Lost World

The name Roraima may not be familiar to most people, yet nevertheless it is a place that is famous throughout the world. It is one of the largest and tallest of the hundred or so tepui that are found in southeastern Venezuela, spilling over into neighbouring Brazil and Guyana. Tepui are geological formations unique to the area (known as the Guyana Shield): large, sandstone mesas that rise many hundreds of metres, vertically, out of the surrounding countryside. When they were first 'discovered' by European explorers in the mid 19th century they fired the Victorian imagination. The remoteness and inaccessibility of these 'islands' in the jungle, along with the exciting new theory of evolution, led to fevered speculation as to what may live on their summits. The most famous example is Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Lost World where a group of explorers finds a surviving population of dinosaurs (or a more recent incarnation in the animated film Up). When real life explorers finally did make it to the top of some of these tepui they may not have found any dinosaurs, but what they did discover was no less incredible...

Roraima (to the right) and Kukenan (to the left). Still quite a long way to walk to get there.

The President Is Dead! Long Live The President!

Hugo Chavez was pronounced dead at 4:25pm on Tuesday, the 5th of March. My bus arrived in Caracas at 6pm. I didn't realise until I was on the local bus and heard it on the radio. Although I might have doubted my Spanish skills I couldn't doubt my eyes when I arrived in the city centre and saw it invested with police and national guardsmen at every corner. Every shop was shuttered and there was a sense of an impending storm on the streets. I couldn't find the hostel that I had noted from the internet and was wandering around trying to find somewhere affordable to spend the night without being too conspicuous. Caracas has an unenviable reputation as a dangerous city, and whilst I would scoff at such safety paranoia in Asia my experience of Latin America is not my area of expertise and so I thought it better to play it safe. After a deal of blind wandering I came across an open doorway in a deserted back street with people loitering on the threshold and the word hotel above the door. It looked like a den of ill repute but I was past caring, the rucksack on my back was making me feel uncomfortable and the price was reasonable.

In Venezuela Chavez is everywhere. The cult of personality might not be of Turkmenistani proportions, nevertheless it is hard to get away from him, especially in Caracas. (These posters declaim: "From your hands comes the water of life. We love you!" No false modesty there then.)

Festival Of Colours

I started my South American by sticking to the Caribbean coast, visiting first Cartagena and then Maracaibo, the major ports of Colombia and Venezuela respectively, though their histories and characters are quite dissimilar. Cartagena was, for over two centuries, the most important Spanish port in the Caribbean, with imposing sea walls and fortresses protecting a sheltered lagoon port (not that that stopped it from being sacked by Francis Drake in 1586). Long regarded as the Pearl of the Caribbean it enjoys its status as doyenne of Spanish colonial culture and is one of the most visited tourist sites in the region. Maracaibo, on the other hand, was long nothing but a provincial backwater. Quite literally as it sits on the shore of Lake Maracaibo, South America's largest lake. It wasn't until the late 19th century, when substantial petroleum deposits were discovered beneath the lake, that the town's fortunes changed overnight, turning Venezuela into one of the world's leading producers of the black stuff. The town has little to recommend itself to passing tourists who rarely stop, except to change buses for somewhere more enticing, where it is not so hot or humid.

Cartagenas old fortifications looking out across to the modern, upmarket Bocagrande neighbourhood.

Groundhog Day

Just a quick, initial message for those who surf on in and don't receive Facebook or e-mail updates this is to let you know that a) I have added several posts about New Zealand that can be found below (although they were written after I left New Zealand I have placed them before so as to be in the correct chronological order) and b) there are new photo albums, of East Timor, Australia and New Zealand available to view from links on the right hand side of the website. But now back to the blog:

So, here I am, back on dry ground. 21 days, one ocean, 12,000km, a new continent, and a new hemisphere later. It was certainly an interesting experience. There was nothing for me to do, the views were about as monotonous as you can get, one day merged into another, each indistinguishable from the next. In one case that was more true than usual. On Monday the 4th of February we crossed the international date line and so we had the (dubious) pleasure of experiencing two Mondays in a row (the crew were not impressed, although in the other direction they get a 4-day week). And yet the time, if you'll forgive the pun, just sailed past. I suppose that I get along quite well with myself and took the opportunity afforded me to catch up with some reading, writing and working on my knowledge of pop culture by watching a slew of films that have accumulated on my hard drive. And I also discovered what life is like for a modern-day sailor.

Not another Monday! we just had one today.

