Archive for May, 2010

I’m not actually a very big fan of tango. There, I’ve said it. It’s very impressive to see, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch a show, and my entire time here I have never actually paid to see anybody dance it.

Having said that, I have written another post over on Medellin Living and this time it’s about tango.

OK, so two photos today and not of anyone actually tangoing either but two iconic tango places in Buenos Aires.

Carlos Gardel is to Tango what Maradona is to Football. Except more so. And he’s dead. The world’s greatest ever Tango singer, Gardel was killed in a plane crash in Medellin, Colombia in 1935. This is his tomb in La Chacarita cemetery. Recoleta may attract all the tourists, but I like La Chacarita better – it is much more attractive, with much more space and it has Gardel. What more do you need?

Keeping with tango songs, the opening line of the best-loved one is “Sur” an elegy to Lost Love set in the southern barrios of Buenos Aires. The first line namechecks the corner of Boedo & San Juan, which is now known as Esquina Homero Manzi in tribute to the song’s author and, like Gardel’s tomb has become a shrine to all things tango.

Cotopaxi is an active volcano close to Quito, Ecuador. The summits of the volcanos in central Ecuador are the furthest points from the earth’s centre due to the bulging of the earth at the equator. This is a timelapse video taken from Nasa’s APOD site which shows what happens above Cotopaxi in one night. Full explanation here.

This is Matias. He’s a teddy bear. I sat next to him (and his owner Jenny) on a 10 hour bus ride in Bolivia from Sucre to Uyuni. When I first got on, he was actually sitting in my seat but he’s a very well brought up bear so he moved. When Jenny’s Dad died her Mum bought her a parrot to stop her being sad, but the parrot died, which didn’t really help Jenny’s sadness. So her Mum bought her Matias instead, and now she’s much happier. They made a nice couple. I liked them.

Today is a special day in Argentina – you know it’s a special day because there is a street and a square in Buenos Aires named after today. Now the street (25 de Mayo) is a kind of crappy-nothing-special street, but the square is worth paying attention to. La Plaza de Mayo, on the other hand is at the centre of things.

Named after the May Revolutions of 1810 (the major one happening on 25th May) la Plaza de Mayo houses the Casa Rosada (the President’s offices), el Cabildo (the original Buenos Aires city hall), the cathedral and many other government buildings.

So, today is Argentina’s 200th Birthday (it’s also Towel Day but let’s not dwell on that) and attention for the last 4 days of festivities has been focused on the Avenida 9 de Julio (which somewhat confusingly is Independence Day and didn’t happen for another 6 years after the revolution) where there have been nightly concerts and events to mark the occasion.

If Tayrona is the natural jewel in Colombia’s Caribbean Crown, then Cartagena de Indias is without doubt the City highlight. A major port during Spanish Colonial times, the walled city and fortress were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984 and the tourists have been pouring in ever since.


Cartagena is split into 3 main tourist areas, the walled city, Getsemani (where the majority of the backpacker hostels are) and Bocagrande, a beach and high-rise hotel area obviously trying to be Miami, and one of the least inspiring places I’ve been to in South America.


I’ve been to a few Colonial towns in South America (Sucre in Bolivia, Salta in Argentina, Cusco in Peru, Ouro Preto in Brasil, Villa de Leyva in Colombia all spring to mind) and along with Cartagena they all have one thing in common that distinguishes them from similar historical sites in Europe.


Whereas in Europe, a similarly well-preserved historical town would be a Disneyfied site, beautiful, yet devoid of any soul, full of high-rate art galleries, overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops, in South America these places, are alive, they are lived in. This is not to say they don’t cater to (and in some cases obviously rip-off) tourists, but on the whole everyday life continues around, and despite, you.


We spent 2 days in the Old Town, simply wandering around enjoying the atmosphere, the architecture and the sea breeze. It’s a very walkable place, probably the best thing you can do there is just amble. Every corner holds a new surprise, every building is begging to be photographed. Jewel in the Crown indeed.

So this was supposed to be the big one. After leaving Monument Valley I’d driven along virtually deserted country roads to Page, Arizona where I spent the night, and in the morning headed off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, about 2 hours away. I stopped on the way at a service station where the attendant was having enormous problems trying to understand a 50-something French lady who obviously spoke very little English. I asked the lady (in French) if I could help and without drawing breath she launched into a rant about how she’d been travelling with friends who turned out to be a bunch of arseholes and how she was now travelling alone and wanted to buy some coffee and she was from Clermont Ferrand and it’s not like France here is it?

