Jabe - John McCabe

Getting away from the office grind, to take a look at what's going on in the rest of the world. First stops were India, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, China again, Mongolia, Russia, Indonesia again, Argentina, a brief incursion into Chile, Argentina again, Chile again, Argentina again, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Now in Argentina again.

I've started to limit my photos per blog entry to a maximum of 42, i.e. 2 pages' worth, but I take a lot more photos than that. You can view the rest at my Flickr account, which I'm using as an online backup service.

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Joined on: August 24th 2005
Last Login: December 5th 2008

Blog Entries: 363
Photos: 9407
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Blogs & Travel Journals

by Jabe, order by Date newest first.

By Jabe
November 22nd 2008

Killing Pablo's reputation

South America » Colombia » Medellin

Mujer Con Espejo (Woman with Mirror) by Fernando Botero
Plaza de las Esculturas

The '80s and '90s were a tough time for the Medellin tourist board, with the city's murder and kidnapping rates during that period being some of the highest in the world. Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel, engaged in a bloody war with both its main rival in Cali and the Colombian government, had made their leader's name synonymous with the city. $10 assassins riding on the backs of motorbikes were so common at one stage that the government banned pillion passengers. Foreigners on the streets were likely to be assumed to be DEA. A decade later, though, Medellin has made determined efforts [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
November 15th 2008

Raining champion

South America » Colombia » Salento

Doors

In the nearly four decades that I've been taking up space on this planet, I've never encountered a place quite as rainy as Salento. Wet seasons in the Amazon can only dream of delivering the quantities of water that the skies above Salento deluged the town with during the four days I was there. There was none of the tropical policy of "afternoons only", with torrential cloudbursts around the clock. To say that it pissed down - a phrase I would hesitate to use in genteel company - would convey a small amount of the frustration that this caused me but [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
November 11th 2008

White city number 4,739

South America » Colombia » Popayan

Templo San Francisco

Rumour had it that negotiating for long-distance bus fares was par for the course in Colombia but I couldn't bring myself to try, as the price given to me by the smartly-uniformed gentleman at the kiosk seemed reasonable and he was already printing off the ticket before I'd even had a chance to fire off a counter-offer. There was some excellent scenery on the way to Popayan - lushly-forested steep slopes culminating in misty ridges, which reminded me of southern China. We encountered only one roadblock, manned by police, at which everyone had to produce ID, and arrived in Popayan at [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
November 8th 2008

The one that's an episode of friends

South America » Colombia » San Andres

Burial chamber
Alto de Segovia

The distance from San Agustin to San Andres is somewhere in the region of 100km as the cuervo flies which, in this part of the world, meant a journey in three parts involving 5.5 hours of travel time. First up was a whiz to Pitalito, requiring a mere hour in a camioneta (essentially a small Chevy pick-up with a covered back and two parallel benches). I sat in the back and was rewarded with a pleasant breeze, mountain views, and no fellow passengers. Pitalito bus station was like the others I've been to in Colombia - full of touts on the [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
November 5th 2008

Pre-Columbian Colombia - minding one's o's and u's

South America » Colombia » San Agustin

Statue
Bosque de las Estatuas, Parque Arqueologico

The RG's description of a 12 hour bus ride to reach San Agustin, punctuated by military and guerrilla roadblocks at which one might be relieved of money or other valuables, was as out of date as much of the information circulating about travel in Colombia. As I waited at Popayan bus station for my 6AM departure, I chanced upon the deaths/injuries board showing a tally for each of the transport companies and was pleased to see zeroes in all columns for Cootranshuila. 6.75 hours later, most of which was spent on a fairly horrendous pot-holed gravel road - though the green [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
October 28th 2008

Perhaps a stop in southern Colombia? (5)

South America » Colombia » Pasto

Guinea pig with basketball - advertising's Holy Grail

Ecuador warranted more time to explore, but I had a sufficiently negative view of Quito that I just wanted to get away from the capital, and with a glance at the calendar revealing I had only 7 weeks left in South America, it was time to be moving on anyway. On the bus north to Tulcan, my neighbour was an Ecuadorian woman who'd been living in New Jersey for the last 3 decades. She was back to visit her parents who lived just over the border in Colombia, which meant I had the benefits of her (hopefully incorrect) opinions of Colombia [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
October 26th 2008

A little unpleasantness in Quito

South America » Ecuador » North » Quito

Anteaters
Basilica del Voto Nacional

Cuenca airport was so small that I thought the taxi driver was dropping me off at a warehouse, and I was only convinced he wasn't having me on when I saw the first of the 8 check-in desks. The flight to Quito was cloud the entire way, with not even one Ande, let alone a whole range of them, visible. The airport pick-up for my hostal in Quito never materialised, and this, plus the non-existent wifi (contrary to the description on their website), dwarven room (I had to stoop in order to negotiate it without injury), and brazen attempt by the [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
October 25th 2008

An unnatural selection

South America » Ecuador » Galápagos

Pacific green turtle
Punta Espinoza, Fernandina

This is the second entry of a two-parter about my trip to the Galapagos. It picks up the story half way through the cruise - for the first half, see here. Day 5 Isabela (Punta Moreno and Elizabeth Bay) Day 5 dawned bright and clear - a first - and the volcanic landscape of Isabela met my gaze as I went up on deck for a pre-breakfast gawp. The Galapagos are volcanic islands in a similar fashion to Hawaii, i.e. never connected to the mainland and created by periodic releases of magma from u [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
October 18th 2008

It seems to be a little world within itself

South America » Ecuador » Galápagos

Giant tortoise
Charles Darwin Research Station, Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz

The Galapagos islands and cribbage are a natural connection in my mind, as the first pictures I recall seeing of them were on a pack of cards that my sister C had brought back from her first tour of the archipelago a few years ago. Boobies, baby sea lions, and even Lonesome George had stared at me from the deck as we played the highly competitive, obscenity-strewn games that constitute an evening's entertainment when the whole family is at home. I'd then looked at her own photos and finally searched on Flickr, and knew that I would have to pay a [View Full Entry]

By Jabe
October 10th 2008

Green land

South America » Ecuador » East » El Coca

Butterfly

Heat, humidity, and chocolatelessness are 3 things I generally seek to minimise in my life, so heading into El Oriente had the potential to cause me some major trauma. El Oriente is Ecuador's slice of the Amazon basin, that sprawling stretch of steaming selva that occupies nearly 50% of South America and functions as something of a lung for the planet as a whole. I had ambitions to see tarantulas, piranhas, and anacondas in the wild and it was here that I was hoping to meet them. Leaving a chilly Quito under grey skies, the first leg of my journey was [View Full Entry]

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