Coming soon: Christmas in Honduras: Tyres, Cops & Gay Sex

Tegucicalpa, don't even try to pronounce it, took me 3 days...

FIRST OF ALL MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

This year I ve been really shit, no cards, no emails, no text messages, nothing...
I guess it was spending Xmas on the Carribean that made me lazy, but if you're in a place that makes hot water by wrapping an electri wire around a shower head, then you'll probably appreciate that internet connections are somewhat far fetched...

So you're probably wondering about the title, well, it will probably take me a long time to finish writing this, but lets start from the start.

We arrived In Tegucicalpa after a relatively long trip from the wonderful El Salvador and found out right away that people here aren't as nice as the Salvadoreans, nor are the women, but here fortunately they aren't all married at 17 so the esthetic factor kinda falls into second place when it comes to not being shot by angry husbands.

Tegucicalps is somewhere in between Guatemala City and San Salvador, its not as horrific as Guate but not as clean and nice as San Salvador, so we settled into a fair and cheapish hotel and hit the roads searching for some entertainment.

We came across the Dunkan Maya, where if you buy a bucket of 5 beers you get some chicken wings, great! No need to eat! Turns out that the final of the local footie cup was on and we joined up with a table of funky Managua fans and became avid fans of the team that was randomly selected for us. Managua suffered a goal 48 seconds into the game and that was it, but it still made for a fun afternoon, specially considering that being 3 finance graduates and an engineer, we just cound's figure out the maths of having 5 beers in a bucket and 4 people.
The simple solution was to get a bucket each, but those went dry before the end of tha match and we ended up ruining the whole mathematical perfection by ordering a 5th bucket.

Many chicken wings later we got up with wabbling legs and went back to the hotel to get changed and hit the night clubs. Turns out that Hondurean women love tall white guys which worked out for me just fine, although they refuse to either talk or look at you when dancing which unfortunately suppressed hope for further evolution during the night.

Then the band started to play. Light went off and a single guital starts to play, Natxo yells "this is so Pink Floyd!!" with great expectations, of course he should have known better in latin america... he realised the error of his ways when two obviously gay charachters came on stage, somewhere of a cross between Ronaldo and a Leprechaun dressed like a very gay Ricky Martin.

The night ended with quite a few laughs, lies that we were reportes searching for new musical talent and a taxy back to the hotel after Natxo collected a few phone numbers of local girls, one of which had a boyfriend packing a gun sitting in front of her when Natxo got her number... guess some cultures are very different.

Up early next day, bought a No29 Suazo Inter T-Shirt (everyone here is an Inter fan as Suazo is a bit of a national hero) and decided to work off the hangover by drinking some beers whilst watching Real Madrid - Barcellona with two fanatics of Real Madrid (Roque's grandfather played for the team and his other grandfather was the president), luckyly our Barcelona representative (David) was asap, picking up a friend from the airport.

90 minutes later there were 5 smiling faces at the table, I had found out that Inter had beat bloody Milan 2-1 in the derby, Natxo and Roque has seen they team beat Barcellona in Barcellona 1-0 for the second time in 20 years, and David didn't care about the demise of his team, because he had been joined by an old sweetheart from the US named Victoria!

We decided to head north to the coast for a couple of days and Xmas, so we packed our bags into the Naughty Hottie, hugged Natxo fairwell as he has gone to Santiago del Chile for Xmas with his family for two weeks, and set in the afternoon sun.

100 Km from Tegucicalpa we stopped in a town called Seuatepeche to sleep as the Hondureans are absolutely insane and drinving at night is just insane.

We slept in a decent place with hairs of the previous clients in the beds and drove on to Tela the next morning, and this is where the adventure really begins!

Alive and WITH PHOTOS!!!

Heya,
I GOT PHOTOS UP FOR THE LAST TWOO POSTS, WOOO!!!

I m still alive and heading to the north of Honduras to spend XMas on the Carribean!


http://dondelloranlosvalientes.blogspot.com/

Ciao!!

El Salvador, where to begin?

Currently we're in El Salvador. Truth be told we almost didn't come.People told us that it was violent and dangerous. Couple that with a distinct lack of things to see and a fame for earthquakes and civil war and it wasn t on the top list of places we wanted to stay in. But how wrong we were.

I can't really play the guitar, but the ladies love it!

