Mexico City Part 2: Navidad

He looked like the man from The Human Centipede. The first film. So I had to draw him (see below). Obviously the drawing has a weird twist and he didn't look this scary. No, he was a sweet, friendly, centipede and always well dressed. One of my favourite moments was when we were going out for street food with Dale Don Dale and him and Alison turned to me and exclaimed, "Angel is wearing a SUIT" So us, in our trainers looking like shit, a suited centipede and a dolled up Dale don dale (She's actually a beautiful 25yr old Mexican) went out for tacos. We arrived at a very nice restaurant and then realised it wasn't street food we were going out for. Oh. Fine. Suit allowed.

Over dinner we decided to ask Nallely and Angel if they could please explain about the EYE, GUTS and HEAD tacos that are available. Yes, Nallely said, it's normal. She then started saying about when she was in Morocco she ate sheep's brain. Alison was like "HAHA DID YOU TAKE YOUR TACOS WITH YOU AND MAKE IT INTO A BRAIN TACO HAHAHA" - they luckily appreciated the stereotyping and we all had a giggle.

At the restaurant, Alison was cold, as always, and her arm hair was standing up on end. Due to her 4 months of Caribbean travel it has been bleached by the sun and it's fluffy, like a caterpillar, which our Mexican hosts couldn't resist pointing out so we were talking about caterpillars and centipedes came up because the words are similar. Sigh. Why does the jokes god do this to us? Trying to not laugh whilst having dinner in the presence of the centipede. Then we were talking about why you get scorpions in the bottles of mezcal* and then she started telling us a story about when she got stung by a centipede that she had thought was a scorpion but she didn't know the word in English for 'sting' so she kept saying 'PUNCHED'. "So I looked on my arm and the centipede had punched me and I had to rush to hospital in the car with my father and I was crying about the punch and the doctors and nurses were trying to fix the punch because if a centipede punch you it can be very bad" lol punched ya, did it? Caught a right hook to the cheek, did ya?

We were loving living there, using the gym - trying our best not to be fat shits. Knackered after one rep. One day I went out to meet an old friend and we ended up sat in a square drinking beers in a square called Plaza Garibaldi and listening to the many Mexican bands - Mariachis. They play at ALL hours of the day and night. So I could not believe my eyes when, no joke, at 4am about FIFTY instrument-wielding formally dressed, slick-backed-hair Mexican men, all together, started serenading a beautiful senorita, including dance moves, who just sat there like 'Yep, cheers guys'. And then the bunches of roses started. A MOUNTAIN of roses appeared in front of her. I was given a bunch of roses (thankfully, or else I would have demanded to speak to a manager) and decided to freak the shit out of an Australian by telling him I was a witch and eating an entire rose head before his very eyes to his complete disbelief. Also he was the only one who saw me do it and I timed it so that his friends didn't believe him each time he tried to claim what has happening to them. "Guys! Guys! Look!" They look... and my mouth is closed and my expression remains neutral... but as soon as they had given up looking and only his gaze was fixed upon the spell unfolding, the petals were ravenously chewed and an open mouth showing a red petal mush was freakishly displayed at which he put his hands on his head and probably checked his drunk levels. Wua ha ha ha ha. That night we met a lovely guy called Libre who is an artist and I connected him to Alison.

A couple of days later we met up with Libre and his friends (one of whom also looks like a centipede) and we drank some mezcal and tequila with him and went back to his art studio/flat. In the flat were two cats which when you stroke them your hands get covered in black filth because of how smoggy this city is and a large black dog, which was his actual colour - he wasn't a smog dog. The dog kept jumping up at me. I was like "Awww, he wants to hug!" and I put his arms around me and gave him a full hug. They were like 'No, he is a very "hot dog" as in he wants to fuck. But I checked and his lipstick wasn't out. Soon after, we realised he was BORN TO DANCE. Yes, Alison wanted to hug him and he put his front paws around her waist and they danced the salsa together for a while. At one point he had his paw on her bum and even tried to go in for the kiss. Quite the mover. A strong contending pair for Strictly. The next time they saw each other however it was awkward and they couldn't make eye contact. A shameful night of dance passion never to be spoken of again.

We left the party and went home via Oxxo to get food. We got some pizzas but we couldn't work the microwave OR the oven to save our lives so, naturally, we FRIED the pizzas, Alison claiming she "does it all the time" (Who even are you?) and went to bed.

Alison was completely bed ridden the next day with hangover so it was my turn to be Jeeves. I concocted her our usual daily homecooked meal of fried eggs and plantain. We love this meal because  the egg yolk and oil that its fried in makes the plate into a yellow slime trough when you're done. I washed the slime trough like a good Jeeves and put some washing on. ALL the washing machines here have a song. They sing a full tune when they are finished. It's like SHUDDUP with your music just open the door already. They also shrink the clothes so one of Alison's beautiful jumpers she bought for 10p at the market got shrunk to the size of baby wear and then machine proudly sang it's song afterwards to announce the shrinking. Not now, Adele, alright? Put a sock in it. (Pun intended)

On the subject of music, another thing we love about this place is the hilarous English you find on t-shirts. They say things like "Call me a taxi!" Er, OK. But the best one is one that says: "Don't be sad... just Beyonce" lol

After a thousand (non-head) tacos we decided it was vegan day and ate vegetables but it was only after I had posted all over social media that I'm having a lovely vegan day where I'm eating veg fried in butter that my good friend Anoush pointed out that butter isn't vegan. Oh yeah. Later, Alison announced that one of her favourite sounds is the sound of the meat cleavers on chicken street hacking the carcases of the chickens up. Another time we decided to be vegans after watching a documentary and then got sushi within 12 hours - just completely forgot. So probably best to stop trying to be vegan.

The day before Christmas eve we decided it was time to go to the witches market. We put our best witches costumes on and walked for an hour to get there. On the way, we saw a sign for a road that is called JESUS MARIA but in my head it just reads as an angry person who's really annoyed with Maria who's actually just going "JESUS, Maria!"

