Appetite for Destruction

The New York Public Library is hosting a exhibition entitled Lunch Hour NYC. It's simply, and brilliantly, an homage to Lunch. The history of lunch; pictures of people eating lunch; lunch menus, lunch venues; and films in which lunch was featured, are just a few amongst its many exhibits. The casual lunch, the working lunch and the origins of the "power lunch" are all featured.

For my four-and-a-half years in the bank, lunch was the most important affair of the day. The better part of the morning was spent contemplating and deciding which of Liverpool Street's lunchtime restauraters would earn our money. So much so that we - by which I mean "I" - kept and maintained an XLS-format - a favourite format for banking work - gentleman's list of over fifty venues within a ten minute walk, rated in order of their quality and value for money. I'd refer to it as "gentlemen's list" on account of my insistence to exclude vegetarian only options. I entrusted that list and my folder full of menu's to JJ shortly before my exit. I ought to check that he has diligently performed the appropriate maintenance. As I recall, Mama Thai was more or less untouchable, Kung Food was perfect, if you didn´t have-slash-want to do anything in the afternoon, and Happy Days´ Fish & Chips was ideal for punishing dieting girls.

I´m simply an active patron of lunch and lunching, but I will claim the coining of the "professional´s half." The half is perfect for quickly alleviating the visceral urge to place one´s telephone handset through one´s computer screen. When a coffee just won´t cut it, a professional´s half can have you back at your desk without any ill-effect, inside of fifteen minutes, and without your being a danger to yourself and those around you. It´s a winner. And you can pick up the other half later.

Photo: goodforlunch.com, The best

Into my final few months, I´d increasingly often hassle select colleagues with instant messages of '0.5' and "Magpie?" - referring to my beloved local, "The Magpie", which featured as a location in the admittedly questionable Basic Instinct 2. More often than not, my desperate requests were rejected, but just occasionally, I'd hit someone on my aggressively bitter wavelength. And always, faithful and reliable fine English ale acts as the perfect destructive interference to that bitterness.

Fig 1.  phys.uconn.edu, Destructive interference
Maddening arseholing around the office plus Ale equals Reduced urge to kill

Making Movies

My breakfast stack of pancakes comes with butter as well as maple syrup. I'm not entirely sure what I'm meant to do with the butter, but I soon conclude that there´s no point being shy about it, and lather up the stack with everything I've got.

Photo: helendining.blogspot.co.uk, More butter! More syrup!

Walking around New York feels like walking around a movie. Everything seems familiar and much of it is actively familiar. Not least, the very toy store that Tom Hanks worked in. They still have the piano, though I am highly upset to know the original was donated to orphans or something stupid like that. The new piano is awash with children and clumsy, graceless time-wasters. It is a sad reality.

Also familiar, is ale. New York has a plentiful supply of it. At a Time Square bar I use some spare time between eating one thing, and eating another thing to sample five or six halves of the local brews.

Come the afternoon, I´m finding that I can´t just stroll into a hostel and setup shop, South America-style. Everything is booked and I´m thinking that I´ll be following Tom Hanks footsteps once again, this time by sleeping in La Guardia. So long as you have a bag and look like a tourist, no one asks any questions.

With the help of a delightful pair of gays on the concierge desk at last night´s hotel, I find myself at a bargain fifty dollar hotel in China Town. As I pull open the door of my room, the comedy value of the scene could only be bettered by replacing me with the late and great John Candy. The room is a windowless cupboard, no bigger than the space under the stairs, where a vacuum cleaner and various unwanted goods and odd bags might live. The walls are little more than plasterboard and door opens outwards because the width of bed, which is also the full length of the room, would prevent it opening inwards. But, it´s more comfortable than La Guardia, and boasts location central to China Town and adjacent to Little Italy.

Waking up at 2300h, after one of my classic three hour power naps, there´s just enough time to visit Doyer St., possibly the only NY street that Schwarzenegger filmed on, and to score a healthy plate of Chinese BBQ pork, washed down with a Yoohoo.

Shout It Out Loud

I´ve woken up in La Guardia airport. Having gotten out of the airport at 2300h, I decided it wouldn´t be much fun to spend two hours searching for a hostel, to then spend sixty dollars on seven or eight hours of sleep. La Guardia was comfortable enough, and that´s sixty more dollars of eating money.

The game begins with a nice, heavy turkey bagel. By midday, a muffin, a slice of pizza and a big apple have been added. There doesn´t appear to be an end to either what is available nor what I want to eat. If "Flymo" Hodges were here now, there would be carnage. It would be disgusting. It would be fantastic.

Hodges isn´t here, but KK is, and KK likes ales, and I like ales. I´d expected New Yorkers to be relatable to Londoners, especially after coming out of South America. On our tour of the West Village, Chelsea and the Meat Packing District, the latter of which, KK assures me is not gay innuendo, I find that the locals bear no resemblence to Londoners. Everyone here seems absolutley, unnecessarily, and overtly proud of themselves. Everyone can be quickly and neatly catagorised by their appearance. The pregnant women are in stomach hugging dresses, the black guys are dressed like black guys, and the gay guys are the gayest gay guys I´ve ever seen.

KK leads the tour on to Pop Burger. It´s surely the most African American burger chain since McDowell´s. For eight bucks, the burger is as good as anything I´ve ever had before, but I could comfortably eat it in three bites. I could push myself to do it in one.

Onwards to the Italian. And when KK can´t finish hers, I´m on hand to clean up.

Glory Days

Landing in Orlando, Florida, I've left Que Tipo de Carne behind me. In America, land of the free and home of the International Federation for Competitive Eating, there's a different game. Inspired by that Paraguayan advert for generic shopping, I like to call this game Let's Eat Everything.

Some people passionately believe food is about flavour. Others believe that food provides nutrition and resolves hunger. Those people are morons. Food is about glory. The kind of glory that can only come by crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their women.

In this two hour layover, I have only the airport at my disposal, but he choice is clear. It's Nathan's Chili Cheese Dog. Nathan's, host of the annual fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Competition at the Long Island home, embodies all of my intentions for the next week.

Photo: damnthatlooksgood.com

Rock & Roll All Nite

The jig is up. If I had more time I'd head for the coast, but I've got a flight tomorrow. KK said, Come to New York. Ok, I said.

The boys in the hostel have plans to hit the town hard. In the early evening I suggest I'll probably not go, on account of my morning flight. Come late evening, I know what I should do, and what I have to do. This whole trip is part of a wonderful mid/third-life crisis that I'm entertaining. The day I can't hit the town like the hammer of Thor, at the drop of a hat will be deeply sad one. I'd have to look at ending the then wasteful tatters of what used to be life.

Funnily enough, on the way to the discotheque, I'm reminded that even if I wanted to walk back early, as common sense might demand, it's not necessarily the sensible and wise choice. The reminder comes in the form of a bloody five-on-one knife fight. Apparently, when it comes to Columbian street fighting, no one can hear you scream. Not funny "ha-ha", per se.

Smoke on the Water

There´s not a great deal to do in Bogota - much like most every other big city. It's so baron that five of us have been persuaded to take an hour long tour of the Police Museum. It's a museum that promises and delivers few, if any exciting revelations. A fellow tourist tells us, there's a military museum nearby that's also good, "but not as good as this."

As always, plan B is to drink lots of beers. That usually bulletproof plan is somewhat undermined by a beer supply that seems to use urine as a base ingredient, but I guess I'm going to try to stomach it

My friend, Chris the Canadian, tells me that the Columbian's drink of choice isn't beer at all. It's an anise-flavoured spirit, called Aquardientes - which roughly translates to fiery water. He tells me that what the kids here do, is hit a bar, where they'll put a carton of the stuff on the table and leisurely take it in shot-form over the course of the evening. Once they're all hopped up, it's time to hit the discotheque. And that's what we'll do, he says. When in Rome, he says.

I have a bad feeling about this. My first clue is the anise flavour. Yuck. My second clue is that it comes in a carton. Nonetheless, the slightest peer pressure from two Germans and a Canadian folds me like a napkin. I was right. I hate it. It's essentially Sambuca, less the syrupy-consistency and only half ABV strength.

