Una buena Aventura/ A severe bout of Israeli-itis

So I arrived in Huaraz, a town nestled in the Cordillera Blancas, with a woozy head and some straining lungs though tis only 3052m high. The next day, my acclimatising/lazy day consisted of tasty food and a mad panic to try and arrange the 4 day Santa Cruz trek for the next day. An 'Ulrike and Knut' had advertised in the hostel for companions for that very trek but sounding like a couple and ever so German, I thought a bigger group might be more fun. I found a company who had a German (undisclosed gender), a French lad and two Israeli sisters going the next day. Even though I was a little wary of the the two Israelis, because of their bad reputations as travellers, I thought I´d risk it. Dear god, that´s the last time I risk anything involving Israelis.

I got up at the crack o´ dawn, had a double porridge breakfast and headed down to the agency with me little backpack and a rubbish bag full of useful waterproof things for the donkeys to carry. I met the two Israeli sisters and the guide and then met another two Israeli girls. Yes, the German and French people turned out to be Israelis. So rather than a vaguely multicultural group, I had 4 moaning whiney idiot Israeli girls.

After sulking for two hours on the bus, I decided there was feck all that I could do about it and decided it was a wonderful opportunity to learn about a culture I knew little about, pfffffff, yeh right - I knew they´d be idiots (a group of 4 of all one nationality are bound to be), but I was determined to have a good time. I tried my hardest for 2 solid days to make conversation with these girls. And even though they all spoke almost flawless English, every conversation I started, was interrupted by one of the other girls and then continued in Hebrew. I spent three nights in the cooking tent with them, eating the unusual dinners, lovingly prepared by Juan the guide, and Jose the donkey driver, and being totally excluded from their conversation. Goddam rude feckers; I´d like to put each of them separately on a 4 day trek with 4 non-Hebrew, non-English speaking folk (I can´t think of any obnoxious nationality to insert here). Juan was lovely, though not hugely talkative and Jose seemed nice enough too, though there was a wee bit of a language barrier.

But the hike was unbelieveable. I´ve never done more than a 2 day trek and I was quite nervous after 10 months of faffing about with no exercise, that a 50km trek at high altitudes with my rather muscleless body, might be a problem. But nah, it was grand. Hard, but goddam amazing. Every day the view was more stunning than the day before. There was beautiful perfectly shaped mountains topped with snow, powder blue glacial lakes, meadows with horses galloping about and waterfalls all over the place.

I had a little one man tent all to myself (thank goodness) where each night I donned the following: 3 pairs of socks, two pairs of trousers, two thermal layers, two fleeces, a snowboarding jacket, the mandatory silly peruvian hat and pair of wollen gloves. But even with all that, the minus 5 degrees always froze the ass off me. But waking up with a splendid snow capped mountain or waterfall as a view, was definitely worth it. Next time, I´ll bring a Swiss boy to keep me warm.

I think the highlight was on day 3 after a two and a half hour ridiculously steep ascent to the pass where I sat at 4750 metres looking from one valley to the next and thinking how lucky I was. My thoughts of luckiness turned to annoyance as the 4 girls nattered loudly in Hebrew and were joined by another 3 israelis coming up the pass in the other direction also nattering in Hebrew. I´d had goodam enough Hebrew to last me a lifetime, so I climbed to a higher point, found myself a comfy rock out of Hebrew earshot and lay in the sun taking in the view and eating a valued packet of skittles which I´d be saving for a special occassion such as this. Though I had to question who thought grape was a good flavour for skittles - I put the grape ones back in the packet and kept them for if I got stranded alone.

I have to admit one of the girls was lovely and did attempt to converse with me more than the others. But after 4 days of walking and thinking, and walking and making up nicknames for them all, and walking and childishly hoping the one girl I liked least fell in the mud, I thought best to say something to them. So when we arrived back at the town, I told the sisters exactly what I thought of them and exactly how goddam rude they were. I think they got the message. Four days of fuming made me quite articulate.

