whores

Stayed in "the best budget travellers hotel in Caracas" as recommended by lonely planet, in Sabana Grande. Its also a whore house, or at least a per-hour hotel for use of the (men-who-dress-like-)girls who ply their trade in the street outside. I think I might splash out and move to a nicer district for my last two nights.

Puerto Columbia

Now in puerto columbia, rather more backpackery than Colonia Tovar. Unfortunately last night I was down to my last 5000 Bolivars (one pound) so saved that in case I needed to get a bus back to Maracay (the nearest big town) and could buy neither dinner nor a goodnight beer. However today I discovered the hotel front desk would change money for me so now I have one hundred billion Bolivars to spend. Will spend another night here and head for Caracas around lunchtime tomorrow, I think.

one left

only Antarctica left from the list of contents to visit. after that, maybe the moon?

Colonia Tovar

¡Gutentag! I'm Colonia Tovar, a German town in the mountains. It looks like the alps, but everyone hablos español. On the bus some of the Venezuelan girls tried to talk to me in español, but that did not work very well. Perhaps I can find someone to shout «waß» at later. First I must find a hotel (likely a cabaña) and wash and poo (vital functions I have neglected in the 54 hours that I have been travelling since Oaxaca, a continent away).

Carcacas.

In Caracas. ¡The women are gorgeous! I have not been mugged yet, but I've only been in the city 15 minutes. Trying to get to Colonia Tovar now, which is less urban and more german. First I need to work out where in Caracas I am - I just got a bus from the airport and it dumped me in a road in the city. hmm.

D.F. again

overnight bus back to Mexico D.F. was not as fun as the other bus trips of this week, because I had to sit next to a snoring dude rather than cute swedokorean chick. oh well. have been wandering around the city some today - the alameda (near belles artes metro stop) (I always think of Alameda as being pronounced with a dodgy russian accent as my first exposure to it was, I think, Checkov saying it in Star Trek IV). Then walk down paseo de la reforma (?) to Calle Genova, which I´d read a bit about in somebody else´s Lonely Planet yesterday. Its a nice shady pedestrianised street in the Zona Rosa with cafes and bars and shops. A little bit americanised, though -- subway, baskin robbins, starbucks etc. (the toilets in starbucks are decidedly non-mexican - they have seats, and are clean).

oaxaco to mexico to caracas

checked out of hotel this morning as my travel companions suddenly decided they wished to move on today rather than tomorrow. overnight bus to Mexico in an hour or so, then wander round Mexico city again for a day, then overnight flight to Caracas which sounds very dangerous and crime ridden. wish me luck.

Puerto Escondido

in puerto escondido. last night found scorpion crawling round in my belongings. today i wake with terrible stomach cramps. tonight will get a night bus to Oaxaca with my three travel companions. plane ticket booked for Caracas on Tuesday night from Mex. DF.

Mexico City

Mexico City was fun. Lots of tacos and tortas at cheap prices. Hostel I stayed in (Hostel Amigo) had a fun bar to hang out in. Went to see some mexican wrestling, but it turns out we went at the wrong time so didn´t get to see any. I tried drunkenly to bribe a police man with USD10 but don´t remember if it worked. I´m not in gaol so it must have at least partly. Last night in the city was spent in some square where the mariachis gather to play to the crowd in exchange for money. We sat and drank large bottles of beer (not as big as 40s though...) and got one group to play for us. Interesting mix of instruments that some of the bands had - mobile harp, electric bass, accordian.

going loco

Flights to Cuba turned out to be too expensive. cheaper to fly via Canada than mexico by a lot, it seems. so instead I have hooked up with a group of other backpackers and find myself now in Acapulco. I felt a bit bad because I´d told one of them that it was around Spring Break time and that he´d have plenty to look at, yet when we got here, there appeared to be no drunk college girls around at all.
However today we walked down the beach to the resort area where we found loads, including two who got the five of us free beers on the beach (their USD100 per night resort package included unmetered alcohol - hurrah). only tiddly little cups though. was funny to see their jaws drop when we mentioned in conversation that our hotel in the non-tourist part of town near the Zocalo was only costing us USD40 for all five of us. was funny to see our jaws drop when they mentioned in conversation that USD15 for a 20 minute cab ride (we´d paid USD4 yesterday for about the same) was Good Value. They told us about a club thats only MXN400 to get into with unmetered alcohol, but at MXN15 for a beer by the Zocalo thats would be challengingly high drink:admission ratio to achieve.

mmm string

after 55 weeks or so of travelling, with only 5 more left, I´ve finally purchased some string, something I´ve been intending to do for a long long time.

Having got the string, I´ve washed and hung up to dry my smelly underpants (at this point, you are to misinfer that I haven´t washed them for 55 weeks).

The Argonaut

Discovered today that I am in the centre page pictures in the local newspaper 'The Argonaut', in amongst the dressed up mardis gras crowd. ooOOOoo.

D.F.

I have booked LAX<-> Cuidad de Mexico from 8th Mar -> 29th Mar. There should be some side trips (Caracas being one of the big ones) during that period too.

postquark

so went to quarks. after a year experiencing all this shit plus a few days in the fakeness of vegas it felt entirely natural to be drinking with ferengi and klingons walking round. hmm. maybe I need to stop and clear my brains out for a month?

quarks

the only place in vegas that isn't a pale imitation of some place that have already seen in real life: quarks. I'm thinking of heading there for lunch.

mex df

ticket from LAX -> mex df purchased (after fun navigating some website all in foreign). going there on 8th march and back in LA on the 29th. closer and closer to south america... I just need to buy a ticket across the continental divide now.

SIM

went into two SIM card shops today to try to get a tmobile PAYG SIM. neither had any. one had removed even all the SIMs from their "PAYG SIM + shittyphone" packages to sell separately (I wonder what they were going to do with all the SIM-less network locked shittyphones?)