My Germans friends don't seem to relate to the traditional drinking pace of the Columbians. Rather than casual shot, say, every five or ten minutes, the boys are more keen on a Germanic forty-five-second cycle. I'm not afraid of the alcoholic content of the drink, but it's familiar scent and taste repeatidily and vividly remind me of wet vomit. But, I can't very well show weakness in front of the Germans, so Chris and I take the pain whilst I try to explain to Germans that they disgust me.

Big Bottom

The signature on the sign of a museum to my right has caught my eye - 'Botero'. Where do I recognise that signature from? I know where I know that signature from. He's the fat Venus guy. Botero's Venus, or "The Fat Lady", as she's so fondly known in my old office, sits in Exchange Square, my old summer drinking and smoking haunt. Some light nostalgia is enough to motivate me.

After an hour of touring the museum where Botero's various works are proudly centre stage, I've come to the very certain conclusion that Botero was a talentless, overrated artist, but maybe a mediocre cartoonist. Taking the piece as a collection, I'd go so far as to call it shit. Every picture is in exactly the same style, depicting a fat chick, or fat guy or fat guy on a fat horse. It's funny for a minute, but the initial novelty of fat stuff quickly wears thin. Even the most convoluted circles of art-twats couldn't mount a defense for this arrant crap.

The museum includes some of Picasso's dross, presumably to improve Botero's work by comparison, but I'm pretty sure Picasso was often just taking the piss.

Come the afternoon, I'm back on the street with the address of my pal who lives somewhere on this street, Calle 23. Bogota's road system seems to have been designed with a perfect respect for logic, then handed over to some mad bastard to put up. I know I'm lost when the surroundings of the street subtly transform into a weed scented slum. When a tranvestite dominatrix passes and doesn't much stick out from a mid-afternoon crowd, rife with aggressively dressed prostitutes and the types of deviants who enjoy the company of disease-riddled streetwalkers, the feeling of being lost is quickly replaced by one of fear. Eyes forward. Fist clenched. Walk fast.

Poison

The day is burned with a directionless wander around downtown Bogotá. There's nothing revolutionary here. It's alright.

What isn't alright, is the beer. The hostel is a sausage-fest, but come early evening, we boys have set to the task of drinking. I've been out here in South America for five months. With just a handful of exceptions, South American beer all can be broadly and thickly tarred with the same brush. A toilet brush would suffice.

The hostel sells two pilsner beers, Poker and Aguila. In these, the Columbian's have managed to set themselves apart from the rest of their continent. They've, possibly literally, mastered the bottling and sale of fizzy piss. Who knew beer could be too wet?

After the third bottle of charmless, bitter-ended punishment, I give up the ghost.

Learning to See

I think my vision is back. How good was I before at looking? Once again, dragging my finger to and from my face, I'm not certain, but this all looks about right. I can read the details on the label of a bottle of beer. It'll do.

I've landed in Bogotá. I've found ale. Not bad. I can work with this. Perhaps we can put that whole unpleasantness at the border behind us.

Goin' Blind

I'm on the first bus of what promises to be a thirty-plus hour passage to Bogotá, Columbia. I've got to get to an Ecuadorian frontier town, take a taxi to the border, walk across the border, take a taxi to the nearest Columbian frontier town, then take another bus upto Bogotá.

Suffice it to say, I'm not in a happy-go-lucky mood as I'm passing through Columbian customs. And now it's raining.

My days of overseeing some of the largest and some of the most process-driven foreign exchange transactions in the world might be far behind me, but I'm still not ready to be reduced to selling USD/COP in a wet car park, with man in jeans and leather jacket, casually leaning up against a lamp post as he thumbs through a wad of cash. This isn't OK. I don't do business this way. But, some ten minutes later, I discover resistance is futile and I am that far reduced. I'm assured that's how things are done here. Welcome to Columbia.

I guess a plate of rice and chicken will subdue the rage. When I eventually find a street vendor, it does serve to distract me. It looks good on the plate, but as the fork closes in on my mouth, a blur of food reminds me that I'm still far-sighted. This is a little worrying, but it's not enough to slow me down. Forkfuls of this blur taste just as good. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Run Through the Jungle

In the chalet, I wake at first light, having briefly woken a few times during the night. I don't recall having had any dreams whatsoever. I'm keen to get out before anyone catches me. I can't unlock the door. After a few panicky, trapped moments, I make my escape through the window.

I feel normal. There's no hangover, but I have the vivid memories of last night. For the first time, I'm thinking straight enough to put the Ayahuasca and the things I saw together. I'm curious to see if any of the people out here really are deformed. I'd guess this is could be prime spot for inbreeding. In any case, I've got to go back to try and find my backpack.

I find that the orbs of light that guided me were real, and that escaping the chalet area is almost as difficult now as it seemed last night. The village, Shiripuno, is only a short walk. 

I fail to find my bag. On the way out, I run into my shaman. He seems perfectly happy with his handiwork and asks how my experience was. I couldn't explain it if I wanted to, so I leave it at little more than a thumbs up and 'thank you'. I don't know why I'm thanking him for leaving me to die.

Last night's urge to 'get the fucking hell out of this jungle as quickly as bloody possible' hasn't diminished all that much. Given the light of day, I get myself back to Tena, then on the bus back to Quito. I'm wholly ignoring advice from both the internet and a local that I should rest for a day or two after taking Ayahuasca.

On the bus, I'm left to recall the night as best I can. My recollections are in the same way as they'd be if I had been drunk with alcohol. I remember all the events and incidents well, but it's too patchy to easily string them together and fill the gaps. I'm not even certain if I was thinking lucidly, or as if I was drunk. Aside from believing the reality of everything single I saw, if I was thinking lucidly, would I have tried to walk back to Tena? Why did I believe I was in Puerto Williams, Chile? In Shiripuno, the actual road structure and even the features of the land don't even exist as I saw them last night, but in Misahualli, I did see the surroundings as they really were. Were any of the people I saw real people? Was I actually on the Otherside - in the spirit world? The big cat wasn't consistent with any of the hallucinations. I think that thing was a god damned puma.

When I was opening the door of the car, I think I had some feeling or a thought that someone was with me - a friend - but when my pack disappeared, I definitely didn't immediately suspect anyone. I can't believe an evil spirit stole my pack, but, actually, I think I do. I regret not kicking that bastards head off. Thankfully, I learned my lesson from the lost wallet and hadn't packed anything immediately consequential.

The experience wasn't a barrel of laughs, obviously, but it was completely, entirely incredible. I don't regret it, but I don't know if I'd recommend it. I certainly wouldn't do it the same way I just did - alone, and homeless, in a puma-infested jungle.

Something is still a little wrong. I'm far-sighted. I wasn't far-sighted yesterday. Most of everything looks fine, but as I draw my finger to and from my nose, I can't focus on it at all. This is definitely wrong. Other than rinsing my eyes, there's nothing I can do. I guess I'll just wait a few days. It'll probably come back.

Otherside (Part two)

I'm in a marquee of some sort. A masked character wearing a full-length hooded black cloak enters. He's on stilts that must be adding at least three feet of height under that cloak. The wooden mask is a long face with rigid lines and features. The carved expression is flat and emotionless. It's a creepy looking thing. Neither of us say a word, but he sits down across the room from me and crosses his left leg squarely over his right knee. The action pulls the cloak up slightly and reveals what I expected to be a stilt. It's not a stilt. It's a leg, and it's little, if anything more than skin wrapped around bone. The mask is removed, only to reveal severely deformed face that I could only imagine to be the result of generations of inbreeding. The face is just a long as the mask. The forehead and chin each stretch to double normal length and the nose is also disproportionately large. It's not the kind of thing I want to study nor stare at. This is certainly too unsettling to hang around. Trying to appear casual, I make a swift exit, passing him without passing comment.