We arrived at the market and it was instantly overwhelming as fuck. Just so much stuff everywhere. EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER WANT EVER. Beautiful coin purses, which I had my eye on, as I've mostly just been carrying my money round in an old Norwegian Airlines earphones pouch. Alison said she just resorted to just keeping her change in a plastic bag. Lol.  Potions and lotions and skulls and dried snakes hanging and splayed rats and weird nativity stuff and Santa Muerte statues and feathers and bones and crazy cucumbers and bags of abundance mix and packets of wood and then we saw the animal section. First there were puppies. Awww puppies! Cute at first but then I realised they were doped. They had to be. Many many puppies in tiny pens. NOT COOL AT ALL. Then we saw the rest of them. Chickens pressed up against the cages absolutely packed in, goats, sheep and pigs all in the same pens tightly packed in. Snakes, rats, mice, birds, parrots, cockerels, piglets, ahhhhh so overwhelming. "Quieres un animal amiga?" No, no thanks. I felt like Ross Kemp with a raised forehead vein and we got out of there, sharpish.

On Christmas eve, Alison went into the kitchen to Jeeves us a coffee and was met by a very unusual character. Standing at 6ft tall, adorned in a multicoloured poncho was a man. His head topped with a beanie balanced at the bottom of the face by a thick, bushy beard and in between both resided a large nose pierced with a bull's ring, atop of which sunglasses sat. Santa!? You've...changed.  Alison said he looked like 'Boris the animal from Men in Black' Alison believed him to be another Air Bnb guest and started making pleasantries but was swiftly cut short when he chimed in wanting answers about who the FUCK we were and what the FUCK we were doing in HIS FLAT. Que weird Christmas episode of Eastenders (GEDDOUDAMYPUB!) Yes, it turns out Dale Don Dale was subletting her flat without her landlord knowing and he had to GEDDOUT on Christmas eve. SLING YA HOOK!

So we mostly spent all day finding new accommodation, drinking tequila and soda water that squirts LIKE A JET out of this really cool pressurised soda bottle with a lever ...and packing, like snails. We decided to leave a biro drawing of the owner, who was due to come back the next day, on the kitchen table just to freak him out/as a lovely Christmas gift. And we also left the poetry book in the fridge next to an egg and some orange to maximise our trail of surrealism. For Christmas eve we trailed the streets which were all closed except for a clown doing a show on a soapbox. The MILLISECOND I got my phone out to snap a pic, he caught me and the entire crowd turned to look at us and he tried to get a convo with us going. Now, this is clown number 5 or so and an on a scale of one to clown, clown being 10, Mexico city is an 11.

Smiling, we ducked away and eventually found a restaurant serving a cold buffet of peeled tuna cucumber mix, pasta, beans, mystery meats, wet slops and other slimes for us to fill our gullets. They had sombreros for people to wear though, so we did the tourist thing and ate our weird Christmas eve dinner wearing a heavy hat.

We returned to our hotel room to drink tequila, eat a DELICIOUS WHEEL of LOVELY MANCHEGO cheese we stole from the Air Bnb as compensation (She wouldn't have been home til' the 8th...it would have gone off...right?) and then welcomed Christmas in by drinking loads of beers in bed and listening to house music periodically popping down to reception to buy more beers. At one point I was embraced by the Receptionist with "Err, excuse me, the guys in the room next door to you have complained that your music** is too loud"....but when faced with my firm (festive) stare, "OH IT IS, IS IT?" he backtracked and scratched his head and said "But, I mean, when I came upstairs I couldn't hear anything haha and you are welcome to come down here and keep me company anyway haha" GOOD AND STAY OUT. SLAMS DOOR.

We had two hours sleep, rose at 9am to get the "free breakfast" and ventured still drunk into the feeding hall where a million despising eyes pierced our heads. THE CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST WAS JELLY AND BREAD. So we swiftly filled a cup of coffee, returned to the rooms, added a shot of tequila to it and then had the horrendous ordeal of FUCKING PACKING AGAIN UGHHHHHHH but it was fine because it was Christmas and we had a lovely Uber ride to our new gaff. We were greeted by the lovely Gabby (for real) and Alex, our hosts, who met us with an apologetic smile and told us our room would be ready soon. It's fine can we just fry some Merry Christmas bacon please? (still vegans) so that we did and then we were given a lovely apartment upstairs on the 4th floor.

Alison hung herself from the gallows and then we popped our Xmas hats on, prised our eyes open and  ventured out to find ourselves a delicious "Merry Christmas Harry! Merry Christmas Ron!" Christmas dinner. BUT ALL THE STREETS WERE DESOLATE. It was like 28 days later, Mexico City style.
Apart from the petrol station which was pumping out bangers (Note to selves, return later if nothing else is going on) As luck would have it, we stumbled across everything our hearts could ever want, a sushi restaurant which sold elusive 'lovely bebidas' - by that I mean, not beer and not tequila and not the fucking oil.

Bebida after bebida was flowing. We're talking passion fruit daiquiris, martinis and everything the heart could desire complete with an late 90's/ early 00s playlist - hits such as "Tubthumping" by Chubawamba which, as you'll remember, includes the lyrics "I get knocked down" which was tellingly apt as during our 4th bebida or so, just after we had realised the catering staff were all centipedes and a lovely table of Mexican geezers had sat down at the table next to us to also have their lovely Christmas dinner, A BOOMING, SONOROUS alarm sounded.

A quick glance at the faces of the geezers' next to us told us it wasn't to be ignored. White sheets. The centipede kitchen staff hurriedly scurried out of the kitchen and beckoned us to follow. Everyone was flooding into the streets. Our initial thoughts were: Alison: We need to get into the street so Narcos can shoot us. Me: It's a lovely parade and we are all invited into the street to watch. The word 'Terramoto' was ushered a few times and then the fear it us. Alison tenderly clutched my arm, the first touch we have both had with each other in ten years. We were about to get knocked down! We were quietly gutted that the sunken bebidas weren't cushioning the fear at all (Refund please!) but a few minutes later after a few reassuring legs on our shoulders and kind smiles by the centipedes, it was back to lunch! Nothing to see here.

