No Work in 2007 (ish): Kite Surfing

Friday 28 March 2008

Kite Surfing

(Welcome to Bariloche, heart of the Argentine Lake District.

Reputedly, the home of awesome mountain biking and some amazing walking among the high Andean passes.

Truthfully, home of a lot of mountain bike shops who will tell you you cant ride off road and tourist information centres that tell you not to ride on the road cos it is just too dangerous. And home of some amazing walking, and you can use the ski lift to get to the top of the first day. And the sunsets aren´t bad

So, what to do....hmmm....

Well we checked into a guesthouse, really nice place, owned by an 86 year old who told us all about all the places we could go and gave us maps, whether we wanted them or not. Sweet old lady. met a nice couple called Chad and Danna in the hostel, who recommended Kite Boarding on the lake. real possibility there...

The land lady quickly turned insane. By the third day she had told everyone off because she couldn´t find one of the 4 cups. Chad was told off for using the heater in his room. Canadian bloke was told to leave the kitchen because he was only camping and had no right to use the cups.

On the 4th day, we were told we had to leave. We said we were staying for a week as planned, she said she didn´t know that and we had to leave. After some discussion we were given a reprieve until the 6th day. Though I was severely reprimanded for fixing the toilet. She asked why I had loosened the cistern cover. I said that the toilet had been continually flushing, so I´d fixed it. She told me no I hadn´t because it was fixed before I came, and not to do it again.

On the 5th day the Canadian was told he had to wait to use the shower until everyone who wasn´t camping was finished in there first. He was also ejected from the kitchen for using a cup again.

On the 5th day, I broke a glass. It was quickly hidden in a cardboard box, in a bag, in a box, in the bin. Nobody said a word, but there were days of questions over that glass. I also slammed the bathroom door, cos it needed it to shut it properly. The old lady was quickly braying on our door asking what was going on. She also took our wet clothes (been swimming in the lake) out of a bag we left on the floor and hung them on the line. She carefully returned them all dried out that night. She returned them to Donna mind you, but you´ve got to love a tryer. And trust me, she was trying.

On the 6th day we left, crossed her garden and moven into her sons hostel. Sadly 2 days later they had no space so we had to move back for 2 days. I booked in with the old woman and this time was given a key for the front door with the words... ´We´re locking the front door now, because the Canadian boy is not right in the head!´ I took the keys and ran, hoping to avoid her for 2 days. 20mins later she tracked down Chad and yelled at him because I had lied and was only staying for one night. This was news to both Chad and me. Another 20mins and she found me, demanded that I pay for 2 mights now, ´because you are a liar, I don´t trust anybody now.´

I was so glad to leave there.

Anyway, activities in Bariloche...

First we found a place that rented a tandem mountain bike. If you can´t ride off road, you might as well have a tandem. To we spent a day touring the local lakes and concluding that the roads are not dangerous, the tourist office have clearly never visited the UK and consequently have no idea what a busy dangerous road is. Top day, idiot tourist office.

Then we tried walking. We got the ski lift to the top of the mountain, walked around for 10 minutes and then concluded that we really weren´t ready for another multi day trek. Especially if we could just get the bus to the bottom each day and ride a ski lift up to get the view. It takes all the majesty out of it.

So Kite boarding had to be the solution then...

I have a 2.5sqm drag kite at home. In a decent wind, it can take me off my feet. So they gave me a 16sqm kite. I loved it. It´s really easy to control because its so slow. Right up to the point where you lose control. It then drags you three feet out of the water and after a brief ´superman´it deposits you head first back in the water. Having supermanned a few times the instructor told me to stop letting go of the kite. This was curious to me as the kite was totally out of control and was throwing me 20 feet at a time. But the instructor resolutely advised that so long as I wasn´t going to land on land, I should just hold on and the kite would eventually settle down.

This led to what I will term the inverse enema...

Kite takes off,

Phil takes off,

20 feet of superman style travel,

head first dive into the water,

3 foot drag through the water,

Inhale roughly 3 feet of water,

resurface, cough,

kite takes off....

you get the picture I guess.

Anyway the kite does eventually settle down and you can try to get up on a board again. Kites are a genious invention. As soon as I get too frightened to mountain bike, I´m buying a kite.

Vicky was having a whale of a time with the kite. The first day there were some nerves, Second day she almost enjoyed, third day you couldn´t get her out of the water and she even got stood up briefly.

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You've never Laughed until......

