OK, I´m going to have to separate this into two posts because Cusco is awesome but there is some stuff you should know.
Firstly altitiude is a bitch. Many people fly into Cusco from other high altitude spots like La Paz in Bolivia and so they´re already well adjusted. But if you´re doing Peru only, then take care on your first few days. My advice is (if you´re coming from overseas), check into your hotel, get a really plain meal for dinner (no rich restaurant food), drink plenty of water and go straight to bed. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. You will feel like death warmed up. So don´t waste your money on a great meal you can´t eat like I did!
Secondly, Cusco is a bona fide tourist town. It´s a cliche used widely in the west, but until you´ve experienced it here, you have no idea. Some pubs even sell a T shirt with ´No Gracias´ on it to fend off the local vendors. It´s also a bit sleazy at night with people offering you free drinks and stuff. Leading me onto my next point.
Regarding alcohol, take it easy champ. There´s plenty of bars but with less oxygen in your lungs, you´re gonna get drunk a lot quicker and end up like a fourteen year old mess. And you will be dehydrated as hell and up all night pissing. No fun. So at least for the first couple of days, maybe lay off the piss!
Oh yeah, and the coca. It´s everywhere. Drink plenty of coca tea, or even better buy the coca flour which will sort your right out. But you ain´t gonna get stoned off it champ. You can chew coca leaves to your hearts content and you won´t be like Tony Montana on Scarface. It fixes your digestion and altitude sickness though.
Finally, trouble. Especially in the main plaza in Cusco, there are cops everywhere. They are really making a concerted effort to stop violence against tourists. But a poor bloke got mugged the second night we were here, just outside our window. An Aussie guy that has a restaurant here told me it was absolutely remarkable - because the tourist police here crack down HARD on anyone that mugs a tourist. While I believe him, there are no street lights here and there´s plenty of steep dark alleys. So if you´re not absolutely knackered at night from sightseeing, either stay right in town or have early nights.
Anyway, that´s the load off my mind. Next comes the happy stuff, of which there´s plenty!
Well here goes the first post of the trip. Had a couple of days in Chile which was pretty OK except for the fact that they take weekends pretty seriously by doing absolutely nothing. Especially on Sundays. Oh yeah and no one speaks any English here!
Thankfully the restaurants were open and I had one of the best steaks ever. It was grilled and salt rubbed or something but dang it was good. Probably as good as anything Argentina has to offer. With all the trimmings, it would´ve cost close to $40 Aussie. I´m told Argentina is M U C H cheaper. She who must be obeyed says Chile is a bit expensive but I was only there for two days!
Sadly not much else to do but get pissed - which I did - whilst finding out the hard way that every drink is a double in Chile, and well most of South America. So remember, go easy tiger! Four drinks is enough to get shit faced here! Oh yeah and you get a litre of beer per cup (you can get smaller but that´s what most people drink) and a jug is something like 2.7 litres! But there´s some gret night life if you´re not legless by sun down!
I was staying at the La Chimba hostel, which is in a really bohemian, multi-cultural part of town, a fair whack out of Santiago proper. It was like a Chapel St kind of vibe and really went off on a Saturday night. In the morning the zoo is close by and you can catch a chair lift over it, right to the top of this mountain, which has a huge monument of Virgin Mary or someone, kind of like the Jesus one in Brazil. Just don´t get there too early, because nothing will be open before 9am (blame it on the jet lag)
Sure you might not think the Olympics even matter or are interesting. I would certainly agree with you on that point. The spirit of the Olympics is an entirely different matter though. Wars are meant to stop, soldiers down guns and leave all prejudices left aside to compete as equals on a level playing field.
Sadly this won’t be the case from hereon in. In preparation for the Olympics, China is becoming so procifient in dealing with dissent that they’re simply killing dissentors in record numbers and in record time. No trial, just incarceration. If you’re thought to be a threat, apparently you could be dead in a jail cell within hours.