HI WE ARE ENGLISH GIRLS AND WE ARE EXTREMELY TRAUMATISED BECAUSE WE JUST HEARD THE EARTHQUAKE ALARM AND ITS CHRISTMAS AND THATS NOT OK FOR US

We had some lovely sushi, had a few more for the road and then ventured back to our abode, almost popping into the petrol station out of curiousity. I, of course, got Alison a bottle of oil for Christmas, so naturally, we got that out and started drinking it on our rooftop and that's when we met Andrew.

Andrew is a treat. A hilarious little babe who had us at 'hello'. Living in his little roof shed on the roof he had simply ventured out to go to his bathroom but had discovered us dragons on the way who insisted his plans and hissed at him until he poured us a prosecco. We got talking about life itself and then suddenly he had ordered delicious taco Uber eats (YES MEXICO!) and then it was bedtime.

You know when you've gone to bed pissed and you wake up and it's the middle of the night and all you want more than anything is a glass of water and so you look to your left and you're actually still quite fucked so in your blurry eyed haze you see a bottle of water, or what looks like water, and it's weird that 's got a spray top, but not that weird 'cos everything is weird here 'cos it's Mexico so it's a water with a spray top so naturally you just pick it up and without thinking just open your mouth and SPRAY IT IN YOUR MOUTH and then INSTANTLY REALISE it's the DRY OIL by Avon called "So soft" that your sister in law suggested you buy to take with you to cover your body in to avoid mosquito bites and now you've COVERED YOUR TONGUE IN DRY FUCKING OIL FOR FUCK'S SAKE AND ITS HORRENDOUS AND THERE'S NO WAY TO WASH IT OUT COS YOU CANT DRINK THE TAP WATER AND ALISON'S ASLEEP OR PRETENDING TO BE COS IN HER HEAD SHES LIKE SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU MAD WOMAN WITH YOUR MAD SPRAYING OF OIL INTO YOUR FUCKING MOUTH AT 3AM WHAT THE FUCK. So I had to wipe my tongue with a towel and then go and eat a piece of melon to take the taste away. Sigh.

Anyway back to bed for more winks that can't be had. The anxiety slurs in a Robert Kilroy Silk voice: "You're on the 4th floor, drunk, wearing just a t-shirt and pants, and you think you'll hear the earthquake alarm? And evacuate in time?"

So when we woke up alive on Boxing Day we listened to Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin' Stevens to celebrate.



*If you get stunk by a scorpion you need to put alcohol on the sting immediately
**Theo Kottis - It wasn't meant to be if you're interested

Mexico City Part 1

I flew into Mexico city insanely hungover as I had been to Disneyland the night before and got completely wasted at a corporate party with a lechy Indian who wanted me to be the surrogate mother for his baby and sign off all rights for the child in exchange for a US visa. Thanks but no thanks. I departed Huntington Beach, California at 3am in an Uber driven by an extremely handsome black man with whom I spoke about the fundamentals of life - live in the moment, have gratitude and be compassionate. He said he has a cousin in prison and he’s trying to help him to think like this and it was a really nice chat for the hour that I was actually planning on sleeping through (Ok, fine, you win). He dropped me off at the wrong terminal (my fault) so I had to tiredly trudge for about 10 minutes to get to the right one.  I checked in using the machine and then failed to pick up my ticket for my bag so when I went to the bag drop off they were like 'No you haven’t got any bags on your reservation' and I was like 'YES I haaaavveeeugh because I’ve just checked it in with the machine over thererrrugh' and she was like ‘Well the machine would have given you a ticket and sometimes, ma’am, you just have to pay extra to have bags’and I was like ‘Well, no, it’s not a case of me paying extra for bags because I’ve ALREADY checked in my bags, LOVE, help me out’

I went back to the original machine and the ladies there helped me out and found my bag ticket on the floor and it was all fine and I went through security and into departures expecting to have a lovely browse of duty free but everything was closed. So I waited and waited and waited because I had got to the airport super early because I was so worried that because of my fuckedness I would miss the plane. FINALLY at 6am a bar was open. The hilarity of airports: only in an airport can you have an alcoholic drink at 6am and not be judged. Trying to make the choice of ‘what drink do I want?’ at 6am was tough because I was so tired and so not up for drinking however I am still not completely cool flying sober that I just had to have a drink so I plonked myself at the bar and ordered a pint of Santa Monica.


A few minutes into the pint, a lady came up to the bar next to me. She was of similar age and she also ordered a pint. As we were the only ones in the extremely brightly lit bar both having pints at silly o’clock I gave her a nod, a smile and raised my glass for an air-cheers to which she responded positively. She also ordered a shot of Jameson’s so I thought 'fuck it, I can match that, good call! 'And ordered a Makers’ Mark (the best whiskey ever) and I asked her where she was flying to. We got talking and it turns out she once shaved her head and moved to Spain to teach English. Cool, loads in common. I got her contact details and finished her pint when she ran off to catch her plane (In the words of Alan Patridge: "Cashback!") I love the synchronicity of that. I was then adequately fucked for the flight and glided onto the plane and had a whale of a time listening to my Annie Mac playlist dancing in my seat.


Of course when I landed I was EL PARCHIDO. Yes. The flight always dehydrates you doesn’t it. Especially if you’re a drunken wreck to begin with. OK time to navigate the most densely populated city in the Western Hemisphere, hanging, parched and in another language. I got a licensed taxi which came in the form of a MASSIVE TRUCK and I gave the driver the address. He didn’t bloody know where it was did he? Fine. He asked if I had a map. Nope! So with my sat nav which wasn’t connected to the Internet and our combined Spanglish he got me to my hotel and I collapsed into the white sheets already in love with the altitude (it fucks your appetite; great diet).


After four days of solace in my hotel room gasping for air, where I only really visited the outside world in short, sharp bursts due to the ABSOLUTE MADNESS of the city: the dry heat, altitude, no air, 20 million people, mostly men who catcall and call you 'Guera' (which means white skin) every five seconds and a language barrier, Alison arrived.