She continued in this vein for the next 5 minutes, seemingly unaware of the fact that French is not the native tongue in Arizona, seeing nothing unusual in the fact I could understand her. Before too long, I paid for my own coffee and muffin and away I went, her chattering still in the background. She’s probably still there.

About 20 miles after leaving Page (top photo) you are faced with a choice, Grand Canyon North Rim or South Rim. This is the last chance you have to decide – as the crow flies the two are something like 10 miles apart (and visible to each other), by road it’s over 200 miles. So choose carefully young one. I went to the North Rim – to be honest I can’t remember why now, but there was a good reason at the time.

Before too long the scenery began to change dramatically and the rocks and desert began giving way to hills and trees as the road entered the Kaibab National Forest and after an hour or so of this you came to the North Rim itself. I set my tent up (I was getting pretty slick at it by this point) and headed down to the Canyon itself.

Everybody knows that pictures and words cannot do justice to a natural wonder such as the Grand Canyon, so I won’t try. I will say however that it’s breathtaking, there’s no doubt about it, but it doesn’t do much if you know what I mean.

You turn up, you ooh and ahh (and let’s face it, you’ve never seen anything like it before, it is incredible), then you move to another spot to get a slightly different perspective where you ooh and ahh some more. You stay for sunset, you come back for sunrise. Then you leave.

I think maybe I was suffering a little bit from not being able to share this with anyone. I’d spent an hour or so with some very nice people at Old Faithful in Yellowstone, but apart from that I’d barely spoken to a soul (eccentric Frenchies aside) for a week and it was starting to tell.

Slight lonely grumpiness aside however, you’re never going to regret going to the Grand Canyon and it certainly is one of those things you should try to see at least once in your life. My advice – take someone special with you!

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Looking through my photos from last year earlier today I realised that I hadn’t written a lot about the Roadtrip I took from Seattle to Los Angeles last year. I’ve mentioned it, but haven’t really done it justice given the adventure it was, so over the next few days I’ll post some pictures and tales of what happened.

After leaving Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks, I headed south towards Utah and Arizona. I had no real route planned, but the Grand Canyon was down there somewhere and I wasn’t going to come all this way and not pay it a visit so I based my navigation on this, using it as a target. I left the campsite at Grand Teton, 5 days after leaving Seattle, nice and early and drove south.

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Through Jackson and onto Alpine, Wyoming where I stopped for some breakfast and then ever southwards, briefly touching Utah, then back into Wyoming where I made a slight detour to head through Evanston. After Evanston I entered Utah again where I would stay for the next day or so. The Northern part was fairly green and hilly and after some dull Interstate I crawled through the traffic in Provo, third largest city in Utah and home to the Church of the Latter Day Saints Missionary Training Centre.

I’ve not had many happy experiences with Mormons so for this reason I decided not to stop in Provo (although I enjoyed the billboards advertising Modest Clothing, Next Left!) and carried on over the wonderfully named Soldier Summit, through Helper (names after the Helper locomotives based there, used to help freight trains through the the mountain pass) and stopped for the evening in Green River, 470 miles from Grand Teton.

Green River wasn’t particularly accurately named, I saw nothing green and no river, I had definitely reached the desert at this point, miles of dust and rock, not much else. In the morning I headed to the Arches National Park just outside of Moab.

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The arches, created over thousands of years through wind erosion are pretty spectacular, and the wide open space, hot sun beating down and red rock combine to create a special place, even taking into account the large number of tour buses (and tourists) sharing the space with you.

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But the highlight of the day, and probably the highlight of the trip came later in the afternoon as I left the town of Mexican Hat in Utah and headed toward the Arizona border. I knew what was coming, but it still managed to take my breath away.

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Monument Valley is one of those places you know even if you don’t know it. You’ve seen it before – scenes from some of the most iconic Westerns have been shot there, but the one that stuck out for me was the scene in Forrest Gump where he stops running. You see the same view as you drive towards it (photo above).

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I had thought about spending the night there, they advertise a campsite (it’s part of Navajo Nation and the tribe run the site) but when I got there it was more a rocky car park than campsite so I spent a couple of hours taking in the view and as any good Western should end, rode off into the sunset.

My latest guest post on Tayrona has just gone up on Medellin Living. Its sister post with more practical info can be found here.

Today’s photo was taken the day after Brasilia’s 49th Anniversary celebrations outside the iconic cathedral. I’d already done the tour of the buildings a couple of days before and I just liked the look of this guy taking a break from his work.