new york stories

so i'm in new york. cool, huh.
we arrived here on monday, taking the greyhound from ithaca.

so new york is big and noisy and dirty and all those other great things that has made it famous. on monday night i went to the Sidewalk Cafe Antihootenanny Open Mic. it was scary, for the first time in my life i was at a show where i fitted in. normally i play at shows where the other songwriters play quiet pretty songs and then i come on and make too much noise and use naughty words. suddenly i was at a show where all the performers make too much noise and use naughty words and the punters seemed to like my stuff lots and they were all singing along to 'you can't dance in new york city'.

the next night i went back to the sidewalk cafe to play the one and only show in my north american tour. it was great, all six audience members loved my tunes, so thanks terence and catherine for coming and bringing three friends. amazingly, neither than band that played before me nor the singer songwriter who played after me had brought as many audience members as i had, so i was the big crowd puller on the night (so to speak).

another surprising new york story from that night. in america bars have ATM machines in them, which is dangerous, but then so is EFT-POS at home. so i asked the machine for $160. maybe the machine couldn't understand my accent because it gave me a receipt saying that i had asked for $120, but it would only give me $80. then to make things more confusing it only gave me $60. so i phoned the atm people and after a difficult conversation where i couldn't hear him (i was standing in a noisy bar) and he couldn't speak english nor understand me (and let's face it, few people can) he jumped in his van and came around to the bar and gave me $20. unfortunately he left before i played my set. now if i can just get everyone else in new york to give me $20 rather than stay for my set, i'll be sorted.

also while in new york we've been to the museum of natural history to see a display about dragons and other mythical creatures. turns out some sailors who thought they were seeing mermaids may have actually seen manatees.

deep fried terror

so a couple of days after we left Belize, Hurricane Dean has moved in and caused all kinds of damage. Caye Caulker has been evacuated and its scary on a stick.

meanwhile we're in safe cute upstate new york, visiting friends who are studying at Cornell University. this town is many flavours of sweet - old school big red farmer's barns, moosewood cafe, cornell brass band and clock tower chiming away happily. we're taking it very easy here and enjoying it lots.

today we drove to syracuse to go to the state fair. think the hawkes bay A&P show times a kazillion. we saw children shearing sheep, horse competitions, llama displays. we played games where you throw things; hit things; wet things. We won honey bears, care bears; monkeys (i actually didn't 'win' the honey bear - the stall owner gave it to me out of pity after i sucked so badly at throwing the ball into the bucket). We avoided freak show (world's shortest woman Tiny Tina, the Frog Girl, and the creature with the head of a woman and the body of a snake); we also avoided all sorts of rides that wouldn't have gone down so well after the food we ate. We ate deep friend mac and cheese, deep fried veggie combo, deep fried onions, wine flavoured ice cream, wine slushies, deep fried dough (i wish i was making this one up). Unfortunately my insides convinced me to not try the deep fried pizza or deep fried ice cream - my arteries will live to fight another day...

rock and / or roll

so last night we drove to Hollywood to catch up with Dave, an old friend of G's. Hollywood and sunset strip in particular, look kind of what i imagined, but it didn't have the hoardes of motley crue wannabes hanging on the streets. its actually being cleaned and glitzed up a lot, and we drove past lots of those places you read about - viper room, musician's institute, capital records, stars on the street etc. we went to a bar called the bowery, and in true LA style, Dave called the manager ahead to get us a good table (its all about who you know in this town).

as we were driving around town i looked for signs about what bands were playing tonight. the only ones we saw advertised were Joe Satriani and Flock of Seagulls. this town never forgets. we ended up going with Zac (our excellent host) to the opening of a new club, which featured an 80s cover band all dressed up - singer as David Lee Roth, guitarist as Slash, bassist as Devo, and drummer as Robert Smith. they belted out all the 80s rock one could want to hear in one night, and then we left the club and it was still hot. this town never cools. but its cool.

just showing off now

so turns out that the water in the carribean sea (which we swam in yesterday) is warmer than the water in the pacific ocean (which we swam in today). but the sun seems to be stronger on this coast because we got burnt today for the first time on our trip.

santa monica is v pretty, just a huge huge beach. unfortunately patti smith played on the santa monica pier last night a few hours before we flew into town.

belizian bliss

so last night we flew into LA, landing at the Tom Bradley terminal at LAX. Tom Bradley read the news in nz in the 1980s, and used to do it very well, so i'm pleased he got an airport terminal named after him for his effort. sadly when i looked for a picture of tom on google images, it couldn't find any. ah, tom, i haven't forgotten you...

so we just had three days in caye caulker, a small carribean island off the coast of belize city. it was pure bliss. on monday we took a long bus ride from flores in guatemala to belize city. now lonely planet doesn't have a nice word to say about belize city, its small, dirty, and they'll mug you for your tan. so we trusted our (frequently misinformed and out of date) LP and jumped straight onto a water taxi to Caye Caulker.

