Feb 2006

We said goodbye to the Inka Lodge with our Lonely Planet Rough Guide to South America (Our Bible) in hand and headed for our first taste of the joy that is traveling by bus through Peru. Taxi through the madness of Lima to the bus station where we boarded this lil mini bus thing that brought us to another bus terminal which was much larger with big normal looking buses (to our relief). Destination ICA… On these bus journeys they think it’s a great idea to slap on these badly dubbed action movies. Our first one was this Bollywood action movie with lots of gunfire and bad acting topped off with some crazy dancing and singing here an there for good measure and the odd bit of flesh. The thing is these movies are played as loud as the volume on the bus speaker system will allow. SLEEPING IS NOT AN OPTION!!!!

Finally got to ICA after dark and grabbed a cab to a near by place called Huachachina. We read about it in the Bible. Its an Oasis flanked by Three MASSIVE sand dunes with a Lagoon in the middle. After some messing about by one hostel we (Lisa) rang earlier, we ended up staying in this nice old hostel with mainly Peruvians staying there with a lovely big swimming pool. We had a quick look about the place and went for some food an a drink but as it was dark we couldn’t make out where the sand dunes were or how big they were, until lisa spotted a line running along the skyline.. den den deeeen - it was one of the dunes and it was up so high in the sky!!! We woke up and finally got to see how MASSIVE the dunes where surrounding the Oasis.

The highlight of the trip was going Sand boarding!!!! They take you out over the nearest dunes and into the desert in a massive dune buggy. The crazy driver then drives u straight up these fucking huge dunes and over the edge flying down the otherside trying to nearly topple the fucking buggy. Scary but so much fun. After putting the shits up us he then gets on with the Sand Boarding!! We started off on a what I thought was a big enough dune and gradually by nearly sunset we had progressed onto five more dunes each one getting bigger than the last till we got to the mamma of all dunes.. it was farking massive!!! think thousands of feet here folks. There was a lot of “woohoooo im sand boarding” shouts, followed by lots of “arrgggggg”s as we all fell all over the place like rag dolly anna’s! There was sand EVERYWHERE. Due to the addition of my new beard, my whole face was covered in sand so I looked like a bear!!!! Or as I thought Charlie Sheen circa 1979 Platoon lol After all the falling down and boarding we went to watch the sunset over the desert horizon – very bootyful.

On the way back, as it was just getting dark, the feckin lights on the buggy broke! However, the driver felt he could still navigate his way through the desert and over monsterous dunes back to the oasis…. It was pretty fupping scary flying over huge dunes with near vertical drops whilst not being able to make out what was on the other side! Great fun though!!! We met a Swiss couple doing the boarding and went for drinks with them and decided to get the bus with them the following morning to Nasca.

Slimjimhairyface

Hola Amigos!!!
Oh dios Mio, I’m growing a beard in an effort to look tougher and outdo Kev’s effort a good few months ago. It’s coming along nicely. Lima was our first port of call in South America. We were a lil apprehensive as to how safe it would be etc so after getting out of the melee at the airport an a taxi to the Inka Lodge hostal all in one piece it was alllllllll good. We stayed in Mirafloras, which is a nice well to do area in Lima, not like the main part of the city that looked like a war zone in parts. It took a couple of days walking about the streets, staying in after dark, watching episodes of Law and Order on TV with some Peruvian beer and munching on olives before we could get our bearings and feel up some Peruvians. A very very nice bunch of people! Lima was a bit smelly with lots of lil Daewoo cabs zipping here and there so we decided after two days it was time to Vamous!!

The city of Angels, more like the city of hippies. Yet again they have infiltrated the side streets and beach areas of another West coast city with their smelly bum ways, trying to make a buck the only way they know how - singing about saving the world and banning the bomb while banging bongos and sleeping rough on the beach. After hearing bad stuff about down town LA (just another big smelly city) we (Lisa) looked for somewhere near the beach to stay for the couple of nights we were there. The Cadillac “Hotel” Venice Beach was the cheap and cheerful option. It was right on the beach and just a few blocks south of main street Santa Monica.

