From Auckland to South America, Birthday, BA and barking rabid dogs

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Back to Auckland, and back to another Nomad hostel with a feel of a tower block in a run down council estate. A vibe that seems to work if you are taking advantage of the "power hour" available in the rowdy bar downstairs, but not so great when you feel rotten and can only really lie around a 10 bed dorm all day. The pain killers were doing little to shift the pain at night, and the icing on the ailing cake came with an added feeling of nausea and fatigue. Yay. Thankfully there were a few upsides, I mean nothing in my travels can ever be overbearingly negative, even if this was my lowest point. Tears of joy were almost cascading down my stubbly cheeks when I found out that the Jacuzzi on the roof terrace, a sparkling gem on such a dilapidated mess, was sent to me for my salvation. Struggling up to the 7th floor and shakily getting in to the warm, frothing water, euphoria spread through every vessel in my being as I was immediately relieved of all stomach pain.

The ominously dark clouds patchworked over a darker Auckland sky parted. Angels danced and sang. Mmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a spotlight shining down from the heavens. Just me in my gastritis-relieved world. I spent the next two evenings in there. As everyone got racously drunk downstairs I bitterly wished full depth stomach ulcers and fiery red patches of chronic gastritis inflammation on all of them, or would have done if I was not in my little pain free paradise gazing up at the clouds rolling past Auckland's towering skyscrapers, or finishing my book "Six months in Sudan" a must read that has helped align my future career plans. The Dutchies from the Stray Tour came back to Auckland with me, and we checked out The Sky Tower during the day. Pretty high, I will give it that, "highest in the Southern Hemisphere" although that is not saying that much. The Dutch girls were quite funny really, when I was on the bus and on top form, being an idiot and taking Skins the drivers mic to do my tour guide alter-ego they loved it all, but then when I got ill I clearly lost my value to them. Ha, fair play though if you travel to party and have fun, sympathy for the sick does not usually go hand in hand.

The night of the 23rd was pretty horrific, parecetamol and antacid proving useless, sheer horror hit me as my Jacuzzi-fix was insubstantial to relieve the pain, and I was near to tears (I will admit, there may have been the odd real tear or two) as I was doubled over in a tepid pool of water, frustrated and exhausted with this exasperating epigastric burning that just seemed to niggle away at me. To use this blog to its full effect, I shall now provide insight and reflect on what I have got from this experience.

....insert medical jargon to make me feel like my year out has taught me as much as I would have learned in an extra year at medical school, which arguably it genuinely has....

It is notable though, that you need to be ill and be a patient yourself to be able to identify with what it feels like to be a patient in a healthcare system. The anger and frustration of the waiting room, praying for an immediate fix, the sense of helplessness, the hope and believe that the doctor will help you, the desire to be understood, that your extent of desperation should be recognized, that you just want to be nursed and wrapped in cotton wool and cared for until you make a full miraculous recovery. Sympathy. Empathy. Understanding. Everything you are taught about at medical school but something you cannot truly recognize the full importance of without being the patient. The one who just wants to be listened to and told they are very brave, and that they are doing so well coping, on the otherside of the world, isolated from family and friends, in a city where they now know no one, when they just want to fly home into the wide open arms of their mother, where everything will be okay again. Where a smile will be back on there face. Where he can stop feeling so damn sorry for himself.

Thankfully, the Doctor did help. Within a day or two things were much better. I wanted to marry the bloody woman merely for prescribing me some Tramadol (for severe pain) and Omeprazole (PPI’s which I wish I has started taking earlier) and loads of cool mint flavoured Mylanta, an absolute God send which I should have had from the very beginning. After failing to convince the Doc, just to blag me in as an in-patient (“Go on Doc please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease… I will save on accommodation as well”) I slept for a fe hours in the hospital reception on a very comfortable couch, and then got the strength together to get a taxi to STA Travel, to delay my ticket for 5 days to South America, but need to get back to the tower-block hostel to get a form. I took a couple more Tramadol, kissed the box for the ¨”Warning: May cause drowsiness label” and slept for so long that STA was now closed, I was feeling a lot better thanks to Omeprazole, and South America was back on the cards for the next day.