I had previously asked her if she was up for a couple of days of ‘rehab’ at the hotel, which means staying in, talking about stuff like whether or not we have already inhabited all the planets and earth is the final test for humans, not drinking alcohol and reading our books before bed followed by a great skincare routine, to which she had replied “Does the pope shit in the woods?” Great. Cool. Can't wait.


However on arrival, we both kinda felt like having a cheeky bebida and so we went and had a few mezcal shots and a lovely wine fizz before heading to a corner shop, Oxxo, to actually purchase a bottle of something to then bring home to bed and catch up.


In the shop however, when we requested tequila, the shop wench, who we have named “Gabby”, said the only tequila they had was this fucking weird bottle of what looked like sunflower oil. Everything must be weird here so naturally we bought it. She was like “be careful, very strong!” and pointed to the percentage (24%) at which we scoffed, reminded her we were Soy De Inglaterra and also purchased a few cans of Jack Daniels mixed with soda water and a couple of cans of “Paris by night” purely for the comedic value of the name. She bid us a good evening with a hearty chuckle and we giggled all the way back to the hotel because the shop experience was hilarious after spotting goods such as a lolly which looked like it was made from Wotsits but with a clowns face (OK THEN) and a chocolate bar called “Carlos V”.


Paris by night turned out to be this fucking rank energy drink shit and after the Jack Daniels’ were finished, we slurped the oil in bed before energetically venturing out into the streets (ignoring all prior warnings of not to go out in this area at night) We stopped next to an empty car park (lovely!) and met a pair of Mexican boys who had a dog. Alison chatted shit to them in Spanish and I sat on the pavement and cuddled the dog which was like a massive muscley boxer type dog who just kept trying to push me over.


I woke up covered in dog hair and feeling incredibly fantastic! (Yes! Got away with it!) Unbelievable Jeff! And had another shot of ‘the oil’ for good measure.


We got up and went to ‘Mercado Gerardo’ as it was now called because during my 4 days of solace one of my ventures to the outside world involved me going for dinner at the nearby market (San Juan). This is a market which, by the way, has an extensive porn selection. I had to smile to myself as I watched an old man perusing the plastic wrapped porn DVDs, picking up one which had a very graphic image on the front of cum squirting out of an arsehole and reading the back as if it was a Stephen King novel. I would love to know what was written on the back. Like who does the marketing and cover design for backstreet porn producers? What do they write? What is the USP? Also, in my opinion, spoiler alert having that image on the front! Surely save that for the actual film and put something a little more teasy on the front? Maybe that isn’t the highlight of the movie. Maybe that’s NOTHING and there’s way more obscene shit to come (pun intended). Or, maybe it’s just 90 minutes of cum squirting out of arseholes so that was the only appropriate image to put on the front anyway.


So I was at the market having dinner and a very kind Mexican waiter, Gerardo, took care of me and said if need any help etc. he would be the man. So I was super excited for him to meet my Amiga de Inglaterra having told him about her. We were also super excited to have breakfast there and sample the delicious foods.


However, on arrival it was a different story because the oil hangover had decided to hit me like a fucking train. We ordered some eggs in a green sauce with a tortilla because every meal here is a tortilla or taco in a different form. You know, burrito = closed taco. Taco = basically an open burrito. Quesdilla = basically a folded up taco. Chilalques = taco cut into triangles and fried with stuff on. Costra = cheese pretending to be a taco. Torta = big sandwich. So the wet egg meal was like tortillas covered in spicy green wet with scrambled egg on top. It was lovely to see Gerardo, don’t get me wrong, but when Alison was telling him about the oil and he was saying oh god dont drink that shit it will make you go blind, I could feel the vomit rising in my throat. I took myself to the banos, which required walking past all the food stalls frying all kinds of weird meats and all the men hollering and got to the bright pink toilets which are designed for small people aren’t they because everyone in Mexico is like 4 foot tall. So I was there all dressed in black with my sunglasses on like a tall FBI agent, bending over, dry-wretching and then returning to standing but as the toilet stalls only come to shoulder height, for anyone watching it would have been like an agent’s head popping up over the pink toilet walls, disappearing down to dry heave and then rising again looking worse and worse each time. Oh lol.


I gave up on the fruitless puking and returned to breakfast. Gerardo happily chirped on asking us questions about our plans for today but in my head i just wanted to be like “I’m going to have to stop you there, Gerardo, mate, because every time you talk, I feel sick” So we promptly asked for la cuenta and made a dash back to the hotel to get into the bed and die.

Later in the afternoon we decided to pop back to Oxxo to treat Gabby to a debrief of the night and the satisfaction of 'You were right, Gabby, babes' and she welcomed us with a lot of lols. It was a right leg slapper. Friends for life.

A few hours later we had to move to another hotel. Hotel Isabel. We got an Uber because we were hanging and paranoid, even thought it was only a 7 minute walk. The Uber took longer because there’s so much traffic here it’s like stop START stop START stop so then it was Alison’s turn to feel sick. We got dropped off and we were like OK, so it’s here soooomewheeeere. We dumped our bags on the street and Alison went into a pharmacy to ask if they knew were the hotel was and they pointed straight in front of us to the MASSIVE sign that said Hotel Isabel. Oh we are wonderfully cretinous at times.


We were welcomed into what was basically Arundel Castle. A massive old hotel with an enormous room for us so spread all our stuff over and a balcony overlooking a pumping street with some sound system playing banger after banger, which was nice.

Every shop must compete in playing the loudest music with a huge sound system on the street so add that into the general hecticness of the city too.


We noticed that all the streets here have a theme of what's for sale. You can go down music street: all musical instrument shops. Or sink street: all selling sinks. Or chicken street: all hacking up chicken carcases. Or light switch street, tap street, phone case street, Christmas street, medical street, you get the picture. You can also get anything you want from the street - need socks? Fine. How about a magnifying glass? No problem. Biro? Got it. Actually there is a stall at the market that just sells clocks and it’s hilarious that the clock vendor just has to stand there and listen to the alarms all going off at different times each day haha.


On Isabel street there was a lovely coffee shop. Every shop must come with a brightly painted ceramic piggy bank with a PINGING expression (like it's the one drinking all the coffee for sale) on the counter and when we were waiting for our coffee I could have sworn the pig blinked.