We saw lots of crazies on the boardwalk including one guy wearing a Turban, playing an electric guitar on roller blades! And another muscle guy just walking around all buff wearing nout but a lil leopard skin g-string – fetching!
Venice Beach and Santa Monica Main Street were very nice with lots of trendy apartments facing the sea, cool shops and lovely restaurants to get some eats. We saw a flyer for Dj Sneak, Derrick Carter and Heather all playing some secret location party the night we arrived, but seeing as we had already seen Sneak play in Vegas, we left it. Lisa picked up a new rucksack and we got our mits on a fancy laptop for a steal.

The last day we went to Universal Studios tour, which was excellent. There were loads of cool rides like a Jurassic Park (scary water ride) and The mummy ride - (roller coaster in the dark). The Back to the future ride was so good with added commentary from The Doc himself! Then we did the big Universal Studio tour where we saw the street they film desperate housewives on and also the Plane Crash scene from War of the Worlds and loads of other stuff. The Van Helsing thingy scared the pants off Lisa when a lil midget ran out and went “RARRRR” at the end lol was v funny. So I guess that was LA We’d defo go back and visit the west coast, relaxed people, great weather and my friends the hippes.

Jimbarrooooo

Well well well,
I´ve forgotten my book of notes here to remind me of what happened in Vegas so I will have to rely on this ole memory of mine. (pffft)

We checked into the slightly swish Sahara Hotel and I was taken aback by the abundance of Velour Tracksuits... :/ Our hotel was pretty great though - we had a TV - WOoohoo!
Of course we had to move down the road to the Sin City Hostel for Friday and Saturday night because the hotel prices triple in Vegas at the weekends!
The strip itself was amazing. We spent a lot of time trekking up and down it, which although only about 4 miles long, takes feckin ages. Partly because everything is flashy and exciting and you forget where you are going, and even if you make it far enough down the road, you´ve still only half a chance of making it to your destination as half the streets are made of escalators which you have to board in order to cross the road - and they all actually go through the hotels! So there´s no escape.
All the hotels are huge and swish. Some of them are built as replicas of famous cities - e.g. New York NEw York was built like a miniture version of New York, The Venetian is built like a miniture venice and you can get on a gondola and float throughout the hotel while the gondola driver sings to you! And there was another one called Paris with an Eiffel Tower and everything, but I can´t remember what city that represented..
Every hotel has a ´thing´. In the MGM Grand they have real lions in a glass box surrounding the casino floor, in the flamingo, there are pinguins and flamingos outside! Caesars Palace has lots of swish shops and a show about the Lost City of Atlantis... etc etc..
We lorded it about for the first few days, exploring and shopping. Then we eventually built up the courage to have a whirlygig in the casinos.
We also went to see Sneak in the Rio. He rocked ' apart from one or two dodgy tracks from Tripsville, he was really great. Bumpity Bump and expensive drinks, with a jawdropping view off all of Vegas from the outdoor rooftop part of the club. We got drunk and rolled home happy.
James was ultra brave and dove (dived?) right in but unfortunately lost his arse on the Black Jack tables, whilst I lorded it up drinking Long Island Ice Teas and chucking coins into a James Bond Slots Machine. (The objective being to get 0 0 7 or something).
It was actually quite spell binding and I convinced myself that once I got up to 30 dollars I would Cash Out, but that of course never happens! Eventually I walked away langered with a bucket full of quarters! wohooo.. I`ve found my new calling....
We ventured outside the strip in a search for a laptop but it was pretty uneventful.. the bus took ages cos the traffic is mental .. and the laptop was a bit over budget.. (We spotted one in SUPERPAWN) he he

We also went to see the Grand Canyon in a helicopter which was amazing. The pilot was amusing and promised us his tour was NOT AT ALL cheesy.. Then he proceeded to put on "Lenny Kravitz - I want to get away.. I want to Fly away.. etc" and piped it into our headphones..
pffft
In other news Vegas was pretty windy and our skin was mucho dry!
I think that´s all for now, I can´t upload the photos here in this small internet cafe in Nazca, Peru (rub rub rub ) as there is no place to put the cd..
So over and out people..
Till Next Time..
Rosy & Jim. xx

It finally clicked with me after visiting San Fran why Sasha used a bum singing as the intro track to his GU 09 San Fran cd.. The place is full of them. Washed up hippies everywhere one day wanting to save the world but only ending up smoking weed and smelling bad sailing up and down san frans hilly streets in thier good ship shopping trolly. Although they look smelly they are all in great form smiling and singing everytime u go by one... One in particular near our hostel reminded me of Kev in John Sheehans house that nite before Electric Picnic red faced and laughing at everything and everyone that walked near him lol .

