HMAS Cholia

My parents were fond of describing as 'character forming' experiences that were otherwise more readily recognised as annoying, difficult, awkward, or even painful. Just exactly how these experiences formed character or indeed why I should feel confident that the kind of character they were forming was a good or useful one has never been explained to me.

My time in Cholila has, at times, been 'character forming'. I choose to believe that means I have emerged at the other end in some way a better human being (even possible you wonder?) but you can be the judge of that. What is indisputable is that my hammer skills have improved OUT OF SIGHT and that I now know how to bake bread. I can add to this list of titanic acheivements the wearing of a tool belt in an appropriate context, the use of an axe in a almost competent fashion, and the beating of a man half my age in a running-uphill-for-a-long-way contest.

But let me give you some context. Cholila is a funny little village in the Andes half way down Patagonia. Its got a corrupt local government which has built four duel carriageways of a kilometer long and four lanes wide radiating from the town plaza to cater for the polulation of around 2000 some of whom have cars (something to do with a concrete contract which made the mayor rich), Its not unusual to see real gauchos hitching their horses outside the general store and all this surrounded by snow topped peaks blowing icy winds down the valley fit to freeze your but clean orff.



I was booked in to work for the local Mountaineering club doing environmental work (weeding) and building mountain refuges and maintaining walking paths. None of that happened. Turns out that this is what will happen when the club gets its act together and in the meantime myself and the other two volunteers (Rasmus and Flor) busied ourselves building the house of the club president Dario.

Now this sounds a bit sus I know - work for free building someone elses house but it was actually quite good. We got the opportunity to live (in tents) in a spectacular location ( a few kms out of town on a ridge overlooking a beautiful lake) and share the life of Dario (a local Mapuche) and his missus Laura (and accountant from Buenos Aires) who are building a sustainable lifestyle and trying to lead by example in the local community. We also got into a bit of environmental activism whilst there. Meanwhile my days were full of a rude amount of manly exercise and the kind of fresh air mums the world over encourage their kids to get out into.

One of my jobs that arguably my two degrees 6 years in Parliament and 38 long years a had all been a preparation for was to walk down a steep hill side through the trees to the lakeside find a big stone (about 30 kilos is good) lift it onto my shoulder and climb back up the hill with it. When I arrived at the top a whieezing sweaty mess, I had to put it in a pile and go get another. Another brain bender I mastered was to go down the same hill to the same shore this time with a machete (anyone who denys that walking around with a machete isn't all kinds of fun is a screaming fool) to cut two metre branches of the local weedy tree and bundle them up into heavy unweildy bundles and carry them up the hill - queue wheezy sweaty mess. And you know what- I enjoyed it.

This was not the character forming bit though. That came with the human element. The house we were building is not even half done and so the living area indoors is still very very small. about 3m by 2m. In that space is the kitched, woodburning stove, a table, a single bed. In that space five people cooked chatted read, listened to music, washed dishes. It was like a dryland month long sea voyage with four strangers on a small boat. The character forming part came with the fact that I didn't really hit it off with the captain. A month is a long time to feel awkward but that's what happened. I don't think Dario was used to having a volunteer of his own age and didn't really know how to relate to me - he was obviously much more at home horsing around with the young uns (my fellow volunteers were both 20) than me and for a while he seemed to actually resent my being there (can you feel that charater forming?). I met this awkwardness with a mixture of jolly indifference and quiet stoicism. By the end of the month he had started trying to get along better but clearly didn't really know how - ah bless. On my side I felt it a small victory that I made it through the month having made good friends with the kids and half won over our host - all of this human relations business is much harder than lifting heavy stones up hills you know.


Cholila has left my cheeks with a healthy glow (make you own jokes here) and my heart in a funny corner of the world by a lake near a mountain, I shall miss it. Today I'm in Cordoba nursing a furry little hangover whilst planning to go climbing in the mountains hereabouts, in 12 days I'll be in Sydney - hard to believe really.

Just deserts

Patagonia is a desert. It is perhaps not widely known but believe me its full of nothing. I am begining to wonder whether this is where nothing is kept when no one is using it, there certainly is a lot of it, just sitting there doing...nothing.