Contained

Dear readers, you may have noticed that I've fallen somewhat behind with my blogging of late. Sorry. Unfortunately that will continue to be the case for the next three weeks when there will be no more updates. The reason is a happy one though, because I will have succeeded in my plan to cross the Pacific without flying. I will be aboard a container ship bound from Australia to North America, embarking here in New Zealand, and alighting in Cartagena, Colombia, just past the Panama Canal. Many people have asked me how I arranged such a thing and whether I will be working aboard. Sadly, gone are the days when you could just turn up at a port and ask around the ships to see if they would be willing to take you as a deckhand for free passage and board. These days the sums of money too large and bureaucracy too stifling* to allow anything like that to happen. Instead you have to pass via dedicated freighter travel agents who facilitate the booking of a limited number of berths on regular cargo routes (and when I say regular I mean that there may be only one or two sailings a month) plied by transcontinental container ships. The number of available spaces is small, but then again not many people want to travel in this manner. Not only does it take substantially longer than flying (19 days instead of 19 hours), but it's even significantly more expensive. My ticket to Colombia is costing roughly twice the equivalent air fare. Instead container ships are for those who stubbornly refuse to fly, are concerned about their carbon footprint (an extra person aboard a container ship has no effect on the amount of fuel used), or perhaps have a shed-load of stuff to take with them (I get 150kg free baggage allowance - it's just a shame I'm going to Colombia rather than from, otherwise I could have defrayed my costs by taking along some of the country's choice export products). Nevertheless I am sure it will be an adventure and certainly a unique travel experience, though perhaps somewhat monotonous. Yet I have prepared myself for that and have several hundred books with me and over a hundred films as well, so should be able to while away the hours at sea. I suppose it's also a good opportunity to see whether I really get seasick or not...

Distance marker in Auckland. So I will be covering a little over 12,000km in the next three weeks.

*Among the hoops I had to jump through to book this passage (the process was started back in the start of December) was to prove I had insurance, have a medical certificate, and even have my name sent off to the US Department of Homeland Security. I'm now on their books and am looking forward to the American visa application process.

Once Were Warriors

Having been to the far south of New Zealand I thought it only fair to make my way to the far north as well. Unlike the South Island, which was sparsely inhabited by Maori, this has always been the Maori heartland. To this day the region is home to the highest Maori concentration in the country and is an essential stop for anyone wishing to try and understand the two sides to New Zealand. I find it useful, when thinking of New Zealand, to compare it to Australia. Of course they vary markedly in size and geography, but their recent histories share many similarities that do make such comparisons meaningful. Both were inhabited by indigenous populations that were isolated from the rest of the world until their contact with Europeans in the 18th century (not 100% true for the Aborigines of the Top End who traded with the Makassarese, but good enough as a generalisation); became British colonies; indigenous people were greatly dispossessed by the colonists; gained independence in the early 20th century; economies are mainly based around primary resources (mineral for Australia, agricultural for New Zealand). Yet despite these similarities there are glaring differences between the two, most notably with regards to their indigenous peoples.

Australian and New Zealand road signs share a common design, but instead of kangaroos you have kiwis, and instead of wide, flat, limitless expanses you have volcanoes.

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

There's a well-known expression  that asserts that it is not the destination, but rather the voyage itself that make travelling worthwhile. The travelling has certainly been fun here in New Zealand. Intercity public transport is absolutely god-awful thanks to a small, dispersed, population that is affluent enough for almost everyone to be able to afford private cars. Even the significant numbers of tourists are almost all obliged to hire cars or camper vans (those that don't generally join tours). As you know, neither option suits my temperament - or my budget - so that left me with hitchhiking. Not that I consider it a bum option. In fact, apart from a couple of occasions where I was standing by the side of the road for three hours slowly getting cramp in my left upper-arm muscles, it has been a fun, varied and quite an adventure.

I got dropped off at this bus stop on a lonely road in the mountains. There are two buses a week. Luckily I only had to wait 30mins for a ride though.

Profits Of Doom

Whilst I was tramping in Fiordland I quickly realised that the month I had given myself for New Zealand was nowhere near enough. Certainly not enough to do half as many of the hikes as I would have liked. But, not being the master of my destiny on this occasion, there was little I could do but return quickly to Christchurch, retrieve my belongings, say my last goodbyes to Liam and Eila, and make my way to the North Island.* Although I was reluctant to leave the south so soon I was, at least, glad to experience the genuinely aestival weather of the north that allowed me to finally stow away my jumper.

Two ways of getting to Wellington: the Interislander ferry from the South Island (on the left), or on a huge cruise ship from Australia (on the right).

Sounds Good

As pleasant as New Zealand's towns might be, a visitor to the country would be severely short-changed if that is all they saw. There is less than a handful of buildings that surpass 150 years. In terms of style or architecture there is nothing that doesn't mirror some British style (except for a few Maori offerings, but more on that later). New Zealand's true allure stems from its natural beauty, dynamic geology, and unique flora and fauna. If you don't like or appreciate the outdoors then don't even bother coming here. And of all the wild places in New Zealand, the southwestern corner is the wildest, ruggedest, harshest, and undeniably the most breathtaking.

Views like this are what draw people to New Zealand. The Routeburn valley of Mount Aspiring national park.

Little Scotland

If Christchurch and the surrounding Canterbury plain were founded and settled by Englishmen trying to create a home away from home, then the Otago and Southland regions at the bottom of the South Island were unmistakably colonised by Scots. Not only is Dunedin, the main city in the south, obviously named after Scotland's capital Edinburgh, but it was also designed in its layout and architecture to mirror the austere, neo-Gothic cities of the north (in all my travels I have not seen a place that so closely reminded me of my hometown Aberdeen). But it's not just the city but the whole landscape which evokes images of Alba: the rolling hills battered by the unrelenting wind, enemy of tall trees but friend of the hardy, golden tussock grass that carpets much of the landscape. Perfect sheep country, for which New Zealand is famous.

No Scottish city is complete without a statue of the national poet, Robert Burns, and so it is with Dunedin too.