HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Nerding it up all day and not feeling guilty
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not making out of the coffee plantation-Rosita bogged again
WORD OF THE DAY: Can’t be repeated on the blog-too offensive
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: Nil till 5.50pm and then 180km
We woke to blue skies and birds chirping this morning. We got a small luxury of a sleep in with a departure time of 9am and breakfast was on from 8am. We were heading to Cali for 2 nights with only a short drive in front of us of about 5 hours, spirits we high of the shorter drive today, even if it took an extra hour or two unless something went drastically wrong (touchwood) we would not hit single digits in the truck today. The only real concern was getting Rosita down the steep hill, across the bridge and up a smaller hill on the other side. It had rained overnight, but the sun was out and things didn’t look too bad at all.
The truck was all loaded and ready to go at 8.45am, so Gray decided to turn the truck around and after talking to him this morning he was going to try and do a 100 point turn in the car park to get Rosie around but when he started the truck plans must have changed and he decided to use the small football pitch next to the round house as his turning circle which normally would have been okay if it hadn’t rained the night before. He bumped over the concrete divider (leaving a small damaged hole) got to turn 90 degrees and then…….she got bogged. With wheels spinning and a bit of mud flying it didn’t look too bad. She wasn’t deep in mud, but there was just no traction what so ever. There was a small groan from the group, but with the run that we have had the last 4 weeks, we are now just learning to roll with the punches. We can’t change it; it wasn’t done on purpose so let’s just help out where we can and learn to be patient. I never thought by the end of the afternoon I would be ready to kill a few people with their negative attitude, whinging and whining-seriously……..
Gray decided to leave Rosita for an hour, to give the ground some time to dry out. We were lucky the sun was high in the sky and was beating down, so this was a good sign. The bad sign was Gray donned his overalls and this is always a bad sign of thing could get tricky. Not only does Gray cook for us, but he knows every inch of Rosita, what he has in his tool box and not always have we seen him do things by the Rosie Manual, but he has to work with what he has, if not a little unconventional at times, but he has always got us out of whatever situation Rosita has put us in and again we had 100% faith that this would also be the case today.
We had always planned to get a group photo of us today, as it really was the last opportunity with us all together as New Heather leaves tomorrow for Lima and Blue Heather leaves in Otavalo and we had the time now that Rosita wasn’t moving anywhere soon. We got most people in the photo; I don’t know why people won’t get into a group shot at least for the end of tour photo. I know people don’t like having their picture taken but at the end of the day, we are tiny specks in the photo as we were using Rosita as our back drop and I have to say that the photos turned out awesome. Gray wouldn’t get into a single photo, but he was just being difficult and I could use a certain word but it’s not fit for any ears and I won’t even tell you what it starts with but it is a terrible word and that is what he was being today. All issues aside, he could have stood in A photo. We also got a photo with the 4 originals. Sharon, Julia, Kate and Myself. 171 days for the 3 of them and 154 days for me, that is a massive accomplishment and with Mark (no Gray) we got a few snaps to mark the occasion. I’m getting a little emotional now as the trip draws to a close. It has been a wild adventure. Some ups and downs, more ups and we have circled a massive continent. It is a trip that I will not forget and it was pretty cool to look back on the photos of the day from this section today to just remind me of what we have actually seen over the last 6 months.
The morning progressed with not much result. A lot of digging started, plantation hands came to help, gravel was bough, hay was supplied to try and give some form of traction and at 11am the scrap metal man arrived with his jeep to see if he could help. Rosita only needed to be moved a few centimeters to get her back wheels onto the traction grips and hopefully that would have solved it all….. but he just didn’t have the ompffff and after around an hour with some cash in hand and a wave, they left us to try plan 32. The blood sucking flying buggers were back in force and I think they were at the worst when you were standing on the grass. By the end of the afternoon I had over 15 bites on my legs and a few on my arms and they were itchy as hell. We were all scratching like we all had fleas or something. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch. It was the worst I had been bitten on my whole World Odyssey and they were driving me nuts.