Since we hit the border from Guatemala the people were friendlier and the women hotter, which is not a neglectable point for 4 single guys, we stayed in a room just past the border in an unpronounceable town, where we ate, discussed football and started to retreat to our room around 9.30 pm when we were kidnapped by the landlady of the hostel and her 4 children.

To make a long story short we were chatting to them until 1 am. For quite some time she stressed how hygene-conscious she was and how she forced her staff to always wash their hands before they start cooking for the customers, she then proceeded to invite us to taste her excellent cousine by insisting that we dip our fingers (unwashed) into the roast that would be served the next day :S !

Off to bed then with sweet dreams of two of her daughters, but it was other female company that got us in the room. When we turned on the light, sinister shadows scurried on the walls, as they did from under the cuscion upon inspecting the bed. This was somewhat of a traumatic experience as we are all hardened westerners with little acclimatisation to sleeping with cockroaches, no matter how much we like to travel. Finally we wrapped up as tighly as possible, left the light on, sparked up a few insect repellers and fell asleep.

Not all creatures in the house looking like cockroaches ;) What's the legal age in El Salvador?

We were apparently not bothered by the nasties any more but we still suspect that some may have taken residence in the equatorial growth which resides on top of Natxo's scull but which is so dense it is impenetrable to man or machine.

So off we went the next day, having haistily packed and headed to Santa Anna. We got there around noon on a sunny day but were unimpressed by the town and the hostel we searched for was full. So, being the day just started and since murders don't come out for another 5 hours, we decided to continue to Sucitoto, which the guide describes as "similar to Antigua but without the tourists" and boy are they right.

Looks like an add for tanning creams...

Sucitoto is as close to a painting as you will ever get, the cobble streets, the silence, the colours of the flowers and the almost complete lack of cars and tourists make it seem frozen in time.

We hit the town!

The people are friendly and more honest than Guatemala.Personally I love it because barganing is considered rude so prices are fixed and you're not left with an after feeling that no matter how little you paid for it you've been screwed.

This morning we went to play a game of football at 9 am with some of the local guys, tomorrow we may replicate. We won 2 games and drew another 4 thanks to the skill of or two spanish forwards, our strong spanish female defence-centerfield-left winger and then a nebula of 3 more useless el salvadoreans and a tall pale goalpost which moved around the field puffing and panting.

The stress is killing...

Sucitoto is the most relaxing place I have been to in a long time, we came for an evening and we are now on our third day here.

Allegedly we will be leaving tomorrow, if it is true, it will be hard and I anticipate a few minutes of sad silence when we finally drive out of this lovely town.

Guatemala: Fire, Water and Brimestone

It seems like months since I last wrote on the blog as so many things have happened...

First things first, I was robbed of pretty much everything :P
We arrived in Antigua and decided that we were smarter than most. We parked the van outside the hostel and went and somberly acknowledged the warning from the hostel that leaving a car on the road was dangerous.

So off we went, we met up with James and Phil again and went for a few drinks, agreeing that when we returned, if there were no other cars on the street, then we would move the Naughty Hottie to a parking lot.
Well, there were no other cars on the road when we returned but neither was there a window in the side of the van or my large bag with all of my clothes :P
I found out that my passport, camera, mp3, and mobile phone were all safely in my room as well as a couple of socks, undies and tshirts. I also saved my jeans, linen pants and bathstuff.

Not that you really care about that stuff, but the idea not losing the above made me quite happy and I started talling the others how lucky I had been.
Not being Irish optimists they found that someone who had lost all his clothes to be saying "que suerte" was somewhat entertaining and "que suerte tengo" joined my previous catch phase "que guapo" on the book of travvel quotes being kept by our local scribe, Sir. Bristol.

There is not much to tell on our excursions except that they were amazing.

Temple No.2 Tikal, made even more amazing by the morning mist

We went to see the Mayan ruins of Tikal under a mystical and haunting fog and paddled with kayaks across lake Atitlan from San Pedro to Santa Marta. But the most spectacular was surely climing to the top of the Acatenango vulcano and watched the lakes of fire rolling fireballs of rock just a few feet from us, then see the Volcano of Fire explode in a cloud of dust against the setting sun.

Sunset on Acatenango Vulcano, with the Vulcano del Fuego in the background


The crew of the HMS Naughty Hottie in a hot spot (in his absence Roque is replaced by a broom with a hat)

But no words can do this proper justice, nor can photos really, but you'll just have to wait until I have a faster internet connection so that I upload a taste of the beauty we say.