I can´t wait to do my next trek; it´s fecking marvellous walking in amazing scenery just thinking about everything and nothing and annoying companions. Though next time, I´ll be certain to check the nationality and gender of all people on a tour before signing up and I´ll be certain not to walk in donkey poo, even if it looks very dry and there´s nowhere else to walk.

Disclaimer: When I refer to the Israelis in this post, it only refers to the 4 obnoxious feckers(ok, one was nice) that I had the displeasure of spending 4 days with. Oh, and maybe the 3 other loud and rude ones who invaded my dorm room this morning, interrupted my very deserved sleep in, and ousted me from my room.

End of rant.

Aoife arrives in Deepest Darkest Peru and finally her blog title makes sense

Well the original, original plan was to visit Peru and check out where Paddington bear came from. It´s taken me 10 months, 9 different countries, a wee detour home to Ireland, but I´ve finally made it - woo hoooo. And who said I wasn´t good at making up itineraries.

I arrived in Lima last week and found myself back in the chaos of South America and the rotteness of hostels filled with young boozing backpackers ´doing´ Peru. Sigh. Ya visit a country, ya don´t 'do' a country. Yes, I am high and mighty but 'doing' a country just sounds so arrogant to me.

The Peruvians are fierce friendly. I met a friendly Peruvian lad, in Parque de Amour (see above picture of a statue of entwined but very uncomfortable looking lovers) who strolled with me around the city and introduced me to ´cerviche´. It´s the Peruvian version of sushi - raw fish cooked only in lemon juice and the hideousness of onions. I had mine without onions and it was only lovely.

I only spent a couple of days there, unsuccessfully attempting a few tourist activities which all fell through (renovations, mist, etc), before headin´ for the mountains and bit o´ hiking.

Skippedy skip skip skip

I spent 3 lovely weeks driving around the crazy redrocked national parks of Utah and Arizona with my Swiss chocolate. I´ll have to write more but not before I get a rant out of the way.
This is us in the Grand Canyon.

St. Patrick's Day a wee bit late in San Diego

I managed to make it to San Diego too late to celebrate St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, but luckily my tardy college friends have their festivities a week later. June organised a splendid boozy bus tour which did a scenic trip of San Diego taking in a diverse range of pubs and bars. Everyone was marvellously decked out in green with a wonderful range of amn't-I-so-Irish hats. June, looking ever-festive in a green hula skirt, coordinated the days proceedings with her wee whistle which signalled that we should skull out beers or at least think about skulling them.

The tour was only great. After the first pub or two, we were treated to a ride on a very rickety rollercoaster (well planned for the start of the pubcrawl). Then after a couple more pubs, it was on to some nice park with a lovely view where a Mexican lad and his family served us tasty tacos (very Irish, that). Then a couple more pubs, then a boat ride across the harbour and then it gets hazy. I wasn't even drinking the designated one-drink-per-pub as a trip to the bar or the bathroom normally took up a good chunk of time. That, and the fact that were was a keg of tasty pale ale on the bus, meant that I was quite beerful but too beery that I couldn't dance in the bus.

After the last pub, we headed back to June and Steve's were we had a couple more drinks and gorged ourselves on June's Mum's stew. Delicious. Surprisingly my head wasn't too bad the next day but poor wee Stefan, unused to the pace of the drinking Irish, suffered lots. It was a great St. Patrick's day altogether - good work Spoonog.

Old but yet still childish - My 30th Birthday

Here's Stefan with my birthday cake in the morning - then the same cake, 400km later. It didn't look quite as nice but was pretty goddam delicious.

Well after being a good bit homesick the day before my birthday, I celebrated my birthday breakfast eating a tasty tasty birthday cake, complete with candles, that Stefan had ordered especially and surprised me with at 8 in the morning (we were on Nancy-time - this withered auld one, Nancy, who owned the cabin we were staying in, informed us that daylight savings took effect, though they didn't - so we got up one whole hour early by mistake. I'll be double checking that the next time).