Lunch was served at 12.30pm. People were still okay, there were a lot of worse places we could have been stuck. We had the pool, the view, the weather, the round house for power, toilets and showers. It was just a further day of rest and we weren’t missing anything in Cali, as there isn’t too much on offer there except Salsa Clubs. This was okay. I was keeping busy nerding up on the computer. I caught up to date on my photo of the day pictures, so when I get internet they are ready to upload. The last few days photos have all been loaded, turned and cropped also ready to be loaded and spent the rest of my time writing and compiling my very last blog for Bernie’s World Odyssey, which won’t be till September, but there is a lot of information that I plan put in them with stats and figures (surprise) so I have had to refer to my last diary for information and also previous blog entries as it will be a BIG job. I started re-reading a few of my blogs in the process and it was awesome re-read things that I had totally forgotten about, and with a little personal high five to me for my perseverance, information and content I think I am going to really enjoy reading my travel diary from the start to relive every single moment of my trip. To blow my own horn a little I am pretty damn proud of my blog. I am hoping I will have time when I get to Ethiopia to do this as I settle in and look for work and just relax and wind down from one adventure to start the next one.
I have a plan which I still need to run past Zeme, but with my arrival into Ethiopia at the start of September, I am allowed to enter on a 3 month visa and until I find work and get sponsored by a government approved company I can’t stay longer than 3 months at any one time. Easy answer is that I leave (London, Kenya, where ever is cheaper) and then re-enter again to start a new 3 months. I’m not sure how open immigration would be to that option should I try it more than a few times, but it is a last resort that technically would work. After being twice now, I known what to expect but I need to work out what I am going to need to bring from home, what I can and can’t get readily in Addis etc…. Clothes are my number one issue. Ethiopians are all very skinny and I didn’t see many clothing places that would accommodate my ‘size’. I know I could probably get clothes made, but 90% of the time they just never turn out the way you had wanted, but this would be a backup plan should I need anything urgently. I then sit back and think I have survived on 2 pairs of shorts, 3 skirts and a pair of cargo pants for the last 13 months, how much do I actually need to take? In my defence I miss my dresses, feeling like a lady and having some respectable hair for once, so I still plan to take a bunch of clothes, anything more than 6 main items of wardrobe will be a blessing for me and a great start. After my second visit medication, drugs etc... Won’t be an issue, that is all readily available, so it tis then onto some comforts of home. I have gone without for 12 months, but long term is a little more serious so I plan on sending some ‘care’ packages to myself containing Twisties, Burger Rings, Tim Tams, BBQ Shapes, a supply of salty plums, Smarties and Red Frogs. That is what I am missing now and will make a god start to my stash in Ethiopia. Hopefully when Zeme tries them all he won’t like them and then I get them all to myself, but we have pretty similar eating habits and foods so I have a feeling he will enjoy them as much as me! I have decided to look for a job when I get there, see how hard it actually is, get word out there but just adapt and settle in over the next 3 months, taking language classes, learning to cook traditional food and just finding my feet. The 3 months would then bring me to early December and I am thinking that Z and I could go to Australia for Christmas for around 4 weeks and then with my return in January look in earnest for a job and get back into some form of routine starting the New Year, well in Western time, the Ethiopian New Year is normally in September/October so I will to celebrate that twice a year. Yeah I think I am liking that idea already! So that is a rough plan till January and then we need to think about using my last section of the round world ticket before April 2013. Maybe this travel gig just isn’t quite over yet and the beauty is I now have Zeme to share it all with.