Anyway enought about bums and onto bummers. Well lack of them really. I was expecting geis everywhere but there were very few to be seen. A couple of lesbots here and the odd gayer there) Trigger would have asked for a flight ticket refund).

We loved San Fran it was such a nice chamge of pace from NYC which was rush rush rush. Laid back, nice weather and a starbucks on every corner. We walked all over the city doing all of the usual touristy things like get on a tram, alcatraz, bike tour over the golden gate bridge and stopping about 5 tiomes on the way over to try and capture a picture of me doing the San Fran GU 09 Sasha cover stance. One of the highlights had to of been seeing the coit tower (old 150 foot tower build by some crazy rich women yonks ago with a great view of whole bay) and witnessing the first fog of the year roll in and consume the Golden Gate bridge in a massive cloud. The fog is like san frans natural air conditioning system it rolls in over and through the city and cools everything down for about 24 hours.

Anyway thats pretty boring what else did we get up to hmm some shopping eating it lots of lovely food places. Note to anyone who plans on visiting SAn Fran visit "The House of Nan King" its in all the reccomended places to eat and is amazing im not noramally one to go wow re chinese food but seriously its amazing and not expensive. From the outside the place looks like an old crappy place with an dirty A4 page as the menu but the place has queues outside it EVERY night of the week Saturdays is a joke the lines so big.

Well thats all I can think of for the mo lisa will get on the vegas and la case and i will get on the South American Blog "Oh Dios mio I´m growing a beard"·

miss all you animals.
Jimbobhairyface.
:o)

Greetings from ze Big Apple.

Myself & Jimbob had a wonderous time in NY. Everything was huge, I felt quite small & insignificant. It was fantastic! We fitted (fat?) so much into the week.

As well as all the usual stuff, such as the Boat ride past the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building (Cue Jimbob looking a paler shade of green! ), Macy's, Soho, Chinatown, American Museum of Natural History (Which rocked - nerd alert) and general walking up and down the streets of New York all day every day, we also caught the Monty Python Broadway Show "Spamalot"! That was amazing, it was a lovingly ripped off version of The Holy Grail and was well worth the pretty penny it cost.
We bumped into a huge amount of crayzees in NY,mainly we reckon due to the larger population - ergo a larger population of weirdoes!

A bum who sang us poetry on the street kept blabbing on (obviously waiting for us to give him some dosh. Whilst we were standing there wondering what he was saying, grinning like idiots, waiting for him to stop so that we could give him a dollar and he would feck off. Needless to say that when he started repeating himself we got the dosh out a lot quicker.

One morning whilst eating our lavish breakfast of eggs on toast, a madzer lady came in (On her own) and sat down next to us and ordered two breakfasts. She proceeded to toast herself *clinking both glasses off each other* and laugh and talk to herself out loud. Smothering the laughter we watched as she called the waitress, explained that her invisible friend thought his/her breakfast was too hard and could she have a bagel instead. The waiters were all strolling up and down giggling trying to have a look (which somewhat relieved me a bit - it's not THAT normal). So finally she stood up, asked for everyone's attention, and promptly told us that she had been proposed to, but had decided to turn him down as she was worth a lot more.. or something to that effect...Guffaw Guffaw..

Whilst watching the Superbowl in some bar (which had 25c chicken wings), this rather large young girl sat down at our table. She ordered a few chicken wings and I must admit, (terribly) we were impressed with her will power. That is until she ordered another plate, then another plate, then a huge big plate of burger and chips.
I feared for our safety as I envisioned a replay of one of the last scenes of Monty Python's - The Meaning Of Life.
fnar fnar

Anywho - a lot of walking was done, the best pizza in the world was eaten, furiously, a lot of crayzees were met, much cheap beer was drank and numerous episodes of Law & Order were interfered with by American TV ads.

The last day of NY was bitterly cold and we were glad to be hightailing it to the (Cartman Voice) "West Siii eeeeeed" - i.e San Francisco. I immediately liked SF more than NY (if possible) and the weather here is roasting. MUhahahahahahhahahah
adios.. Suckers.....
Lee..xx