the expansive nothingness..

waiting whilst the flat tyre was changed

CHILE

San Pedro

Arriving at the Bolivian/Chilean border was like arriving in no man’s land.  Nothing to see but a very small building, a burnt out bus and a couple of optimistic foxes surrounded by the vast and barren desert. But a brand new Mercedes bus was waiting for us, and after leaving the Bolivian ranges wide paved roads, street signs and strict road rules. What a contrast.

Our next destination – San Pedro was another curious place, a little oasis in the middle of the desert where the heat was intense and immediately felt.  It was difficult to breath and the dizziness kicked in so walking around with packs on looking for accommodation was not enjoyable. Chile is an expensive country and even the basic of accommodation was quite pricey, coming from Bolivia it was a quite a shock but we managed to find something just in time to avoid my grumpy levels getting out of control.

Besides the intense heat, I also noticed that Chilean men were not shy in their advancements, I referred to them as ‘charming perverts’, it was hard to get annoyed at them because of their charming and subtle ways, they were even bold enough to flirt whilst Julian stood next to me… and yes I was flattered!

To help keep cool in the heat of the day, we adopted the local ways and had our afternoon siestas to avoid the heat of the day.  In addition, a delicious drink called a ‘mojito’ containing rum, and lime and fresh mint was a refreshing and tasty beverage and a perfect way of cooling down.

It was going to be a hot Christmas in San Pedro, we thought it would be nice to meet up with Liam, Anna, Charlotte and Steve and cook a Christmas lunch, so on Christmas eve we went shopping to prepare for our feast the next day.  It wasn’t an easy chore to find fresh and quality produce in the middle of the desert, most produce was limp or too ripened from the heat.  One store owner had decided to leave their
rotting and moldy fruit as is and just dump newer ones on top… hmm we were determined to conquer still.

We also had another challenge, the kitchen and available equipment in our hostel was less than desirable, nevertheless we managed to cook up a feast of baked chicken pieces that had been marinated over night with limes, coriander olive oil and garlic, a mixed pumpkin and potato mash, Greek salad, and some fresh bread.   We even managed to buy a somewhat traditional looking Christmas fruit cake – unfortunately it was very dry but we easily got around this problem by dousing it in brandy and ice-cream.  What’s Christmas without Santa and presents?  I volunteered to be Santa Katherine and passed out the Christmas presents… all the kids must have been good this year because Santa Katherine had delivered some quality presents.  Julian was rewarded with a fine green pair of alpaca socks and a wooden batman toy that could do acrobatic tricks along with a packet of coca leaves.  Liam too had been rewarded with a packet of coca leaves so we spent the afternoon watching Liam and Julian ‘do a Franco’ and laugh at their attempts to chew on the vile tasting leaves.

It was an indeed a Christmas to remember!

Julian’s alpaca socks

coca leaf muncher

coca leaves don’t quite agree with Liam

Charlotte and Steve… and Julian’s Batman toy!

It’s certainly a dog’s life!

Santiago

Travelling from San Pedro to Santiago involved another bus ride, this time however we decided to travel in style and upgraded to ‘full cama’ seats which meant we could recline all the way back during the 24 hour journey.  We also had the pleasure of air-conditioning to keep us cool during the day and warm blankets to snuggle under at night.

Santiago, the capital of Chile was a real pleasure to visit, the first thing I saw was a street vendor selling large, juicy looking strawberries and cherries. After the struggles of finding fresh produce in San Pedro, it was fantastic to taste a fresh piece of fruit!  Amongst civilization, we made the most of dining and staying in some decent accommodation.  Our hotel, Hotel Vegas was quite charming compared to its name.  Its architecture was quirky and our room had gorgeous bay windows that opened up to a view of the old cobble streets below.  The streets of Santiago were clean and safe and it felt like a walk through a post-card, we headed down a little alley way and found a little local café where we were given the friendliest service imaginable.  I was in need of a caffeine fix, but there was no coffee machine so the waiter went next door and asked them to make the cappuccino for me.  Our waiter was not only friendly but he was quite comical and theatrical and we laughed all the way through lunch.

the best waiter in the world!

Punta Arenas

We had our sights on heading down South through Chile towards Patagonia for some hiking in the famous Torres del Paine National Park.  So after spending one night in Santiago we headed off to the airport the next morning to catch a plane to Punta Arenas – the gateway to Patagonia.  By now we had realised there was life outside of the Lonely Planet – we were staying at places not mentioned in the lonely planet and had stopped booking accommodation in advance which once upon a time would have made me extremely nervous.

Two things about Punta Arenas, it’s boring and it’s extremely cold!  We had spent the last few days burning to death in San Pedro and feeling pleasantly warm in Santiago but Punta Arenas was freezing!  Who said hell was supposed to be hot?  We found some accommodation which thankfully had wall heating and decided that it was best to move onto the next town the very next day - Puerto Natales. We booked a bus ticket and headed back to our hostel out of the cold for some afternoon reading.  By 11.30 pm I was surprised that I was still reading in the light!  We were so close to Antarctica that it didn’t get dark until late which was very strange and something that I could not really get used to.

