Aug 2008

I will eventually post picture of the chin fringe (whose name I shall not mention as it does his facial hair no credit)

Chin Fringe is a German man with principles as high as the sky and a touch with reality which reflects the distance from us to his principles.

I spent almost 4 days straight with chin fringe and so I think he is one person I can say I really got to know. I will attempt to keep my analysis brief.

Chin Fringe has facial has growing from his chin which is about 2 inches wide and at least four inches long. It is thick and bushy and he strokes it when he is pondering whether the person he is speaking to is trying to charge him too much.....this is always.

Chin fringe and I went on an amazing (and moderately difficult) hike to Quilotoa through stunning countrysides and valleys with some of the most amazing views I have ever beheld bushwalking.

Unlike Nez chin fringe had a great sense of direction and was super prepared. We bought the special maps from the institute of geography for our trek just in case and he studied them to the T.

On the morning of the trek I got into the cab and he asked me ¨Do you have everything¨. I said (slightly condescendingly) ¨ah yeah¨. He said ¨got your sleeping mat and sleeping bag¨. Me (now very short) ¨yes¨.

After he was slightly rude to the taxi driver (suggesting we were going in the wrong direction) we got on the bus. As soon as we left the bus station.

¨Fuck Schizer¨ bolted me out of my mid morning slumber.....he´d forgotten the maps. While he attempted to blame it on the Australian he´d lent them too we all know what the score is.

On the way there (sin el mapas) we saw snow capped volcanoes and despite walking in the afternoon for 2 hours in the rain and getting lost we picked a camping spot which in the morning was spectacular.

On top of a hill looking over two valleys and even in sight of our eventual destination 30 odd kilometers away.

The first thing that showed me that chin fringe´s sense of reality was slightly out of touch was his speed uphill.
We did a LOT of ascending up some pretty steep stuff. But chin fringe (with his walking sticks) walked like the 96 year old grandmother of my spanish teacher (who I live with at the moment).
This isn´t such a problem until it becomes so slow that he has blocked the path and you basically have to stop every 3 or 4 steps so that he gets some more distance from you. I couldn´t get any rhythm!
HOWEVER this would still be forgivable if he didn´t turn around and stop several times up and incline and ask ¨äm I going to fast for you¨?

I had an awesome time and except for some snoring he was pretty good to be with for the trek (and he carried the tent the whole time).

The trek itself was great. Quilotoa is a volcanic crater lake and it was sparkling and had views to cotopaxi a snow capped volcano and across and huge valley. The walk was really tough but I LOVED IT.

The second thing that indicated to me that he was out of touch with reality was in our hostel they included breakfast and dinner with the price. it was 4 o´clock the woman had finished cooking and for some reason (i think cause he really didn´t like breakfast) he insisted that they serve him lunch and dinner instead of dinner and breakfast. They offered him something paltry (bread and coffee) and he was genuinely offended at their inflexibility despite the fact that lunch was over 2 hours ago and the hostel offered breakfast and dinner with accommodation (ie so that they can cook for a whole heap of people at once). He was genuinely astounded/offended and was less than polite to this family with his insistence.

The third
We had gotten off the bus and I was by now used to him exclaiming outrage when someone was overcharging him however this was the pinnacle. There are some taxis in quito where you can get the driver to use the meter (it is usually time of day specific and taxi specific) however from my experience they are somewhat rare.

Chin Fringe was insistent that he would get a taxi that used a meter. We walked up a row of taxis (some of which offered quite reasonable 2 stop prices) and he asked about 10 whether they would let us use the meter. They all said no. The last half it is hardly surprising they said no considering the aggressiveness with which he asked them (literally he spoke to them like they were stealing from him before they had even said anything). These taxi drivers are generally pretty laid back, if intimidation was his tactic it wasn´t working (although I don´t think it was his tactic). We proceeded to walk (at his demand) away from the taxi rank and flagged another 4 taxis and I asked them (much more politely) if they would use the meter. They all refused.

At this point I said ¨lets just get a taxi¨.

he then said (as those I was the devil) ¨if you let them change the way the charge tourists then it will be different for all the future tourists¨ (paraphrase). He threw a dirty look at me as I indicated to him that if we got one with a meter we would only be paying a dollar less. He then began to attack me because I was trying to ¨convince him to bend his principles¨ and that I was contributing to the change.