I need to get to the Misahualli, across the bridge. It's not far and I'll stand a chance of finding a hotel there. It must be past eleven o'clock in this unlit jungle village. There's no one around, but as I walk the dirt streets, I look up to the side where another stick-thin, nine foot cloaked figure is hanging by a noose from a tree. This isn't right. I don't like this. I want out of this jungle.

I follow the road that leaves the village. Something is off. It's not quite as I remember it. I reach the black tarmac road, but I don't recognise it. It's too wide. It's looks clean - as if it's been freshly laid. This isn't where I came in. If this was a parallel road, then going right is the way out of the jungle. I don't know where left goes. Looking right is a view that quickly, even unnaturally, descends into pitch black - the kind of black that I've only ever seen before in that mine in Potosi. To the left, there are street lights. I don't care. I want out of this jungle - overlooking that it's at least half-an-hour back to Tena, by bus. I don't make it more than ten feet into the darkness before visibility drops sharply to absolute zero. I don't like the other direction. This isn't it. There must be another way out of the village.

I see a couple standing by a house and approach them to ask for directions. She's looking away from me. I can only see her long blond hair. As I'm just beside her, they're talking, and I interrupt, "Perdon". Both turn to me. She doesn't have a face. She doesn't even have a head. Instead, there's a free floating banana, angled as a "smile", where one might be, and second banana in the same smile-shape just above, where eyes should be. I don't wait for a response. I step back, and once again, swiftly walk away.

I have no sense whatsoever that this is the effect of the Ayahuasca, nor any drug or alcohol. Everything I'm seeing, not least the banana-faced girl, is reality.

Some thirty feet away from me, standing in the road, there's a robot of some kind. It's no more than my height. It's a humanoid character, but also with insect-like features - like a praying mantis. Rather than a recognisably functional or even realistic looking robot, it's more like something out the the recent Transformers movies, but without any internal parts. Simply, black and yellow free-floating plasticky-looking armour forms the shape of the creature. I stand there staring for thirty seconds. It's alone and stands perfectly motionless. I look away and look back to find it's adjusted its pose slightly, but remains perfectly still. It doesn't appear to have moved towards me. I'm not scared. At least, no more than I would otherwise be of a person, in the dark, in the jungle. I start walking away, but frequently looking over my shoulder. It's not following me, but it's position and pose keep changing. How do I get out of here.

This is a tiny village, no more than a hundred-and-fifty-strong, and I've walked around it during the day. Now, in the dark, I have no idea where I am. I see another road that seems to leave the village, but I definitely don't recognise this one - it can't be the way I came in.

Wandering the dirt streets, I stop and look at the streets and small houses around me. I recognise this. This is Puerto Williams. Wolf - my Captain on the Santa Maria Australis - is back in Austria now, but if I can get into his place, I'll be safe for the night. By recognising the shape of the roads, I soon find where his house is. As I look squarely up at it, I know this isn't his house. There's a oval plaque amongst some weeds immediately in front of me. It reads "Kloss" - Wolf's family name. But this isn't his house.

I can see figures in an untidy bush by the roadside, the figures aren't people, they're the bushes themselves - like the robots, they're humanoid figures, but made only from thin branches and leaves. I can hear the two bush creatures talking to one another. I walk upto them and once again, interrupt, "Perdon", hoping to get directions out of this village. They instantly turn silent. The insect-like head of one creature twists, slowly and with a steady mechanical motion, to look at me, then crooks it's head fifteen degrees to the left in a separate motion. The creature doesn't have eyes - of course not, because it's a bush - but it's staring squarely at me. I stand there for a long two seconds, entirely expecting the creature to reply. There's no reply. I'm completely confused by the sudden silence. I slowly step around the bush, and as I do, the figure dissipates to a random assortment of leaves. I try returning to the first angle, but I can't restore the shape of either creature.

I'm at least able to find my way back to the main road of the village. I'm getting badly frustrated that I can't find my way out of this tiny village. I come to accept that I'm not getting out of the jungle tonight. I just need to get to the other town to stay overnight. I move towards the end of the road that goes out of town, albeit to the tarmac road that I'd previously ruled out. In the distance, forty of fifty feet ahead of me, there's something in the road. I get a little closer until I make out the shape of a big cat - a puma-sized cat. I'm quite lucid about not attracting any attention as it slowly crosses the road from left to right. I back away, and start walking the opposite direction.

Farther away, I spot a masked girl on a bushy roadside. She's wearing a bright yellow hooded cloak. It's only the sense of proportion that suggests it's a girl. This mask is round and has a colourful toucan's bill. I approach and address the girl. Just like the bush-creature, she slowly turns and crooks her head. I'm waiting for a reply. I'm left waiting in perfect silence. My reaction is only "Oh, bloody hell... I don't believe she's got me with the same trick as the bush." As I look closer into the mask, I can't see eyes. There's no-one in this costume.

As I walk around, I continue to see creatures in the trees and bushes, but I'm not at all terrified. They're not chasing after me. I don't sense any aggression from any of the creatures. That said, I've got no inclination to go anywhere near those robots.

At the final road at the top of the village, I find two of these robots ahead of me in the road. As I approach, they instantaneously turn still and mute. I turn around to see a policeman on the road side, just twenty feet behind me. He's wearing a typical American police uniform and hat. He looks normal - not a creature and not some inbred freak. I'm relieved to see him. I approach him, and he turns his body towards me and looks up. His motions are mechanical. I stop, still fifteen feet from him. He sets his feet slightly apart, then raises both arms to horizontal, fully outstretched. His hands stay parallel to the ground - I don;t think he's trying to prevent me from passing. He's looking at me, but remains without expression. His head crooks to the right, then gently falls down forward like a de-powered robot. Finally, his left arm suddenly turns completely limp from the elbow, leaving the forearm to drop under it's own weight. The rest of his pose remains set. Just the dropped forearm is hanging and swaying freely, back and forth. I'm now trapped between the frozen robot creatures behind me, and the policeman ahead of me. My only active concern is that they might try to mug me. Rather than go an inch closer to either of them, I escape by climbing over a fence.

Once again, on the main road, I look down at the only possible exit. There are two people, a guy and a girl, walking down the road out of town. They look like tourists. Thank christ. I'm going to get out of here. Forgetting about the big cat that was on this twenty minutes ago, I begin a quick walk to catch up with them. They're almost a hundred feet ahead of me, and as they're leaving the village, they're descending the far side of a small hill that rises again on the other side. I lose sight of them, but I can see where they will come back up into sight. I'm walking at pace and watching for the two heads to come back into view on the other side. But, they don't. They're gone. Into thin air. Shit. Shit! What the hell is going on?

I eventually, I find myself across the bridge in the main square in Misahualli. There's one of those robots sitting on a bench in the corner. I stare at him, then look away for a moment. He's gone. I didn't look away for much more than blink. There's plenty of space around the bench. It couldn't possibly move that fast. The thing just disappeared.

There's a woman in the square. I follow behind her until close enough to get her attention. She turns, and I'm stopped in my tracks as I catch sight of her deformed face. It's as if her right eye socket is smeared outwards and down her face, like it was made of clay. I don't stick around to find out if she's a nice person.

As I'm walking down a street out from the main square, I notice some assorted rocks on the ground. As I'm passing them, something seems to have just changed. I look away and look back. Something is definitely moving or changing. The stones are in a line. I count five of them - big, small, small, small, big. I look away, blink a few times, and immediately look back. The middle stone has disappeared and the remainder are now spread evenly. I look away again. The two big stones are now on the left, one is balanced atop the other. Er... Pfhf, I don't know.

Everything in town is shut. I don't know what time it is now, but I don't care either. There's no chance of a hotel. It's warm enough to sleep outside on a bench. I'm looking for something, but it has to be out of reach of these creatures. I have a real concern that these creatures - the robots, especially - will molest my soul in the night.