We had planned to go see the whales further north, so officially my birthday was being suspended to the next day as we had over 400km to drive that day. So I headed to the internet where I got the most lovely birthday card from my Australian mates -

Click here to see the lovely photos and an awful one of me looking rotten

And then after a lengthy phone conversation with Mum and reading lots of other Happy Birthday emails (thank you everyone), we headed off on a beautiful drive though a mountainy coast with deep deep blue sea. I was allowed to choose the accommodation, seeing as it was my birthday, so I chose the El Dorado Motel, a classy little place (where the owner presented me with a birthday rice pudding). We had a hearty birthday meal consisting of hamburgers and green salad with a most dodgy mayonaise/ketchup 'dressing' before I was treated to a massage and allowed to pick a birthday film to watch. '28 Days Later' is only great, though fierce scary especially if your boy is snoring gently next to you. It was a marvelous 30th Birthday.

I left some of Mexico out

(2 whole months, that is). But I fully intend to update it when I get a chance.

Home for Christmas

We arrived into Dublin airport on Christmas Eve with the parents waiting for us, very very happy to be home. It was pretty nice driving home and being met by Grandpa and Muirs and a fire. The house was lookin´only gorgeous - christmassed up to the max.

The first week was spent purely relaxing. The internet wasn´t working at home, I didn´t have a mobile phone and Mum has disabled calls to mobiles cos the little ones spend to long talkin´ to boyz. So, as a result, I couldn´t contact my friends easily, so I hung out drinking tea and having baths until I realised I only had 3 weeks left and should get my ass in gear and see everyone.

There were a few boozy nights out in town which were quite fun and a couple more in Dalkey. I also made it down to see Vicks and John in Kildare for a sumptuous dinner with old school mates followed by a bit o´ karaoke. And the next morning we headed into town to shop for bridemaids dress shopping. There wasn´t much as the sales were on, but we had lots of fun looking.

Christmas dinner was great. It was Micheal´s first Christmas, so he was the centre of attention, though he had a fierce snotty nose and a cough (which I managed to acquire a couple of days later). Grandpa was over from Manchester and Granny and Uncle Pat were also there for Christmas dinner.

Aislinn had me, Mum and Emma over for lunch. She made lovely quiche.

Yeh, it was deadly to be home and I was a wee bit sad to be leaving but seeing as I planned to return in July, it was all good. And of course, I was all excited about meeting up with Stefan, who had finally left 'his friend' to meet up with me.

I need to get a very cute photo of Micheal wearing a ridiculous llama hat for here.

Hanging out in Buenos Aires

Well I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed with Buenos Aires though I can imagine lovin´it in different circumstances. I had notions that I was going to stay there at some point in my travels and teach English but yeh, the Buenos Airians seemed to have a problem with my marvellous Spanish. Now I know pronounciation isn´t my forte, but seriously, they weren´t even trying to understand me, the rude feckers. I´m sure there´s some lovely ones, but on the whole, they´d walk over you in the street and look blankly at you when you attempted conversation with them. Admittedly, Buenos Aires wasn´t that much fun from the start as it consisted of visits to the hospitals and angry phonecalls with the hugely incompetent insurance company, so maybe I wasn´t in the right frame of mind. But there was an awful lot of rude feckers.

Once Emma was released from hospital (after running up a hefty 500 euro phone bill in a week), we moved into a hotel nearby while Emma convalesced. She convalesced quite quickly and was out shopping the next day and most days after that. I must say, Emma and Sarah are the best shoppers I´ve ever met - they could shop for Ireland. Though there´s only so much shopping I can do before I get grumpy and require tea.

The last week before heading home was much better fun though. We decided to have a few outings to sample the Argentinian food. There was an excellent place called Olsen which had an super 4 course brunch served by the rudest staff ever, but it was marvellous, as was afternoon tea in the hyatt. Little did the Hyatt know that any McDonnell can eat their bodyweight in dessert in a single sitting, when they showed us to the dessert buffet. We also caused a few epileptic fits due to the amount of photos we took. It´s safe to say that I´m the most unphotogenic person in the world.