We ventured out at night in search of a cheesy snack but alas the only cheesy snack we could find was a fried cheesy log from Seven Eleven which satisfied Alison but then I was hungry and in search of a taco (I'd only been in Mexico four days so by then was still into the novelty of tacos, it's a different story now) and when looking at the board to see the meat options on a tacqueria, we noticed there was Ojo - which in Spanish, is eye. Eye tacos. EYE TACOS? WHAT? Oh what's that underneath? HEAD. HEAD TACOS. What the fuck. OK it's fine no I'll just have straight up meat shaved off the turning doner kebab meat carousel please, at least it's not offal.


During one of our visits to Mercado Gerardo when the puke wasn't rising in our throats, I decided to seek out some Chiccharon, being a foodie and all that. And so we asked friendly super helpful G to direct us to some in the market. He ushered me to a butcher at the back of the market and spoke to him in Spanish. He told me twenty pesos, OK? I said sure yes great (That's like 80p) and was handed A MASSIVE transparent plastic bag of CRISPY PIG BACK. So then I had to walk around a lovely area all day carrying this massive 'bag-o-back' periodically breaking bits of back off for a lovey backy snack. Mmm back snack. We finished the bag, shamefully, and made a note to selves that we would be vegan in the forthcoming days...


We checked out of Isabel and made our way to our hostel where we were going to spend 4 weeks working in exchange for accommodation. On arrival they showed us the staff dorm and it was a stinking weed pit covered in filth and super hungover people sleeping in a stench behind towels in their bunk beds. We’ve been in hostels in different countries. We’ve worked in them too. Lots of them and this was far worse than any we had seen before. Especially after we had been in our lovely spacious castle we were not prepared to enter into this pit of despair. Where the hell would we have made our shrines?


We pondered it all day and traipsed the area wondering how to tell the owner that it was A SHIT DEAL so eventually we booked ourselves an air bnb around the corner. We went back, Alison did the deed of telling him we were leaving (thank you again) and we got in an Uber to our first Air bnb.


Rosa her name was. Good reviews she had. Pretty sure we chose her because one of the reviews said “I often felt like I lived alone” and at that we were sold. Yes we are super compassionate people but we also DON’T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE WE JUST WANT TO GET INTO THE BED AND DISCUSS EXISTENTIALISM AND HAVE EINSTEIN HAIR AND BE MAD.


On arrival it was all good. We were so excited to just get to use a kitchen and cook ourselves some eggs and spinach. The gaff was like a Mexican council house, you know, spacious, baron and cold but with lots of posh looking furniture that was blatantly bought on credit. We cooked our dinner and sat at the table to eat and then she emerged. In Spanish to Alison, “How long have you been in Mexico? Where did you buy those eggs? Does your friend speak Spanish? Alright Rosa, what is this? Who wants to be a millionaire? You're not Chris Tarrant. What kind of coherence is that anyway. Do you want egg shop recommendations?


Then we noticed the house rules sellotaped onto a glass chest of drawers in the living room. These were great. They included:

“Do not harness the house doors” “No meetings” and “Silence after midnight” lol who’s been having meetings that have pissed you off so much it’s now a main rule? And if you ask me, all doors must be harnessed. No Problem. Who knows what they are capable of. Pass me the reins.


We slept and then made our way to our new Air bnb. A lovely girl called Nallely (or Dale don dale for jokes) we were sucked in to the advert as it had a gym in the building, free to use, plus doormen, a great water feature (which we at first thought was a pool) and was very modern and lovely and central AND cheap! So we booked it for loads of nights.


It was there we met the first centipede...

and finally, Cusco to London

On my last day in Cusco, having said goodbye to Kerri the day before as she was off to Arequipa with Jake and Sonia, I felt ready. Ready, but at the same time really not ready at all and left everything to the last minute as I had no 'Directional Dennis' by my side to organize and supervise the departure although she had advised me on how to get to Lima and how early to be at the airport and bus terminal etc. but Bryn's supporting 'you ain't getting home' when I was trying to  work out which terminal my flight was from was motivation to prove him wrong.

So Bryn, Pete and I went out for a final lunch at the restaurant we had frequented every day  in Cusco, a place called 'Jack's' and had a leisurely walk back, catching a few final 'llama lols' and getting the same massage offers by the same women standing outside the same shops we'd had all week. I paid my hostel tab, which was 700 pesos, which probably worked out at 30% accommodation and 70% baby Guinesses (would you say one baby Guiness and two baby 'Guini'?) packed-up the bag for the penultimate time, happily leaving the lotita trainers which I bought in Salta, in the locker.

Saying goodbye to Kerri was really strange. It didn't feel right and didn't feel real. It was emotional but I experienced a delayed reaction and it didn't hit me until I was on my way to Lima. As the bus journey was 22 hours long and I was going alone, I decided to go with the best company, Cruz del Sur, and wasn't dissapointed. We had personal movie screens, power sockets, pillows, blankets, Wifi and a really comfortable seat. I say 'we', I was actually alone and  it was like a break-up! having spent all day everyday with someone for the last 4 months and then suddenly they were gone! I watched 'The perks of being a wallflower' (the film in which Hermione from Harry Potter has cut all her hair off and lost the wand) and it set me off crying like a baby but I had to hide it from the other passengers because I didn't want anyone to ask if I was ok, in Spanish, and have to be all like 'yeah, sob' and them put a hand on my shoulder and then spend the next 20 hours embarrassed. No, I preferred to hold the free blanket up to shield the side of my face while the other side cried out the window at the absolutely breathtaking epic-but-shit-scary scenery. We were driving along a very narrow road, cut out the side of the mountain with a sheer drop onto rocks and jungle below and so high up that the clouds were sweating on us.The Wifi miraculously worked so Kendrick and I were in contact.

