Still San Sebastian

It’s been a very eventful weekend. I’ve found myself in bars until 2 am the last few nights, due mostly to my befriending of four British university students who are here in San Sebastian on vacation. It’s taking a small toll on my liver, but I’ve been careful to keep myself under budget by taking only as much money as my sober self decides I should be spending. After the euros are gone, the Canadian heads home to bed, despite often persuasive advice to the contrary from my young British friends. Using this dull but effective tactic I’ve been able to keep liver damage to a minimum; considering last year’s insanity in Ecuador (I hate you El Poeta), my liver should be up for the relatively benign challenge of San Sebastian with four Brits.

I went to the market the other day and bought food for a few meals, and also a bottle of local wine for those cool, breezy evenings when a well sized glass can be used to warm you up quite effectively. The bill came to around 5 Euros, including the wine which cost, mind bogglingly, only 60 cents. And you know what – it’s not even all that bad! But the best method of attack is to avoid tasting the wine at all, by mixing it with some coca-cola. A strange brew, but all the locals do it and it seems to do the trick, especially if you’re 2 beers in and your brain is already too lazy to run your tastebuds. It’s called Kalimotxo (pr. Kah-lee-mo-cho), which I’m sure translates as “teenaged rocket fuel”. The sad part is that the coke cost more than the wine… or is that the best part? I remain undecided.

We went on a kind of pub and tapas crawl last night, led by the American fellow who works here at the hostel, which was a great time. My favorite morsels of the night were the “Carrillera” (can’t-even-pick-it-up-with-a-fork-it’s-so-tender braised pork cheek in a red wine reduction with French bread), the “Duo” (Lana prepare yourself – creamy delicious goat cheese and sweet pepper wrapped in bacon, grilled and served on a croquette), and the goat cheese with tomato preserves dessert tapas. We went to a bunch of local bars and met a ton of friendly locals, and proceeded to drink heavily until the wee hours of the morning, by which time I had about 5 new facebook friends who, truth be told, I can’t remember all that well now that I’m (mostly) sober. I took my leave as the Brits headed into a pub with a 20 Euro cover charge, which would have eaten up my entire night’s drinking budget, had I not already converted said budgeted Euros into beer and whiskey.

Today I woke up to the sound of music wafting in through the window, and as I assessed the severity of my hangover, the music began to get louder. There was a mobile band on the street, roaming about while playing local diddies, followed closely by a hundred or so people, dancing and drinking jovially. I remember thinking that it must be far too early to be drinking, until I realized I’d slept in until noon. So, I put my hangover in my backpack and grabbed my camera, and took off for some photos and festivities. There was some kind of celebration today, perhaps related to Easter, whereby there were many mobile bands entertaining the thousands of drunken dancers in claustrophobic pedestrian streets. I just walked around for hours, people watching and snapping the occasional photograph. Eventually I thought I would climb up the local hill to see my good friend the Jesus statue (we met long ago in South America – he was in almost every town I visited!), where I might be able to get a bird’s eye view of the fiesta. While trees obstructed much of the old city, I did get some wonderful views of the beaches and the standard issue town church. There was a quasi-interesting museum inside the old castle at the top, which occupied at most 2 minutes of my time as I climbed further yet, until I was at the foot of the statue. It was an idyllic scene at the top, with a panoramic vista which was well worthy of me taking a panorama of it. And so I did. I then walked down the other side of the hill, just to see what was there, and following my nose I found a hidden gem of a café, carved into the castle itself and affording stupendous views of the bay. I decided on a small frozen treat and enjoyed the makeshift midieval patio for a while, using a shiny cannon to hold my backpack. The afternoon brought a bit of tapas, a lot more walking and a couple more photo opportunities my way, and the evening only brought more of the same. Now I find myself sitting in my hostel, enjoying the sea breeze through the window as I write this blog while simultaneously contemplating my prospective bedtime. Hey look at that, bedtime has arrived! I think I'll publish this tommorrow morning when my bed's not quite so inviting. Buenas noches!

C

PS - Below is a fun video of one of the bands marching through the streets. Make sure to turn the volume up so you can hear it!

San Sebastian

Isn't this a beautiful little town! The narrow pedestrian streets, the gorgeous architecture and three fine sand beaches; it's beautiful in the morning, in the afternoon, and most of all at night. I think this picture (left) is one of my favorites of all time - this was my view upon stepping out into the evening after a long train from Barcelona; a crystal clear calm river, ornate bridges and walkways full of pedestrians, cyclists and dogs (some large, some Yaletown sized). I'll see if I can't put together the panorama I took on my walk to the hostel from the bus station. As far as first impressions go, this is pretty fantastic, yes? (Here is the panorama, in tiny miniature version - it will give you some idea. Remember to click on it to make it bigger!)