But that was by no means the end of the trip! We travveled down to lake Atitlan and stayed in San Pedro, a cute and cheap little town where we met up with Phil and James again, although unfortunately only briefly and celebrated my 27 years with several bottles of rhum, and some happy ciggies.

Lago Atitlan, go there, see it!

After much departure from the moral road, those whom I claim as my friends decided to wrap my eyes in Teresa's finest pijamas and expose me to the lost-childhood entertainment of the piñada. The fact that they had carried the piñada all the way from Cicicastenano in a huge bag was a pretty good indication that they had bought it, but for some reason, although I saw the bag, my state of relax never quite expanded to curiosity and I never wondered what it might contain or why they would be carrying around a 1 meter bag as if it were made of paper.

In fact I was so clueless (not to mention a little altered by the rhum) that I was reluctant to hit the piñata thinking that perhaps my bag had not been stolen and that they were trying to get me to hit it with a stick :P

Anyway, Teresa, Cris, David, Roque and Natxo thanks so much, it was the best birthday ever!!!

Finally we left the safe haven of the lake and wanted to head to the beach to get those famous surf board wet. But the mountains was a bit much for the Naughty Hottie who started acting Naughtie and became quite a bit of a Hottie when the water pump burst on the road to the beach. Naturally, being blessed by some travelling God (Mercury I believe) we broke down in front of a kiosk in the middkle of nowhere where 3 people were eating and they were of course 3 mechanics, of which the boss was Frankling, allegedly the best mechanic in Santa Lucia.

The friendly Franklin is a 30 year old preacher who speaks perfect english and prides himself on not being a wife beater, we told us that the water pump in the car was fucked and that we needed to go to Guatemala City early the next morning and see if the only shop with VW spare parts actually had a spare part available. This was quite unlikely since they only had one water pump and the weren t sure of which model it might belong to.

In the likely even that the pump was not a match we were to spend a week or more in Santa Lucia waiting for a spare part to arrive from Mexico. You'll probably never go to Santa Lucia and lets just say you re not mising much...

That night was Santa Lucia's patron Saint funnily enough which resulted in Teresa winning 6 glasses in a bingo, and David getting ripped off by a couple of street games which were obviously rigged.

The next day early Roque and David set off to the capital with the non-wife-beater and with trembling hands the opened the only box in the country to find a compatible match!

A very relieved Roque discoveres that yes, the pump is the right one! Non-wife-beater in the background

A quick (hours and a half) drive back to the dusty kip called santa lucia and Frankling with his gand of chubby and less chubby workes set down to turn the Naughty Overhottie back into a road worth vehicle.

Once the repair was complete it turned out that the Naughty was having enough of the trip and her old joints were rattling, specifically either the oil pump or the crank shaft.

Upon much reflection and debate amongst the three owners, it was decided that the aging white lady would be fit for another 10000km if it had already been through 300,000 so we crowded in, turned up the music and set off for the El Salvador border!

Belize, Guatemala and something in between

Three very tanned Spanish guys...

I made it! I flew to Belize City and met up with three very tanned spanish guys and a Naughtie Hottie!

... and the Naughtie Hottie in Hopkins, Belize

After sorting out the van we started driving around the wierd country that is Belize.

We left the apparently crime-ridden Belize City and headed down the cost until we ended up in a tiny town called Hopkins.

Having never been to Jamaica I don´t know what it looks like but I am sure it is just like this.
The coast is a single long beach broken by wooden peers and shacks built onto the beach.

The population is an incredible mix of garifuna, spanish and native american. We found a small shack on the beach that was being rented out by night and settled down with the sound of the waves softly crashing beneath the floor of the hut.

This is where we stayed for the night, we spent quite some time chatting with the family that was renting the room and then ravished a plate of fish, banana and rice with great satisfaction.

Finally we went to sleep and prepared for the next day´s trip to Guatemala.

Our hosts in Belize

We got up early the next day and set out for Guatemala. The jurney was quite incredible as Guatemala is one of only two borders and roads out of the country of Belize.
What is found between these two places though can hardly be considered as a border.

Its more of a patchwork of shacks and people that are more worried in getting you to pay taxes than in actually making sure that they want to let you into their country. Matter of fact they really don´t care who you are, there have no way to check if you´re a multi felon, so they just look at you, stamp your passport and let you through.

