Chaco Church

Among South American countries Paraguay probably has the saddest history. Coming down from the zenith of the Jesuit utopia there followed colonial stagnation, then independence that brought on a trio of dictators who, successively, hermetically sealed the country from the outside world, turned it into a personal fiefdom, and finally dragged it into a suicidal war against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. It would be no understatement to say that the War of the Triple Alliance absolutely annihilated Paraguay. Out of a pre-war population of some 500,000 Paraguay lost 300,000 people, or about 60% of its population, giving it the dubious distinction of being the most destructive (per capita) war of modern times (and possibly ever). Towards the end there were almost no men left in the country and little kids were sent to the front lines wielding little more than sharpened fruit and domestic utensils (hence the well-known phrase regarding kitchen sinks). And all this over an issue that didn't initially involve Paraguay at all.

Stained glass window in the national pantheon depicting Francisco Solano Lopez, Paraguay's dictator who plunged the country into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance. Recently his historical legacy has been reviewed and he is now a national hero.

Missionary Opposition

You don't have to know me (or read my blog) for long to know that my views of organised religion are sceptical to say the least. I have seen far too much intolerance, violence, fear, hatred, bigotry and plain ignorance stemming from religious faith for me to want to have anything to do with it. Sure, it can be a force for good, though it seems to me that those are always individual cases that probably occur in spite of religion rather than because of it. Paraguay's history, however, provides one example of a religious organisation living up to its promises of fairness, justice, betterment. Sadly the temporal success of the Jesuits amongst the Guarani provoked the jealousies of the stronger colonial powers. Nevertheless their achievements still live on in today's Paraguay and form an integral part of the national narrative.

All that remains of the vast Baroque church at Jesus de Taverangue, a church that would have been considered grand even in a large, European city of the time, but built  entirely by Guarani.

Tererism

Paraguay is something of a black hole as far as Latin America is concerned. Despite being in the centre of the continent and part of the Mercosur block, not only do we hear little about it, but even within South America it's something of an unknown. Furthermore it lacks any major tourist draws and so it gets bypassed by most visitors to the continent even when they're doing a so-called "Grand Tour".What actually is there in Paraguay? what are its people like (because I had never met a Paraguayan before)? how do they differ and how are they similar to their South American neighbours? These were all questions that were impatiently straining at the bit in my head; desperate to see what all the lack of fuss is about.

The spillway of the Itaipu dam, used on the rare occasions when the water level is too high. The main dam with its 20 turbines can be seen in the background.

A Tale Of Two Cities

Brazil is dominated by its two largest cities: Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The two are eternal rivals and are as alike as chalk and cheese. Rio is the star of the show, the prima donna, the cool kid on the block; whilst São Paulo is the plain one that does all the work and gets none of the credit. The images of Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf rock and the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana are iconic, conjuring up fantasies of caipirinhas on the beach, suave maestros playing bossa nova into the wee hours, and harems of girls from Ipanema. This is the Brazil people dream of. The only associations people have with São Paulo (if they have any at all) are traffic jams, hordes of busy, unsmiling people and polluted air. Of course there are truths behind these cliches, but also much more.

View of the Guanabara Bay, the older part of Rio, and the unmistakable Pao de Azucar rock on the right.

Brazilian Gems

Brazilwood and then sugar cane may have been the initial sources for Brazil's wealth, but they did not last long: you can't build an economy on a pretty tree and the uptake of sugar cane in the Caribbean was far more successful. To understand Brazil's success you need to head inland from Rio to the hills and mountains of Minas Gerais. Initially all development was along the coast, but soon explorers, the so-called bandeirantes operating out of São Paulo, moved further inland. The initial motivation was to find indigenous slaves, but soon the bandeirantes found that the vast interior was home to unimaginable mineral wealth. The gold deposits in and Ouro Preto were discovered in the late 17th century (they were hard to miss as gold was found in large nuggets in the streams) and soon people were flocking to the region to get a piece of the action.

View of Ouro Preto, once the richest city in the world and the epicentre of the world's largest gold rush that formed the basis of Brazil's wealth.