IS IT YOGHURT?
Vicky packed a nice activia yogurt for herself on our last trip, she stuck it in the lid of her bag and at the first rest spot the foil lid had broken. There was creamy yogurt all over the lid. Gutted at this loss she started to lick it back off the lid in big clumps. This was the point when she discovered the lid had come off the suncream and the yogurt pot lid was still secure. Oh how I laughed.

SPOON FORK COMB
Spork.... It's a fork and a spoon and if Vicky has lost her comb, the tines are acceptable for combing
Vicky's hair and perfect for making Phil laugh.

HAVING A LEAK!
V: "careful in that toilet the floor's wet."
P: "ok"
Phil goes for a P and comes back.
P: "When you went in there, did you use the toilet just inside the door?"
V: "No"
P: "cos that's why the floor's wet, the real toilet is at the back, the one just inside the door is just a toilet bowl sat on the tiled floor, waiting to be installed."
Pause....
Pause.......
V: "I did use that toilet the first time!"
P: LAUGH!!!

PROD!
In the middle of the night, I woke up. Mainly because Vicky was prodding me really quite hard in the middle of my forehead...
P: eh... wha....Why'd you do that?
V: Shutup!
V: snore.
In the morning she woke up laughing with a vague memory of telling me to shutup, and of prodding me in the head. She claims to have been asleep at the time, but she's been laughing ever since.

PROSTITUTES ARE EVERYWHERE!
You've watched Vicky get a bit confused about which direction to walk in Kampala, and pass through a group of prostitutes. They grabbed her boobs and called her 'baby', she laughed, cruel really cos she slaps me if I do that in public.

NAKED IN THE NRE BAR!
you've seen a man strip naked on stage to the cry "Giving yourself a semi on hasn't helped!"

PERSONAL HYGENE!
You've accidentally given your wife the E45 cream instead of the toothpaste!

SOUTH AFRICAN DELICACY!
You've seen a South African offer a bath towel clad Phil a taste of his Sausage! It is apparently a local delicacy.

ELEPHANT IN A CHINA SHOP!
You've seen Vicky stalk an Elephant. Trying to move silently through the dry grass, it crunched and cracked with every footfall. She stood on one end of a length of grass and stook her other foot into the loop it made. Then she fell flat on her face with a really noisy crunch as if she'd landed on a vat of crisps.

BRIBE FAILURES...
Entering Tanzania...
Border official: "Do you have a present for me?"
Vicky gave official 'a got nothing for ya' look...
Border Official: "Little present, somenthing nice?"
Vicky: "Phil?"
Phil: "We've got some broken biscuits she can have. Thats about it..."
Border official did not recieve a bribe.

CROCODILE SHOES?
Until you've seen a crocodile walk. Seriously, watch a crocodile walk and try not to laugh at it.

Mosquito Scores

FINAL SCORES!
Mosquitos: 150 bites
Or roughly one bite a day between us!
Ants: 50 bites
Mostly on Phil due to an unerring knack of sitting in ant trails.
Bed bugs: 30 bites
But thank god it wasn't fleas, we couldn't be sure till we changed hotel.
Phil and Vicky: 300 Mozzies
50 ants
0 bed bugs
Not many Mozies since the weapon of mass destruction died, and you have to remember one of 'em gave Vicky Malaria. Most of the ants we killed were accidental casualties of Phil sitting down and if we'd known about the bed bugs before we left the room we'd have burnt the mattress in vengance...but we didn't.
Sadly, after 5 months in Africa, and with the benefit of insect repellent, treated nets, long clothes, and a penchant for murdering biting insects on site, we declare defeat.
BRING BACK DDT!

Rate the local Liquor

EITHIOPIA:
Tage:
Made from: Honey
Smell Score: 7/10 like Mead
Taste score: 7/10 just like Mead
Fortitude: 5/10 10% just like Mead
Notes: It's Mead, the Eithiopians have got a cheak claiming its their idea and giving it the airy fairy title of 'Honey Wine'.
OVERALL: 21/30 tastes good and works.

UGANDA:
Banana wine:
Made from: Bananas
Smell score: 7/10 you certainly know what kind of
wine is coming up, probably literally
later on.
Taste score: 6/10 just like sherry.
Fortitude: 6/10 it's gotta be 20%
Overall: 19/30 but don't drink it in a beer
bong like the boys at NRE bar, a litre
of sherry in 4 seconds is hard to take.