Before you do that though, you need to get out of Belize, which for some reason seems to not want tourist to leave and forces them to pay an exit tax...
This is either to stop locals from shopping in the much cheaper Guatemala, or to buy that extension to the west wing of some politian´s villa...

So after fumigating the car, paying entry tax, paying exit tax, paying car tax, paying air breathing tax etc etc we finally set out on what must have been the most wonderful and aweful road man ever conceived.

Calling it road is a bit optimistic, its really a 100km strech of mud which runs from Belize to Santa Elena and which is stomping ground of quite a large amount of local fauna.

Matter of fact we found on the road whilst driving: people, cows, dogs, sheep, pigs, boars, peacocks, a kind of ferret and we finally run over a bat which got stuck in a window wiper.

We were also told that this road was quite dangerous for assaults, so we kept out head and acceleratior foot down and tried to make it as quickly as possible, although it still took over two hours.
One suspicious scene was that of a man carrying what looked like a large bloody amputated human leg, but we didn´t stop to ask to for direction so it may just have been a game of the mind!

Flores

And finally we made it to Flores, the island in the middle of the lace which Santa Elena is built on. We were drivin around looking for a hotel when we were approached by a Dutch guy on a scooter that told us he was working in a youth hostel, and what a youth hostel it was!

Los Amigos (http://www.amigoshostel.com/) is a must stay hostel for anyone travelling though here, in fact its so good we ended up staying several days of which a couple just spent playing table games and reading. Were were also joined by Teresa, addition no 5 to this section of the jurney and element no 4 of the spanish inquisition. Looks like I still have to hold my own against an ever growing crowd!

Next stop: Tikal, the lost Mayan city

Teresa, Natxo & a pale guy in ¨Los Amigos¨

The waiting game

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it also true that some places are simply more amazing than others.

One of them is definitely not Rio's airport.
I arrived at aproximately 9.30, my flight was at midnight, so I was sure that I had all the time in the world.

Then I saw the queue... an endless stream of hot an bothered people, waiting to clear security
with various degreese of calmness.
The Brasilians chatting and waiting, the Latin Americans talking away whilst pretending to carelessly look at their watch and trying to hide a little fear that they might lose theflight, and finally the US citizens, unaware that the delays are caused by their xenophobia, complaining out lout about the inefficiency of the airport.

Getting into the a plane for the US is becoming more and more entertaining by the day.
First, before you even check in, you're asked if you're a terrorist. Here I really had to wonder if some froidian slip has ever actually brought an enemy of the war on terror into the steroidic arms of the US justice system.

After confirming that I was not a terrorist, I was asked if anyone had tampered with my bag and so on. No, no, no, no, no. At this stage I was asked for my passport. The dialogue went something like this:

"Where do you live sir?"
"Nowhere, I just left Norway"
"Where is your residence?"
"Italy"
"But your passport says you're Irish..." - could see the confusion mount in the eyes of a poor girl obviously chosen more for her thick us accent than for her bright and bliding iq, and who blatantly takes her job as defensor of the civilized world very seriously.

"Yeah, it's Shengen, we're European, you can move around no problem, we're not that afraid of terrorists..."
"Sir, you cannot say that word, you may spread panic!"
"What? Terrorist? Come on! It's not like I said bomb or anything!"
"Sir, those words cannot be used in this kind of environment!"

Anyway, she let me go with a warning and a fat finger wagging.
I checked in, stood in line for what seemed like an eternety and finally got to emigration.
To make a long story short the fun isn't over.

After you've done emigration you're scanned, checked for explosives, drugs and leprechauns and finally send on your way.
Some fat dude stops you as you're walking towards the gate and asks you if anyone has tampered with your bags since the girl asked you at checkin and if you're changed your mind and have now become a terrorist. A quick no and you're on your way, certain that nothing now stands in your way!

Then the most peculiar thing happens... another fat dude with a thick us accent asks you if you've converted to fundamentalist islam and if anyone has tampered with your bags...
I look back in disbelief at the first fat dude who had just asked me and was standing not 40m back.
Surely I haven't converted in 40 steps... surely they don't think anyone tampered with my bags in the 40 meters that separate the two fat guys and which is completely empty...

Another tired no and the gate is within grasp, you can smell the kerosene of the engine exausts fill the air like a sweet nectar which will magically carry you away from this madness and into the beginning of your trip, but its not to be.