Caye Caulker used to be an island an hour away from belize city. then a few years back a hurricane hit and now its two islands. the motto of the island is 'go slow' and you couldn't move quickly if you wanted to. but why would you want to. the only vehicles on the island are golf carts and bikes. most visitors to the island spend their days being energetic - snorkelling, diving, fishing etc, then drinking cocktails at a beachfront cafe in the evenings. we skipped the energetic half, but damn we had some good cocktails. we spent our days lying on hammocks by the beach, then jumping into the carribean ocean for a quick swim, then back to our hammocks. i don't think life actually could have got any better than the last three days...

hope things are good with you too.

tikal

so today we rose at sunrise to go to tikal. this was it. the big day. the basic reason we chose guatemala over costa rica or other central american countries was because we heard how amazing tikal was. well, we didn't see the sunrise because it was too misty (or 'mystical' as our guide said), it rained for most of it, and i almost got horribly lost after i had to go off to find the bathroom - but despite all of that, holy cow, tikal is astounding in every way. i can't begin to describe the miles and miles of huge ruins in the middle of a jungle (or rainforest - but what is the difference?), so i won't.

i'll post my own photos eventually, til then here's the shot from star wars.

the internet cafe is playing a spanish version of 'all by myself (don't wanna be). i'd better go find G.

tomorrow early morning we head to Belize.

so

why did the chicken cross the road?

TO DIE!!!!!

ok, that joke is funnier if you are over here seeing the diseased half-feathered chickens staggering about like they could keel over at any moment.

ok, its still not that funny.

maybe i'll write about the roads instead. we've spent lots of time on the roads of guatemala and mexico travelling place to place. with the exception of the last few hours of today's trip they've all be interesting trips (today was a straight dirtroad for hours). a few things we've noticed. one there are speed bumps everywhere. i mean everywhere, you don't drive more than a kilometer without being forced to slow down, and when you do, swarms of children selling things attack the van. apparently each town puts in their own speed humps so they can sell stuff to passing vehicles. doesn't make anything safer because the concept of requiring visibility before passing another vehicle also doesn't seem to exist here. we've seen cars passing trucks passing chicken buses at high speeds on unsealed blind corners with a cliff on one side. but then they all slow down for the next speed hump. 200k from san cristobel to palenque yesterday took well over four hours.

but its all good fun.

speaking of good fun. on thursday night we went to Revolutionaries Bar in San Cristobel Del La Casas and heard some great live music. guatemala was all about the marimba but over in mexico they got soul. we heard some funky ass music and a woman with a deep voice from heaven singing traditional mexican songs. and the beer went down well too.

yesterday we travelled from scdlc to palenque. on the way we stopped at beautiful waterfalls in aqua azul and misolha. then we got to palenque to see temples built by king pakal and his son jaguar in 600AD. these buildings were big and i'm sure a lot of slaves died so he could have a big temple. we too almost died walking up so many steps in the stinking hot. it was just a wall of heat. but very fun and pretty. i'm sorry i can't transfer photos to this blog from internet cafes, so you'll just have to trust me (or search google images for Palenque). that night we stayed in palenque town, which is a dump. we were tired and just hid in our room.

then this morning we had another early start as we drove to the border and took a powered raft across the river to guatemala, then the above mentioned boring dirt road before arriving in flores which is a beautiful island. we sat by the lake drinking and talking to a couple from denmark and a couple from spain. tomorrow morning we are all heading to tikal, the big daddy of mayan ruins. we are being picked up at 3am so we can watch the sunrise there. woo and hoo.

i´m not in guatemala now (dr sedley)

so we left antigua on monday, after three glorious days there. it now feels like a very long time ago. we then headed to panajachel but before we'd even arrived we decided that we'd skip it. our suspicions about pana´s unpleasantness were confirmed as soon as we stepped off the bus. a kazillion woman and children shoving their wares in our face, before arriving at the port where boys yelled at us and followed us down the road trying to sell us tickets on their boats. eventually we found someone who wasn´t yelling and bought boat tickets from him and headed to san pedro. the thing is that the reason there are so many aggressive sellers at pana is because there are so many tourists there, and the reason there are so many tourists there is because lake atitlan is truly beautiful. luckily we were able to enjoy the lake more from the other side from a (slightly) quieter town called San Pedro. this is also a major tourist hang out and too many israelis, but a lot of fun. it felt like the entire town was just one street of tourists, but the next morning when the rain stopped we walked up a steep hill and found a whole town of locals and better views. california where all the rich people live is hot and ugly desert. guatemala which is so poor has million dollar views every few steps. ok, i know that's not very deep, but still i laugh.

