The Adventures of Jorge

 The Adventures of Jorge

We met Jorge, our little Colombian friend,in Leticia.

Jorge was good fun - always up for a laugh, and generous with the beers. Rare was the night Jorge was not to be found propping up the bar at Hoppies, six beautiful butterflies draped on his arms.

But Jorge wasn´t satisfied with his life of partying. Whilst the girls and the drugs were great, he was invariably left with a sense of loneliness and emptiness, and deep within his soul he longed for something else.  Besides, the hangovers were getting worse.

Jorge made his decision. He was going to move to Peru, to a small island on the Amazon, and start a small business providing massages and holistic medicine to the locals. 

 

But how was he to fund this long and dangerous voyage?  Jorge had spent all of his inheritance on fast cars and hamburgers! Fortunately he was a brilliant mathematician, and developed a series of fiendishly complicated coin games with which to scam unsuspecting tourists.

In no time at all Jorge had made over a million Pesos - more than enough for his ticket, with some left over to spend on massage oil and crystals. He headed down to the travel agents that very afternoon and booked his ticket.

Early the next day, Jorge made his way down to the docks to wait for his boat.

The journey started well, and Jorge was thrilled to be out of Leticia, making a clean break. All thoughts of drinking and partying banished from his head, he gazed at the banks of the mighty river, breathed deeply the fresh Peruvian air, and thanked God he was alive.

Before long though, the winds rose, and licked up a terrible swell on the water. The boat heaved mightily from side to side, bags and children crashing down the aisles. Jorge hung on for dear life.

But the Gods were smiling on Jorge, and finally he arrived in Iquitos, his journey complete.  He knew he shouldn´t, but it had been a long, hard voyage, and he was overcome by an insatiable thirst for a cold, crisp beer. Against his better judgement he stopped off in a local bar, and before he knew it he was on his third.

Since he was only a little grasshopper, and the beers in Peru are very big, Jorge was pretty pissed. He knew he had to stop, so he headed back to his hotel to rest his tired head and prepare himself for the tasks of tomorrow - finding a shop to rent and learning ayurvedic massage.

 

Unfortuntely for Jorge he was so far gone that he failed safely to cross the road, and was killed by a bus.

RIP Jorge.

Jorge had been an atheist his whole life, so he was not a little surprised when he arrived in the dark blackness of hell, faced with the booming voice of the devil asking him questions about his life of frivolity.

Jorge was unrepentant, and argued strongly that booze and girls had been FUN, godamit, and that if there was one thing an omnibenevolent God should encourage his creations to do it would be to have FUN. The devil was not impressed.

Luckily, just then Jesus arrived, challenged the devil to an armwrestle for Jorge´s soul, and won.

Jesus took Jorge up to heaven and explained that while he had been full of shit with his arguments about God and fun, God was absolutely mad for ayurvedic massage and so had forgiven Jorge all his sins.  Jorge was installed forethwith as chief masseuse and lived for eternity in bliss.

God was subsequently disapointed to learn that Jorge hadn´t actually got round to learning any massage techniques prior to his untimely death, and was further saddened by the realisation that, as a grasshopper, he really couldn´t exert very much pressure on God´s weary shoulder muscles.

God is still sore.

THE END

*¡Breaking news!*
Steph manages to log onto the blog, hurrah

¡Buenas! Avid readers/devoted followers of this prestigious site will no doubt have noted the predominantly male (Kiereanesque) flavoured narration thus far. By way of humble explanation, this has been due to Steph´s complete failure to engage successfully with foreign technology. South American governments seem to have permitted her a quota of 6.45 minutes on Facebook and 12 mins on googlemail before entire national systems crash.
This folorn and frustrating state of affairs culminated in my bringing down Colombia´s north coast computer network with a vile electronic virus, and our consequent necessary fleeing of the Cartagenian authorities to Peru - rapidly -by air. Moving overnight up the Amazon river by stealth riverboat, we arrived finally in a city named Iquitos late yesterday afternoon. A frantic plea to the British Embassy here has resulted in my being fortunate enough to snatch these few minutes in their high security internet bunker (located 50m below ground in a classified location) to update K. Gillick´s SuperBlog, so that Gillick voyaging history is no longer gender biased. Relief.

