Lapa + Natasha = Certain Disaster

With Matty now long gone (after an eventful twenty six hour delay in both Santiago and Auckland, I am informed), I once again found myself marooned on an isolated emerald islet fending off the once decapitated thoughts of something close to being content.

In order to keep overheads low, I downgraded my five bed suite at CabanCopa in favour of a more industrious eight bedroom dorm – located at the West Wing of the hostel with the window facing the kindergarten next door. I now had to get used to a seven am wake up call comprising of a deep swell of chanting children singing nonsense nursery rhymes in Portuguese as well as the Brazilian national anthem screamed in a joyously haphazard chorus; the perfect initiation to a new dawn, and an immediate nuisance to the temples. Attached to the bunk bed above me harboured a rotation of nasally challenged sleepers, drowning out the infants´ shrieks with a tinny detonation of exhaling lungs.

Classico Copacabana Scene - a touch wonky, mind

It was not all insomnia in Room 31. A quartet of Dubliners were kind enough to give me some company for the week; Marc - rivalling Ainslie Harriet in the kitchen (with his cooking discipline rather than camp manner), Karen, Mona and Ciara who all provided me with the pre–night ritual of ´chatsies´ as well as tormenting my patience with the habit of flicking my damp travel towel off the hook and on to the wiry haired floor.

On the street corners when the sky was not aging with a surging gloom, I discovered a myriad of snacks and treats (salgados) within the glass displays of neighbouring stalls. These ranged from the delicious and thick Açaí - a purple rainforest berry blended into a smoothie with granola and bananas. The light and spicy Arab influenced frango Esfina pastries also mounted my lunch time hit list alongside the teardrop shaped Coxinha, where salt water was replaced with a generous helping of minced chicken. At thirty pence each, the balloon sized mangos sold at the fruit stand comprised a plump and exotic finale to midday consumption. In order to burn off the snacks, Marc and I attempted to play ultimate frisbee against an American and Australian on Copacabana beach. Our thunderous strides upon the velvet sands ensured that we lasted a breath taking seven minutes before the four of us were glistening in moisture to rival the nearby Atlantic and nursing a faltering heartbeat.

The Lapa Steps

Marc and I were more successful playing beach soccer, spraying liberal shots which cannoned against the ample oily buttocks of leisurely Carioca ladies as Karen and Mona wisely sunbathed by the raging tides and feigned little acknowledgement of our mischievous existence.

On an eventual clear day it was time for me to visit the Lapa Steps and to finally meet the eccentric and brilliant artist Jorge Selarón, who managed to compose the 2000 or so vibrantly coloured and themed tile montages covering 250 steps - his opus over the past twenty years. His most famous pieces of art depict him as a pregnant lady, which is fairly disturbing to say the least, especially as his only comment on the In Utero themed paintings are that it represents a personal problem from his past. Dressed in a red beret and Super Mario crimson overall, I took my chances to speak to him during his exhausting process of replacing chipped tiles. He didn´t seem to understand what I was saying and instead simply turned his back on me and ran away into his house.

Lapa Tiles of Lord Krishna and Ma Durga

On my way back down the stairs I bumped into two Danish students whom Matty and I had met during the Salt Flats Tour in Uyuni, Bolivia (they were in the working JEEP in front of us, often helping to re-start our faltering engine). After a quick thimble sized espresso that I somehow had to pay for, I caught up with two mischievous souls from London and somewhere near London - Chris and Roberta, who both had a penchant for mocking anyone nearby in good jest, which was fine by me. After that I met the Dubliners for an extraordinary Thai meal at Go Wok in Ipanema, followed by a chopp or eight of local brew at a bar whose cache of flamboyant clientele had not been registered by us until close.

Ipanema, Go Wok dining
l-r - me, Karen, Marc, American, Mo-Jito, American

On the Friday, my final night at Copacabana, I managed a swift reunion with Josepha ´Totten´ from my skydiving glory days in New Zealand, who was also touring South America with her friends Ellie and Laura in close pursuit. I foolishly gave in to their siege of Natasha Vodka and squeezed limes and agreed, alongside Marc and some American brothers from Connecticut, for one last night in Lapa. Amid a whirlpool of samba, a confusing amount of transvestites sauntering down the streets with heavy hands and veiny feet and barbecued meat on a stick, we eventually crashed back in the hostel in the early hours.


Pre-Lapa with Natasha and Ruthy, L and Ephy

My alarm did not turn on the following morning. I awoke at eleven, bleary eyed and with the taste of sewer on my lips and already an hour late for my induction at Iko Poran in Santa Theresa along with the other members of my intake.

Arriving at midday by a casually paced taxi and with a half packed roller-pig, day old stubble, blood shot eyes, no shower, four hours sleep and the breath of death, I was introduced to my fellow volunteers and Program Director who were all sat in a formal circle in the magnolia dining room exchanging pleasantries.

It was not a positive introduction to the project.

Rio Song of the Day: INXS - Beautiful Girl

What a treat to listen to VH-1´s Moods on Thursday with an early nineties theme as I sat in the CabanaCopa bar awaiting to be fed by the Dublin crew. Apparently this song was written for the INXS keyboardists birth of his newborn child. Which is nice. Like the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH986VE47M8

i-Pod Song of the Day: The Strokes - You Only Live Once
There is a new Brooklyn indie rock band on the road called Strokes who I reckon will be the next big thing, watch out for them. This is the opening track from the awesome First Impressions of Earth second album.