As I hand my ticked to the woman at the gate the heavy hand of a heavy man with one hell of a heavy accent touches my shoulder, and I am informed that I have been randomly selected to relinquish my shoot and for a further security screening.

Fortunately this did not last long, and even more fortunately I was not asked any more if I was a terrorist, because at this stage I m sure 90% of the population has been converted!

Farewell Rio

Hi guys,
I'm leaving Rio to go join the carovan of love!
Tonight I m flying to Miami and tomorrow I m off to Belize City.

I've only been here fore a week but God am I going to miss this city.
Good news though, I have a couple of good excuses to come back and live here for a few months, so start saving and preparing your passports to come visit!

I'll get in touch soon with plenty of photos :)
Ciao!

Boats, Beaches and Helicopters

The weekend was a laugh!

Well, friday and saturday were amazing.

We drove about 40 km out of Rio, flying though a hectic load of insane traffic and past the Maracana' stadium, along what seemed to be a never-ending beach dotted with people of all ages, and ended up in a small shack on the beachside.

The Maracana' with a flag waiver hired by the govenment to welcome my arrival

Here we proceeded to drink 4 beers, 3 caipirinas, 2 bottles of water, and eat a huge roast fish with salads and chips which generously fed 3 of us. The total bill was a staggering 20 euros...

No further comments required I believe!

Smidgeons of coast

Ok so after a terribly harsh friday morning we decided to hit a field and try home remote-controlled helicopters.

Its an incredibly fun and hard sport.

Ideal for the energetically challenged

My father, confident of his abilities as a smart man bought a combustion engine remote control Helicopter a few months ago.

Fortunately the Engine was french and therefore on strike. Fortunately because this stopped my dad from assuming he could fly it and probably dumping 1000 euros worth of plastic and carbon fibre into the ocean.

Breakfast or Blender?

So there we sat, watching and learning for a couple of hours; whilst a royal eagle hovered overhead, curiously scanning the humming demonic machines that were invading its space, and probably wondering whether it was a predator or a prey.

Brazil Fun Fact #1: Drugs is "droga" and so is "crap!" made for a funny reaction on my behalf when I heard a guy at a serious (but informal) meeting saying "why do people allways hide my drugs!!!"

Slave to the wage!? Nah!

Let me start by saying that the main reason I came to Brazil was to stop working, so it only seems right that I spend sunday and monday under a 35 degreese sun dressed in Safety gear, loading and unloading a Diamond Wire cutting machine from one of Subsea 7 vessels.

The "USS I Can't Believe It's Not Sinkin'"

You see, Achille is the MD of CUT-Brazil, so when he told me he had a bit of a test to run I said "sure!" problem is that Brazilians work at a rate which is rather different from what I was used to in the US, more like that of Norwegians but in a different way.

Achille explaining how to take Troy

Whilst in Norway people work hard but not for long because the government won't let them work offshore for over 2 weeks, here in Brazil people go offshore for 6 weeks at a time.

Tons you say? Well, yeah but lets put it this way, they don't kill themselves, at least not when in dock :P

In fact what is normally a 2 man job becomes a 8 man debating society. It's actually pretty interesting, everyone brainstorms, from the Head of Engineering to the welders, everyone talks over eachother and at the end, after quite a long time, something totally different is agreed since nobody really listens to eachother.

An example of this is the connections, usually we simply send a CAD drawing to the company and they provide the connections, but not here! 8 people stood (+myself and a scottish bloke to a side, no point overcrowding!) next to a machine, which only 1 person understood and tried to estimate how to connect it up.

Things do eventually get done, and I have to say, although things move slowly its a totally stress-free environment and everybody is smiling.

See today I realised something. Some guy yeaterday told me that there's no need to be rich in Brazil, only middle-class. I thought he was wrong but thinking about it, he's not.

See, most people start working their asses off to have a nice house, a nice car and so they can retire one day and have enough money to have a good life. But then they forget what the original objective was happyness and their objectie becomes making money which is really only a mean to happyness, so they're kinda fucked.

Here, you can lead a great life if you have an average income and that just sounds great for now :)

Anyway, all went well and we packed up the stuff and went home.

Wingardium leviosa!! (aka a really big guy pulling a chain)

Btw, anyone who thinks that Brazil is a machistic society has never been to Rio. There is a female to male ratio of 8 to 1 for some reason (I kid you not) and anywhere you go, including the manly world of offshore offices, there are way more women than men! Can't complain...