Down a road, I spot a couple of parked cars. I set my backpack down, and in desperation, I try to open the door of the first car. I'd be safe in there. With no luck, I move towards the second car. It occurs to me that I've set my pack down out of sight, just behind the first car. I go to bring it around, but it's gone. I cannot believe it - not after the wallet. There's just no way. I look up and down the long road. There's no one. Everything is still, everything is silent. It was out of sight for less than five seconds. It's gone.

I return to the main square. I see a robot on the nearest edge of the square. The robot is white with a little blue and red. Somehow I know this is who has taken my pack. As I get closer and begin to circle around, I loose sight of it for a moment. When I turn back, he's turned into a bush creature. This bastard stole my pack. I'm angry, but I don't know what it is or what it's capable of.  Could I beat it in a fight? I'm not even sure that this "spirit" - whatever it is - is still in the bush, but I am distinctly thinking about kicking it's head clean off of it's body. After calming down a touch, I decide against starting a fight.

I'm back on the tarmac road heading out of the jungle. I can't stay here. I don't care. I need to get out of the jungle. Somewhere down the road, I see lights leading into the trees. It's a path, lit with large orbs of light - blue, red, green and white. I follow the path which leads into something more like forest than jungle. The path comes out into a football pitch-sized clearing. The path runs in an oval, serving access to ten or fifteen wooden chalets. I circle the path trying to find someone to give me a room for the night. I find a chalet with three men on a raised veranda. I try to get their attention. The seem to see me, but completely ignore me. They almost immediately start to pick up their things and casually step inside their chalet.

I circle back around the path, trying to find the exit, but I can't. I can't even get back out of here. It feels safer here than Misahualli. I haven't seen any creatures since I left the town. The only option is the slightly raised veranda on another of the chalets. Before I settle down, I try the door. It's unlocked. The chalet is empty and untouched. There's even soap or a mint or something on the pillow. I'm finally safe. I lock the door and rest on top of the bed. The only thing that keeps me from falling asleep is the thought that someone will catch me in here. That doesn't keep me awake for too long.

Bad Medicine (Part one)

I'm off the bus after forty-five minutes driving deep into suitably jungle-like jungle. I've got another crudely drawn Post-It Note. The lady at tourist information has scribbled directions - four squiggly lines representing a river and some roads, the name of my target village and the name of the local shaman.

In the raw midday sun, I'm wandering alone through the jungle, albeit down a tarmac road. There's constant chirping and rustling and rattling from all directions, but I don't see any animals. I'm waiting to stumble across one of the twenty-foot monster pythons. I've seen them on the Horror Channel.

I eventually arrive in a town, Misahualli. It features a town square surrounded by small shops, restaurants, hotels, then farther on is a beach, full of monkeys. From the beach, I've jumped into a forty horse-power canoe taxi to get upstream to Shiripuno, home of the shaman. 

Photo: Gillian Sheppard

On arriving at the bank of Shiripuno, I've walked into a traditional village. There's a five of six huts, largely made from bamboo and straw, but it looks to be a tourist trap. There's a restaurant, a craft shop and up on the hill, a five of six lodge hotel. A few Americans are crowded around an eleven year old local boy with a five-foot python around his neck.

Photo: astours.fr

In broken Spanish, I explain who I'm looking for, and a local man ushers me to follow him down a jungle path. We come out of an opening where the path continues across a field to the actual working village. We arrive at the shaman's house. It's a small two floor house, but the lower floor is simply four pillars that support the top floor. There's no walls on this lower floor. The shaman comes downstairs and guides me past the three dogs who actively guard the home. He doesn't look so much like Papa Shango as I'd hoped. He's just a forty year old pot-bellied Ecuadorian in a blue shirt. The conversation is extremely brief. "Se necesita", he asks. I don't know what that means, but his reply to my blank expression is only to repeat it. On the third repetition, it clicks. It must be "What do you need". I've never heard that phrase before, which tells you all you need to know about South American service culture. "Quiero tocar Ayahuasca" - I want to take Ayahuasca. I confirm that I have eaten only bread and fruit, and we agree on a twenty dollar fee. He tells me to return at half past Six.

Photo: comicvine.com

By way of a bridge, Misahualli can be easily walked to from Shiripuno. I return there to start burning a few hours. Two of the beach monkeys are repeatedly creeping up to a big dog, then scampering away when he gets wind of them and gives chase. Cheeky little turds.

Photo: Karlik, I guess a small dog is more manageable

I don't have any vivid expectation for the experience, probably because I've done less than ten minutes of research. That also means I have little, if any awareness of the risks, so I shoot a note to Dug - just in case.

Hola Dug,

 I´m in Misahualli, an internet-ready Ecuadorian Jungle town. In a couple of hours I´m heading over the river to to Shiripuno to meet my shaman. He´s going to lead me through a tea drinking ritual, during which I´ll probably vomit and hallucinate profusely. It´s a "vision quest" of sorts.

Anyway, I´m alone, and I believe the tea has the odd fatality, so I´m just telling someone where I am.

Obviously, if I don´t resurface in a few days, please avenge my death and release my spirit to the afterworld. If all goes well, I´ll regale you with the details over some lovely ale.

Cheers

Stevie

I'm back amongst the huts in Shiripuno. As the light fades to black, I start to hear flutters and see bat-size shadows flying all about the place. The jungle noises of earlier only get more intense. I'm waiting in the dark for half an hour before my shaman emerges from the darkness, navigating by the screen light of his Nokia. It's funny because his phone is a newer model than mine. I still don't have any specific expectations of what might happen tonight.

With just my torch light, he sits me down and pours a thick brown liquid from an old plastic water bottle into a small half-coconut shaped cup. He tells me to drink all of it and I start throwing it back in continuous gulps. It's about half a mug's worth. It's bitter and has a distinct bad, not terrible, medicine flavour. He asks for the twenty dollars. He says something - I assume in the native language, Kichwa - then proceeds to draw the sign of the cross on me using the twenty buck note. He walks me to behind a large rock and sits me down again.

After a minute or so, he stands up in front of me and begins chanting and whistling. It lasts just a minute or so, after which he sits down opposite me, then lies down and appears to go to sleep. I'm trying to treat this as a spiritual, or at least solemn experience, so much as I am able - because I'm a horrible cynical bastard. I'm sitting, head down, with my eyes closed, trying not to think about anything but the jungle noise. I do take a moment to check that the space immediately between my knees is immediately available for throwing up.

Some ten or fifteen minutes later, the shaman's phone alarm goes off. Once again he stands and begins chanting and whistling. This time, he goes on to kiss the very top of my head, then, in the same action, starts blowing air directly against my head. With more chanting, he picks up a branch with an end of thick leaves, which he begins shaking left and right over my head. I'm dusted with some kind of plant seeds and a eucalyptus scent. All of this is over in three of four minutes and the shaman returns to sleep in front of me.

I'm not feeling anything at all yet - not so much an inclination to throw up.  Every ten minutes, I open my eyes and look up at an overhanging branch and the stars behind it. I shake my head a little to see if there's any visual effect. There's nothing. Every fifteen minutes, my shaman wakes up, but does little more than check I'm there before returning to sleep.

After what seems like an hour, I start to feel my lips inflating or enlarging. It's a very gradual process. I'm mildly concerned, but so long as it stops in the next few minutes, I won't need to worry. It does stop. Aside from that, I'm still not experiencing any visuals and feeling completely lucid. I'm wondering if it will have any effect at all, and hoping that it does.

Looking at a bush behind the sleeping shaman, I start to make out an increasingly vivid human figure, but I'm reckoning that a can of Coke and hour or two in the dark would equal this unimpressive effect. The jungle has hardly come alive to take me.

A final time, my shaman wakes and tells me that it's over. I accept that it's just not hit me and go to stand up. I don't make it to standing the first time. When I do make it up, I find myself utterly disoriented. I'm staggering like a teenage drunk, but still lucid. The shaman's wife or daughter has arrived and hand-holds me down path towards the main village.