Puerto Natales

The three hour bus journey to Puerto Natales was easy compared to our previous longer bus journey – we were now officially bus travelling professionals.  The landscape and views reminded me of New Zealand with its snowy-capped mountains, blue lakes and green fields but when we stepped off the bus into the icy wind I felt like I was hell again!  Like San Pedro we walked around looking for accommodation except this time we were battling the cold, eventually we decided on a place with an original name called the Puerto Natales Hotel.  For $100 a night we were given a dark and dingy prison cell like room but at least we were warm and that was all that mattered!

We spent the first day exploring the town.  It’s no surprise that Puerto Natales is a town full of tourists holding Lonely Planet guides wearing gortex jackets and hiking boots – this was the standard attire in restaurants.  Scouting for a decent place to eat was also a priority.  After weeks of travelling we had discovered that salads and vegetables were not very popular in South America - it was a protein and carbohydrate love affair.

Torres del Paine National Park

There are many different ways to hike in the National Park, and lots of things that need to be booked so it can be a little overwhelming. There are buses and catamarans to arrange, decisions to make about whether you would like to stay in refugio (shared lodge) versus a tent and the many different routes you can take – including a tour of the grey glacier – one of the most impressive glaciers in the world.  In the end we opted for a short version of the famous ‘W’ route spending two nights in a ‘refugio’ and one night in a tent.

Our trek commenced on New Year ’s Day so we went to sleep at 9.00 pm on New Year’s Eve – I think I would have gone to bed this time regardless!

The first day involved a 7.5 hour walk to the Mirador Las Torres, the trail was long and relatively easy however the last hour involved a boulder scramble to the top which I found quite tough, it was steep, windy and cold and the sheer effort to get to the top coupled with my anxiety caused me to sweat inside my warm clothes – really uncomfortable.  I had no idea what to expect at the top and what I found totally blew me away….

Mirador Las Torres was is so impressive; its beauty is difficult to explain in words because its so far removed from our day-to-day lives it’s almost not real.  I didn’t care that other people were there, I still felt the solitude and beauty and it was so nice to share it with other people who were equally amazed and with the tranquil green water nestled amongst the giant granite boulders.

After a long day, I was looking forward to dinner back at the refugio, I was a little shocked when they served up half a sheep and some rice on my plate – no veggies of course.  The refugios were a source of mystery and confusion, I couldn’t work out if I liked them or not.  Refugios are fully catered hostels complete with showers, and flush toilets. You can even buy soap, shampoo and conditioner as well as various snacks.  It was the first time I had experienced such luxury on a trek and it didn’t feel quite right to have this available in the middle of such beautiful and wild terrain, admittedly though it was nice to have a warm shower at the end of a long and cold day!

Unfortunately we didn’t get to walk on the grey glacier as we had planned to on the third and last day, it was such a shame because we spent hours walking in the rain to stay at Refugio Grey overnight, a rather dark and dingy place only to be told the next morning that the boat had broken down and the tour had been cancelled.  This meant our plans for exiting the park had changed as we had to walk back to the previous camp site and wait five long hours for the catamaran to take us back to civilization.

From a scenic perspective I have to say that hiking in Patagonia has been my favourite trek to date, the views were breathtaking and the low altitude meant I could breathe easily. Not to mention I kept wanting to break into song with the ‘Hills are alive with the sound of music.’  The trails are not particularly difficult either, the only challenge is the weather – it’s completely unpredictable and incredibly harsh.    We met a group of people who were complaining that the weather was too cold and wet and had decided to leave the park.  I couldn’t believe my ears!  We would all love to have the perfect weather on a trek but as all hikers know, this usually never happens - so you just have to get on with it and get wet, it’s not pleasant but hey you don’t stay wet forever.  Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it all the way to the Vallle Frances (apparently one of the most stunning of views of the W circuit ) but needless to say spending time in the Torres del Paine National Park was the perfect way to end our trip in South America.

Torres del Paine National Park

I wanted to burst into song with  ‘The Hills are alive’

The majestic Mirador Las Torres

it was so beautiful I wanted to swim… but Julian reminded me that I would probably freeze!

This glacier looked like  a globule of shaving cream!

10 Tips for Travelling in South America

1. Always take toilet paper with you… even on first class buses you wont always find toilet paper (notice how this tip was first).
2. Learn Spanish – for the love of god learn Spanish!
3. 85% of people we met had their camera stolen – always protect your camera (I am not really sure where I plucked 85% from but it sounds good).
4. Never leave stuff in your pocket.
5. Never leave money lying around in your hostel/hotel room.  I usually never do but on one occasion I got lazy and trusted the hostel staff… we had money stolen by the cleaner.
6. On public buses guard your belongings, especially when you fall asleep – thieves will do anything to get to your stuff.
7. Lower your hygiene standards, you can’t afford to be germaphobe -  just get over it.
8. Negotiate but don’t negotiate too hard – these people are poor and it’s not worth it.
9. Take fibre supplements because you will find no vegetables.
10. You have probably read this a million times before but its SO true, take a few days to time acclimatize to the altitude before you begin the Inca Trail.

One of my little furry friends

With Christmas looming, Santa must be cracking the whip on his little elves, topping up the sleigh’s oil and giving Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer gang a final health check before he lets loose over the North Pole on Christmas Eve.

Like Santa, I wonder how many other people are starting to think about gifts.  In fact I’d like to know where this whole present thing started from anyway. Why do people buy gifts?