Oh, and I did actually do some work, I didn't only take photos of other people working...

Brazil Fun Facts #2 & #3

2. The Offshore Personal Protective Equipment for women is not a reinforced G-String :(

3. In Brazil the "Pierino" (Italy) or "Kerryman" (Irish) jokes, have Hugo Chavez as a subject :P

I saw a monkey!!

And here it is:

A monkey on a tree that looks like Italy's Prime Minister (the monkey, not the tree)

I know, it looks like a cat on a tree, but trust me:

1. it looked a hell of a lot like Romano Prodi

2. it was also trying to throw feces at an italian whilst running away,

Hence it was either an Italian politician or a monkey, and since it was about 40cm tall and we're not in Italy, I opted for the second.

Not that much to write actually, we spent most of the day driving around the mountains around Rio, its simply unbelievable, check out the photos, although I can assure you that they just can't render justice to the real sight.

Smidgens of Rio

The city itself is a work of art placed on nature's most incredible canvas.

I'll stop there because I promised Gaston that this blog wouldn't be a hippy/poetic one like Natxo's and I'd try to keep it real.

Unfortunately you're always aware that this isn't Europe and you just have to be alert. It just seems like paradise does not exists, no matter how beautiful the people, food, city and weather are there is something that taints the perfection, the crime and the poverty.

Its quite ironic, if you're in Ireland everything costs way too much and you freeze you're nuts off, if you're in italy life is affordable and good but the people just complain too much, here people are friendly everything seems to be idillic until someone pulls a gun at you at a traffic light.

They say that the city really needs the Christ Redeemer looking over it, and he will provide protection.

I say, all you really need is a bit of luck, cop-on (basically don't wear gold, watches, use mobile phones in certain areas, etc) and someone who knows the places where you can and must not go.

In other words you need either a Jesus or an Achille, my butt should be pretty safe, 'cos I've got both:

The Achille & The Jesus

We drive through the city, hit Copacabana and after a quick warning from my mentor, the AC goes on and the windows go up.

Shortly after that we arrive at Ipanema, another planet apparently, down come the windows and off goes the AC, which donates enough new hp to the methane pickup to easily climb over the mountains and reach the 60 km of beach which streach out of the city.

An there we sat, looking out over the ocean, sipping coconut milk (genetically engineered to be more refreshing than usual) and wondering why would anyone not want to live here...

My new hobby: doing fuck all

Finally, still wondering why places like Aberdeen even exist, we head back to the city to a small town called Urca.

Its like a corner of paradise, built on a small island in the middle of the city, it is comprised of beautiful houses but, because there is only a bridge to access the island, it is crime-free.

See, here in Rio people don't burgle your house, they assault you.

A certain number of guys break a window, knock down a wall or pretend to be techs or cops.

They come into your house with guns, lock you up in your toiler (if you're lucky), and then proceed to take everything you own, perhaps even you if they think you're worth some cash.

But Urca is different, the bottle neck of the island access would allow the cops to intercept any assault as it were leaving. And lets put it this way... assaulters here aren't arrested...

So there you have it, perhaps perfection does exist, it just comes in small portions :)

Urca & the city

Finally we headed home, relaxed after a devastatingly tiring day and headed out to Rio's most antique churrascaria where we ate steaks good and large enough to convert a vegan.

And that's it really, my tiny post with a couple of photos and not much to say has become a poem.

Don't get used to it tho, here in Rio I've got internet daily but I'm off to reach the carovan of love on the 29th in Belize City (http://www.dondelloranlosvalientes.blogspot.com/), so from then on its only sporadic internet cafes, ciao!

Rio de Janeiro!!

I made it! finally in Rio after one very long trip across the pacific.

I arrived just in time too! Achille met me at the airport and has offered me some shelter for the coming nights. Met his charming Brasilian girlfriend Rosana back at the house and settled into my room.

After a quick change we darted out under a starry sky to drive along a desolated Copacabana & Ipanema and finally settle down to watch Brazil beat Uruguay 2-1 last drinking Cachaça and eating some amazing meat next to the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Rio's internal lagune.

Rio's somewhat familiar roads remind me of parts of Houston for the vegetation, but the feel is more european, italian even.

The streets are lit up like those of the ligurian Riviera with dashes of Palma di Mallorca.