Weapon of choice, well an electric batton of course! Just get 7 or 8 cops in a cell and beat the shit out of the prisoner (no phone book required). After all they’re just doing their job. Oh just don’t damage the internal organs, because they harvest and transplant human organs to party faithful, and one can only guess the very, very rich.
This die in custody bit is a bit unusual. Usually the prisoner at least used to get the firing squad, or death by lethal injection. The later is typically done in specially designed trucks, so they can quickly operate on the victim in remote provinces and recover the organs on site.
So rest assured, some Communist Government cadre or rich Hong Kong guy is going to get a healthy new set of lungs for someone else’s free will. Geez I hope someone pisses on the Olympic flame. This is just not cricket! My condolences to the victims of these most recent and heinous human rights violations - even by Chinese government standards.
But remember kids, it’s important to hate the government, not the people. So if ever you needed an excuse not to watch the Olympics, I hope this helps.
I thought all was lost when Cafe Zen changed hands on Chapel St. They used to have the best hollandaise sauce (with eggs Atlantic) ever. That place went really down hill service wise any way. But a few doors up down the Windsor end of Chapel St, I found my new thing: 80 Spaces.
Inside the decor is as arty and minimal as the name suggests. Choose something to eat from the blackboard and park yourself on a bench or table and watch a weekend breakfast slowly morph into a lunchtime beer! Food wise, it’s quick and simple. No big kitchens or even rendered walls to flaw you. Their baked beans are home made and nothing short on sensational. They have a bunch of open toasted sandwiches too. I’ve tried the salmon and dill toasty thing and it was sublime. Coffee is half decent too.
Not completely sure but I don’t think they make fresh juice and they don’t have any wireless internet, which is handy when you get bored of your skull working at home. Minor quibbles in an otherwise awesome place. So if you get bored of Orange and other places, check it out.
Well I’m all wet and gooey as we speak because I’ve just read Tim Rogers blog (well sort of) and it looks like they begin recording the new album on April 14. Five, count em, FIVE days away! Oh sweet bliss. We’re well overdue for some proper arm swingin’, foot stompin’, Easy Beatin’, pontse and thuggery rock and roll. So before you sleep every night, pray to the rock gods that this will be as much of a cracker as the convicts, album if not better. Shape your hips like you mean it, rock your hair up, polish off all your paraphenalia and let’s hope Timmy, Andy, Rusty and Davey (never noticed the ‘ey thing before) rock it harder than ever.
And it looks like it’s gonna actually be called ‘I’m proud of my gay son’. So all in all, it looks like 2 or 3 months before this bad boy is in the stores - optimistically. This is gonna mean some rough sleeping patterns. In the words of old Big Kev, I’m excited!
Oh and lo and behold, I just found this. One of the most insightful and interesting short vids I’ve seen of the great man in quite some time, discussing the origin of the Luxury of Hysteria.
For those of you that think Japan never made a classic car, look away, smile and think of England. For the freaky small minority of us who love pristine J-tin, brace yourself, the Grand JDM blog is pure car porn.
Last night I found this site looking for info on Toyota Centurys and they had not one but two articles on them. One car was in Australia and for sale! Anyway I haven’t been able to stop looking since. For those of you that don’t know (and for the trendies, frankly I hope you don’t), they’re not made for the status quo. They’re made to look timeless and classic in a similar demeanor to a Rolls Royce. But we don’t like them for that, we love they way they look pimped out on old school rims in that uber classy black paint with silver trim.
It only gets better from there. They have Project Hakosuka (kind of means box-car in Japanese slang), an early seventies Skyline GTR. Worth a read if only to get some advice on the turmoils of importing a vintage car from Japan. It’s insightful to see first hand exactly what those auction grades mean and what culturally passes as a pristine resto in Asia.
Finally (and by no means have I read the whole site …yet) they have links to some of the most awesome vintage car dealers in Japan. Oh yeah and the site is done using the Wordpress blog. This site is pure heaven on a stick. Big shout outs to its creator. It’s like the internet’s all new again!