Perhaps the most famous example of gift giving is from the bible when the three wise men delivered their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to baby Jesus.  I know what baby Jesus was thinking - I’ll ditch the frankincense and myrrh and take the gold thanks.  It seems not much has changed today, like Jesus we have all been given a dud gift.

I recall my friend Anna was invited to a baby shower one day and had forgotten to buy the mother to be a gift.  Anna’s grandmother came to the rescue and assured her she had an ‘emergency’ back-up gift for just this type of occasion.  Anna wondered if she could trust her grandmother’s judgment on this matter but time was of the essence, so she rushed over to her grandmother’s house on the way to the baby shower and collected the gift which was wrapped quite badly… she had a bad feeling but ever the optimist, bravely pushed on.

The bad feeling returned when present opening ceremony began.  Anna anxiously waited her turn, in the meantime women were ‘ohing’ and ‘ahing’ over baby clothes, baby hampers and stuffed giraffes. Finally the mother to be picked up Anna’s gift and the ‘ohings’ and ahings’ came to an abrupt halt. The wrapping paper gave way to a horrendous sight…. a see-though and somewhat dirty plastic case revealed  the contents, a 1970s sheet and pillow case for a single adult bed.  Oh yes, the 70s colour theme was loud and clear – the sheets were decorated with big brown, purple and orange flowers.

Bless Anna’s grandmother, Anna had later found out that her grandmother had dug it out of a dowry chest.

Clearly, Anna should have considered the story of the three wise men and bought a gift of gold instead of trusting the judgement of her grandmother!

The Village Days

So why do we engage in these gift giving activities?

In the past staying alive from day to day was pretty hard.  Basic food staples were scarce, and luxuries were almost unheard of so people brought their neighbours gifts including food and household goods as a way of celebrating various milestones, such as surviving another year in the unforgiving world or the marriage of two teenagers.  Esiah from down the road or the next hut over donated a plough to get the young couple started whilst Zachariah supplied a sack of green potatoes (that was all that he could spare over winter).  When Abigail fell pregnant the women in the village would provide the child with a home spun woollen blanket.

Somehow we have gone from giving gifts of necessity that impacted the recipient’s bottom line survival to giving gifts out of desperation or obligation (brown, purple and orange flowered 70s sheets –need I say more).   Let’s look at this phenomenon further.

From necessity to obligation - How did this happen?

So how did we get to this point where we feel obliged to buy gifts? As adults we buy gifts not because we want to but because we feel we have to.  We are the product of many years gift giving propaganda - Christmas Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and any other eventful ‘something day’ has been formalised with the expectation that a gift must be purchased.

I am not really Katherine the Scrooge!  The thought of giving a loved one a well considered gift and watching their face as they open it gives me great pleasure.  But let’s face it, surely we all at one time or another felt the Christmas shopping dreads because we feel the obligation to buy a gift for every single family member including second, third and fourth cousins that you haven’t seen in 20 years along with gifts for their children that you have never met.

Haven’t we all had a back up box of Cadbury Roses stashed away in the cupboard in case Auntie Rose and Uncle David unexpectedly pop over with a gift and we don’t get embarrassed by not giving them a gift?    Gee wouldn’t that be the end of the world!

What do we do when Uncle David and Auntie Rose give us an ugly old salad bowel with purple, brown and orange flowers to match our 70s sheets and pillow case?  Do we throw it away, or do we keep it in the back of our cupboard in case they come and visit in another 10 years and we have to pull it out to show that we appreciated their gift?

Now comes the scandal- how many times have we recycled our unwanted gifts?  That address book you were given by your Cris Cringle at work made an excellent gift for your fourth cousin’s child didn’t it! These days we have no excuse to relieve our obligation duties – shopping centres are open 24 hours to accommodate the last minute obligation rush!

So next time you think about shopping for a gift why don’t you stop and ponder about what you are buying and why……

hmmmm now where did I put my unwanted gifts from last year?

I am an enthusiastic (obsessed) collector of anything from my childhood. In addition to this I am passionate about books, preferably first edition consisting again of anything from my childhood, along with a more eclectic grown up range of genres and authors.  I am a ‘spirited’ collector – as hunting stalking and scoring the kill no matter what (although violence is my last resort - normally).

Yesterday, a 5 year search ended.  The laborious hunt involved three elusive childhood books, sketchy details of each plot had lurked in the back of my mind but recalling titles  had proved impossible.  Further adding to my frustration was the failure of the usually reliable Google – seemingly I had run out of options.

During my hunt, I had stumbled across a website called Loganberry books that offered a service by the name of ‘stump the bookseller’ whereby you could submit a sketchy outline of the plot of your forgotten treasure in the hope that the internet audience would know the title of your book.   Could this be the answer to solving my mystery?  I was desperate so I gave it a shot.  A week later much to my amazement all three of my stumpers were solved.  It was the equivalent to winning first division in tattslotto -well almost.