All in all a wonderful first impression, I'm posting the view from my bedroom 'cos you can see the Cristo Redentor!

Let you know more when it happens to me.
Ciao!

One night in Paris

I was just going to add a few lines about this in the first post on Rio, but then my knowledge of Hiltonian porn pushed me into creating a separate post with an irriverent title :P

I left the house in Dublin around 2 (in the photo you can see the Dart :P), got to the airport around 4 which gave me plenty of time to scrap my existing 20G seat at the bulkhead and book an emergency exit for the long haul to Rio.

The girl at the counter said it was an "Emergency Isle" which in travelling terms is the equivalent of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, 21F, great!.

So, several hours later I arrive in a hyperactive Paris due to an unsuprising public transport strike. By pure coincidence my dad was actually in Paris at the same time and was due to catch a flight out at 9pm. My flight on the other hand was due to arrive in at 20.15 so I thought that it would be great it we could just hug and chat for a few of minutes since I haven't seen him in a couple of months and won't for another few.

Naturally French organization ensured that no stairs could be found to let us out of the plane so we spend 15 minutes waiting to be released from our tin prison and naturally by the time I got to the gate dad had just entered the bus... Vive le France!

I called Sol and Luca, whom I was supposed to meet in Paris and we agreed that getting to Paris center was safe but there was a risk of not getting back to the airport on time due to the lazy ass metro drivers, which ment I was about to spend one hell of a night in the world's most unorganised airport (never been to Lagos tho, so it may actually be the 2nd).

Needless to say it was a bit of an adventure, I met this lovely guy called Dennis from Cameroon and we settled down as well as we could on the steel chairs which are obviously engineered at great expense by the same guys who specialize in placing sharp rocks under your towel at the beach.

Around 4 am and with only about 2 hours sleep I realized that my toes and nuts were freezing so I set off to look for some warmer place and found one, pretty close by.

Put simply there are long really thin heaters along the corridors where the automatic rollers are, these are as uncomfortable as hell to lie on but with a bit of bag-buffering turned out to be a relatively warm place to another hours or so of sleep. (Check out my bed in the pics)

When I woke up the guy from Cameroon had joined me a little further down the heater, at this stage thought my back was killing me so I set off to find a more confortable place, whilst trying to avoid David in case he thought I was trying to get away from him...

Anyway to make a long story short, after 12 hours in Paris, 3 hours of disected sleep and many pages of my book later, I dragged myself over to the gate and waited patiently for the flight to appear.

It does, together with a suspiscious screen which indicates the order of boarding and the rows in the plane...

Yeah you guessed, row 21, seat F was nowhere near the bloody Emergency Exit, it was a middle seat between what I m sure would have turned out to be two fat americans. My Silver Shadow had turned into a G-Wiz with the reliability of an Alfa...

At the end I managed to change back to my original 20G seat which I guess was ok, but there was much swearing at the Air France girl in Dublin. The plane took off and after 11 hours of watching Transformers, The Simpsons (Mike, Billy & Steffen I finally saw it!! it not great but I watched it twice anyway), Happy Potter 4 and a romantic comedy called Licence to Wed (I apologise, I was really bored and tired but I can't sleep on the plane) I arrived on the golden shores of the River of January. Ciao!

4 Countries in 5 Days

Not sure how this happened!
In reality I was never a fan of blogs, always thought that not many people would be interested in reading what I had to say. Matter of fact anyone that knows me wouldn't need to read my blog because I'm pretty outspoken about what I think in the first place...
This changed when I decided to head off on a trip for a couple of months, starting from Rio and then on to Central America.
My parents and friends have asked me to send some photos and just figure out some way to let them know that I'm still alive.
So here I am, sitting down on the sofa in Mike's house in Dublin writing this log and trying to imagine where the next posts will come from, and when.

The last few days have been fantastic.
Saturday London, then Dublin Saturday evening, Listowel on Sunday, Back to Dublin on Monday, today I'm off to Paris at 5 and tomorrow at 10 I'm off to Rio de Janeiro.
So, last thing before I start re-packing my stuff, thanks to Matt, Ned, Mike and gran first of all for the beds :)
Thanks to everyone that took some time off to meet up and have a beer before I left: Billy for coming all the way to Dublin, James, Will, Gasta, Patty, Elzbieta, Iain, Linda, Matti, China, Emma and everyone else.
Hope to see you guys soon!