Since my arrival, I've spent one entire day trying to plan ahead on my trip; European hostels fill up quickly, especially the good ones. It's not even close to high season, but everytime I check on booking sites, there's another hostel with no space left for my selected days. I've never really had to plan this much before while traveling - in the past I've just shown up and found myself super little posadas and guesthouses. But here, I'd be stuck somewhere unpleasant if I didn't book ahead continually (and I don't mean some crappy cheap dive - I mean a 220 Euro budget-breaking hotel). This is both a blessing and a curse; I find that when I arrive to a new town, I'm stress free, and I simply follow the directions to the front door of whatever hostel I booked, where my bed is ready, they already know my name, and I simply pay my bill and head on in. But the flip side is that I spend a bit more time than I'd probably like on the computer here, booking planes trains hostels and tours. And I've got to book without any intimate knowledge of the place I'm booking, which makes it rather interesting. I have to rely on the word of people I've never met, whose intentions and preferences are unknown to me, whether one hostel is better than the next. Then again, all of the hostels here have been of high quality, and since I'm not all that picky, I think I will get along almost anywhere (left; the church just down the street from my hostel). For instance, right now I'm at a cheap hostel right in the center of town, with a comfortable bed in a very loud room just over one of the busiest streets in town, and I have no problem getting a good night's sleep. The kind French fellow beside me is not quite as lucky (light sleeper translates into no-sleep-at-all-er).

Well, what to do in San Sebastian? Today I walked around for hours and hours, stopping only briefly at a local fruit shop to buy an apple, a pear and a plum for lunch. I made my way up to a fantastic viewpoint of the city, by way of old ricketty "ferrocarril" (train car, pictured right), heading straight up the hill at around 50 degrees of incline. At the top, I met an old lesbian French couple, an American basketball player playing for San Sebastian's team, and a pair of young lovers from Barcelona. We all took pictures together and marvelled at the view. There is a lush variety of people here in Spain, especially so close to the French border. I find myself using all three of my languages in near equal amounts all day long, and I continually hear German, Flemish, Italian, Basque (a truly unique and fascinating regional language here in Spain), Arabic, and all sorts of foreign tongues I can't even being to classify. It's a very touristy town but only in the touristy parts - tonight I'm going on a pub crawl to the local bits of pub culture, which can be found down nearly any and every narrow street in this lovely town. I imagine the pub crawl will effectively end around 5 PM tomorrow evening, when my head finally stops hurting.

I still haven't gotten used to the whole siesta thing, nor do I think I will be able to (I'm not a napping kind of guy), but at least I've figured out when everything will be closed. I plan on spending the next few days surfing (there's fantastic surf here, although the Atlantic water is a bit cold; pictured is a surf school in the foreground, with the local experts navigating the waves in the background), beaching it up, and exploring the endless side streets, churches and pubs of San Sebastian. I might even rent a bike and take a trip a bit further afield! And of course, I've left one day for the grueling climb up the local hill to the obligatory Christ statue there; apparently there are wonderful views, there too. I'm not sure how much more wonderful the views can get before I lose all interest in leaving. Maybe Kelly can just move here after Dan's wedding? What do you think honey?

C

Barcelona Part 1

I'm really starting to like this place. Well, to be fair, the attraction was instantaneous: Barcelona is a beautiful city, full of life and colour, yet at the same time set to a slow, meandering pace. I suppose much of this delectable slowness is owed to the Spanish tradition of Siesta, whereby one takes a couple of hours break after lunch to go have a nap at home, only to return for an afternoon of work at around 4 o'clock. Then again, perhaps siestas are just a symptom of an otherwise lethargic Spanish temperament. Whatever it is, these Catalans sure are a happy, steady bunch. Even the chirpy green parrots seem to go about their business at a lackadaisical pace, listlessly plucking exotic flowers for half finished nests in tall palm trees. There are no blonde Yaletown types running around blaring on their cell phones (LIKE OHHH MAAIIII GAAAAAWWWWWAAAAADDDD TRINAAAAAA) walking hamster sized dogs and chugging cinquaple expressos here, that's for sure. I bet the life expectancy in Spain is much higher than in North America (just a guess - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy). People just take their time here, and it really is a relaxing place to spend some quality vacation days. I'm glad to be returning here to pick my friend Lana up next month, as she joins me for a couple weeks of travel together, through Western Europe; I think she'll like Barcelona just as much as I do.