So returning to Playa Blanca, which is where K.G. left you hanging precarioulsy, all that really be noted is that it was/is PARADISE. It was quite simply delicious. Not having quite fully digested the fact that we were on the Carribean Coast, we had not expected the magnificently pristine white sand or lazy palm trees that our eyes found when we rolled off the boat straight into the azurey sea there. Quickly adapting to such indulgent surroundings, as one must, of course, we spent the next few days utterly losing track of time and date, eating nearly-live fish and lolloping between our bamboo hut on stilts and the warm atlantic. Wow.
Spolit and sweaty, (and now off the radar of the pursuing Cartagenian Electronic Police) we were eventually forced to desert Paradise and jump onto a small passenger plane bound for Leticia, the sweetly named south-eastern most tip of Colombia, from where we had been assured a safe border crossing into Peru. Adventure.
But to get to the plane we had to get to the mainland. Challenge. It ought to be noted that this past week has been typified by Terrifying Near-Capsize (TNC). Our boat voyage back to the mainland from Playa Blanca can only be described as Sheer Fright. You have never seen waves as big as this. Never. The boat putted forwards tipped at a continual 45 degree angle, which added to its roaring up and down and side to side made the journey reminiscent of that TV programme I saw on Shackleton before we left. Mental. Kieran´s unwavering calm attained another level, supporting words thus: ´hey we´ll be fine, just pretend we´re on a fairground ride!´... lurch lurch... (but we´re not tied in). worst case scenario, plunging off top of boat into bubbly atlantic ocean. Can´t remember a fairground ride like that. 100% cool. Decided that in fact we´d rather be in the ocean than on the boat and somehow that made it all ok.
And so we made it as far as the mainland, greener in the face but ultimately stronger human beings. I guess with Paradise must come pain.
What befell us next is something that Michael Palin (my personal patron saint of travelling) would have COMPLETELY dug. Nothing of note occurred on the plane journey to Leticia-on-the-Amazon, but o my days what happened on the banks of the Amazon merits full recording.
Leticia turns out to be half in Colombia and half in Brasil. You can stroll gaily between the two (and become alarmed by the Spanish you spoke somehow becoming Urdu? Kurdish? Czec? - no, of course, Portuguese). A traveller who is not entirely wily could be easily caught out by this. Perhaps it is a trick the locals play on tourists to keep them entertained from thier verandas in the sweltering heat....
In any case, having grabbed some scrumptious Letician street food (saddening rumours suggest it might have been some kind of local dog meat) and a jovial room to stay in, we prepared ourselves for a 3am departure by boat to Iquitos in Peru. This 3am departure seemed tricky enough when we realised that the Colombian half of the town ran at 1hr earlier than the Brasilian half, or vice-versa, or something more confusing, and it was difficult to tell exactly which bit you were in, or who watched/believed which clocks. They interchanged currencies willy-nilly so why not interchange time too? Eek. In any case, clutching our passports and intrepidation we made it in time of sorts to the docks. We were shipped by Taxi Fluvial - billions of bugs in hot pursuit - to the other side of the Amazon, whose opposite bank was/is in Peru (3 countries in 2 days, result). It swiftly became clear por que the 3am start: it took 2hrs to leave and we needed to do so before dawn. Leaving, quite extraordinarily, necessitated an hour´s hike through pitch black, steamy, scratchy Amazon mud-marshes to the Immigration Control of Peru hut, whereupon our reluctant guide woke the confused Immigration Guard who slept inside it by constant banging and shouting (for roughly 10 mins). Violently waking a Peruvian Immigration Guard has never, I believe, led to an easy passage through the country. As punishment the necessary stamps in our passports required concerted and complex negotiation, and quite some time to get. What´s more, due to the huge amount of time that took we were bribed into getting a makeshift Taxi Fluvial back to the original boat departure site for too-many-pesos. There were 8 of us boat passengers, 3 assorted guides and the very uncertain boat owner all sardined into the tiny creaking Taxi Fluvial. And this is the bit that Palin would have been totally down with. Senor el boat owner gave the shaky vessel a doubtful once-over, the two Americans whimpered, Kieran for the FIRST TIME EVER looked nervous, and I turned my back so that I faced backwards instead of forwards, as the thing started to fill with water and began chugging across the vast amazon, into the dark.
All that need be known is that despite taking on a good few gallons of water, we reached the Big boat alive, which took us smoothly up the Amazon proper to where we now sit, dry and chuffed, in Iquitos, home to jungle canopies, exotic butterflies and an American desendant of old rubber barons called Mad Mick, who seems to own almost everything. Lovely.
Peruvian wine and coffee are uber-tasty, and everywhere, so there is little more that we need, apart from all your news! Drop us a line about anything if you can - weather, traffic, weekends, we are missing you.
Lima next and a trip to the world´s massivest sand dune to go sandboarding ... o gosh.
Love, S & K.
...one last thing... we picked up a friendly grasshopper named Jorge along the way who is keen to make an appearance somewhere on this page with his own picture diary... checkitout si si.
besos xxxx

Butterflies

In Colombia, all the insects are numbered, so that if anyone steals one they´ll be able to tell it´s theirs.

Interestingly, they only use prime numbers.

Photos

Hello again. We´ve finally managed to get some of our photos up, and you can now see some of the highlights of our trip so far by clicking here (Venezuela) or here (Colombia).

Lost city cont.