We walked up a hill and after a few more refusals we got into a taxi under confusion that the taxi driver was going to use the meter. He didn´t, at which point chin fringe wanted to get out. 30 minutes or so looking for a taxi who would use their meter.

Chin Fringe you don´t want it to change for future tourists.....it already had you dickhead.
You think you have principles......you´re just cheap.

For someone who is studying developing economies you think he´d have a little more compassion for a group of people who are underpaid and trying to squeeze a little extra out of much much wealthier people.

Chin Fringe´s only saving graces were....the chin fringe
AND he takes the most amazing cherry wang photo´s ever (i´ll upload some soon).

Is this enough of a saving great....well they are really good Cherry Wangs but no.

HATED HIM.

Arrived back from the Galapagos and met a woman by the name of Nez. She was eastern european but had no facial hair.

She ¨took¨ me to the cultural centre /old city in quito for the first time one night. Nez was an interesting character who seemed to have a slightly inflated sense of direction (this is toned down cause she is now my friend on face book and might read this).

We attempted to reach one of the main squares for a concert that she saw them setting up in the afternoon. We caught (what I later realised) was really the wrong trolley line for getting to the old city. We end up somewhere she didn´t know but luckily her spanish was good enough to get us headed in the right direction.

Rather than catching a taxi we did something no guide book would recommend, walk through the old city at night (930 or so). After walking about a km up the hill (all the time she was sure we were going in the right direction...) passing 40 year olds sniffing glue from plastic bags and some other shifty looking locals we decided we wanted a taxi but to no avail there were none.

Eventually locals who told us we ¨shouldn´t be walking in this area at night¨ pointed us in the right direction and after about 30 minutes we reached an amazing colonial plaza with great lighting and a funky ska concert.

She could be forgiven if the next morning with another person on the way to a museum she hadn´t tried to point us again in totally the wrong direction luckily the other woman (michelle loved her) was firm and took up my amazing race challenge of a beer for getting us there without looking at the map.

All in am tempted to give her HATED due to the lack of facial hair but she was a really nice person and also the concert was great so she gets LOVED HER.

The first (and hopefully not most notorious) person on my list is Yong im a thirty something american woman who with justification hated having her name pronounced incorrectly.

The only problem was that Yong im intentionally did things which she knew fine well would piss people off and pretended she didn´t notice.

I saw amazing things on the galapagos islands. And despite the cost (Yong´s favourite subject as she was determined to let everyone know that she had paid the least for the boat tour) it was totally worth it .....LOVED it.

Blue footed boobies....Yong im´s back while she took 10 photos of the bird, tortoises....Yong im´s back. Frigate birds performing their mating ritual of puffing out a massive red neck flap.. yong im looking sneakily over her shoulder to see if she was going to walk in front of someone´s view, realising she was going to and then creeping apologetically pretending not to notice.

The problem with this tactic was that when you creep apologetically you admit guilt Yong im (oh and yes I meant that hard G you inconsiderate twat).

Needless to say

HATED HER.

Karen and Alex lebovic/eifler

Galapagos honeymoooners who didn´t need too much time to themselves (except for one blatantly obvious after lunchtime effort). NB the foreplay was a sort of dinner table spooning which involved a headlock....must try this sometime.

Bickered like they had been married for years not days but looked like they genuinely had a chance of lasting forever.

On the last night shared a priceless moment on the back deck with this couple (and a few others) where a sea lion had swam from the shore and decided that jumping into our dinghy was a good spot to spend the night. With his/her head rested on the front of the boat looking sorry for himself he just screamed

¨I is sea sick¨...which karen aptly captured.

LOVED THEM.

When weighing up all the factors of visiting locations at this stage I think it comes down to it was
a)worth it
b) not worth it

You can try and grade things by how much they cost or just how beautiful they were but for brevity (and sometimes entertainment) I like the approach of loved it hated it.

Keep things nice and simple, black and white...just like life?

Seeing as I´m so pessimistic I think I´d prefer to have a whole heap of HATED it in my memories. However seeing as some many of the places I think I´ll visit will be worth it/fall into the loved it category I think its easier to incorporate the people I´ve met into the places I´ve been.

So far we have a few mentionables.