The lucid feeling quickly decays. Soon, I'm no better than a teenage drunk. I'm staring down at the torch-lit path, trying to continue one foot after the other in a straight line. It's not working brilliantly well. Somehow, I drop a coin and try to bend over to pick it up. I squeeze my fingers to grab it, only to find that I haven't yet reached the ground. My depth perception is way, way off kilter. On a third attempt, I make it to the ground, only to find the coin has merged into the ground. I'm just clawing at a flat surface. This repeats at least twice more as I drop more coins and fail to recover them.

Before the ceremony, my shaman had asked where I was staying, assuming I had a room in the lodge. One of my few assumptions, given the little advice I had taken or read, was that the shaman would stay with me until morning. I have no room. He knew that beforehand and was happy enough to continue, so I'd not worried about it. I planned, in a worst-case, to sleep on the floor in one of those village huts.

Back at the shaman's house, I have a loose grasp on the last of piece of my mind. I'm not certain, but I think I said that I'll walk back to Misahualli to get a room there.

Hungry Eyes

Since my first and failed attempt to take Ayahuasca, I've learnt a little more about the mysterious ceremony. The tea is made from a root. Some accounts I've read describe people seeing patterns behind their eyes, and one case of a tree trunk dis- and re-appearing. Most importantly, I gather you don't have to starve beforehand. It's only necessary to stick to a diet excluding meat, sugar, synthetic foods, alcohol, and sex - anything good is bad.

There's a jungle town, Tena, just five hours away from Quito, and I'm promised I'll be able to find a shaman there. My diet is back on. I've tried to find someone to join me on this adventure, but my description of vomiting and hallucinating in a dark jungle isn't selling.

My insatiable appetite has been back in force in this last week, but until now, with no money to satisfy it. This self-inflicted punishment has come at the worst possible time. Walking through Quito, I'm having a hard time passing the chicken restuarants, bakeries full of doughnuts, and worst of all, the street barbeques. Summoning immense mental strength, I'm able to pass on the street food. I want to take this relatively seriously, if only for the best experience.

During the five hour bus ride, the outside world gets increasingly rural. I'm waiting for the sudden change to real jungle, but it never comes. I was expecting wooden lodges and shacks, but Tena is busy and fair-sized town with a well-lit streets, shops, and small hotels. I find a hostel, where I'm assured that I am in the right place.

Freedom

I'm walking through the park in the late afternoon with tentative hopes that I'll find something at post office. The twenty-four hours since yesterday is enough time for something to have happened. But nothing has.

Next stop is the bank to pick up the money CJ has wired. I can get my money, and take off for the jungle tomorrow morning. But, I can't get the money. The bank has no trace of the transfer. I know it was transferred yesterday, but they don't, and there's nothing I can do. This is getting inconvenient, but not horrifically so - yet. Nothing has changed. I can pick it up early tomorrow and get of here, as planned.

I've been meaning to get myself over to the English pub & microbrewery nearby the hostel. This is very definitely the time for that. It's times like these that I miss Dug. I have a scrap of paper, kept with my passport, with my emergency telephone numbers. Dug is listed behind only my mother and uncle. His reliability, sheer ability, and dedication to the enjoyment of fine ales renders him the most useful person I know. He also agrees with me on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. They're both deeply homo-erotic films. Uncomfortably so.

In the evening, I return to the hostel, managing to evade machete wielding muggers, and sit down to my ever reliable Two-and-a-Half Men re-runs. Jacqueline, from the hostels front desk, asks me to come into the corridor and close my eyes with my hands out. When something is placed in my hands, I open my eyes and feign surprise because that unimaginative method very much gave away the surprise itself. I don't have to fake it for long as I'm quite awash with relief.

Having learnt the art of surprise from my father over many Christmas mornings, I'd have come up with something better. On Princess' birthday, back in the old office, I stealthily picked up the birthday card from the last of the folks to sign it. Rather than simply hand it to her, which would have been unimaginative and lazy, I left it in her in-tray. She would never see it coming. But, despite the envelope clearly having her name on it, sitting alone in the tray, no more than one-and-a-half feet away from her, and in clear sight, I had to watch her ignore it for over three hours. All the while, the rest of the team are incessantly hassling me at whispering volume: "do you have the card?"; "where's the card?"; "why haven't you given her the card?" I don't have the damned card. If she'd do her damned job, she'd have the damned card. I never forgave her for that. Maybe Jacqueline's method is better.

Finally, I'm free. I can get out of here. I'm almost as pleased for my father, and his "twin." That said, I'm now going to be on the recieving end of an insufferably smug bastard after Christmas dinner.

Return to Sender

At five-thirty in the morning, I woke up as one of the American boys got up and moved out for his 0900h flight home. Over breakfast, I was surprised to find he's still here with us. He tells me that it was explained to him at the check-in desk that his flight was actually scheduled for 0900h, yesterday. I wouldn't go as far as to call it schadenfreude, but it was a relief to know that I'm not the only one to do something moronic and have to pay for it. His cost him two-hundred-and-eighty bucks.

Once again, there's no mail this morning. This card was meant to take three to seven days. It's been at least seven days now. The Royal Mail must have, at least, gotten it to Quito by now. In desperation, I embark on a a tour of Ecuadorian post offices. At the first office, the clerk takes my name and walks over to a wall of pigeon holes on a wall. I'm all but praying as the clerk flicks through the handful of envelopes. I imagine her turning around and walking back with the blue envelope I'm waiting for. As she does turn around, that hope turns to thin air, which I exhale with a sigh. She punches my name into a computer. There's nothing. She assures me with confidence that if it were in the country, it would be on the computer. The same scenes play out at two more post offices. I'm hopelessly lost for what could possibly have happened to this envelope.

My father writes "I'll get my Jedi twin to get the cards to you on Tues/ Wed." Every Christmas, as we're finishing dinner, and he's gotten himself nice and drunk, he greatly enjoys to regale the table with his spiritual theories of some thing in a parallel universe that takes care of him. For the most part, his "twin" might adjust the weather in his favour, or get him a discount at B&Q. He doesn't seem to care that everyone at the table is rolling their eyes in equal measure for the theory, and for having heard identical speeches at each of the last five Christmas dinners.

No matter, though. CJ is in Chicago and is bailing me out tomorrow with his US bank account. I'd rather live in the airport than pay Western Union for money. I deeply want to have faith in my old man, or if need be, his "twin", but at this point, I'm almost ready to take the cash and abandon the cards.

Lifted

After losing a half-hour game of Which Bus?, which I vigorously and audibly blame on having crooked advice from the hostel, I've taken a taxi up to Quito's Teleferiqo cable car. From Quito's twenty-eight-hundred metres, the cable car has lifted me thirteen-hundred metres. That leaves just five-hundred vertical metres to the peak - four-thousand-six-hundred metres. A German girl proudly told me that she had touched the top in three hours. So, I set off with the express aim of destroying her time.

This is harder than I remember. I'm only thirty minutes in, and traversing very moderate alternating rolling inclines, flats, and descents. This isn't going very well, but I don't know why. After all the walks, and hikes and stairs of the last few months, I'm feeling like I need to sit down for another four-and-a-half years. Maybe a banana will will give me the boost I need. Five minutes and a banana later, I've not enjoyed the dramatic and heroic transformation I remember from my cartoon-heavy childhood. I should have brought spinach.

There's a guy and girl about a hundred metres ahead of me. The chase is on, but I seen to be losing more ground than I'm gaining, and soon lose them around a far away corner. Farther up, I pass a resting group of four. I'm guessing they're on their way down. Farther still, and still with no sign of the race leaders, the incline becomes steep and the terrain becomes loose and crumbling. I'm feeling better and I've picked up on my early pace, but I'm still struggling more than I'd expect. I think I lack a legitimate underlying motivation.

I look back to find the group of four that were resting are now catching up on me. Moreover, two of those four are the pair that I've been chasing. They threw me off with a crafty costume change.