This momentous occasion started me thinking about the reasons why people collect things and I came to the conclusion that there are basically three types of collectors:

1.    Serial Killers (Trophy collectors),
2.    Nostalgic’s, and
3.    Acquirers

The Serial Killer Type

Fans of the show Dexter would know that pulp fiction serial killers have a compulsion to collect trophies from their victims.  In Dexter’s case he likes to collect small blood samples from each of his victims and stores these samples in a little purpose built wooden box, which he hides in the air-conditioning unit of his apartment (Personally I think this is a stupid hiding spot).  Ultimately what use is Dexter’s collection?  I mean, can you imagine Dexter displaying his victim’s blood samples in a mahogany display cabinet and using this as a conversation starter?  Well this might be the case if he was discussing his collection with his peers and exchanging tips on how best to preserve body parts.

We know that many serial killers collect souvenirs from their victims as “trophies,” some experts will argue that the killer is trying to capture the moment so they can remember the kill later through the souvenir. It’s also about possession, order and control.  A blood sample is simple, doesn’t talk back and can be ordered and controlled unlike the real world.   Here’s a thought -maybe we should rehabilitate serial killers by teaching them to replace their murderous collecting habits with more positive ones.  For example Royal Doulton china or porcelain animal figurines…..hmmm Dexter would need to consider moving his animal figurines from his air-conditioning unit to a larger storage space!

The Nostalgic’s

We nostalgic’s are a funny breed.  We hunt down artefacts from our childhood, which is quite ironic because I remember wanting to throw all my childhood nick nacks and toys  away when I hit 13.  I cleaned out my room and removed the last toy from my toy basket and without a last thought I threw away my toy basket and it was done – I was now a proud grown up.

As we get older, something changes, it usually starts with casual conversation.

“Oh, remember how good it was when we were growing up?” we say to our friends.

“Yes, we had all these great toys and games, its just so different now, kids just sit in front of the T.V and computer…tsk tsk tsk.”

The nostalgic yearns for an era gone by as we reminisce about childhood days.  Is it because we feel that things were better when we were children, simpler, more joyful perhaps?  Are we trying to relive a fraction of those moments or escape to a better world because adult life is just too difficult or somehow lacking the simple pleasure of childhood? When I look at my strawberry shortcake collection I remember how good Apple Dumpling smelt when I took her fresh out of the box as a child. When I read ‘Where the Wild things are’ I remember how wide-eyed and excited I felt listening about Max and his adventures with the mythical monsters.

How much do we have to collect before we Noslagic’s are satisfied?  Does it all depend on how much room you have in your house……..or air-conditioning unit.

Is satisfaction even possible? I often wonder though if we yearn for a sensation that we only think we felt in the past, one that never really existed. That if we really were transported back somehow to that moment, the moment would be wrong, off, like flat coca cola or a day old doughnut.

The Acquirers

I like to think of the Acquirer as the ‘maybe serial killer’ or the ’serial killer without the killing bit’.  Surely we all know an Acquirer-  someone who likes to collect something as a hobby- books, stamps, coins, miniature cars, antiques, of in the case of Dexter, the reformed serial killer – porcelain animal figurines and Royal Doulton china.

Let’s try to get into the head of ‘The Aquirer’.   The first thing that comes to mind is order.  Generally, most stamp or coin collectors are very fastidious about their collections – dust free in hermetically sealed chambers, everything is labelled and strategically placed in an album or coin slots. One stamp or coin in the set going astray could cause a disproportionate reaction. Have you seen how much collectors pay for the objects of their desire on e-bay?  Is this how some people create order and maintain an illusion of control in an increasingly chaotic world?

So there you have it, a complete, through and accurate breakdown of the three types of collectors.

In summary all three categories collect for a variety of reasons:

• the serial killer: control, order, happy reminiscences, what better way to remember a kill by sleeping with the rotting head for a month;
• the nostalgic: for sentimentality i.e. remembering the smell of plastic infused apple blossom; and the longing for a real or imagined better time long past; and
• the acquirer: for maintaining a sense of order providing nothing in the collection goes missing.

Are we all really that dissimilar, perhaps we are all chasing the same elusive thing, each of us going about it a different way, never quite satisfied, always chasing the next book, toy, stamp or person to kill. What are we really looking for?

To this day I am haunted by the stories my family told me whilst I was growing up.  Old wives tales, white lies, urban legend, superstition, folk lore.  Or how about we remove the sugar coating and call it plain old BS!

I am certain that everyone remembers being told a story or two from childhood that was later found to be not only untrue, but a down right despicable load of ‘I cant believe you told me that pile of baloney’.  For example, we were strictly instructed (on pain of a horrible twisted death)to not to eat before swimming because we would drown. Or that eating bread crusts make your hair curly, or how about if you crossed your eyes they would stay that way forever!

Unfortunately for me I had a dose of the more unusual stories feature during this aspect of ‘parental guidance’.

I clearly remember enjoying a nice juicy mandarin at the age of eight and couldn’t be bothered spitting out the pips when my grandmother cried out in horror.  “Oh my god, don’t swallow the pips!” She continued to rant and rave explaining that the pips were going to take root in my stomach, sprout, grow until eventually they would cut me open to find a good sized mandarin tree growing in my stomach. I was horrified.  This wasn’t the first time I had swallowed pips, was it too late for me?  How many mandarin trees were growing in my stomach?  Most kids can’t sleep at night because of the boogie man – that terrifying creature that lives under the bed or in the cupboard at night.  But not me, I was petrified of the mandarin tree growing in my stomach.

The stories get even better.