Today I went to the center of town and walked around for a few hours. The city is full of beautiful Spanish architechture; the buildings, the statues, even the sidewalks seem to have a story to tell. I eventually found my way onto a high volume, pedestrian super-highway leading down to the beach; hola, Las Ramblas! Las Ramblas is a super touristy walkway full of street performers, flower shops, and Spaniards hawking cheap touristy wares such as mass-produced identical "hand painted" touristy maps of the area. It's very... touristy. And did I mention there are about a billion tourists there? I'm not a huge fan of such places; I tend to feel like a walking wallet, as I see the eyes of potential sellers light up at the sight of a backpack and curly red hair. Still, Las Ramblas was a good way to spend a few hours, especially when I found the huge food market hidden away on one of the side streets. Now that's what I'm talking about - everything from skinned rabbits to mango juice, from curry spice to escargot (sounds like a decent combination), all well priced, all fresh and ready for the buying. It's a shame there's no real kitchen here at the hostel with which to cook all these delicious ingredients (because we all know I stew a great rabbit?). But I did manage to procure myself all the necessities for an authentic Peruvian Salad; avocado, tomato and lime juice, with a pinch of salt and pepper (I know Kelly will be jealous of this one). Combine that with a fresh-out-of-the-oven baguette from the bakery around the corner, a blood orange and an apple, and you've got yourself a kickass lunch. Well, you probably don't - but I sure did! But, please don't feel like you need to go make yourself one; the avocados in Canada taste like cardboard, and the tomatoes taste like water (hence the salad tastes like acidic soggy cardboard in Canada - sorry!). The produce here in Spain is as good as I've seen it anywhere in my many travels, and I'm loving every juicy morcel. Of course, I'll eventually have to take a time out from the Peruvian salads and enjoy some tapas along the way, but I'm in no hurry. And neither is anyone else, for that matter. Ahhhhh Barcelona....

While I don't currently have too much time left to really get to know this place, as I'm off to San Sebastian tomorrow afternoon for some surf and sun, I'll happily return next month, with a solid sunburn, slightly blonder hair and a bulging goodie-filled backpack. Presently I'm looking forward to hitting up an English pub for the Man U. vs Chelsea game tonight, if anyone fancies a pint. I'll see the rest of you in San Sebastian!

C

Okay, one last picture

But it was worth the wait, and downloading all my panorama software onto this slow ass laptop. Remember to click on it (or any picture on the blog) for a bigger view!

Exodus Complete

Haha, super epic biblically referenced blog title (would be even better if I were a Jewish Israeli). So yeah, I probably should have SHOWERED at my hostel before jetting to the airport for a 24 hour trip, especially after a day in the hot Egyptian desert sun, riding sweaty camels and such. Nice forethought Chris. I was rather ripe when I finally arrived here at my hostel, which I'm enjoying very much so far, but everyone was nice enough not to say anything, even after I had a stinky garlicky mess of a shawarma for lunch. Then again, at least I had the ability to fatally attack the olfactory of the newest fat lady to sit beside me on a plane, thereby repulsing her completely, keeping her lard from creeping too far into my personal space. Bonus.

Barcelona has been very inviting; people are speaking English French and Spanish instead of Arabic, I haven't heard a single gunshot yet today, and I can drink the tapwater! Awesome, I know right? I'm going to take a couple of days to decompress and catch up on sleep (Have gotten about 4 hours in the last 36 hours, was falling asleep on the metro downtown), and buy a towel and a couple more pairs of shorts. Right now I'm going to see if I can upload some pyramid pictures on my previous post. Sadly, I was unable to climb the pyramids, and so a few of my friends will be disowning me. The thing is, when there are only 30 tourists at a massive historical site employing around 100 guards... well... add to that the fact that my ginger hair shines like a warning beacon in the sun, and I think you can see why it didn't happen.

My ass hurts. The camel guide did warn me I'd be "walking like an Egyptian" for a couple of days. Time to nurse myself back to 100% and plan a whole new month of my trip. I'll be in touch!

C

***Pyramid pics are up; wish I had my image editing software here so I could show you the RIDICULOUS panoramas I got...***

Happy Birthday To Me

Without a doubt, I will never forget my 29th birthday. I awoke at around 4 am to the Adhan (Muslim call to prayer), which was eerily beautiful, blasting through downtown Cairo on old crackling loudspeakers. Of course it would have been more enjoyable if it hadn't woken me up at 4 am. Then again, what happened next was even less enjoyable; gunshots began to ring out in the morning air, coming from Tahrir square, where a "celebration" had turned into a violent clash between the military and a few thousand hard-nosed protesters who were violating the curfew. The gunshots got louder until they seemed right outside the hostel (I found out later that that's because they WERE right outside the hostel), and then finally stopped around 6am.

Now, at no point during this incident did I feel unsafe; up on the 7th floor of our building, doors locked, no reason whatsoever for anyone to come inside, I felt rather secure. It was a pretty crazy way to start my birthday though; sitting up at 5 am listening to gunshots in the street while I google "egypt news" over and over again to see what's going on. It turns out that a few protesters were shot and killed in the clash, and today there were around twenty thousand people in Tahrir square by the time 4 PM rolled around, all protesting the army's tactics.
A few cars were burned (black smoke pictured when I get a chance to upload it), and general uneasiness could be felt in the too quiet streets of Cairo.