The old guy of four has broken off from the group and is making an aggressive beeline for the summit. The remaining three look to be in their early twenties. The girl is making the quickest pace. I do not want to be overtaken, much less by a girl. All of a sudden, I've got motivation, but I'm still having a hard time putting the pedal to the metal on this lousy terrain. She's not. After five or ten minutes, I'm overtaken by a pretty girl. That is probably the worst thing that could have just happened. In our brief exchange, I gather that they're German, and that despite making good pace, she's feeling the burn too. She might well be being sympathetic, but I need to believe she's struggling too. Soon after, the two German boys pass me too. Crap.

They've stopped for a rest a head of me. I guess I could join them and make friends, but, right now, I have no interest making friends. My interest, for no rational reason, is the top of this arbitrary rock. The final section is a pathless scramble. At the top, I look around assuming to find at least the German chick. Some thirty or forty second later, she climbs up and out from behind a rock. Behind her, the two boys stagger over, and finally, the old guy. Champion! I'm quietly satisfied.

I didn't actually bother to take a time on when I started, but I'm reckoning it was two-hours-forty-five, give or take. Not exactly a destruction of my target time, but I'll take it.

Everybody Hurts

I'm browsing the walls of the Oswaldo Guayasamin museum in the company of a yammering old American. Of the decreasing number of English speaking folks around at breakfast time, his museum excursion was the best on offer. Aside from his propensity to talk when talking isn't necessary, he's a nice guy. I'll be alright for a half day.

In my browsing and perusing, I'm pleased to find that a lot of Guaysamin's work isn't awful nonsense. It doesn't appear to be the work of a happy-go-lucky sort of guy. There's theme of misery in some of the stuff I've seen in South American. This one is reminiscent of the Mérida gallery back in Cusco. But of course, arty misery and pain has little lasting effect on me. I most particularly enjoy the cartoon of a cheeky condor getting the better of a bull. That silly bull doesn't know what's going on.

Still no mail.

Training montage

I want to be hopeful that my cards will turn up today, but it´s a stretch of my imagination.

After wasting away much of the day with Leonard and Sheldon and Raj and Howard, I drag myself up for a run. The big park in Quito is pretty impressive. Aside from being big, it´s got football pitches, basketball courts, volleyball nets, a concrete BMX track, a dirt BMX track and a running track with stops for sit ups, pull ups, balancing on logs, rope climbing and doing whatever any amateur can hope to do on those gymnasts rings. That´s all the motivation I need to act out some generic training montage.

My dream montage isn´t playing out how I'd like. Since Bolivia my stomach has not been quite right. It's not very bad at all, but it's not quite right. There's something in South American food that offends it. Running is unsettling me. It doesn't like being shaken all about the place.

After twenty minutes of gingerly running, I'm feeling a stitch coming. It occurs to me that I don't even know what a stitch is, but I know it means game over. At best I can manage forty seconds of this limp jogging before it threatens again. None of stopping, stretching, and cursing seem to ease the problem. Carl Weathers himself couldn't rescue this. We're done here.

Walking back through the park, I can at least play with the fitness equipment. After a few sit ups, I come to the conclusion that they're hard and my beer consumption renders them utterly pointless. Shimmying across and between pull up bars is equally difficult, but at least it has a satisfying computer game action hero novelty. I thought I could climb a rope, but I'm disappointed to find that I can't. Pah. Forget this.

There's no mail today.

Stuck in The Middle with You

I'm trying to balance an egg on the head of a nail. I'm assured by the guide at the Mitad del Mundo museum that it's possible. When I stepped, up I was entirely determined to do it, but after twenty seconds of not getting close, I huffed and puffed and gave up.


Apparently, the hostel's English contingent and I are precisely on the equator. The museum includes some shrunken heads from a shrunken head tribe and some demonstrations of how the forces on either side of the equator are neutral down the middle - hence the egg.


It's all very novel, but we've been assured that neither of the two Mitad Del Mundo museums are accurately positioned on the equator, and that the demonstrations are all unrelated to the real equatorial line. The museum claims to have pinned itself on the equator using a military GPS, some fifteen years ago. Being a part-time sailor, I'm particularly smug with the knowledge that a fifteen year old military GPS would be lucky to pin the tail anywhere on a fifty-foot donkey. Nonetheless, everyone is having a great time taking photos of each other straddling an arbitrary line on the ground. Sometimes I'm glad I lost that camera.

Stargazer

Much like yesterday, today doesn´t promise much excitement. Once again, I just need something to validate the day. That thing is the Quito Osbervatory. The Observatory museum includes a glass case that features two hand wound pencil sharpeners that were actually used by scientists in their work. For the visit, I´ve no better idea of how the Greeks took two stars and drew a dog.


The girl at reception isn´t optimistic for my mail. She tells me that when this has happened before, it has taken upto four weeks to get mail from England.


At least, I have my friends Charlie, Alan and Jake for company.

Bad Reuptation

I've got to do something to validate the day, so I head for the Naitonal Museum. I'm not terribly excited about it. The hostel has cable TV, and in all honestly, I'd rather watch Two-and-a-Half Men re-runs. As far as pottery and history can go, the museam is sort of interesting. At least, it's enough to burn an hour-and-a-half and validate the day.


From what I've heard since arriving, Quito has the most dangerous reputation of any city I've seen yet. I gather the mugger's weapon of choice is the machete. There's a short list of no-go areas, but apparently, the less well-armed muggers aren't too shy about stalking the relative safezones. Everyone seems to have a story about a friend who's been robbed. Today, a fresh story comes from a German guy in the hostel. He was taking a picture in the old town in the middle of the afternoon. One guy pushed him, another guy took his camera, and that was the end of that.

In the evening, Emma and a couple of girls from the hostel drag me away from my Warner Brothers marathon of Two-and-a-Half Men and the Big Bang Theory to hit a nearby discotheque. I need a hell of a lot of sauce before I can, or should, hit the discotheques. As I predicted, the disco is not my scene. The scene is a little disco-lit bar, playing the same pop music that's followed me around for that last three months. It soon fills with gringos and what look to be eighteen year old boys. My scene is a quiet wooden Cask Marque pub of old men and a soundtrack of Thin Lizzy and CCR. I'm able to persuasively feign enjoying this scene for a few hours, but as midnight comes, I'm relieved when one of the girls starts feeling ill.

Snakecharmer

My replacement cards are in the mail, but I'm still not keen to blast through what remains of my emergency dollars.

Quito's park is home to the Vivarium, which, in turn, is home to a selection of snakes and assorted creepy crawlies. I'm not scared of snakes and spiders per se, but I wouldn't choose to go anywhere near one, given the choice. For that matter, I'd avoid dogs, if I could - especially, the dirty, insesently barking muts all over South America. The Vivarium is a worthwhile visit. Enough of the snakes are in motion for my entertainment, but I'm unable to make them stand or dance.

Are You Going My Way

After an overnight bus, I'm soon into my hostel in Quito. My German surf student, Ben, is here, and thankfully has hearing restored to full Dolby stereo. On the standard tourist trail, you often to bump into the same people each time you check into a new city and hostel. I met an English couple, Christian and Juliette, at the Paraguay-Boliva border, then again in Santa Cruz, again in Copacabana. I repeatidly bumped into a travelling group in Sucre, Potosi, on the Salt flats, and finally in a Cusco discotheque. Here I've found Emma, also English, who I met in La Paz whilst I was a grim jester and she was a frog, then Mancora and Montañita, sans costume. 


It's a reassuring to see familiar faces. Back in the bank, we had a nice open plan office, and it was my business to know the better part of three-hundred people in my immediate vicinity, and many more beyond. Travelling, largely alone, for these four or five months has been a different story. I think what I miss is the sense continuity in people.


Emma and I spend the day wandering around the Quito's old town. The Basillica here has a famous view from the top. We enter the Basillica for two bucks. As churches go, it's big, but it's nothing special, by a long shot. The gates between the main church and towers of stairs to climb up to the bell tower are locked. We're told we have to exit and walk around to another exit. We're greeted at the entrance to the bell tower with the news that our two dollar ticket only covered the church. The climb and the view is another two dollars. The view is nice, but for the rest of the day I'm trying to contain how absolutley livid I am at having fallen victim to this shameless, malevolent church con. I only pray that the whole thing is destroyed by raging hellfire.