Chewing wads of gum was one of my favourite hobbies,  this involved  ongoing episodes of chewing different flavours of Hubba Bubba – grape, strawberry, orange, even the plain old original flavour would do.  How deeply satisfying it was to chew like a cow, blow bubbles, pop and snap my gum until the flavour disappeared,  the worn out piece would simply be replaced with a fresh one and  the cow chewing would start all over again.   I could always count on my grandmother to ‘burst my bubble’ by announcing that chewing gum was very bad because it sucked the blood right out of my body.  Can you imagine the visual image this creates for a child!

I am convinced my family were tag team tale tellers. My father was just as responsible for messing with my head – as if my mother and grandmother weren’t enough. During certain times of the year, large toadstools would appear in the garden.  This would coincide with the sighting of what I used to call ‘fairies’ – the seed from dandelion flowers that sometimes float through the air.    My father would warn me that touching the toadstools would lead to a certain death and that the ‘fairies’ were the guardian of the toadstools.   I started to fear the fairies and every time I saw the stupid dandelion seed float past me I would quiver with terror.  I mean there are some pretty strange fears that people have in life but to be frightened of a floating flower seed?!  My older cousin Steve took advantage of this and enjoyed gathering a collection of dandelion seeds whilst chasing me around the garden. To this day I feel a slight jolt of panic when I spy a dandelion seed or two floating by……

(sketch courtesy doug mcguire)

Looking back I wonder why I was told these things.  Did I have an evil family?   Were they hatching plans to turn me into an insane adult?  Of course not, like all fables or cautionary tales there is an ulterior motive.

Do you think I would have stopped the annoying snapping and popping of my gum if my grandmother had simply asked me to  -  absolutely not!  Granny had to get creative and find a better way to stop me and Hubba Bubba from eternal love.

Why did my dad tell me that the toadstool would give me the touch of death?  Because he obviously thought I was stupid enough to be tempted by the toadstool and take a bite while I was out playing in the garden with my barbie dolls.  As for the mandarin tree growing in my stomach, well I don’t know what my grandmother was trying to achieve there…

In fact, most fairy tales that we know today started in just the same way that they did in my family – either trying to keep young children safe from harm, or to manipulate their behaviour towards whatever then social norms of the day were. Many tales like Hansel and Gretel, and the Little Red Riding Hood are cautions about stranger danger or wandering off alone.

I think I got off lightly; the lies I was told kept me alive or prevented me from annoying my family.  I didn’t eat the mushrooms, I stopped chewing gum like a cow and as for the mandarin pips…..what a load of rubbish – actually come to think of it my stomach hurt the other day…….

As you get older illness, death and funerals become a common event. Let’s get one thing straight there is nothing funny about death itself but sometimes there are absurdly funny moments in the process, well at least in my (disturbed?) mind!

To illustrate this absurdity I have decided to reveal my own recent hypochondriacal experience, much to my partner’s amusement who has now scored at least years worse of good teasing material.

I had come down with a mysterious virus that presented with flu like symptoms and included a fainting spell just for good measure. I scheduled a consultation with “Dr Google” who summarily diagnosed me with a mixture of obscure and life threatening diseases.

“But Julian, how can I have a virus without a fever or a sore throat,” I mumbled, or
“Oh my god maybe its lupus, I have all the symptoms, hmmm but perhaps a thyroid problem, that explains the aching muscles and the thirst.”

To make things worse I had to wait a day before I could get a real doctor’s appointment, you can do a lot of psychological damage in 24 hours. By morning I was convinced that I was dying.

“Julian, I have had the flu before, and my body didn’t feel like this, it was achy in a different way!’ I wailed. ‘I am telling you something is seriously wrong!’

Convinced I was dying I found the energy to find my overnight bag , I must have looked like a crazy old women, hunched over, hair wild I began to pack my bag with the belief the doctor was going to send me straight to hospital.

By the look on Julian’s face I could tell he was thinking about sending me to a different kind of hospital. He watched my neuroticism unfold while I packed my bag with the essentials, pajamas, underwear, ugg boots and of course the all important dental supplies – toothbrush and dental floss.

My blood tests were perfect, with the exception of low vitamin D, which the doctor assured me was quite unrelated to the virus I was apparently battling.

…. hmm I wonder what Dr Google says about low vitamin D?

The funeral

If you have read my baby down pour article, you would know that ritual ceremonies such as weddings, christenings and baby showers are really not my thing. A funeral is no exception; it’s the ritual that bothers me, doing things without really knowing why we do them. Well, I hear you ask isn’t it obvious why we go to funerals? Sure, we go to say goodbye to the departed, which is fine. However it’s the strange proceedings that are ritually bound to occur that I question. A perfect example of this is my grandmother’s funeral.

When my grandmother passed away, I was treated to a series of curious and mysterious Australian-Greek funereal rituals.

The first peculiarity was the refusal to allow me to make a speech for my grandmother in the Greek church. I wont repeat the first thing that came out of my mouth when I was told this, and when I asked why I couldn’t make a speech no one could tell me the reason. Gender, age? No answer was forthcoming. I insisted that my grandmother’s brother ring the priest and ask him to make an exception. I knew from here on end this funeral was going to be a tough gig and I was right.