Er, this is so weired I had to check for the obligtory April Fools, but it’s dated May 2005! The Cambodian Midget Fighting League (all 42 of them) apparently decided to take on a lion in some sort of cage match.
The fight was slated when an angry fan contested Yang Sihamoni, President of the CMFL, claiming that one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters.
Those little fellers didn’t do so well:
Sihamoni was quoted before the fight stating that he felt since his fighters out-numbered the lion 42 to 1, that they “… could out-wit and out-muscle [it].”
Unfortunately, he was wrong.
Don’t believe me, well it’s from the BBC! Something tells me the won’t be a video on Youtube and I’m not game enough to look at work.
Do you have a Mac, a Windows PC and most importantly stairs? Would you like to use the first two in a way that doesn’t always involve the later? Well have I got a tool for you! Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection beta for Mac means you’ll never have to get up off the couch again!
Clearly the problem with having two computers is that you constantly have to transfer stuff from one to the other. Or if you’re like me, you have one pristine new computer that has the bare essentials, and one old workhorse knee deep in elbow grease. What this remote desktop utility is use your sexy computer to manipulate the workhorse. And that’s what you want!
It’s a relatively simple exercise to install. Just download the five meg zip file onto your Mac and off you go. On the other end, you need to enable remote connections in the Windows control panel. So yes it is a bit fiddly, and to be frank the help files could have been a lot better. But once it’s up and runnin’, oh joy of joys. You can run your Windows machine’s desktop on your Mac just like you were there. Over a wireless LAN, it’s not too jerky either. So why not give it a crack?
Importantly, it’s optimised to interact with Vista based Windows machines (call it optimism) but it will work with XP. Be warned though that the help files are based on Vista.
Before you shirk at Microsoft products, there is a bunch of other remote desktop solutions for Mac. All are infinitely more confusing - and expensive - than this one. Microsoft Remote Desktop seems to do the job pretty nicely, and that’s all I really care about.
Luckily I was invited to a premiere of this movie last night. It must’ve been one of the first screenings. Because everybodie’s mobile phone was minded for us outside the cinema.
If you haven’t heard anything about this movie, it’s by the ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ and ‘Knocked Up’ crew, although a bit of a departure from their usually ribald, innuendo based stuff. This is more of an attempt at a mature broken heart comedy.
The plot basically goes like this. Sarah Marshall is an A list Hollywood celeb who stars in a TV crime drama that’s a parody of Alias. She dates the composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) from that show who’s a bit of a lay about stoner kind of guy who’s totally content with their relationship. It all goes pear shaped when she drops him and his life is thrown into some adolescent like turmoil.
Desperate to move on, his half brother (played by Bill Hader) persuades him to take a holiday to Hawaii. Sadly Sarah has taken her new beau English rock star Aldous to exactly the same Hawaiian resort. Clearly he’s on a crash course for Rock bottom, but finds a compassionate confidant, played by the gorgeous Mila Kunis.
What unfolds is a comedy of romantic mishaps which involves other guests at the hotel, uncomfortable couple situations and holiday experiences. But despite having all the right talent (especially in regards to Mila!), this movie lacks a certain rythym. It’s funny in bits but is strung along poorly and is just too idyllic to be believable.
Aldous (who’s played by UK stand up commedian Russell Brand) saves the day and the promiscuous and audacious rock star. Especially with a ridiculous parody of music video at the start of the movie. But you somehow get the feeling that’s just being himself and the whole movie would’ve collapsed in on itself, like a cake that didn’t rise, if it wasn’t for his impromptu moments of British wit. It does have funny moments, but it’s just not laugh out loud and doesn’t have the strength in the story of movies like ‘Knocked Up’.
Luckily I was invited to a premiere of this movie last night. It must’ve been one of the first screenings. Because everybodie’s mobile phone was minded for us outside the cinema.