The travel agents of the western world are not keen to talk about the nothing. Nothing doesn't sell holidays. When people say 'I just want to get away from it all' they don't really mean it. They are not visualising 14 days in scruby moonscape of nothingness listening to the wind searching in vain for something to whip around. They're thinking 'cocktails!'

I quite like a bit of desert. It's an interesting, challenging, landscape that forments thought and widens the eye, for an afternoon. Much longer than that and the challenge becomes a threat, the feeling of freedom a prison. Nevertheless people live in the desolate 'estepa' of Patagonia and I know because I went and met some of them.

Since randomly plonking myself in Patagonia I have tried to take advantage of whatever opportunity presented itself to see, do and feel something new. I'm not talking latex themed swingers parties (minds out of the gutter please!), no I mean wholesome life experience stuff - you've got to do something.

In this vein I have been accompanying a rural schools teacher on her weekly trips teach English to the country folk in a 200km radius of Esquel. These trips have taken me to the Andes, their vallies and last week to the 'interior' to the nothingness. I have met some lovely kids and some well, less lovely ones. I've played football (shamelessly celebrating after scoring past an eight year old), and stood to attention as the Argentinian flag was raised (Maggie T would never forgive me).



In Ranquil Hoau I taught three Mapuche(indigenous) kids how to day G'day Mate! Obviously there was more to the lesson than that but I felt this was the highlight. I'm not sure what they felt.

The reality is that the level of English is schools in Argentina is very low. Even after several years of lessons the kids rarely get beyond the present tense, but then when your day job (yes the 14 year olds have day jobs) is tending goats and collecting brush wood for the family stove the point of mastering English phrasal verbs is occaisionally hard to grasp.

Such experiences serve to underline the priviledge of a comfortable middle class life in the city. I am the first to admit that I'm looking forward to getting back to mine. Of course this very same experience could easily be found in the outback of Australia - why I have chosen to fly so far to find it here is a rather dull mystery. But despite the illogicality of the trajectory the effect (which of course I expected to find) is to further steel my modest resolve to do something to help that eight year old have as good a life as he can - which is kinda why I'm here.

A Brit of Argie Bargie

Not the most original of titles but hey who do you think I am? **fill in name of favourite witty writer here **? eh?

Maybe if during my trip I´d eaten a Onion Bargie... oh well..lets move on.

Is a month long enough to judge a country? I think so. Here I go. Argentina is a country with an inferiority complex fed on a diet of milenesas (chicken or beef schnitzels) and a long experience of pathetically rubbish government. When not ruled by murderous military dimwits the country has lurched from one chancer to the next, each with the economic aplomb of a pissed tourist (is this a ten or a hundred? - whatever!), which has clearly driven 90% of the population to an irrational love of breadcrumb covered meats. I think that covers it.

On the upside the hopeless mismanagment and eventual collapse of the national railway system has led to arguably the best long distance bus service on the planet. The quite staggering luxury and comfort of these buses is unsung by the locals who seem surprisingly keen to label themselves as ´third world´ and bemoan the economic woes of one of South Americas most advanced economies.

It is possibly the closeness of Argentina culturally speaking to Europe that results in this unreasonable comparison and resulting gloom - so near and yet so far. However, when distracted from pontificating on national identity most Argies I have met are uncomplicatedly friendly and hospitable.

Not least my host for my stay here in Esquel Patagonia. Lucia is a 40 something mum of two with a love of butterflies and fairies and all things spiritual. On entering her house you get the distinct impression that in her search for ´something´she has in fact found everything. There are pictures of Jesus, Buddha, dream catchers, fairies, witches, assorted Catholic saints, and although I´m yet to see it there must be an Obama around somewhere.



As a happy clapping athiest all this spiritual bumpf leaves me somewhat dismayed but fortunately Lucia´s evangelical tendencies are fairly well controlled. I do occaisionally have to chew determindly and stare at my plate when invited to enthuse about the ´real´cause of asthma or share a knowing look about her probable past life. Nevertheless, she´s an excellent host who is interested and interesting and always ready to give a hand. All in all I could have done a lot worse - I may even develop a taste for incense....or perhaps not.