The day before the funeral, my partner and I were given very strict instructions from my auntie about what to go out and buy for the funeral and the Greek version of the wake after the burial. In no particular order:

1. one purple towel.
2. dry biscuits from the Greek bakery; and
3. solo (this was my grandmother’s favourite soft drink).

When we returned my auntie looked through the goods and told me off for not buying the correct shade of purple towel – apparently it was too bright and not the appropriate shade of purple. Funeral purple had a unique RGB number it seemed. As I found out later, the colour purple is religiously symbolic but the towel itself was for people to dry their hands with. No mystery there.

I was questioned at length by two alternating interrogators regarding the dry biscuits. The ingredients were scrutinized, texture and consistency checked, use by dates validated. One can only imagine what would have happened if I had bought the ones with sugar instead. As for the diet solo, well I had bought 2 litre bottles instead of 1.5 litre bottles; apparently the 2 litre size was too large and not very aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

All this was going on whilst my uncle was rationing serves of olives from a very large tin whilst bringing to my attention that the olives at a funeral have to be black and of a particular variety.

Clearly I was going insane.

Two choices presented my way:

a) bite my tongue and keep silent; or
b) explode and point out that this is a funeral and not a catering function – priorities people, priorities!

Sigh, I kept my mouth shut for the sake of keeping the peace, the day was stressful enough without me making things worse – so I did what all women would do, took it out on Julian instead.

On the day of the funeral, the hearse arrived at my mother’s house with the casket and of course my grandmother inside. The hearse had been around the block, in order to give my grandmother one final tour of her old neighborhood my uncle explained. Ah of course, I thought to myself, makes sense for a dead person to enjoy one last sight seeing trip before they spend eternity 6 feet under.

The boot of the hearse was opened and all the mourners gathered around the car while incense burners offering prayers to my grandmother’s soul wafted thin smoke through the air. There was much wailing. The spell was broken when I heard the sound of gushing water, I looked over my shoulder to find an old Greek women had turned the garden hose on. Thinking this was not the time to tend to the plants and having a thought for the current water restrictions in Melbourne I walked over to investigate. I was assured that flow of water helps to release the soul into heaven. Maybe I have watched too many movies but doesn’t the soul usually float up to heaven in a tunnel of light? I never recalled water being involved in this process.

At the church service the priest swung his jangling string of bells back and forward, back and forward releasing a sweet aromatic smell of burning frankincense and chanted in ancient Greek, I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, he could have been chanting out a recipe for Italian pasta sauce and I would not have known any different. Whispering to mum, I asked her “what is the priest saying, does it mean anything to you?’” Mum stared at me at shrugged. “I guess he is blessing her spirit,” she replied. I wasn’t satisfied with her answer; after all I couldn’t see the priest turning on the garden hose.

After the cemetery, everyone bundled into the hall, of course wiping their hands with the un-approved purple towel before they sat down to eat the biscuits (without sugar), drink diet solo from bottles that were too large for the tables and eat the right type of black olives. A relative muttered about the flowers on my grandmother’s casket, apparently they weren’t quite to her liking. Whoops forgot to consult with the family on the flowers, what was I thinking!

Back at mum’s house, someone had made a little shrine in the corner of the kitchen table with a large photograph of my grandmother next to some flowers and candles. I noticed a cup of water nearby and assumed someone had forgotten it there so I went to tip it out. The old lady who had turned on the garden hose earlier in the day suddenly materialized frantically telling me that she had placed it there so that my grandmother’s spirit could drink. I had thought her spirit had already been released to heaven by the hose? Why would she need a drink back here in the house? But I dutifully refilled the cup and returned it to its rightful place. I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for interfering with my grandmother’s thirst.

Why do we care about the right shade of purple or the right sized bottle of solo or placing a cup of water near the photo of our dearly departed when clearly the departed are not going to care?

Maybe the grieving family is under pressure to put on an impressive show? After all we wouldn’t want people talking about how much they dislike the flowers on the casket now would we?

Or it because people need to have order, structure and predictability in the chaos and unpredictability of death? Maybe it’s easier to follow the well-worn path of funeral traditions and in doing so lessen the pain of the loss.

Should we not feel free to deal with death and grieving in a way that is meaningful to us, so that everything we do is done deliberately and with knowledge of its true meaning? Or would that be too much to bear?

Either way I know that a hose, purple towels, dry biscuits, and the right olives won’t be featuring at my funeral - time to work on my will.’

They say you learn something new every day and last week the expression ‘knuckle dragger’ was introduced into my vocabulary.   My partner Julian and I had returned from visiting a girlfriend Alex, who had been entertaining us with disastrous date stories.  Julian announced that Alex would never find the right guy if she continued to date ‘knuckle draggers”.

“Hu, a knuckle duster?” came the reply from me.

“No” he replied “although a knuckle dragger is likely to wear a knuckle duster. You know a guy who walks on his knuckles, like a cave man who grunts here and there and has no brains- your friend dates gorillas.”

The image of a caveman waving his club over a struggling screaming woman while dragging her back to his cave hovered in a little cartoon-like white bubble over my head.  Intrigued about knuckle draggers, I punch the term into my good friend google and courtesy wiktionary find the following definition:

“A reference to a man’s state in the process of evolution in an attempt to show that they have either regressed or did not progress to walking upright.”

Oh the horror it’s true, my friend along with many other intelligent women share this seemingly incurable infliction. Why do women date knuckle draggers?

