Barbados and home

After we met up in Barbados again, we pretty much chilled out at the beach all day. Every day. Took up the opportunity to go Snuba diving: a cross between snorkeling and scuba diving, your oxygen tank is on a boat, with a long tube down to you under water. Saw some amazing fish and a turtle.


Anyways, back home safely now, 2006 tour has come to an end.

A dvd of the 'tour' is available for the very generous price of £2, which covers the price of a recordable DVD (so i'm told). If you want a copy, send an e-mail to one of us, or leave a comment.

Florida

just did a huge post on the week in florida but i lost it as the computer crashed. cant be bothered to do it again, but here is some photos of the week.

random clips

since leaving mexico we have missed 4 flights, most of which we have excuses for! getting into america takes about a week, with far to many checks, one of which included al getting stripped searched by a gay customs officer. therefore we missed our connecting flight into los angeles! on leaving LA we tried to change our flight on the same morning as leaving. funnily enough that didnt work, and we ended up being late for our flight out. after waiting on stand by for 8 hours we eventually got our flight to miami.

in LA we went to santa monica boulevard where we bumped into this street entertainer. he started off with some break dancing drawing in a fairly large circle of people. once he had enough people, he started to demand that every person got out a dollar bill and placed it in his bag in the middle. if someone tried to leave he shouted at them and forced them to stay. he even got one girl by the arm and dragged her to the cash machine! when us lads didnt provide him with any money, we were asking for him to get us involved. after some more dancing and more demanding of cash, he got us in the circle and made us dance with him. he told everyone he had been in jail, and not given him money just wasnt funny hommie. not the nicest street entertainer in the world, but he sure made the most money!!

we have also been stuffing our faces with fast food, after 8 weeks of beans and rice in brasil, its nice to get a super size mcdonalds and not finish it! although ordering a meal is harder than you think. i swear the people the states speak english, but they somehow just dont understand you. it took al bout 10 mins to order a big mac and at one point he ended up with a carton of milk. not sure how that happened. in and out burgers are class, so was hanging out with renee in LA, having burgers and playing twister in her house.

currently we are in miami staying at my mate andrews house. he has this amazing appartment which hangs over the ocean. cant ask for a more relaxing place. the weather in miami is hot, so its just chilling out and relaxing til we make it home in a couple of weeks.

COME ON ENGLAND!!!!!

lemons, salt and tequila, oh and dont forget the chillies

the last ten days we have been in mexico city. well not just mexico city. we decided to pull together the funds and rent a car for a 2000km road trip around the country. we travelled for five days visiting various cities and seeing many natural/archaelogical sites, and swiming in both the pacific and gulf of mexico sea.

luckily for us, our car was upgraded to a huge jeep, as the corsa we were supposed to be renting was out of fuel! therefore we were able to live in our car. however sleeping was still trickier than we first thought, with the weather still baking hot and many mosquitoes hanging around. with limited cd's for the journey, we were left with lenny kravitz and shakira to get us by.

the roads were very windey when driving across the huge mountain ranges of mexico, and very flat near the coasts. however every road seemed to be littered with speed bumps, preventing us from driving at great speeds. with extremely hot weather the air con was always on, apart from when we nearly ran out of fuel. driving on empty for 50km and just rollling into the petrol station that we were all praying for.

highlights of the trip have to be the city of acapulco, the gigantic lagoons in cabachanga, sleeping on the empty beaches on the south coast, shaving in mcdonalds, watching the england game in a bar which we got to open especially for us, visiting a city which was created in 500BC, not showering for a week and swiming in the warm sea in vera cruz.

a superb end to our time in mexico was going out with alma and her brother to some traditional bars in the city. getting serenaded by a group of mexicans whilst eating tacos and drinking tequila was definitely a cutural experience.

Chile Con Carne

Its been a while since the last post, but finding internet is harder than you think.

After argentina, we landed in santiago and decided against staying in the city and hopped on a 3 hour bus ride into the mountains. The andes. It was dark and we didn´t really know when to get off. Kev was enjoying his usual travel sleep that we have become so accustomed to. Pretty much, if he´s in a moving object he will sleep. So anyway, we´re on this bus in the pouring rain at night. Each of us are sitting in different parts of the bus, and i see a sign for the place before the place we were thinking of getting off. So I try to wake up kev by calling to him...no response. I then try to get the attention of the girl sitting next to him in portuguese (although she is chilean), and try to ask her to wake him up. The woman next to me thinks that i want to get off the bus, so she gets up and ushers me out of the seat, the bus driver sees all the comotion in his rear view mirror and pulls over to let us off. We quickly got all our stuff and jump off the bus. Moments after the bus pulled away we looked around and realised that we are actually in the middle of nowhere....3 kilometres later in the pouring rain with no waterproofs (except sleepy) we arrived at a hotel which had no space, so one of the valet parkers drove us (in someone else´s car) to the town we were supposed to be at where we lodged for a night.


The next couple of nights we stayed in a log cabin in a nature reserve. They upgraded us to a 5 person cabin and charged us less - much appreciated.

On our last day there, we wanted to climb a mountain. You can´t really go to the andes and not climb a mountain, come on. We spoke to the people there and they said it was too late to start now and, bearing in mind it is winter there, we didn´t have the right attire.
Needless to say, 3 hours later we had reached the top...Me in shorts and a hoody. Its not warm at 1900m high.


(will add pics when get to the states...slow internet aqui)

buenos aires

today the first day in buenos aires, saw sir michael palin, gordan ramsey (obe) and ken livingston hit the streets. each taking their own job seriously, the three men went about visiting churches, art galleries, old buildings and shops. directed by palin, the pace was fairly casual, capturing the heart of such a beautiful city. regular food breaks implimented by ramsey, led us to soak up the european atmosphere and enjoy a selection of hot drinks and cakes. after many hours of walking through central bueno, the rain started to hit hard and livingston led us home with his normal transportational craftmanship. after a lazy early evening nap, ramsey called an 'horzorio' (all you can eat) restaurant was in need. after the ramsey special, livingston led us expertly to a few bars where the local culture was once again absorbed within us! the favourite moment no doubt was an argentine speaking to livingston bout how they hate the english but admire them at the same time. from what palin gathered, argentines think maradona is the best player ever and they love him for his holy hand. even after that, the three men still pondered a purchase for an argetinian footy shirt!

Quando você volta?

Well, our time here is pretty much over. Last night we had a surprise party thrown for us (which we turned up late for - whoops). And this morning we left the base to spend a couple of nights in central rio before flyin out thursday morning. Already feelin the difference in lifestyle with Outkast playin as I write this.
"I'm sorry Miss Jackson - ooohh - I am for real", people speakin english to us, feel like a real tourist today for the first time in brasil.
Sayin good byes are always bizarre to me. Especially to people that there is literally no chance of seein again. Its kind of, "have a good life" stuff.
Hopefully we will return one day.