When not at home I have taken to running up the local hills, or rather mountains. This lung bursting leg jellifying activity is more fun than it sounds, leaving the regular practicioner with an inner glow of pointless achievement and buns of steel.
In addition there is to be a competition of stupid uphill running in a few weeks and I intend to participate. Not only will I be able to join the choral wheezing of several hundred fellow nutbars but its all for charity - ahh how nice.

In the next post I´ll tell you how I´ve been saving the world via unsupervised internet browsing - stay tuned juanfans!

Some old tatt

The lower east side Manhattan is renowned for its bars, its art galleries, studios, its 'scene' and of course its tattoos. What? Hadn't heard about the tattoos? Well take it from me there's more square inches of tattooed flesh on display on the streets of the 'garment district' NYC than at a Polynesian arse slapping contest. But these tattoos aren't of your arrow through heart smudgy drunken lifelong error variety nor culturally significant sphincta backdrops these tatts are art, original, striking, sometimes shocking usually just cool.

All this body art brilliance is prone to turn a poor country boy's head, and as it turns out, mine too. It had been a long time since my last encounter with the needle gun and the heady mix of 90 degree heat, 90% humidity, bourbon on rocks and a pocket full of Greenbacks was making me just darn crazy enough to go back there.

But why in the name of the mothers who boure us into this world, all wrinkly and unblemished, would anyone get tattooed? There are many reasons: Fashion - to look 'cool' has to rate as the favourite. Nothing wrong with looking cool as long as you do. Beauty - different from fashion, more likely to be in the eye of the beholder, and more likely to result in an original design. Toughness - yeah there are those who tattoo at least partly to show that they are not afraid to be outside of the norm to shun social conventions and to be marked their whole lives - ooo so tough. Self-harm - the thrill believe it or not, of marking yourself irrevocably, of allowing someone, and indeed watching someone mark you irrevocably floats some boats - I hear.

So on the third week of my stay in New York City for a range of reasons not wholely unrelated to those you have just read I got another tattoo (sorry Mum).

The first one I had has always been a bit shit. I knew that when I first got it, but what can you do? I never hated it, it was just a bit, well rubbish. Poor rendering of a reasonable idea. A small tree sprouting from the barren landscape of my right upper arm (deltoid for you anatomy freaks)that always looked a bit lost. Now, 17 years later, the exposure to quality tattage confirmed a long held belief that I needed to cover it up, but to keep true to my original idea the cover up was going to be in the shape of another tree, a bigger tree, a much bigger tree.

A tattoo is not something to be stingy about. When your purchase is for life, think quality not value. With this in mind I chose the most expensive looking tattoo studio I could find and pressed the buzzer. 'Invisible' is an apointment only studio but there was a slot free that night and in no time I was back, vague design in mind $500 in my pocket.

Kiku my tattoo artist was a heavily tattooed (no surprise there) Japanese hipster of indeterminate age and an interest in Zombie movies. He too had an idea for a design and proceded to sketch it out on my arm. Here's the first factoid about fancy tattoo artists you no-body-art-weirdos should know, they care more about their art than your preferences. Kiku listened politely to my ideas about what should be INDELIBLY PUNCTURED INTO MY FLESH, then dismissed them. Only through a force of will rarely witnessed outside of a Shoalin temple did I manage to get him to agree to my broad design ideas. Finally we were ready to start, needle poised Kiku asked "shall we do this?", "Let's f**k this puppy" I replied, he didn't laugh.

Being tattooed has a well deserved reputation as being painful. Its not a huge pain, more a winching stingy sensation ranking somewhere between stubbing a toe and a light scalding on the ouchometer, or more acurately like being pricked thousands of times by a tiny needle for hours on end. The good news is you kinda get used to it.