The flight out to Buenos Aires was quite an experience, and not just because I crossed the international date line and arrived 4 hours before I left. I witnessed for the first time the passion and rowdiness of the Argentinians, when they started chanting and quite rightfully kicking up a very Hispanic fuss at Auckland airport when our flight was 6 hours delayed. The Kiwi authorities though seemed to take things a bit far and within minutes a dozen security officers were circulating, and took one gentleman aside, the Che Guevara of our mob of passengers, to ensure there will be no more disruption. Completely blown out of proportion, and the fellow passengers were quick to be scribbling down complaint forms to Aerolineas Argentinas. The government apparently bailed them out of bankruptcy earlier in the year, and they had cancelled both my original flight and the one the next day, causing a fair bit of havoc. For me though their cost cutting incompetence was pretty beneficial as the day before when I originally was meant to fly, I was in the hospital and would have had to cancel the flight. So AA, it is to you I thank for the time I am having in South America. Another blogworthy moment, was when I settled in to make myself as comfy as possible, boots off, fleece as a pillow, seat back, and I was just dosing off to slumberland when a pretty young lady with a Spanish accent sitting across the aisle a row or two in front turned around to get my attention. "Hola Senorita, que tal?" I said in the sexiest Spanish I could muster. The reply was not what I expected, in broken English:

"Sir, please put shoe on, please. Yes boots on again please. Very smelly. Very, very smelly"

"...."

Haha, I thought it was pretty hilarious, which touches the ominous point that when foot odour is not something you are even embarrassed about, then maybe you have been travelling a little too long. It also can to my attention that she was a metre or two from me, the passengers in my immediate vicinity had not said a word. On closer inspection they were all sleeping soundly... presumably knocked out by the fetid odour!

Catalina, an Argentinian contact I know was there with her mum to collect me from the airport and kindly let me stay at theirs for the first night which helped me get my footing in a developing country again, and gave my stomach its best chance to properly recover. I then stayed in a hostel a few nights, which was rather swanky for my standards, and was chosen with the opposite criteria than usual, as it was meant to be quite quiet and had few Western travellers to tempt me with alcohol, giving time for my stomach lining to properly heal. I hung out with Catalina and her friends for the first few days, which really gave me a different insight than the standard tourist does to the city of Buenos Aires. I went to an Asado (BBQ with looooads of beef) and met a couple of Columbian girls that loved all things British. One of them was a chef and offered to cook burritos (without spice) for me on my Birthday. So I brought in my 22nd rather uniquely, talking Spanglish with an Argentine and two rather funky Columbians, with red hair and piercings galore, and a Strawberry cheesecake with candles to top it all off. Ana and Paula, the Columbians showed me around a bit of San Thelmo, and taught me a bit about the city and how to get around it. The time came to move hostels, feeling fully recuperated, I headed to Palermo House, a “very sociable” hostel, not for those who enjoyed their early nights. Still running on New Zealand time, I was not waking up before 3pm, so this place seemed perfect. Two and a half weeks later and my body has still not properly adapted to a diurnal regime. And although I am seeing more than two hours daylight a day now, it is still hard to get to sleep and wake up early- it definitely does not help how I tend to still be in a club at 6am!

In Palermo House, Benoit, a French guy to whom I gave the original nickname of “Frenchie” had just got in from Santiago and was also up for a night on the town, on our way out, we met a couple of Americans, Mike, yielding a blue bandana and a haircut good enough for the US Marines, and Sam, yielding a slightly off-center back-to-front baseball cap who asked if “Y’all all out tonight?” in a distinctly Southern tone. They came along with us, and I learnt they were not just obnoxious Americans, but obnoxious Americans that were the perfect personification of the typical frat boy. We obviously became firm friends and have traveled together for the last two weeks, slapping each others backs in very manly goodbyes yesterday, as they are heading back to BA, and I am off to Rio. The next four nights in BA, the four of us thoroughly explored the areas of Plaza Serrano, Palermo and San Thelmo, a little in the late afternoons, and very thoroughly in the early hours. We had some great times, “Pre-gaming” in the Americans’ prime room of the hostel, accessed up a rickety cast iron staircase and through a trap door, where whole city of BA would greet you upon entering through the panoramic glass, floor to ceiling windows. Frenchie, would often get his guitar out and serenade us with songs he had perfected over 12 years of guitar playing. Another card he had in his thick deck he used to lure in the ladies!