At 2pm a tractor came up to help us. Surely this was going to be the answer. It all looked so positive, but the problem was the tractor was no getting any traction either and was churning up the grass in the process. There was one moment where it looked like she was going to get out, she rolled back and forth a few times but just couldn’t get that last push out, it was around 3pm when this happened and I think it started to sink in that we were probably going to be here for another night. With Rosie getting pushed and pulled, dug around, lifted and jacked she was actually sinking deeper into the wet grass. The football pitch now looked like a mud bath as it was now getting carved up by the tractor as well as Rosie and also the diggers. As the afternoon wore on some storm clouds rolled in and lot of thunder was threatening and eventually dropped some rain for around 15 minutes. This was not good news for the rescue mission and at 4pm Mark informed us that he has arranged a 28 seater bus to come and collect us and we were going to leave Gray and Rosita behind for the night and a rescue mission was being prepared as we spoke of a temporary road to be made to get her out tomorrow-all going well…… So with Rosita on a jack, we were allowed one at a time onto the truck to get off our hand luggage that we needed and we were also told to take all out personal effects, but we could leave our souvenirs and stuff we didn’t need for the next 24-48 hours. Hang on, that doesn’t install a lot of faith that she will make it to Cali tomorrow…… I left my souvenir bag anyway, worse case I thought if she doesn’t make it tomorrow, they have a whole week to get her to Quito, so I wasn’t too worried leaving some stuff on her. Worse, worse case they would have to send a bus back to get all our belongings off and get them to us in Quito, so either way we would see our stuff again.
The fluro green bus arrived at 5.15pm and we were on the road with a wave to Rosita, Gray and Dom who had decided to stay and help Gray at 5.40pm. It was going to be around a 5 hour drive and we also needed to stop for dinner along the way, we would be lucky to get into Cali before midnight. Mark figured we were better off doing it this way than waiting till tomorrow for the bus transfer as if we arrived tonight that would give us the whole day in Cali tomorrow rather than travelling for half the day and not getting much time there. Plus he had paid for the hotel, so we would get no money back and then he would also have to pay for an additional night at the coffee plantation, so all round it was a wise move. There were a few grumblings form a few individuals complaining that the call was made too late, a day had been wasted sitting here and I was ready to slap them silly. The last thing Mark needed was people ratting at him firstly as he was on the phone most of the day, helping Gray in the mud and keeping us all in the loop, what else do you expect the man to do. Seriously. Yes we have had some badluck, actually a lot of badluck, but that is what happens when you travel and instead of it coming in 3’s we have been hit with it coming in lots of currently 15’s!!! (touchwood for no more for the last 5 days).
We stopped at 8pm for dinner and it was surprisingly a great place to stop. It was buffet style, a Colombian fast food chain, that made our burgers fresh to order and fresh fries, washed down with a Pepsi and rice pudding for dessert it all hit the spot. The only bad thing was it had to be inhaled as we wanted to just keep moving, so after jacking into the free Wi-Fi as I ate and using what Tash claimed as the best bathrooms in South America (they were pretty impressive) we were back on the road at 8.40pm for the final slog to Cali. The bus wasn’t that comfortable, but with my IPod plugged in I managed to get around an hours sleep to the flash of the fluro white flashing lights on the top of the bus.
We made good time and arrived into Cali at 11.30pm. Our bus driver wasn’t a 100% sure on where the hotel was, so we paid a local taxi to take us there which I thought was a great idea, especially with 22 tired people in the back, I personally would have paid for the taxi to get us there quicker. Once at the hotel it didn’t take us all long to get our keys, which were named again and not room numbers and I was lucky that I got to spend New Heathers last night together. We were on the ground floor in Camillea and we could get Wi-Fi in our room, albeit it was a dodgy, slow connection but enough to get messages from Zeme and Easter Island vouchers from Beth.
I also have to shout out a thank-you to Sharon who sewed up my skirt today. It is one of the few remaining original items from home and the material is just wearing thin, but there was a rip near the pocket that was just getting bigger and bigger, so she sewed it up for me and I just hope that I can get another 8 weeks out of it. For something that only cost me 20 bucks, worn to death, already been repaired in Vic Falls when I ripped it all the way up the split, it has done me proud. Just 8 more weeks buddy, 8 more weeks. So thanks Shaz you’re a gem.
What a day. But we made it and we have all our fingers and toes that Gray, Dom and Rosita all make it in sometime tomorrow as well.
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