OK, you´ll be pleased to hear we made the bus. It took us to Cartagena, which is ´The Jewel of the Carribean Coast´. Which sounds very nice, I think you´ll agree. We´ve not really had much time to explore yet, but it´s good so far - a big metropolis, but with a beautiful old town with walls + stuff.
Anyway, previously I was in the middle of telling you about our trek to the LOST CITY. Big abandoned place left by the Tyrona people in 1500-odd, in the middle of the jungle. AMAZING. There was a group of 12 of us who set off with our intrepid guides William and Juan Carlos last Thursday. A nice mixture of Dutch, Irish, Canadian, Israeli (described himself as Israelian, which worried us a bit initially) and Americans - lots of funny characters. A broken car took us up a road full of holes and dropped us at a little village at the edge of the jungle.  From thereon in it was just us and the donkeys, walking for 5 or 6 hours a day up and down tracks through the trees. In the evenings we stayed in these little wooden huts, in hammocks, and were fed (extremely well) and watered. From time to time we had to do things like jump Tarzan-style into big waterfalls and cross rain-swollen rivers in rickety little boxes on ropes. Lush.
After three days we reached the final 1300 stone steps that lead up to the ruins and emerged up into the cloud-shrouded beauty of the city. Also lush. It rained a great deal then, but we had a good chance to look around, and rest our tired legs. Then, the president´s wife arrived in a helicopter - which was unexpected. She had a stroll around and chatted to us a bit about the security situation and our nationalities. We gave her access to The Irish which was almost a disaster, but they were quite well behaved in the end. She flew away after a while, and we headed back down through the jungle on foot.
Upon our return to Taganga we spend a little time reminding ourselves about beer and rum, said our goodbyes to our new-found friends, and then it was off on the aforementioned bus to Cartagena.
Tomorrow we leave for Playa Blanca, a beatiful beach on an island just off the coast, and then on Monday we catch a flight to Letitia, on the border with Peru and Brazil, from where we begin an expedition up the Amazon. Also, lush.
All our love and best wishes to everyone back home.  Hope all´s well!  Send us some news if you get the chance :)
xxx

Colombia and Lost Cities

So, we`re in Colombia! We`re still alive and everything (thanks for your concern), and continue to enjoy ourselves immensely. We`re staying in a little fishing village on the Carribean coast called Taganga, which is beautiful and very relaxing. When not relaxing, we`ve managed to get a bit of partying in, done some scuba diving and made friends with some musicians. Oh, and we`ve also just got back from a six-day trek through the jungle to see an amazing abandoned Tyronian city in the mountains (see photo above. doesn`t look so abandoned there on account of the president`s wife (see below)).  The trek was spectacular - proper jungle experience (why couldn`t the raver find the monkey? `cos the jungalist massive), with wild animals a-plenty, hammocks and waterfall swimmings.

Unfortunately I have to cut this update short now as we`ve just realised that our bus to Cartagena leaves in hardly any minutes.  More to follow soon...

Much love to all!  xxx

Los Llanos and some mountains

Did you know that despite having an area of over 1,000,000 square kilometers, Venezuela has only 15 million inhabitants?  Well, now you do.  And where all of those people are not, is where we have spent the last few days - we´ve just arrived back in Merida following a beautiful and eventful adventure into the los llanos national park.  Our exuberant Venezuelan guide Carlos and his subdued but smiling sidekick Adolfo drove us around in a van seeing some of the sights, along with Alex and Christina, our new Spanish friends. We climbed a mountain, saw a miniture replica of a chapel (bit weird), got rained on from time to time (quite refreshing), drank lots of little shots of aniseed rum stuff, did a bit of rafting with beautiful sunset mountain backdrop (I fell in and almost died, but was very brave and just about managed to survive) and ate LOTS of VERY NICE food. After that we headed out into the national park proper - miles away from everything, on a ranch kind of place, with horses and dogs and giant frogs. We hung out there for some time drinking rum, and went on a series of excursions to check out the wildlife. Of note were:  caymans, vultures, LOADS of other birds of all shapes, sizes and colours, an anaconda (sweet), an anteater (who invented them?? mental), pirhanas (caught a few of them for dinner whilst retaining full complement of fingers), fresh-water dolphins, capuburras (see anteater comment), turtles, a bird that looks EXACTLY like a tree and a number of other fascinating creatures.  Lush.  Also we rode the horses (I got mine into mode 2), lay in hammocks quite a lot and went on a night safari.  Since everyone else there was speaking Spanish the whole time, the trip also presented an ideal opportunity to learn a bit of that.  This went quite well, and we can now drop into conversation such useful words as mantequilla (butter), hambre (hungry) and repollo (cabbage).
All in all the trip was extremely good - lovely to be away from it all in wonderful surroundings with no worries except how to open the beers and which way round in the hammock to lie. We think we´re almost in proper holiday mode :)
The plan now is to stay in Merida for another day and then head up to Marracaida, from where we can get a bus into Columbia, where we plan to head for the Carribean coast and take in some beach action. Woop!
Lots of love to all
xxx