A few notable times that can just about get pass the blog police, were the free champagne and free dance floor that we thoroughly enjoyed at an electronic after party… the worm came out as always, and was one of my best. A night which was heading for a wash-out, after extortionate entry charges requested by the power-crazed bouncers that had a two tier charging system for locals and foreigners, was saved when we were dragged through a discreet black door into a happening private party. The huge meathead at the door, would be forcing us out, as hundreds of hands tried to pull us in and later bought us drinks. Apparently the French card was the whole reason for it, and we had a great time trying to make conversation in weak Spanglish by Argentinian guapa chicas. On the way home our paths were blocked by a couple of ladies of the night. In our efforts to get past, the streetlight shone an amber glow onto the solid set jaw, Adam´s apple and 5 O’clock shadow of these ladies. Instinct took over and we ran for our dear lives. Mike unfortunately looked back and was greeted with the distant site of deliberately exposed excited genitalia. Never look back.

The time came to get on out of Buenos Aires, wave goodbye to Frenchie and head to Iguassu Falls. We opted for the slightly unconventional route through Uruguay. A Buquebus boat took us for 3 hours across the Estuary to the pretty little town of Colonia. As its name hints at, it still had held onto a Portuguese Colonial feel, almost in a time warp with vintage cars, cobbled tree-lined streets and a dated church and lighthouse. People had advised us not to bother with Uruguay, that it is rubbish, with nothing to see there. However, cycling around the quite streets and sipping a beer opposite a beautifully derelict beach whilst watching a spectacular sunset we felt Uruguay was spectacularly giving the finger to its critics. That was until after a prolonged stop at a Churros stand, it was now night, and we had to cycle back… a case of what felt like life and death. Let me explain, I used to be an avid dog-lover, until I came to South America a couple of years back and had to arm myself with pockets full of stones in case I encountered a pack of savage strays that “owned” the ‘hood of Huancayo. With the niggling fear of rabies at the back of your mind, dogs that seem to bite you for fun are definitely something to avoid. They may be splayed out in the center of the pavement, motionless and basking in the sun, but come the evening they transform into hunters searching to maim or even kill Dog´s Best Friend- Man. That is how I have come to view them anyway. The Colonia dogs were mental. Truly Mental with a capital M. We were heading back to our hostel… they saw us, and proceeded to chase cars, yapping and biting out at the front right tyre of each one. They would succeed in even stopping several, as they were so fearless, there heads would angle across in front of the front bumper. One of them already had a bad limp, surely the result of playing “chicken with the cars?” We tried to make our getaway when they were all chasing cars… but they saw us, and pursued. Shit. We cycled as fast as our legs would take us, I was hoping all my cycling back in the summer would give me the edge on my American chums… take them not me, please, go for Mike or Sam, not me!! I sense we were each thinking the same, no one throwing themselves heroically to the pavement to sacrifice themselves for the safety of the other two. We threw a left, then a sharp right, a glance back and we have lost them. No, two are still running parallel on the opposite pavement. We are lost. We have to stop. We do. So do the dogs, but they come no closer. In fact they just play there very intimidating car game again. Ferocious barking, tongue lolling, you can almost see the froth of rabies dribbling out there mouths. We have another chance to escape, head back the way we came. They see us and follow again. An uneven cobblestone has given me a poor start. I am in last place this time. I am the injured wildebeest, The strongest survive and the weakest perish. I am in perishing position, oh cruel nature. The dogs close in on me, this is it. Here comes their teeth for my ankles. The ripping of flesh from my precious bones, the mangling of my foot as they crush their hungry cruel jaws through my metatarsals.

They keep on running, a miracle. Maybe they are picking off the lead first, knowing that will be the biggest challenge, I am merely child’s play, they will probably be saving me to train their puppies in the art of killing. We have to stop at the lights, and the dogs just commence there savage car chasing game again. Surely now is the prime time for them to strike?? It is not until we finally make it back safely to the confines of the hostel that we start to question how much those dogs wanted our blood. On exiting the hostel and heading to the restaurant we are greeted by one of them, who had been patiently waiting for us on the street outside. It wags its tale and follows us, barking at anyone that comes near us. Were just showing off their car chasing skills? Trying to taunt us maybe? Or even guarding us? Dedicating themselves as our protectors from cars and people alike? Who knows, we just feel rather sheepish for how terrified we were at the time.

Still about a week behind, but my 24hour bus to Rio is waiting. Hasta Luego.

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