The contradiction

If you have read my platitudes or vanilla article you will know that I like to look at history as a starting point to help explain my theories.  Well folks this time I turn to a different source – my friend Alex who is 35, single and still lives with her parents.

Let’s examine Alex’s dating profile.   Alex claims to be most attracted to the quirky, George Costanza type - men on the chubby side (and or bald) with a sense of humour.  She also claims the standard line that looks aren’t really important, it’s the personality and brains that count.   Yet its fascinating because her wish list seems to be quite contradictory to the type of men she actually dates, in fact she has never dated or shown interest in anyone even approaching this description.  Every man she has dated has been a knuckle dragger.

Take John the gardener for example.   John and Alex met 10 years ago and had gone out once – ultimately unsuccessfully.  John never returned Alex’s call and that was the last she heard from him.

Until…

Coincidentally 10 years down the track, Alex’s father had decided he had enough of cutting the lawn and decided to call a random mowing company he found in the local paper. Who should turn up on Alex’s front door, yep you guessed correctly -it was John.

When I caught up with Alex she had told me that she had been home when John had first turned up to cut the lawn. She could hardly contain how excited she was to see that John’s manly forearms hadn’t changed in muscularity over the last 10 years.  I found my eyes glazing over as she recounted the way his forearm hair was glistening in the sun and then it hit me.  Since when was muscular forearms on Alex’s wish list, what happened to the quirky chubby funny guy?

A year has passed since the glistening forearm hair encounter and what has unfolded to date?  Well it depends on who you ask.  If you ask me, I would say not much, but if you ask Alex she would tell you a different story.  Here are the two versions.

Alex’s version

There is a sense of mystery lurking around John - he was married once but it lasted only five months, he doesn’t really talk about this much though.   It doesn’t matter because Alex is getting closer to solving the mystery of John by breaking down and dissecting John’s personality in minute detail.   According to Alex his time in the army has stripped him down and built him up again so this explains why John doesn’t really let people in and explains why he gets defensive if he is forced into doing something he doesn’t want to do. The fact that he doesn’t share his thoughts and feelings or engage in simulating conversation is all part of this defense mechanism. Alex is certain that John has depths to his personality that need to be plumbed and by god she is on a mission – to find a little sensitive gem buried deep inside him.

My version

Alex is clearly delusional.

Alex is convinced that there are great hidden depths to John and believes that she has developed an accurate psychological profile of him  - the like of which would impress Sigmund Freud.  The truth of the matter is very simple, there are no complex thoughts in John’s head, Alex creates the mystery and then wants to figure the mystery out. As Julian says, “there aint no mystery here sweetheart”.

Alex is obviously confused and while thinking she wants a quirky smart guy she is actually most attracted to the knuckle dragger type who while holding some initial allure ultimately fail to satisfy her in the long term.

Is there any hope for Alex? Can she escape the knuckle dragger curse? Why do women like Alex continue to date knuckle draggers when these liaisons invariably end in disaster and disappointment?

Perhaps it’s simply a phase that needs to be grown out of – date enough dullards and gorillas, you learn to love the George Costanza when he comes along?

Or Is it the gamblers fallacy? Put enough coins into the slot machine they might actually hit the jackpot (i.e. an actual conversation).

Maybe, it’s just simply biology - these women themselves are knuckle draggers and like attracts like?

For Alex and other women who find themselves single and dating the knuckle dragger, its time to take a long hard at who you date and why otherwise its TV dinners for one for a lot longer yet.

I blame my dad for passing on a particular quirky gene onto me – playing jokes on people. I take great pleasure in scheming, hatching and collaborating with other jokers and like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings I am on a quest - to find the perfect joke.

The joke gene lay dormant until I was about eight or so and then it unleashed itself on my poor grandmother who was first to fall victim to my antics.

At first I was a green joker, I had no imagination so fell back on the standard cliché pranks like pretending that I had fallen over and broken my arm or leg. My jokes soon evolved however and I became a little more creative.

The Grandmother Caper

I often used to hang my mammoth grandmother’s bras and underwear around the house, over lamps and televisions and chairs. For some reason I used to find this hysterically funny. Another frequent event involved me stealing one of her slippers and popping it in the freezer for a couple of hours and then placing it neatly back next to the other one. I knew she had put them on when I heard her screams resonate through the walls. In a later prank I dressed up like an adult, went out the back door and knocked on the front door pretending I was a stranger. She has no idea it was me because I looked completely different, my efforts to disguise myself paid off. I was pretending to be some psycho-disturbed person who couldn’t speak properly and she was so shocked when I revealed my true identify that it took her a while to believe it was me!

My favourite time of the year was the Melbourne show. My pranks would hitch up a notch when I would come home with my supply of joke show bags and pour out their contents over my bed whilst hatching my grand plans of comic proportions. Of course the jokes would not be contained to just my grandmother; her friends would often be my targets. In a particularly commando mood one day, I crawled on my belly into the lounge room when my grandmother had her friends over and wriggled my way around the pot plants and tables until I reached my destination - under the couch where I had cleverly planted a whoopee cushion under the seat. I patiently waited like a sniper stalking his target. The plan was executed perfectly when my grandmother’s friend sat on the couch to a resulting idiotic farting noise that sent me into fits of laughter.