Anyway, the insurance company after arsing us around, finally agreed to fly Emma, Sarah and I home with a medical escort(to ensure that Emma didn´t explode on the flight) after some gentle persuasion from Dad. I was pretty damn glad to be getting on the plane even if it was the day before Christmas though Sarah and I were relegated to peasant class while Emma and the sunburnt doctor enjoyed the luxury of a space bed. Two space beds, that is, not just the one.

Emma´s stay in the Suizo Argentinian

So poor wee Emma got herself one of the more glamourous traveller diseases, a deep vein thrombosis, from doin´ too many long haul bus journeys. After falling over a couple of times, being misdiagnosed several times, spending time in a unequipped hospital in the back o´beyond, she got airlifted to Buenos Aires. I flew down from Quito the day after I heard, to find her all wired up in intensive care. She was in grand form though but not loving the fact that she was attached to the wall with tubes and had to holler for the nurse when in need of the loo. But after a week in intensive care, she was moved upstairs to a regular room - and when I mean regular, I mean with a little living room, a monster bathroom, a bedroom with couch and tv and of course room service. Anyway, she lived it up there, while Sarah and I hung out in a hostal nearby.

Emma has made me update this to take out a reference to a bed pan which I did and to correct her illness. Apologies, she actually had a dvt and a pulmonary embolism too.

A brief visit to Ecuador

Didn´t get to do much in Ecuador as my Emma, me little sister fell sick in Patagonia, but I spent a week there and it was only lovely. I went to a Panama hat factory there and found out how they were made - my interesting fact of the day is that the Panama hat was originally from Ecuador but as the workers of the Panama canal all wore them, they became known as Panama hats - interesting, eh?

Besides the hats, I checked out the old city of Quito which is stunning, not at all what I imagined, though by all accounts a wee bit dangerous. And what visit to Ecuador would be complete, without a trip to the Equator. Tis only a line on the ground (and there´s two rival lines) but it was marvellous to see and I did go to a little museum where I was awarded a certificate for being able to balance an egg on a nail - now there´s something I can put in my cv.

The motorbike

Here´s Stefan´s lovely shiny motorbike that he thought me to ride. I only fell off once.

Colombia

I spent 2 and a half months in Colombia and it was only excellent. I found myself a lovely Swiss boy called Stefan and we hung out in the north of Colombia drinking delicious jugos and riding around on his motorbike. It was pretty hard to leave, but there was mountains to climb and ancient ruins to see, so I finally got the bus down to Ecuador.

Think I´ll expand on this one a little later. Too much to write.

Salsa-ing it up in Cuba

Markus and I had a marvellous time in Cuba. After drinking a small swimming pool of mojitos in Havana, we headed west for a little bit of limestone action in the mogotes, then east to Trinidad, a UNESCO town for mucho mucho dancing and then I, after a brief meeting with my little sister Emma, headed off on my lonesome to the far east of Baracoa to eat chocolate.

The Cubans were lots of fun. The lads were only lovely (see pictured lad) and very good at dancing, though I wouldn´t trust them as far as I could throw them. On the whole, everyone was fierce friendly but did view you as a walking ATM. Cuba is exactly as you´d imagine - music drifting round every corner, stunning old cars sauntering by and wizened old men smoking cigars. The countryside was far more beautiful than I imagined though Havana was falling down and in severe need of a wee lick of paint.

We managed to work out a nice little routine as follows; get up in the morning for a mighty breakfast, head out to do some touristy stuff for the day, have a wee afternoon nap, then some beers and maybe an episode of Planet Earth or My Name is Earl while getting ready to go out drinking our mojito-bucaneero combos while been enthranced by the salsa dancers.

There´s lots more I want to say about Cuba but in an effort to actually get this goddam blog up to date, I´ll skip on to Colombia. Yay to Cuba though.