They fed us coach food, which although was shit, was long awaited and gladly received as I was starving because I didn't eat anything before the journey (poor organization) and had only brought a mere TWO APPLES, thinking they would be enough for 22 hours, unprepared to be burning loads of energy squirting out tears. So when we stopped who knows where at a random service station, I bought some comforting homely chocolate milk and chocolate raisins :)

In Bolivia I bought a load of souvenirs for family and friends and so my bag was heavy as fuck again.When we finally docked in Lima at the coach station I was a tired, grumpy, hungry, dirty weakling and also very wary of robbers and false taxis, as I had heard stories about Lima and upon meeting my good friend Liam's Peruvian housemate a couple of years ago, had been told not to arrive in Lima without a native or else I would be severely ripped off. Shit the bed.

So I eyed up the taxi rank with contempt and suspicion and showed them my scrappy handwritten address whilst trying to fake a confident, 'don't-fuck-with-me' demeanor. The taxi man nodded and led me to an unmarked car. AN UNMARKED CAR. What could I say? 'excuse me, is this actually a taxi? or are you going to kidnap me?' not really. I got in and there was also no seatbelt and I had no idea how much money it would cost or how long it was going to take as I didn't do my research - Ken would have had all this copied out of the guidebook, so just hoped for the best and was kindly dropped off safely at my hostel, what seemed like an eternity later (probably 10 minutes). Upon arrival at the very nice hostel where I had booked myself a private double room because I deserved it because I was a precious princess that had been through hell (first world problems) I had to wait 2 hours until my room was ready. When you can do durations like 22 and 28 hour journeys, an extra 2 hours is nothing.

I had the BEST shower ever and collapsed on my amazing double bed, in my private room, alone. I had visions of making the most of the day and checking out the nearby beach, possibly even going surfing, followed by getting a massage and a haircut close by. Oh we can dream. In reality I couldn't be fucked to get off the bed until about 5pm when hunger had got the better of me. I went out and found a Sushi restaurant. 'Ermm una mesaaa para uno por favor' and enjoyed some amazing sushi and a Pisco sour, which got me extremely drunk for just one drink, causing me to develop 'the fear' and return immediately to the safety of my hotel room.

In the morning, I ventured into the nearby shopping area to seek cheap beauty treatments, in the hope of returning home a glowing, radiant, relaxed travelled beautiful singing mermaid, not the bitten, burnt, dishevelled, tired alternative. I managed to get myself a very interesting massage and some new eyebrows as a result of my still-lacking Spanish haha! I had a quick wander down to the beach which had some surfers in the water and some of the sand looked black from the distance I was at - but still spectacular. I instantly resolved to tell Kerri of this place for her impending visit to Lima. Maybe she could give surfing another go...

Freshly plucked and relaxed, the fat guy who had been hanging around reception turned out to be my transfer driver and we set off into the rush hour traffic to the airport. Stuck at lights, a street urchin emerged at the window of the car in front of us selling ice creams and water and then to our car, where my driver snapped up an ice lolly. He offered me a lick, to which I kindly refused, and we made it to the airport on time with the power of the ice-cold refreshment behind the wheel.

Lima has only one terminal so I was really chill about the whole departure gates thing and casually cruised over to the correct area. It was only after mooching in the shops for ages when I realised that it was the time the clerk had told me to be at my gate and I still hadn't even seen customs. Customs took AGES! Beads of sweat fell from my furrowed brow as the anticipation of missing the flight heightened. Hand luggage scan done, I went to passport control. She checked my passport and then instructed me to join the other queue at the other kiosk. Worried, I went over and she inspected my passport for ages. I've fucked it, I've only bloody gone and not got my entry stamp done properly I was thinking but after what seemed like forever in an instant, I was through, on the plane and En route to London.

Aboard the tiny plane in a window seat sat next to an Italian couple I was a Tarantula in an eggcup. All my limbs were too big and didn't fit in any comfortable way. TEST. Every time the plane rattled a bit, the woman from the Italian couple would flinch and make a scared whine and cuddle her boyfriend. PUSSSSSIO!

I stuck on 'GRAVITY', a movie about a spacecraft that fucks up and smashes to pieces in space where loads of people die and others get stranded in space. Highly insensitive of me but amusing to say the least. Just doing her a favour anyway, SHE NEEDS TO FACE HER FEAR!

12 hours later, we landed in Paris and it was cold and there were police and it was Euros and I was able to construct my tired face into the face of Chanel thanks to the delicious departure lounge and emerged smelling exquisite with bagfuls of duty free.

The one hour flight to London went super fast and I simply drank wine, like a chic Parisiene/Proper English bird/Travelling wastegirl, and wondered what England would be saying, who would be at the airport awaiting my return? I pictured old friends, holding signs, family, the boy I had been talking to everyday....

...and OH what a stark reality. Heathrow terminal 5 arrivals was a sea of dark-clothed, sour-faced impatient-looking people, face after face remained unrecognisable. There was nobody there for me. England took my fairy-tale adventure, screwed it up into a ball and threw it at my face whilst saying 'Get real kid'. It's funny how the return to London matched the initial departure to New York - unexpected, emotional and very unsettling....

...and to be unsettled is to be open to adventure :)

Brazil - you have my heart
California - you have my soul

Machu Picchu

I apologize (to who?) for the lateness of this last post. I am now at home and everything is crazy (it's crazy, guys)

So we decided once in Cusco to crack on with booking our Machu Picchu tour as we know it may sell out and we wouldn't want to be caught short of the ultimate landmark in the whole continent. The "jewel" of South America. And a jewel it was, a bloody diamond by the price of it! Yes, an 'arm and a leg' later we were booked on a tour next day and were to be picked up at 4am. Passports, water and snacks, but not too many as they may get taken off us on entry.

Then we were given a t-shirt, now this is tragic - it's not like we are mad souvenir t-shirt collectors but one claiming that we had actually been there and seen this amazing landmark, a receipt, if you like, was given to us along with our ticket. We saw it and thought 'great, yeah, ladies fit, good colour, black, yep, there's the picture of MP...' and then bang, right accross the front in red lettering,

"I WOZ THERE"

Kill me now. Straight in the bin. Fuck sake. Why go to the effort to spell it like that?!

So we got picked up at 4am, our eyes  bleeding from tiredness. Of course, Organized Dennis was ready by the door at 3.45am. 