MOZAMBIQUE:
Suema:
Made from: Coconuts
Smell score: 9/10 smells like you'd expect coconut
beer to smell.
Taste score: 10/10 would happily get drunk on
this stuff. A bit like cider. I'm told
that when it's first made it's too
sweet for Coke to market. We got it at
about 5 hours old and it tastes good.
Apparently by that evening it's too
strong to want to drink. So they make
it and drink it fast. Good system!...
Fortitude: 3/10 it's only as strong as beer while
it tastes nice.
OVERALL 22/30 A new leader!

Can't remember the name:
Made from: god knows but the king prawns in the
restaurant were massive, drinks were
a second place entertainment
Smell score: 2/10 really like meths.
Tastes score: 8/10 little flavour and gently
warming on the throat. really
surprised.
Fortitude: 8/10 gotta be 40% to smell like that.
OVERALL: 18/30 Better than expected.

ZAMBIA:
Cane:
(Propper bottled stuff, not moonshine sadly)
Made from: sugar cane.
Taste score: 7/10 could definately be worse.
Burp taste: 5/10 not good, sickly sweet.
Fortitude: 8/10 40%
Notes: Has a strange ability to numb your
tongue briefly
OVERALL: 20/30

Cho-Choma:
(Brewed by the locals in an old barrel)
Make from: Maize, sugar, water.

Instructions (according to the locals):
Grind up your maize, throw it in a barrel with sugar and water and wait. Wait for the local village chief to make the kind offer of a drink and enjoy.

Instructions, (according to Phil):
Take yesterday's cold coffee, add some sour milk, squeeze in some lemon juice, add a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of sand. Mix carefully with a good dash of old chip fat oil which floats in bubbles on the surface. Wait for the local chief to offer a dring, try to refuse, fail, then...
If you're Vicky, take a sip, claim it's too strong and refuse the rest.
If you're Phil, drink half during an agonising 15 minutes of being polite to the local drunken chief.

Taste score: 1/10 impossible to concieve of any
way to make the drink worse, but as I
wasn't sick and don't have the runs, it
can't claim the 0/10 score.
Burp taste: 1/10 see reasons above.
Fortitude: 0/10 0.1% at best. If they'd given us
yesterday's mix it might have
achieved 2-3%, but as they gave is a 4
hour old mix it wasn't even alcoholic.
Notes: Chances of making Phil sick: 70%
was queesy there for a while.
OVERALL: 2/30 I hope we've reached a low for
the whole trip.

SOUTH AFRICA:

White Wine:
(propper nice restaurant type.)
Make from: Honey from the gods.
Taste score: 8/10
Burp taste: 8/10, we were even looking forward to
it.
Fortitude: 4/10 11%
OVERALL: 19/30, but disqualified on the grounds
of blatant cheating, you can buy it
anywhere, so it isn't local.

Rate the local food...

EITHIOPIA:

Injera:
It's a bit like a sour pancake made of sponge. Oddly, it's quite nice and if the book is to be believed, full of goodness too. You get a pancake the size of a coffee table covered in the topping of your choice. Then just pick it up with your fingers and dribble it down your top for maximum satisfaction. Keywot topping is best. It's really spicy and full of meat and oil. Spicy is best because it hides the sour taste best, but we've tried lots of other options too and they're all ok.

UGANDA:

Chapati:
Outside the gates of NRE bar there's a little chapati stand. They'll do chapati with salad, avocado, banana, chocolate, egg, or all of the above and extra salt to cure a hangover. They're delicious and cost about 20p. That's as close to local food as we got, but hey, the locals eat them too.

10/10 nothing to argue with

TANZANIA:

Zanzibar Pizza:
Dough, spread thin. Drop a square of potato cake in the middle, cover with onion, tomato, ground beef and an egg. Wrap up in the dough and stick it on the hot plate. Looks like eggy bread, tastes great, costs 50p and fills you up. Bonus.

9/10 A whole meal for 50p, how can you argue.

MOZAMBIQUE:

They eat Nshima too. enough said.

ZAMBIA:

Mtapa:
Made from coconut, peanut, coconut milk and the local equivalent of spinach. It ends up as a sludgy green sauce served with rice. Really nice

8/10 would order it again, but only as a lunch time thing. We went ahead and ordered chip butties to fill us up

Nshima:
Made from Maize I think, has all of the texture of mashed potato in your mouth, but sadly has none of the taste. You expect that nice creamy flavour and then.... absolutely nothing happens.

You can pick it up like sticky rice and it came with a really nice spicy beef dish which you dip it in. Was a really nice meal in the end and it is really really filling. I swear it keeps on expanding after you've eaten it.