Football Fight

I´m not sure I´m going to the game, but I´m already wearing my Deportivo Cuenca shirt, so I´ll make a last attempt to get a black market ticket. The newspaper talks about our offensive trident. Apparently, we play a three-four-three formation. I´ve never heard of that formation, but it must be pretty aggressive. From the locals I spoke to last night, I'm assured this is an important game. I'm also given to understand that Manchester United's Ecuadorian, Antonio Valencia, is playing for us.

The streets are awash with my yellow shirted foes. I´m a little confused by the lack of red shirts, given that this is the home team. Nonetheless, after circuiting half the stadium, through hundreds and hundreds of metres of yellow entry queues, I'm the proud owner of a twelve dollar ticket, and for just thirty dollars. I manage to find an entry point dominated by my fellow red shirts. At the front of our queue, there's a woman with an arm covered in belts. As I close on the front of the queue, it seems that each person is being stripped of their belt by the police. It must have been an ugly day in Ecuadorian football history when the fans started going at each other with belts. Despite being disarmed, the fans, stadium and a a good distance around, is thoroughly policed by both policemen and soldiers on foot, horses, and Honda Tornados.

In the stadium, the extent to which the local supporters and I are outnumbered becomes very obvious, given separated blocks of fans. Over three-quarters of the stadium is yellow. Ahead of the match, the Barca' fans are singing, and frantically waving tube balloons. My gang is doing much the same. There's a hardcore of our fans going particularly crazy, but I can't work out what they're singing. Rolls of streamers and balloons are being handed out. Several of the fans have big wads of paper, cut into five-by-five centimetre squares for confetti. 


Cuenca score in the first half, triggering emphatic animation amongst my crowd. I join in with the jumping and shouting. Balloons are flying. A few pieces of confetti land on me - one piece is from a magazine, the other is piece of a child's maths homework on squared school paper. There's no love loss between the fans. A few of our fans are gesturing and shouting things at the Barca' fans that probably aren't very polite.


In the late stage of the game, we're still holding a one-nil lead. The yellow three-quarters suddenly goes crazy, then begins cheering as Cuenca concede a penalty. Our number one pushes the shot out and it's quickly cleared. The celebration on our side huge. The yellow fans receive a torrent of verbal abuse.


As the final whistle comes close, the yellow fans are singing and dancing again. The Cuenca fans are still loud, but nowhere near the volume of the yellows. I'm pretty confused. As the game ends, the two sets of fans exchange a hail of missiles - mostly empty bottles and corn cobs. I manage to escape from the stadium unhurt.

In town, I'm walking around looking for the celebrations, but there's little sign of the reds. There's plenty of car fulls of yellows making their way out, beeping their horns as if they'd won. I eventually confirm that despite losing, they've now won the league.

It's Sunday night, and although this is still a huge win for Deportivo, the standard South American Sunday night behaviour applies. The streets are empty and everything is closed. It's time to get out of Cuenca.

Golden Brown

After a short, and more improtantly, cheap bus ride, I'm in the nearby town of Gualeceo.

It's a quiet little mountain town surrounded by pretty green hills. It's reminiscent of Thal-Bei-Graz, Austria, birth place of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Old women are washing clothes in the river that runs through the centre and the hills in all directions around are peppered with a staccato smattering of colourful houses.

The town doesn't promise any exciting activities, so after an initial wander, I'm in the central food market. As was the case back in Cuenca, hog roasts are popular here. In the market, there's a line of ten of fifteen hog roast stalls. The preperation method for the pig must be very similar to that of the guinea pig in Peru. In this case, I'd guess that the whole animal is bled, gutted, oiled up, and cooked. I don't know what they have that's big enough to roast an entire pig, but there's at least fifteen of them. On each stall, the entire animal is laid on it's belly, with it's rump and hind legs sticking out of the front of the stall. I'm not sure how I'm meant to choose a stall from the line of golden rumps, but I go with the old woman who offers me the free sample. The Ecuadorians have got the hog roast nailed.

Back in Cuenca, the build up to tomorrow's big match between Deportiva Cuenca and Guayaquil's Barcalona (who's emblem is suspiciously similar to Spain's Barcalona) is becoming more and more evident. The streets are littered with Barcalona's yellow shirted travelling fans. I'm reckoning this will be worth staying for.

After an hour of queuing, then an hour-and-a-half of competing with locals to buy from ticket touts, I'm empty handed and painfully hungry. The ticket office ran dry just as I closed in on the front of the queue. The touts want forty-five bucks for tickets that were twelve bucks at the stadium. I'm only hoping the game is on TV.

Smoking in the Boys Room

There´s not a great deal I can afford to do on a fifteen dollar budget, and much less on eleven. I suppose that having been on the continent for over three months, I should probably make some effort to learn Spanish. I´m on a lowly page twenty-one of my Spanish comic book, Aliens Vs. Depredator. If I can sit down for a few hours of deciphering, then I walk up to the Mirador viewpoint in the afternoon and I can call it a worthwhile day.


By late afternoon, I´ve mostly procrastinated away the day on internet stuff, taking in the view, and eating. I´m still very much in the low twenties of my comic. Learning is boring. Knowing stuff is cool, but that learning bit is just so much hassle. There´s no part of the day when I couldn´t otherwise be doing something better, like drinking and smoking, or eating - something cool.

In the early evening, I stumble across a bar and microbrewery. I´m pretty excited to find the brew is exclusively delicious ale. I suppose I could still squeeze in under or around that fifteen dollars. I park up and have a chat, so far as I´m able, with owner and brewer and tell him of my interest in beer. I´m drinking his Irish Red. The beer is very similar to my best-friend-slash-arch-enemy, Fuller´s ESB. Experience has shown that, despite it being only five-and-half percent ABV, after four pints ESB, the evening will invariably descend into a blurry chaos, and I´m likely to wake up face down, still fully clothed, shoes and all. This Cuenca brew is a hefty six-and-half. Coupled with my budget, one will be enough. As I sit there enjoying the first beer of flavour since the bottle-conditioned Bishops Finger of The Falklands, I agree to trade my copy of CAMRA´s BEER Quarterly for my beer. And I´m back under budget.

Panama

I´ve got to start living cheaply for a while. At least until I know the cards are en route. My hostel is already eight bucks a night, so I`ve got to keep it under fifteen bucks. I reckon I can manage an eleven dollar budget if I don´t do anything too racy.

As usual, the first morning in a new town is generic wandering. It´s a nice little town, and the weather is on side. I´m soon in a pretty good mood, and have accepted and dealt with the loss of my wallet.

I´m led to believe that Cuenca is home of the Panama hat. They tell me it´s called the Panama hat because it was worn by the guys building the Panama Canal, but it´s strictly Ecuadorian made. I think I can pull off the Panama Hat look. All I´m missing from the look is a nice big yacht. I ought to start wearing a hat of some description. My hair is very much out of control. There´s just too much of it. But, there´s nothing I can do about it. Only John in Devonshire Square and Dennis in Eastcote can help me. It will have to wait.

Outside the central food market, I stumble across a stall with a pyramid stack of raw, skinned creatures next to a barbeque. They look too thin to be guinea pigs. I think they´re rats. The preperation method utilises a metal rod of a three inch diameter. She slices the creatures down through the belly, pulls out the guts, but leaves them hanging off, attached at one end. She then stretches out the anus, wide enough to force the long rod through and up to the neck. The split belly is then wrapped and tied back around the rod. The extracted guts and organs are also strung up along the rod. Twenty minutes of barbeque time later, voila. Bon appetit. Alas, this is a five dollar treat, and too extravagant for lunch on my budget.

In the fruit and meat market, I´m asking after prices trying to work out if I can cook for less the various small restaurants that serve a one-dollar-fifty dinner of soup, a main, and juice.

Dinner for today and tomorrow is a sausage pasta with finely chopped apple and red onion. It comes in at ninety cents per meal. I´m reasonably pleased with that, and it was quite pleasant too cook for a change. I look forward to have a fully stocked and functional kitchen on my return.