More Than Just Samba

Travelling through the northeast has helped shatter two preconceived, stereotypical images of Brazil, of landscape and culture. Brazil is often viewed as being synonymous with the Amazon rainforest and perhaps, for those who have a penchant for nature documentaries, like myself, with vast wetlands like the Pantanal.  But there is far more to it than that. The wetland theme started off well as I left Belem, almost all the way to São Luís, but as soon as my road turned inland, into the heart of the northeast that soon gave way to the dry savannah of the cerrado and the scruby, caatinga forest of the sertão. This vast, dry hinterland is reminiscent of the American wild west, and the small, dusty towns towns that dot the rolling hills need only a couple of gunslingers to complete the picture. This is cattle country and last year's drought was tough, as evidenced by the verges populated by rotting carcases and their attendant flocks of vultures. Lonely escarpments and odd rock formations dot this forgotten landscape, until you finally approach the coast again and sugar cane plantations take over.

Brazil isn't just the Amazon and Pantanal. There are some incredible landscapes, such as the multitude of crystal-clear pools amongst the white coastal sand dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses national park.

Amazoning

The Gran Sabana continues for several hundred kilometres south of Santa Elena. The Brazilian border though is much closer. It's so close, and so porous, that regular taxis shuttle back and forth from Santa Elena and don't even bother stopping at immigration. I only realised I was in Brazil when the driver told everyone to get out and I had to walk back to the border post to get my entry stamp (I didn't bother with the Venezuelan exit stamp though, so as to save as much precious space in my passport as possible). The Brazilian savannah is much like the Venezuelan one: dry, dusty and sparsely populated by Pemon, the same indigenous tribe that lives across the border. The main industry consists of smuggling heavily subsidised Venezuelan petrol across the border and selling it in Boa Vista, the nearest town of any note. The Brazilian authorities probably turn a blind eye to it as it saves the government substantial sums of money and provides employment in an otherwise neglected corner of the country. It's a further 1000km due south before you get to Manaus, the first major city. 1000km and you're still very much in the north of the country. Brazil's a big place.

The grandiose Teatro Amazonas, an extravagant masterpiece of European high culture in the middle of the rainforest.

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.

Little Britain

It's almost impossible to go anywhere further from the UK than New Zealand. This is to be the apex of my journey and from here on I will only be getting closer to home and a return to the "real world". I arrived in Christchurch on a cold, blustery New Years Day. Apparently someone had forgotten to tell them that it was supposed to be summer here in the southern hemisphere. But that didn't faze me too much as it just added to the feeling of being back in the UK. For a long time New Zealand styled itself as the Little Britain of the southern hemisphere, and nowhere is that spirit stronger than in Christchurch. Founded by an alumnus of Christ Church college Oxford the city boasts a very olde English atmosphere, with architecture, boutiques and parks that are reminiscent of the old country. Cricket, afternoon tea and well-tended gardens are very much the order of the day. In fact, for much of its independent history, New Zealand has seen itself as the "Britain of the southern hemisphere" with Christchurch the heart of that Britishness.

Christchurch cathedral, once the symbol of the city, but now nothing more than an empty shell  held up by  scaffolding. Its future, as well as that of the rest of the city centre, is uncertain.

Albatross

Melbourne was the end of the line for me as far as my Australian adventures were concerned. Nevertheless I still had a crucial job to do: sell the car. Having never owned a car I had assumed that this would simply involve placing an add online or in a hostel and then just sit and wait for the deluge of offers. Sadly it wasn't to be. Posting the ads proved to be quite straightforward. Online was naturally easy and took just a matter of minutes whereas with the hostels I had to print out flyers and individually put them up in each hostel.

Although I had been to Melbourne before and my car shenanigans, I still took the time to do a little sightseeing, such as visiting the Royal Exhibition Hall, the only extant world exhibition building from the 19th century.

Belum

I was now in the southeast of Australia, a part of the country I had already visited before, and I was alone. So what was I going to do? The answer was simple: party! Well, not quite. Over my years travelling and living in London (which is the 12th largest Australian city by population) I've accumulated a fair number of Australian friends whom I rarely get to see due to the obvious insurmountable distances. My little sojourn in the southeast would hopefully redress that, as the urban strip stretching from Newcastle to Melbourne is home to around two thirds of the country's population so pure probabilities meant that I would be able to see most of them.

A cliched photo of the Sydney opera house and CBD taken from the iconic harbour bridge.