7/10 would happily order it again tonight, but couldn't face it for breakfast like to local raft guides.

Nshima with mini fried fish:
They're about 2-3cm long and if you go for a night in a local village (Songwe) they sever them in their hundreds with Shima. They come with heads, eyes, fins, tails all stil attached. They taste crunchy and salty.
Chance of making Vicky sick: 8/10 (only ate 1)

Vicky's rating: minus 4/10, pointless, vile, stinky. (wuss, PB)
In her defence she'd had the squits the night before and needed something normal to eat.

Phil's rating: 4/10 wouldn't order them in a restaurant, but they're tasty and I ate them all.

Nshima as porridge:
Yep, it's all they have so they make it less stodgy and eat it for breakfast.
5/10. Bit boring, tastes only of the sugar you put on it, and by your 3rd Nshima meal in a row, enough is enough.

Rate the country

EITHIOPIA: 7/10
It should be said that we've only vicited the highlands in the north. They're warm in the day and cool at night, are full of high green dusty mountains, towns with cafe cultures and have churches to entertain you. The south is apparently 45 degree desert full of mud hut tribes, with topless tribes women to entertain you (though I don't think that's the reason for their dress.) Anyway Eithiopia scores highly, the Simian Mountains are beautiful and full of astounding rock cliff views reminiscent of the grand canyon. The towns are nice and relatively hassle free. The food is good and the churches castles and stelai are are good enough reason for a walk for me and entertaining for Vicky. It loses marks because...
After so long at altitude in dry air, our skin and lips are suffering,
Because we got bed bugs here for the first time, and...
Contrary to popular belief, mozies thrive at altitude and are no better here than anywhere else, GUTTED!

RWANDA: 6/10
How do you rate a country whose two major attractions are the last of the mountain gorillas and Genoside? It's hard to do. The Gorillas were definately one of the best days of the trip. The Genoside memorial was memorable if not pleasurable. And Kigali had some nice restaurants. It's hard to decide on a rating. So int the end I went with the fact that we left after only a week feeling that there was nothing else we wanted to see or do. 4 marks off.

UGANDA: 8/10
Treking in the volcanoes was cool. The Nile is amazing for Kayaking and rafting (Zambezi is still better) and taking a wooden canoe out on lake Byoni was good. The hairy lemon is a top place to chill out and Kampala had a nice cinema and some good restaurants. But the ant situation is OUT OF CONTROL and truthfully, while we were traveling around the interior on bad roads we struggled to occupy ourselves at times, 2 marks off.

KENYA: 1/10
Unfair really, as we only spent one bus journey there, but the road was so bad it knocked Vicky off her chair and bent her glasses.

TANZANIA: 9/10
Lots to do and see. Swimming with coral in Mtwara, diving in Zanzibar, Kili, Selu game reserve, Mt Meru, Serengetti, Ngoro Ngoro and the Loshotho Mountains
all feature as highlights of our trip. And I think that's more than anywhere else we've been. It's expensive and there are touts all over Arusha, both of which seem like good reasons to dock marks. But truthfully I felt we had to knock marks off just because in Mozambique and particularly in Uganda the people and the atmosphere were so much nicer. I'd go back to Mozambique for diving and to Uganda and Zambia for Kayaking. With Tanzania, been there and done that, job done. So we knocked a mark off.

SOUTH AFRICA: 2/10
(Johannesburg really.)
We'll we haven't left yet, so it might improve.....(it didn't, PB) But it costs too much, you need a car, and there's razor wire and "ARMED RESPONSE" signs on each and every building. We'd have left after a day, but it's so hard to get around that we couldn't get to the bank and the embassy for our next visa in one day.

MOZAMBIQUE: 7/10
The best city so far is Maputo and the beaches around Tofo are amazing. Diving was great with lots of big fish and snorkelling with whale sharks is a once in a lifetime thing.
Hump back whales are astounding, baby hump backs are even better.
The lack of tourists further north is really nice, and travelling on the back of flat beds is the best way to meet people and see the countryside. But it loses 3 marks for giving Vicky Malaria and having too many Mosquitos.

ZAMBIA: 8/10
(Well Livingstone really)
Really friendly, everyone smiles at you. Feels generally safe, good food, and has the bonus of Vic Falls and Zambezi Kayaking. Only loses points cos we can't afford to stay there, all the best things break our budget and the other things are boring. Would happily go back.

No Work in 2007 (ish)