I Remember You

After revisiting the bakery and the police, with only the most tenuous hopes that my wallet will have turned up, I´m off to Western Union where my emergency money awaits. I´m even more keen to get out of town now.

The Western Union here is no more than a booth, just big enough to house a fat, useless idiot. When he eventually turns up, he tells me that they have no money, and can´t pay out for another half hour. I´m still hopeful I can make the 1000h bus out of here. Half an hour later, he tells me, that he expects he might be to be able to pay out between eleven and midday. I manage to squeeze blood from that particular stone at half eleven. Western Union has saved me, whilst at the same time, ripped my eyes out on fees and, no doubt, a crooked exchange rate. I dare not look too hard at the receipt.

On the bus, I remember that, on top of the fresh hundred bucks, I´ve also lost seventy Euros, five Pounds, my Oyster card, my old work ID, at least. As small mercies, I´ve still got my powerboat license, which I´d taken out to try and skipper the whale watching boat, and my Campaign for Real Ale membership card.


The bus grunts up hills and switchbacks into the Ecuadorian highlands. In the evening, the view out of my window is of deep green forest covered mountains protruding up from a unbroken floor of thick clouds. The sky, not much farther above, is another layer of thick grey cloud cover.


We roll into Cuenca at 1030h. As I wander into town, I pass cash machines with their little green lights blinking in the night. I remember when I had an arsenal of plastic bits that would yield precious dollars from these things. I´ve spent over twenty five dollars today, mostly on cancelling cards and buses. I wonder if I can live on the remaining two-hundred-and-seventy-five bucks long enough to get my replacement cards.
In reality, the worst-case is another trip to Western Union, but as we say in the bank, "I´d rather stick my nob in a beehive."

Listen to the Flower People

I´m done with Montañita. It´s nice, but after four days, I´ll be happy to be on the 1000h bus out of here. In the morning, I stop by the cash machine for a hundred buck reload, then set off for the bakery for breakfast.

In the bakery, I handover a twenty to get change to repay my travelling band for last nights rum. As with most shops and bars in South America, they don´t have change. This is just a part of South America´s non-existent service culture and popularly held opinion that they have better things to do than exchange goods and services for money. I set down my wallet and dig for change.

As I´m walking into the next restuarant looking for change, I reach into my pocket for the twenty. My wallet isn´t in my pocket. It´s not in my lower pocket either. Uh-oh. I sprint back to the bakery where I´m sure I left my wallet on the counter. My wallet isn´t on the counter. I ask the guy behind the counter if he has seen my wallet. He doesn´t have my wallet. He asks the girl behind the counter if she has seen my wallet. She doesn´t have my wallet. I pace back and forth a few times as the degree to which I´m fucked sinks in. I´m pretty fucked.

Yesterday, my travel card had failed to draw cash from the machine, so I´d taken my backup card from my bag and only set it back down as far as my wallet. I´d been keeping that backup seperate on best advice, but in reality, I never anticpated loosing my wallet. Who looses a wallet? Not me. That´s not the sort of thing I go in for.

I´ve got a couple of dollars in change. I´m pretty angry with myself, but I´m still just about able to hold onto the a realistic sense that this isn´t quite the end of the world. Though, I certainly am pretty fucked.

I ask a girl in the cafe if she´s seen anything. She, Jess, is English and has seen nothing, but is very sympathetic. So much so that she insists to give me ten bucks. I try to insist that I don´t need it, but it quickly occurs to me that I do need it, very much so.

At the Police station, my tenuous grasp of the language is very obvious. The policeman pulls in some passers-by who speak Spanish and English. The policeman is offering no more than advice to report the loss in the next town over. The passers-by are a tourist couple. They walk me back to the bakery to see if they can help. As half-baked as my Spanish is, as I listen to the conversation, I´m able to fill the gap between the Spanish, "imposible" and "impossible".

The guy that runs the hostel helps me put out a Montañita wide APB for my lost wallet. I´m not exactly sure how that works, but I´m understand everyone will know about my loss shortly. I want to be hopeful, but I´m not. When Liam Neeson lost his daughter, he was given a nintey-six hour window to find her. I´m guessing my window has already closed. Nevertheless, I ask myself: what would Liam do in this situation. I soon accept that don´t have a great many of his skills and give up that train of thought. I ask myself: what would Columbo would do in this situation.

Back at the bakery, I´m examining the spot where I lost my wallet, the entrances, the exits, and the surroundings. I go so far as to hover my hands around like Tony Shalhoub. I search the bins, pace the streets around the shop in the hot sun, and poke around in the nearby bushes and shrubs. I imagine what it would be like to find my wallet, but I´m trying not to expect to find it.

I spend twenty-five cents to check for a response to an earlier email to my parents, cc´ing my brother, with instruction to send me money by Western Union. I´ve got two responses, but both my brother and dad have replied on the basis that it´s probably a scam. With another buck spent on the phone, I´m able to get hold of dad to verify the ugly reality.

Come the afternoon, my detective and all-action-hunter-killer skills have failed me. I find a few pals on the beach and join the beach football. Beach football is tough.

In the evening, I´ve rejoined my travelling band, and we´re wandering about town looking for a good time. I don´t expect to be out long tonight on account of having less than five bucks. At midnight, I find myself sitting in a circle on the beach with my band and a group of Columbians. A Columbian girl with dreaded hair, loose clothing, and a guitar, is playing bit´s from Bob Marley´s Exodus. Sure, I like Exodus too, but this is dirty, smelly hippie crap is exactly why I wanted out of here this morning. God damn it.

Jump

Somewhere off the coat of Ecuador, the travelling band and I are powering through the sea on an elaborate white plasticky bathtub with a pair of one-hundred-and-fifteen horsepower Yam´s. We come to a stop in an arbitrary patch of sea amongst a few other bathtub boats and begin scanning the sea and horizon.

After just ten minutes, someone points me to some spray shooting out of the water. They´re here. Two or three Humpback Whales have come top poke around the boats. We all scramble to the whale watching side of boat. We´re tracking the light blue patches of the sea as they drift nearby us. The whales surface to poke above the water.

The Yam´s power back up, and we take a five minute ride to another arbitrary patch of water. More whales, or the same whales - they all look alike to me - soon turn up. I´m scanning the water to try and find them as they drift around under water. I hear some commotion in the boat behind me and turn in time to see the better half of a forty-five foot Humpback Whale crash down into the brine. For the next twenty minutes, three Humpbacks are periodically shooting two-third of their body out of the water and slamming back down.

The trip includes some snorkelling around the coast, but one of the boys on the boat are suffering badly from sea sickness. I´m sympathetic enough to pass on snorkelling, but it doesn´t keep me from taking his portion of complimentary cake.

Dancing in the Street

The day is reserved for the long awaited final of Euro 2012 - Spain vs. Italy. I err towards Italy, but only on account of Nico and 'alf Swiss.

Maybe I ought to stop supporting teams I like. Overall, I feel the tournament has been a disappointment. Other than England-Sweden, I can't think of another game that had a twist or a turn. I can't imagine that we'll be talking about any of these games for long into the future.

I've befriended a travelling band of two Americans and two Austrians. On sunday evenings, the whole of South America is typically dead. Bars, restaurants and clubs are often shut. We're invited, by a local, to a bar where a movie is showing with a bring your own booze policy.

After ''Super Bad'' and a bottle of rum, it's almost midnight and we're back on the beach. Somewhere in town we can hear the sound of drums, which we follow to a street corner. There's a crowd of about thirty people in a circle, singing and dancing around a couple of guys playing bongos and a snare drum. Half of the crowd are generic young tourists. The other half are wearing loose clothing and have long dread locked hair. I've not had quite enough to drink to sing a dance on the street.

After twenty minutes of trying get into it, and feigning having gotten into it. I come to the conclusion that my place in this world is not with these dirty smelly hippies and dirty smelly hippy wannabes. I might not work in a bank, but this is stupid nonsense is way, way out of my ball park.