It took three visits for my (our) tree to be completed, in total five and a half hours and nearly $1000. An aside - I was recently in a beer garden with my much younger half-brothers and sisters. Theo who is 15 asked my sister's friend to show him the tattoo on his right arm 'Oh, that's shit!' my brother announced. 'Theo,' I said, 'you can't tell someone their tattoo is shit, it's not like he can return it now can he?'. Putting aside the fact that Theo was right, I stand by my point so those of you who feel my new bit of me is rubbish - keep it to yourself okay? On the other hand if you think its the bees bollocks don't be shy let me know!. Am I happy with it? Well, I better get used it.

Sun rises and sun sets - did you notice?

There is a dome in that field. I'm sure I'm not mistaken there is definately a dome like structure in that corn field. British farming is not waiting for tomorrow but has adopted the future today. Or perhaps not, surely this is evidence of the replacement of the old primary industries with the new national economic engine of... celebrity oddity. The dome that has just glided past my train's window may in fact be Madona's latest kabbala centre, the new lifestyle fad of the known knowns.

I thought I'd wait until I'd left San Sebastian before posting a post script, I hadn't bargained on such rural incongruities to distract me but like my train I will trundle on.

It all began with a sunrise. That is the begining of the end began with the ending of spring and the beginning of summer. Keep up! The solstice, the longest day of the year the traditional first day of summer marked the start of my final week in San Sebastian and my final week of teaching.

Bob Summers is an unlikely Druid. Mind you what do I know about druids? Perhaps all the ancient druids had tatoos of suspender clad voluptuous beauties posing on their forearms. Perhaps they all raced motorcycles and shaved their legs. Perhaps, like the leader of the four sun worshipers who ventured out to meet the dawn this solstice, they always remembered to bring a flask of whiskey to warm their cockles on a brisk midsummer's dawn. Either way Bob said I should get up to watch the dawn so despite his lack of long white robe - I did.

Bob, Emma, Karl and Laura have been my best buddies during my time in San Sebastian so it was entirely appropriate that we should share this mystical moment. We congregated on the promenade after three or four hours sleep and wondered where was east. Would the sunrise be hidden behind the mountains? Would the magic be lost amid a parade of early morning drunks and delivery vans? A few slugs of whiskey eased my concern (those clever druids!)and finally the clouds on the horizon blushed a pink lining and a sunset in reverse spread just beyond the headland away to our right.

No pagan rituals were performed but a moment was shared - and, you know, it was just nice.

The final week left me little space for reflection full as it was with goodbyes (to students and colleagues) and hellos (to family visitors). My twin bro Dave arrived on the Wednesday quickly followed by my half sister Clem(pictured below with her boyfriend Owen). That was a family injection that deserves it's own post but on the last Saturday night (Laura's last night in town) a few of us went to the beach to watch the sunset and say goodbye.

Sunset was a Basque free experience, which was appropriate since the whole year had been about as Basque (ie local people) free as it could be which all of us recognised as a pity but a reality that's hard to avoid when work is so ex-pat focused and the locals are about as friendly as your average British person.

Nonetheless the sunset was marvelous and the night was warm and the memories good.

P.P.S. I can't close the San Sebastian chapter without mentioning football. On the final Sunday I played football with the usual set of athletes (as pictured) and hungover, hot, and well, old though most of us were it still put the F in my UN and performed mental health miracles you can't find in a blister pack.

So it's goodbye to San Sebastian and hello to UK, NYC, and Argentina... watch this space - or don't if you have something better to do.

Nothing Toulouse

Wouldn't it be clever if the title tied into the content of this post...

But I had plenty to lose. Amongst the top of the list were my life, my sanity, and my liver. If you have read last year's post about my last encounter with Richard and Friends you'd know that once again all three were in danger when I arrived in Toulouse for Richard's birthday celebrations on the 1st of May.

Toulouse is an historic city, warmed by the bold sun of the southern plains of France. It boasts beautiful churches, majestic squares and magical river walks - or so I'm told. I am more familiar with it's late night turkish delicacy purveyors and car surfing opera singers.

It all started so genteely.