Boozy times in San Diego

June and the girls were having a girly weekend in Los Angeles, so I met up with them and cruised down to San Diego in June´s shiny convertible. I had so much fun meeting up with all my college mates who I hadn´t seen in years and years. I managed to squeeze loads of things in; went swimming with the sealions in La Jolla, drinking wine in the zoo with June, playing pool in the Blue Foot, hanging out in the park with Serious Will and learning to salsa dance with Marty. June and Steve were the perfect hosts. Hopefully, I´ll be heading back for St Patrick´s day - woo hoo.

Hangin´out with the stars in LA

I flew to LA to meet up with Muirs, me little sister and her boy Collers. We had a splendid time on our wee road trip and visited Sequoia National Park, Yosemite, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I think the highlight would have had to have been driving into Las Vegas late at night, with Mika blaring, covered in muck from camping with the bears, and checking into the Bellagio. That and the marshmallowful campfires in Yomesite where Colin told ghost stories in a nacker accent.

Falconry in Co. Offaly

Naids, my second littlest sister and her French boy, Axe-L, were determined to try out falconry. So after a rather big night out, we headed down to Kinnity Castle in exciting Co. Offaly to check out the burds. It was pretty cool having these massive birds perched on your arms though terrifying at the same time as I was sure they were going to peck out my very hungover eyes. And Kinnity Castle is only lovely.

The whole falconry practice is quite interesting. The birds are trained from a young age by rewarding them with some tasty chunks of raw meat – bits of cute little bunny rabbits mostly. Initially, they are tethered to the trainer. As the training progresses and they learn to hunt, the length of the tether is increased. When they are confident the bird will not fly away, they remove the tether altogether. The birds are weighed every day and if they’re even a few grams under or over weight, they’re not allowed to hunt as they’re pretty thick and very unloyal. They never form a bond with their trainers and will disappear off for good if they’ve had too much to eat.

Micheal's Christening

After leaving a rainy Manchester, I headed home in time for wee Micheal's christening. The actual christening was in Glasthule church, followed by a reception in Aly and John's beautiful grey house which they had been madly finishing off for this auspicious occasion. Naidi, the Dalkey branch of the paparazzi, was responsible for taking the hundreds of necessary photos - we're still sifting through them.
The weather was only gorgeous which was marvellous because we were all sitting outside at Aly's wearing inappropriately light summer dresses. After the delicious food, the lads (and Muirs, my youngest sister) decided to head down to Monkstown for a quick swim - clearly a ridiculous idea; it wasn't that warm.
Micheal was a very well behaved baby even in the church and only let out a few squawks. He had three outfits for the day including the christening gown that Granny, Dad and all of us wore when we were christened. I don't think I know any other baby who is passed around as much as Micheal.

Dublin in summer

I spent most of my time hanging out in Dublin drinking tea, enjoying leisurely lunches, boozing with friends and gorging on desserts - nice. Ireland in the summer is only gorgeous (though it wasn't the best summer - it never is when I'm home. I always miss the heatwaves by a couple of days, hmmm suspicious). The nights are so so long and you can happily sit outside until ten in the evening in the light.

Visiting Grandpa

It appears that I'm bringing the lousy weather around the world. After leaving a miserable Sydney, surviving a chilly Katherine, wandering through an overcast Singapore, Manchester had equally rubbish weather. But it was great to see Grandpa. I spent 3 leisurely days with him. We visited a stately home, 'Tatton Park' (which had a scullery for anyone interested), played scrabble and had dinner with the cousins - all very relaxing.

One day in Sinagpore

So after a teary goodbye in the pissing rain and the coldest June day recorded in Katherine (it's meant to dry season), I headed on the bus back to Darwin and then onto Sinapore. I had 18 hours there so thought I would have a wee look around. It was great - they're fierce friendly there and there's loads to see. I wandered around Little India for 3 hours or so, then on to a wierd resorty beach place and then had a Singapore Sling in Raffles where I ate my body weight in monkey nuts. Big thumbs up to Singapore.