The ‘cotton ball on my grandmother’s head’ game was another source of amusement for me. I would sneak up behind my grandmother while she was watching television. Carefully and slowly, I would place a cotton ball on her head one at a time to see how many I could get away with before she would jump out of the chair in such a fright thinking spiders were crawling around in her head. I think my highest score was 9.

Clearly I had no boundaries; I was a rebel on a sure path to destruction and mayhem. No one could stop me now.

I once put a giant rubber black spider on top of my mum’s pillow. I waited patiently in my room until I heard her shrills and shrieks. Mum didn’t think this was funny at all; she scolded me for ‘nearly’ giving her a heart attack. This reaction instead of deterring me inspired me to seek greater challenges - I obviously had talent and was well on way to becoming a great joker. I began to compare myself to Houdini; Houdini was the best magical illusionist, could I be his equivalent in the world of jokes?

The letter

My step sister Eff shared my passion for being a prankster, her talent although not as refined as mine showed great promise. The best pranks were born during the school holiday season when we were bored and looking for ways to amuse ourselves. Eff went out to check the mail on one particularly opportune day and retrieved a letter addressed to her mum from her godchild. She was about to hand it over when evil genius struck.

Eff’s eyes widened with excitement as I explained my plan, I knew that I was maturing as a prankster but this far exceeded my expectations. Eff and I were going to rewrite the letter and reseal it back in the original envelope – a bombshell was going to be dropped in a few hours time…..

With a fresh piece of paper we rewrote the letter copying the same original opening paragraph before we changed it. The letter was in Greek and it was fortunate that Efi’s Greek writing skills were just good enough to pull this off.

Satisfied with the outcome we put the original letter to one side, resealed the envelope with the new letter and left it on the kitchen table along with the other mail – pure genius. Things couldn’t have worked out better; the letter wasn’t opened until my dad came back from work. Eff and I were in the kitchen watching television when Vicki and my dad sat down to have their coffee and to read the mail.   We knew instantly we couldn’t hold a poker face to actually watch this unfold in person so we casually made our way into the lounge room within ear shot of the kitchen.

“Oh, how exciting, a letter from my god child!”

“Well open it,” says my dad.

Vicki starts reading; her enthusiasm is still strong during the first few opening sentences, then the silence….

“Oh dear, Oh dear,” followed by a tck tck of the mouth.

“Well, what is it then?” my dad asks.

Vicki is unable to speak at first but then manages.“Mary has fallen pregnant, and um the father is on drugs and sounds like a real awful person, he doesn’t want her to keep the child. Mary is too scared to tell her parents and she wants to drop out school and come live here in Australia. George, she wants to come and stay with us to have the baby……….. more silence followed by “What are we going to do George?”

Meanwhile, Eff and I trying our best to muffle the sounds of our laughter. We nearly lose it when we hear Vicky say, “the poor girl, she must be so upset she has made quite a few spelling mistakes in her letter, she can’t even write anymore George.”

“Well, we have to help the girl,” my dad says “but how can we do that and not tell her parents?”

Two hours later and still debating about what to do, Eff and I decide its time to let the folks off the hook, fess up and show them the real letter.

They are angry at us, no denying that but ultimately relieved. I find that the prank victim’s relief is a useful emotion because it always overrides the anger in the end and thus I am always forgiven.

The Gameshow

20 years have passed since ‘the letter’ and during this time many jokes have been played on people, but I am particularly fond of one I played on Eff a few years ago.  My partner Julian and I hatched this one, I will let the email below speak for itself…. and yes she did fall for this!

From: Channel Seven [mailto:channelseven@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, 6 September 2004 2:11 PM
To: Tsaparengas, Efi
Subject: Channel Seven Game Show Selection

Dear Ms Tsaparengas

You have been selected to play on a new exciting Channel Seven game
show filmed in Melbourne Victoria called ‘Greek Girls Hit 30′.
‘Greek Girls Hit 30′ consists of 4 contestants, all of whom have to
press buzzers in order to answer questions about dating after the age
of 30 in the Australian Greek dating world.

If you would like more information on this once in a lifetime
opportunity to appear on an all new gameshow please send an email to
channelseven@gmail.com with the following:
- What type of man are you looking for (one sentence)
- Evening Telephone number

One of our representatives will then call you within 24 hours of
receiving your email.

The first episode will take place on 14/11/2004, Channel Seven, at
10:30am in three months from now.

Please note that this is a first come, first served basis so please
email us now before all vacancies are taken.

If you have any further questions please contact channelseven@gmail.com

Regards

Jane Bowral Carter

Manager Scheduling
Channel Seven Selection Group

I let the poor girl think she had been selected for this game show for the entire day; Eff had forwarded the email to me and asked if I had heard about this show. Of course I had heard of the show and I did what all good friends would do, I encouraged her to reply to the email convincing her that the show would be a blast.

As evil as I am, the one rule I have is that I can’t let the prank go on for more than a day so I broke the news later to her that night over the phone.

You know you have executed a joke perfectly by the reaction you get when you tell your victim its gold, it’s priceless and I think that is why I love pranking people so much.

I know what you are all thinking, can I take a joke? The answer to that one is certainly yes but of course you have to impress me as well, and that my friends will be the challenge!