I had taken the train which winds through the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast inland to Toulouse. A general strike had turned Friday into Sunday and kept a compartment free for me. I sat happily alone in this seating arrangement from a different age and watched the Basque towns give way to Catholic mecca of Lourdes. A suitably grim looking place that day, its phoney wonders contrasted starkly with the towering natural beauty of the surrounding mountains who frowned on the faithful. Finally, putting piety behind us we rolled without urgency into Toulouse station.

Ten minutes later Richard and I were enjoying a crisp French beer in the seedy cafe opposite the station. I love these places, always harbouring a collection of weary alcholics on the move, shady mustachioed coffee worriers, low rent hookers and highly medicated solo conversationalists. Richard did not share my romantic perspective 'This is shite! Lets go' he announced and so we went.

Now, Richard is a charmer, built slightly less powerfully than a rhino, his yorkshire accent is warm, confident and strangely compelling. Ok not so hard to be compelling when your picture might sit under the definition of 'robust' in the Oxford English Dictionary, but nevertheless a charmer he remains and I was in no mood to disagree.

We swung back by the station to pick up Paul who was coming in from Bordeaux. Whatever Paul may lack in hair he makes up for in tattoos. A 'hardcore' following lifeguard of North African decent who speaks English excellently Paul reluctantly joined us for another quick drink in the stale plastic surrounds of the Station bar. One beer later we were all faintly relieved to be going.

Let's skip to the night. There - done.

Now I don't intend to bore you with a tedious recollection of large scale beer drinking, lets take that as read. This was after all the birthday party of an ex-professional rugby league player and his gentlemen friends of similar stature. The added element was of course that they were French.

Having their arse kicked in every military engagement since Napoleon forgot his earmuffs outside Moscow has had a queer effect on the French - to wit - they're mad. But bloody hell they're good at it! The last time I touched on this subject I described the debauchery of the Tiempo Latino festival in Vic Fesensac . There were no bikinis this time but a semi naked stage dive and some car surfing replaced ill-advised cross dressing as the entertainment.

The stage dive was notable not so much for the fact that Richard was not wearing anything above the waist nor that his plunge from a rickety table in the middle of the bar took place relatively early at about 9pm (whilst some patrons were still finishing their dinners) but rather the refreshingly laissez faire attitude of the bar staff.

The sight of a 100ish Kilo man stripping to the waist and climbing onto a table shouting 'stage dive!' is one of the things security staff in the Anglo Saxon world tend to take a dim view of. The French appear aloof of such prudish concern. A bar man collecting glasses sneeked a anxious peek as he passed but the leap was completed unmolested.

A small lake of beer later and I was in the street. Everyone else was in the street too - what could have happened? I don't know. What I do know is that Laurent had arrived. Laurent is called Lorenzo - again, I don't know why - and he likes to sing. A small man with rugby player's muscles he sings operatic compositions without the impediment of having to know any words and instead opts for word like sounds and volume to create the effect. An effect he apparently believes is mesmorising to young ladies - although there was scant evidence of this on this night.

When, excitingly, we found ourselves in another street Lorenzo turned his siren song away from the confusingly resistant women folk to passing cars. Only this one wasn't passing because Lorenzo was singing at it. The young men inside were clearly not music lovers and edged their standard issue drug-dealer BMW towards Lorenzo who responded by climbing on the bonnet. That's it I thought, these guys are going to get out and get angry, but no, instead the BMW sped off.

I'm not sure if Lorenzo kept singing but I like to imagine that he did - he certainly hung on to the windscreen wipers pretty well because he was still enjoying the ride when the car hit the first corner. Luckily for this story the BMW had to stop for the traffic allowing our friend to dismount injury free. I looked around at the faces of the rest of our group whose expressions clealy identified this phenomenon as 'normal'.

The rest of the night is a wee bit hazy. The rest of the weekend was far more wholesome. I pushed Annemae's pram though the Sunday market in Rabastans with Richard, Natalie and Paul, sat in the square and drank red wine, and relaxed in the spring sunshine.

On the train home my ipod ran out of juice, when the music stopped I could hear what sounded like opera, I just couldn't quite make out the words....

