So yes. I did come back. I was very tired, but then I was happy to see people. Plenty more for seeing yet, mind. Matters here are as they were, and I'm having no problems adjusting. I have not once said gracias by accident instead of thank you, though I did once mumble perdon now I think on it. I've been a working woman for a week. I now have a telephone number, praise the lord, which escapes me right now. I have not yet submitted my camera insurance claim, nor have I labelled all my CDs of photos (Just you [View Full Entry]

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So for my entire holiday I seem to have avoided all tropical diseases: hepatitis, malaria, yellow fever and that common travelling illness I can only begin to spell (and end) - begins with d, ends with a, there are a number of other letters in between and you have to go to the loo a lot if you have it, you know. BUT, I have now come down with a cold, a common cold. I feel rotten, and want everyone to know about it. It´s putting me right back in the zone for London and work. I´d be in bed but [View Full Entry]

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Back last night from the Lost City. What a place! Shall I compare it to Macchu Picchu? Well, it´s smaller (or, at least, a lot less exposed) and a lot less maintained, and your group are literally the only people there (whereas in MP about half the world is soaking up the atmotsphere alongside you). The setting is great (as it was at MP) with lush mountainsides, waterfalls, low-lying clouds and the sound of monkeys and birds in the jungle. [Oh My God. Just lost the rest of the entry because of the stupid stupid computers here being so stupid and [View Full Entry]

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Despite now having nine mosquito bites on my right hand big toe alone (Not kidding, I´ll take a photo, and this toe is no rare exception), I´ve decided to spend six days trekking through the Colombian jungle to the Lost City. I´ve dumped all but a day of my time in Venezuela to do this. It should be good though. I won´t get back until, ooh, Saturday, so you´ll have to amuse yourselves for a while. [View Full Entry]

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I´ve been a little slack in writing down things I´ve been doing since I got back from the jungle, sorry. Let me make some effort to fill you in now. I went to the Guaysamin art gallery, half of which was excellent, the other half may have been but it was also closed. That was in Quito. Then I flew to Bogota on a Sunday and went straight to that horrible hostel I mentioned, whose only advantage is that it is easy to meet people there. Everything was closed that day and the next because of Jesus ascending to heaven, apart [View Full Entry]

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Apropos of nothing in particular (apart from the fact that Bogota has been boring, cold and rainy so far and I´ve just been to a couple of art galleries and played some basketball), herewith the Liz Bates Official Ways To Make Friends With Foreigners: Americans: Litter your conversation with words such as "wicked, rubbish, bin, swimming costume, golly, plasters and gumboots". They find this hilarious, they never tire of it, and it´s much easier than thinking up clever jokes or amusing anecdotes that they probably wouldn´t understand anyway. French: Be as sarcastic as you can. Dutch: N [View Full Entry]

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No surprises there. I tried counting in the shower on the final day, but gave up at 45, and I hadn´t even got to my left leg, which has a bumper crop. As if this weren´t enough, I also have three splinters and also one bite on my face (no less) which has got a bit infected and is really rather unsightly. I also forgot to take my malaria tablet one day (damn it damn it, another 3 pounds down the drain) and I´ll probably start having fits soon. So, it wasn´t exactly good for my health. It was, however, just [View Full Entry]

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Where they don´t have computers. Or antidotes, apparently, because they would have to be refridgerated, and they don´t have refridgerators. So if some horrible poison frog bites you, you have to get into a canoe and begin the 9 hour journey back to civilisation. Unless this happens to me, I´ll be back in the middle of Saturday night. I´ll have seen more animals (you´d think I´d have had enough of animals, but it seems not), including pink dolphins and birds, and I´ll have lazed in hammocks. I´ll surely have been bitten to pieces as well. The best bit is, I´m going [View Full Entry]

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I made it to that museum (Museo del Banco) in the end, the one that was closed last time. It was ace, with loads of wicked pottery and gold and also some art that was a bit more boring. I made the mistake of going at 12, without having had lunch. At about 1, I looked up from the display cases with a rumbling stomach and realised I was only about a fifth of the way through the first room of five. I quickly became more discerning in what was allowed to hold my attention to finish off the rest of [View Full Entry]

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For the first few days of my Galapagos trip, my internal monologue was really pretty boring, going something like this: "Oh my god, this is so amazing. Oh my god, this is so amazing. Oh look, another one, even closer. Oh my god, there are about fifty more over there. Oh my, this is so amazing. ... ... Oh my god, I feel so ill. Oh my god, I feel so ill. I think I´m going to throw up. I feel so ill ... ... Oh my god, this is so amazing. Oh look, there´s a baby one. This is so [View Full Entry]

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