anyway back to how pretty lake atitlan is - very. its a huge lake with numerous volcanos around it and a lightening storm for extra special effect.

the next day we had to head back to pana, we found a gross cheap hostel, but then spent the difference on yummy food at a cafe with an amazing view of the lake. actually we've only had yummy food since we arrived in guatemala.

then wed morning at 6am we got in a shuttle and travelled for 10 hours to san cristobel de la casas in mexico which is a bigger place then anything we'd seen in guat. this town is also cute, every building is brightly coloured and has a colonial feel. we went to a museum that was a house that belonged to a woman who got to know mayans and set up an institute to help revive their culture. teaching the kids about weaving and crafts and gods etc.

tomorrow we're off to palenque, before heading back to guatemala to see Tikal, so its a few days of ruins ahead of us. i like ruins (i think - i've never actually seen mayan ruins).

antigua

we've now been in antigua, guatemala, two days and we love love love it. its one of the cutest little towns i've ever seen. maybe one day i can come back here to spend a week or two studying spanish (most tourists do that). already my spanish has made some improvements, its quite convenient travelling with a personal spanish teacher.

we haven't done much since we've been here, just soaked up the atmosphere, sat in cafes, listened to the marimbas, watched the fireworks, and walkign lots. we've been staying in a very nice place, 5 minutes walk from the town square (which as far as you can go) so we've been able to come back in the afternoon for siestas, which has been good because flying all night from LA left us shattered.

in an hour a shuttle will pick us up and take us to panajachel, which is on lake atitlan and supposed to be a noisy dirty town on a stunningly beautiful lake. we think we'll take a boat tour and maybe see the reserve (with a butterfly farm) then head on a day or two later to san cristobal in mexico.

two quick anecdotes:
yesterday we ordered pizza at a restaurant for lunch. the slimy maitre'd brought us free soup. G asked if it contained meat because we're vegetarian, he told us it didn't matter because it was free. he kept trying to convince us that we should eat the soup until a younger waiter admitted that it contained 'carne de res' - we still haven't figured out what this meat product is. finally the maitre d' took the soup from us and gave it to the next couple that walked in.

because we're staying on the edge of town we haven't met many other people yet. so we went to a bar where tourists supposedly hang out so we could make friends. it was called Rikky's place so we could make casablanca references. we sat by another couple and i started up conversation (i made a comment about the diarrhea ad in the magazine she was reading - smooth, huh?, but they weren't into conversation and left soon after. the next couple also didn't talk to us. this morning we noticed an ad in a tourist magazine that said 'swingers are welcome at Rikkys'. so is that better or worse that other couples wouldn't talk to us. eek on a stick.

antigua

LA and Guatemala

so we left san diego, jumped a boxcar to a wall of heat in Burbank (deep in the Valley, right by the Bob Hope airport). We were met there by Zac, who gets an impressive number of good host points as he drove us up to the Getty museum to see the smog-hazed view of LA, which spreads for miles like a cloud of emphysema. then took us to Santa Monica which is really pretty and fun. we're looking forward to spending more time there after central america.

that night we flew to Guatemala City, and 24 hours into the trip everything has exceeded expectations. LA security was quick and friendly, we got upgraded on our flight (i think they were separating the gringos from the locals), and then the place G had booked in antigua is very nice and impressively clean.

so now we're spending a few days in the frightfully cute town of antigua, where every building is colourful, there are marimbas and fireworks going off all the time, and volcanoes on each side of the town sheltering it from the rest of the mean old universe. this afternoon we might go to some coffee and macadamia plantations before heading to Lake Atitlan tomorrow (get out your maps people).

sunny days...

so its been two more rough days of sunshine and swimming.
yesterday we went to the san diego zoo, which is pretty damn amazing, highlights included the hippo, who was big and friendly, the panda who shares the same birthday as me (but she was a bit shy), and the anteater, which is just an odd looking creature.

then last night we went to a show called Avenue Q which is a musical about a group of muppets who graduate from college and learn that real life isn't as easy. while the plot may have been a bit obvious, the muppeteering was great, the laughs came thing and fast (especially at the expense of gary coleman), and some musical highlights included 'everyone's a little bit racist' and 'its ok to be a gay monster'

this morning we tried to go out early for breakfast but were foiled by a flat tyre, so instead we had coffee and a tour of the discount tyre district. fortunately we were soon at Hash-A-GoGo for what was possibly the world's biggest breakfast. i made a small dent in my giant plate of eggs, crispy potatoes, biscuit (a giant scone), and watermelon. Geraldine got served a pancake as big as a hubcap, but a whole lot tastier (i've never actually tried eating a hubcap but not once whilst helping change the tyre did i think 'yum').

spent the rest of the day by the beach or in the pool.

tomorrow LA then Guatemala.