Twenty ways to see the world

or twenty ways to start a fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQq4UEL__DI

Discovering The Lost City Of The Incas

The Peruvians at the camp (well Freddie and Huevo the skinny mute chef) challenged us to a game of football at sunriseseeing as we were missing out on the World Cupand I still had no idea as to whether England had beaten Germany in the Last 16. The locals, already well adjusted to the altitude of 3,500 metres clinched a fortuitous 3-2 victory in the first game (both of us were guilty of missing open nets). They were confident of a further humiliation and asked us to play again - this time the winner would receive cerveza from the loser. We managed to restore some national pride and won 3-2 to tie the series as the soft adidas ball arrowed from dumpsite hole to thorny bush beyond the flip flops that were playing the part of goal posts. I, rather foolishly, went through a delicious trade mark slide tackle on Freddy that crunched both our shins as we wheeled away in simultaneously agony. It was perhaps not the best idea to take out the hiking guide prior to a mount up the Sacred Valley.

Everyone likes the taste of their own brand

To reward the game, similar to the exploits of Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone in Escape To Victory in uniting opposition, Huevlo treated us to a marvellous cake for breakfast that he somehow managed to bake using only a clay pot and a few freshly laid eggs. The meals that we had on the trek had been nothing short of spectacular. We were not prepared to have a gourmet chef prepare Peruvian classics such as stuffed capiscum in a light batter; yam croquettes; marrow and goats cheese and Lima styled spinach and potato frittas.

A short public bus trip alongside a handful of schoolgirls with neatly platted hair, we arrived at Ollantayambo, situated in a fertile river valley and sheltered by the dark shoulder of mountains encasing an ancient Inca village and its remains. We coincided the day with a public bank holiday where locals dressed in luminous ponchos and were entertained by a custard yellow shirted midget in the main plaza. We bypassed the circus and lept up the terraced ruins which were interesting enough before making our way on a magnificently slow train with perhaps the most formal and longest tanoy announcement which guided us to the town of Aguas Calientes on the foot of the famous Lost City of the Incas. Our hostel personally greeted us at the station with an amusing sign painted with 'Michelle Hones' which was as close to Matthew Rees-Jones as they could get at that solitary hour before midnight.

My alarm rang at four thirty in the morning. Those who know me well will realise that this is an unfortunate time to converse or interact with me, let alone send me up on a guided tour for sunrise. Freddy arrived at La Rochas red cape hostel to pick us up and led us towards Machu Picchu. A heavy mist blanketed the site, we could barely make out the terraces for the first hour, but this gave a remarkable mystery to the site. Once in a while we'd listen to Freddy's stories on the legends, turn around and the fog would clear slightly revealing a new feature of the remarkable stone constructions perched high up in between islet green mountains, like a matador skillfully draping his cape to reveal a bruised and bloodied bull. Our spritely guide informed us of many curious Inca facts and superstitions including their propensity towards the sciences of astrology, cosmology and their bewildering knowledge of geology - a long vertical lane carving in the ruins represented the fault line underground.




For the rest of the tour we strolled around the site like affiliates of Hiram Bingham, the American explorer who unearthed the Lost City in 1911, it has also been heavily suggested that he lynched the treasures and artifacts of the site before returning, with much pomp and ceremony back to Yale University. It was an experience hard to put into words, and one that the few photographs I have could not do justice to the magnificent sacred city (though I'll upload them anyway). We had to be dragged away before the end of the day in order to catch our train back to Cusco. After the five hour train and bus ride, we barely had time for a knap and unpack before our 7:30am bus awaited us, leaving for the town of Puno by Lake Titicaca. Peru's landscape deteriorated once away from the main tourist areas of Cusco and Lima. Half built brick houses stood motionless and neglected in arid corn fields whilst locals pottered around waiting for something and achieving very little.

Puno itself was a ghastly stopover, not worthy of its situation by the grand Lake Titicaca. Barefoot children ran down dirty alleys whilst dodging the trash on the streets as stray hounds yawned on top of featureless box buildings made of mud and cement. We befriended two UCLA graduates and dissolved the shameless town with the potent mixture of egg whites and Pisco brandy until yet another 6am start awaited our beleaguered bodies.




The bus, rickety, rusty and with broken seats, stopped at Copacabana (she was a show girl), a heavily Catholic coastal resort, with all the gloss that Puno should have contained. The town is famous for its rather bizarre ceremony of blessing motor vehicles on mass and we saw decorated and proud trucks paraded through to the bay. We continued on cleaner and straighter roads with a stark and quiet backdrop on our way into the Bolivian capital of La Paz, for the next leg of our adventure and the paper dream of an end to the continuous travel and early rises.

Aguas Calientes Song of the Day: The Doors - Hello, I Love You
We were drawn to the Putucusi bar in Peru by a dreadlocked Peruvian with a lazy attitude that wascompelling as was his offer for happy hour drinks. Alongside games of Cluedo and Ludo on theglass tables was a tremendous soundtrack featuring The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan andthese LA rockers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzM71scYw0M