Back on the blogging horse - AUSTRALIA

Three months , that's 90 odd days, a quarter of a year, 1/280th of a lifetime (perhaps). So why no blogs?? Well, laziness, business, a sprained inspiration muscle... all possible. But lets not point the finger, or dwell on the past. Let us go forward into the bright sunlight of the now and enjoy the blog of today!

It's raining. It's Good Friday and its raining. (See view from my flat- left) Most people that I know have left for their Easter break and its raining. I am waiting to start my own adventure with a trip to Granada on Sunday, but in the meantime I am having a cup of tea and listening to the rain. It seems like a good time to fill you in on what's been happening.

One month ago I was in Australia. No really, I was. Thirteen days off work to travel to the other side of the planet, see my friends Brett and Liv get married and spend some lovely moments with the rest of my good friends back in the Lucky Country.

The first thing that strikes you (well me really) upon landing in Australia is the quality of the light. The sun splits the sky with such gusto you feel it surely must run out. Nature meets the onslaught with its own defiant display of colour and sharp edges that pains the eye of the novice viewer fresh from the softer landscapes of a European winter.

The next thing that strikes you is the size of the coffees.

The coffee culture of Australia is very highly evolved. The sophisticates of Southern Europe imagine Australia to be an inferior location for the gastronomic arts but the reality is quite different. Most Spanish cafes serve just two or three varieties of coffee (con leche, cortado, solo - with milk, with a dash of milk, black)whereas even the most humble cafe in suburban Sydney will offer a flat white, latte, machiatto, long black, short black or even a mocha soy latte(okay I don't know what that last one is..). All of these come in generous portions with enough active ingredient to disqualify a cycling team.

Brisbane airport is no different and half way through my first flat white I began to twitch. I wresteled with the ethics of discarding half a cup of take away coffee in a rubbish bin. It was possible that I would be cursed by the cleaner who would retrive the soggy bin bag but finally my delayed last leg to Sydney was due to leave and I had to act (sorry rubbish collecter person!).

One of my favourite things to do in the whole wide world is to have a boozy lunch with good friends. So it is perhaps fitting that I travelled across that wide world to enjoy such a lunch. And it was worth it. If they thought that booking a lunch at a beautiful harbourside restaurant on a glorious summer's day would steel my resolve to return to Australia then ha ha! - they were very right. I'll let the photos speak for themselves!

One of my other favourite things to do (okay 'in the whole wide world' too), is play football with my football team 'The Hurlers'. A more exquisite bunch of gentlemen you couldn't possible hope to meet (well, you could probably do better picking names randomnly from the phone book) and a more skilled set of footballers have rarely graced the lumpy pitches of suburban Sydney (again not really 100% true...). Nevertheless, they are my footballing brothers and it was just downright ace to squeeze in a game before I returned to Spain. I missed a penalty, we lost 1-0 but we all loved it (maybe they didn't all love the part where I missed the penalty hmmm).

The wedding itself was a wonderful success, the sun shone, the booze flowed, the food was delicious and the speeches touching. The ceremony was on Shark Island (across the bay from the restaurant we ate at a few days earlier) and the harbour put on a show. Sunlight winked at us as the breeze ruffled the water filling the sails of the hundreds of yachts chasing glory in their weekend races. As our ferry took the guests back to town I was awed anew at the beauty of the Sydney skyline as it deferentially provided the backdrop for the huge white sails of the Opera House - itself straining to launch onto the harbour and try its luck in the Saturday regatta.

The rest of the week was a social whirl of catching up and hanging out. It was lovely to see Rach all the way from Adelaide, and great to stay with KB and Jen and Jodie and Andrew. All in all just wonderful to be on holiday but at home - you should try it one day.

I flew back to Europe express. I did not pass go nor collect $200. Less than 12 hours after landing I was back at work. But hey not working too hard so please do not ever be tempted to feel sorry for me.

Back in Spain and life rolls on. My Spanish improves at what feels like a glacial pace but improve it does. I try and keep out of trouble and almost succeed. Next week I'm on holiday again (oh the pain!) heading south to the Spain of the postcards, Andalucia. You be good y'hear!