I donned my Lotitas, the trusty (but gay as fuck) hi top trainers I bought from Argentina, for one last cultural outing (sensible footwear was recommended) and we set off.

We sat in the front of a minivan and drove through the empty streets of Cusco, the driver pointing out nightclubs emptying the local wronguns heading to the Peruvian version of KFC, a woman on the corner selling chicken on a stick with a potato on the end and as we got out of town we started falling asleep. It was only when the music suddenly changed from soothing Peruvian folk music to Bangarang by Skrillex that we appreciated just how surreal the situation was panning out to be and at the same time how diverse the driver's music taste was, the dark 'orse. But there's nothing like a bit of commercial dub step at 4.30am on a Peruvian back street driving deep into the pitch-black, winding mountainous roads, with a van full of sleeping Asians to get you in the mood for a day out, is there?!

We arrived at the train station at 5.30am in time for the nicest train in the world with ceiling windows and the best bathrooms to chug us on our way. We were seated and, shortly after, the Peruvian David Walliams pranced down the carriage with coffee and treats for all. We slurped the coffee and tried to force-feed ourselves the massive bag of dried fruit and nuts we had bought from the market because we knew food was going to be expensive and we had that parent mentality of "we had better eat these because we've paid for them" in our heads. Sigh. I never want to actually be that person.

 

100 Brazil nuts later, the train docked and an army of Japanese grandparents got to their feet, grabbed their hiking sticks and diaembarked to do the inka trail. They must have had an octopus each for breakfast and had less wrinkles than Kerri and me combined. 

A character from mortal kombat collected us to get our Machu Picchu ticket and transferred us into safe hands with mr "don't worry be happy", our tour guide. Yes that was his genuine advice when we expressed our concerns over some of the slightly less courteous members of the public. 

We had to queue to get on a bus and there was a gaggle of Israelis (still don't know the collective term) and they were acting like naughty foreign kids (our activity leader mode had been activated as they were not waiting in a single file line as they had been instructed to do so). A vein popped in our necks and we told them to WAIT NICELY. 

Again we were actually in the clouds. It's like someone's just put a stick up, with a hook on the end (a bit like a shepards hook or one you use to open a loft) and has pulled the clouds down really low.  Fear of heights officially eradicated, thank you very much.

Noble city of 400 people. 'Nuff history.

So we took loads of photos and then looked at some llamas and laughed then a woman was standing behind me and going "oh wow" and Kerri was laughing so I asked (in a slightly mocking tone) "What are you wowing at?", and she replied "there's a Llama charging down the  road behind you" so I moved, fast.

The tour was done by 10.45am giving us 8 hours til our train. It was raining hard so we decided a quick dash to the bus back would be a good option because the forecast was torrential rain, the road up was worse than the death road in terms of sheer drops, and there were lots of landslides and lots of tourists who would be wanting to go the same way. On the bus I curled up next to a Japanese grandma and was tired enough to have a quick dream about a boy with a bible asking me what to do. 

We got to the little town, Aguas Calientes, and had time (did I mention 8 hours) to have Trout ceviche with free pisco sours and then went into a reggae shack which had a full size snooker table with not enough balls for the home-made triangle, no real floor but ironically had rugs and carpets hanging on the wall for sale. Then the owner went out for a spiff then came in and cronked up the volume of the tunes which included "don't worry be happy". Haha! Explains everything. 

We finally got our train back which seemed to take forever, and at this point we were super super ruined after being up since 3.30am! Yeah another poorly organized tour (cheap tho!) and on the bus ride back, It was my turn to have a Chinese woman asleep on my shoulder in the van. I wonder if she had a dream. 

Copacabana to Cusco

From Copacabana we boarded a coach along with two other people, a gift of the gab (blatantly gay) guy from Essex with his Korean wife who does musical theatre in Korea. A funny couple. So the four of us, on the otherwise empty bus, headed towards the Peruvian border. The border crossing was easy again and within a few minutes of entering Peru we noticed the scenery was such a lush green colour. There were many different greens. Pine, mint, avocado you name it - a B&Q paint strip collectors heaven! As well as a truck containing a load of dead sheep strapped to the top in a pile.

We stopped in Puno to change buses and where our new friends told us they were scared of travelling after being held up and robbed at knife point in Buenos Aires. We told them not to be scared.

Our bus from Puno slowly made it's way in the rain through run down areas with half-finished abandoned building constructions. Then the bus stopped, a man ran into a garage, returned with a tyre and began changing a wheel just as the rain turned into a thunderstorm. Kerri's face was a picture, she hates storms and was already sketched out from the general nature of the bus.

Then three women got on the bus with their bright fabric bundles, came upstairs, unwrapped the bundle at the top of the stairwell to reveal brown paper and inside that the bloody carcass of an animal. She produced a meat cleaver and began hacking it to bits with theatrical butchering movements. At this, nobody really batted an eyelid, expect me who was staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the spectacle in disbelief and amazement.

She threw the bits into bags and added a potato or two and sold them to passengers, giving them a bit of toilet roll for their sticky fingers.

If you didn't fancy that, you could buy a WHEEL of cheese.

When the brightly coloured butchers had got off, the slightly hills-have-eyes man who loads the luggage into the bus came round to check our tickets. He had a piece of toilet roll stuffed up one nostril. When the tickets had been checked he stood at the top of the stairs and sang a song which had about four different words and then came round collecting money for his performance. We gave him some soles because he had stopped singing.

Then we looked behind us and there was a man who had a bag of animal horns so Ken got it into her head that he was going to murder us with the horns.

We finally got to Cusco about 10.30pm and by this point Ken was feeling really I'll and just wanted a nice quiet hostel so we checked into the Wild Rover, notorious Irish party hostel.

Kerri went to bed and I went to the bar to get a glass of milk as we had had no dinner, saw the boys at the bar wearing about 6 different hats between the two of them because it was Monday night crazy hat party, of course, and had a baby Guinness or ten instead. 

 

Isla del sol

From La Paz we took an organized transfer from our hostel at 7.30am (because hijackings are notorious on that stretch of road if you do it at night) on a bus which seemed to be continuously beeping it's horn and driving on the wrong side of the road. We arrived at Lake Titicaca three hours later and our bus had to get into a big rowing boat and cross separately to us. It was still carnival going on and there were people dancing in the streets in mad orange, silver and blue costumes with full face masks. There were stray dogs and cows, donkeys and sheep grazing at the side of the high mountain road on the way to Copacabana and the scenery was endless green.

We got to Copacabana and tried to get some food. We walked out of the first cafe because they told Kerri she couldn't stay seated in there if she wasn't eating (the guy was English, typical).

We walked out of the second place because the waiter came to apologise for  the long wait due to it being carnival, everyone being drunk and no one being at work. (Bolivian carnaval has lasted way longer than scheduled!)

We took the boat, starving, to Isla del Sol for one and a half hours. Kerri was sat by the window so she boiled alive in the sun while I fell asleep next to another Viking type guy (only Viking by sound, not appearance like Hercules)

When we arrived we had to climb about 5 sets of Inca steps (which are huge) up to the nearest hostel, at altitude, with a 30kg backpack on. We were greeted by a cross-faced four year old girl, a fat toothless Bolivian hat balancer and a donkey who said there was room at the inn. Thank Jeff for that because the other hostels were about 18 sets of inca steps up, at least.

The BHB fed us trout from the lake while the four year old asked for some of our coca cola and told me the bumble bee in the window was dead. I gave her my sun glasses to wear and she helped herself to more coke until the BHB came in and told her off for being rude. Then we played catch with a balloon. It's easy to talk to Spanish-speaking kids because our level is pretty similar! Then she wanted to play catch with a mirror and introduced the game by running in with a mirror and throwing it on the floor which we took as our queue to leave.

The island was so quiet, we loved the contrast after the craziness of La Paz. We climbed right to the top (3800 meters altitude) and spoke to some donkeys, pigs, llamas and more beautiful dogs. So serene. It was hard to keep remembering it was a lake because of it's  vastness. It was so good to be near water again.

We went to bed at 8.30pm. Yes, La Paz was that harsh.

The next morning we woke up to an incredible view of the lake and a cold shower and decided to walk up to the top to get breakfast but the altitude killed us as we hadn't eaten since 4pm the day before and, dunno if i mentioned it but, La Paz was harsh!

We spent the day exploring the island, walked past a BHB who had a herd of llamas, donkeys, pigs and sheep all running together in mutual agreement! The llama had run ahead but the rest were tightly packed together, their heads down, a collection of different heights, colors and noises no objection, like they do it everyday. It was too funny.

We went back to the mainland and tried to go out for dinner but walked out of two more restaurants for lack of service as everyone was still partying in the main square and not at work yet. We chose a place, sat on the sofas outside and ordered from the lanky waiter who looked like he belonged in England in the early hours after a rave.

While we were waiting a dog came and sat on the sofa next to me (hiya!) and our waiter tried selling coke to passers by. 

The food was whack and we ended up running inside with it because a massive dust storm was coming up the road towards us!

We went back to our hotel and actually listened to the carnival music, which sounded like a clown laughing and a load of organs being banged at both ends. 

Ear plugs in, we went to sleep. 

La Paz

Bryn says Israelis are like rats, in that you'll never be more than 5 meters from one. True dat in SA!

So La Paz was a bit of a blur. Our hostel had a bar and at that bar you would witness things that would make the old man from Father Ted cringe.

One particular man was wearing a Hello Kittie onesie and while I was innocently trying to charge my phone over breakfast one morning, asked me in a stench of booze, what part of Australia I was from. I laughed as someone had thought I was Israeli the night before. I would be Belgian the following night. This guy had been up all night and when asked if he had been to bed, replied that he didn't know. We saw him later that day, still pissed and stinking and AGAIN the next morning looking like DEATH but still drunk. That same morning we saw people ordering shots and ciders at 9.30am. That place made us feel like nuns. 

We walked, out of breath and hungover, to San Pedro prison and sat in the square looking at it and at the queue of women waiting to get in to see their men. We noticed the policemen and Ken pointed out their really old school guns hanging from their belts and decided those guns "are the ones that really hurt". Gold.

Then we went to the witches market. It took for ever to find because the map sucked and we were hungover and out of breath and our flip flops kept coming off. It had weird dried dead baby llamas hanging up and potions for every ailment including loads of Viagra to make you "like the bull". 

We tried to visit the coca museum but it was all Spanish text and for 30bs we are not that advanced so we came out again.

The Bolivian women wear bowler hats perched on top of their head but they are slightly too small so they have no purchase on the head by being wedged on as we would wear them, no, they are BALANCED. We spent many a minute staring at them trying to fathom the secret of how they stay on (Velcro?) but came to the conclusion that it's pure skill. We call them the Bolivian hat balancers (BHBs). They probably take their advanced BHB exam at the end of May. The guys get to wear baseball caps. The women are so softly spoken and gentle and mostly have no teeth.

Walking back from the witches market we saw a clean, white jaw bone on the floor in the street. Hopefully animal!

We went to the mad opening party of a new hostel which involved shoulder rides and dancing on the bar. 

Then we cycled death road. I did it on two hours sleep because all the red bull from the godforsaken blood bombs kept me up. The bikes had suuuper sensitive breaks (we paid for the best company, no fucking about) and we received many warnings about going over the handlebars. We bombed it down, prewarned about upcoming sections of road, called stuff like "collarbone alley" because it claims so many collarbones! 

We went to a monkey sanctuary at the bottom where 150 monkeys were roaming free and had a little zoology lesson which was lovely, but Kerri's legs got eaten alive by sand flies. 

On the way back up in the minivan, our guide told us that Klaus Barbie (Hans from inglorious bastards) moved to live on death road in hiding after murdering 6 thousand in WW2. He also told us about many of the fatalities and casualties - which was nice to be told about after rather than before and we then started noticing all the crosses and memorials by the side of the road. At it's peak the road claimed 300 lives a year, averaging one a day.

In conclusion, we concluded that La paz is a shit hole but a good shit hole.