You all know that I'm crazy, so it should not be a big surprise to learn that I went ahead with the tour I had planned today. In fact, I increased the number of destinations in case I might be unable to go out in Cairo again, given the unrest this morning.
And so, today, I went to a papyrus shop, Memphis, a massage oil vendor (this stop was short lived), ate a terribly expensive but great lunch, rode a camel up to the Giza Pyramids, saw the Sakkar Pyramid, and a carpet making school (don't ask). The obvious highlight here was the Giza pyramids... neither pictures nor words can approach the magnificence and grandeur of these man made mountains. The only thing that even came close to rivaling the majesty of the pyramids was the kindness and beautiful soul of the Egyptian people which I witnessed today. My taxi driver, Solo Islam, was so kind to me, stopping to buy me a drink with his own money because I looked hot, and answering all of my dumb questions with wonderfully broken english, a near unreasonable amount of in-car-dancing, and a continuous smile.

My guide at the pyramids was just as excellent, customizing for me a tour which included about 50000 stops for about 50000000 pictures.
We joked about camels and talked politics and pharaohs, took tea together with some guards, and hugged goodbye like brothers after our 2 hours together. There are so many kind souls here, which in turn brings out the kindness in tourists(as well as the wallet; I was giving out baksheesh (tips) like never before), few as there were. Typically, at any one time there are around 3000 tourists at the Giza Pyramid site: Today there were 27. It made for great pictures, but you can really tell that the tour guides, and in fact most of the other outwardly happy Egyptians, are having a hard time with this whole revolution. Sure, it's a step in the right direction, but people still need to put food on the table.


On the way back to the hostel, I asked my driver to swing by the square to see how things had settled. The 20000 protesters there, the barbed wire cutting traffic and pedestrians off from the square, and the loaded army APCs quickly let me know that things had not settled at all. As i rode past in my taxi, I felt a lump grow in my throat as the final realization of my future here in Egypt came crashing down around me: I am going to have to leave this country today, I thought. I told my driver to wait downstairs as I gathered the rest of my things, and departed to "meet a friend at the airport". I couldn't bring myself to tell the hostel owner the truth, which is that the escalating and violent protests scared away yet another tourist.

I have a few simple rules when I am traveling, which are designed to keep me safe and nerve free.
One rule is that if I ever feel personally threatened while traveling, I should do my best to extracate myself from the situation if at all possible. Secondly, I always have to make sure that, once I do enter a place, I have a safe way to get back out of it. I honestly do feel threatened by these protests, which are escalating quickly as anger turns from the Mubarak regime to the new army's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to prosecute those individuals felt responsible for the corruption in Egypt (Mubarak chief among them). And there is no way that I can guarantee to myself that Cairo will be safe enough in two weeks for me to fly out of; I only know that it is safe enough right now. So, with a heavy heart and great sadness, I will be leaving Cairo and the wonderful people of Egypt early tomorrow morning for Frankfurt, and then I will go on to Barcelona. Not to say that Spain won't be amazing, it's just that I was hoping to get to spend some more time with the people here, enjoying the sights and sounds of this timeless place.

But, as always, safety supercedes fun. A birthday to remember, no doubt about it; gunshots, pyramids, my 7th continent, and some incredible experiences. I will try and upload pictures soon, the bandwidth here sucks. Y ahora, vamos a Espana!

C

Cairo

That was a lot of airplane. After flying to Germany next to a very nice but terribly fat woman who spilled frequently into my seat both over and under the armrest (thank god for that armrest), I found a local hotel and paid way too much for a good night's sleep. Or was it a good day's sleep? Jetlag sucks. My main tactic, or strategery if you will, to combat jetlag, has always been to stay up as long as possible and try and sleep my very first night at the correct local time. This has worked well for me in the past, and this trip seems no exception, although spending all of yesterday awake after about 10 hours on a plane was rather challenging. During this time I discovered that Germans really DO have an unhealthy obsession with David Hasselhoff, and that yes, his music really is THAT BAD. Yikes. Only moderately better was the German shuttlebus' music as we bombed down the freeway toward my overpriced hotel: Chumbawumba? Come on damnit... Also there are virtually no commercials on German TV, which is a lot like watching TV with Lana and Kelly after having procured a PVR ("....... SOMEONE FAST FORWARD THE DAMNED COMMER- WHERE'S THE REMOTE? I BET CHRIS HAS IT AGAIN... NO SURPRISE... DO YOUR DAMNED JOB CHRIS").

The underpaid front desk agent at the overpriced hotel neglected to actually set up my wake up call, despite my standing at the counter until he'd claimed he'd done so. Danke, sheizekopf. Luckily, I travel with a battery powered alarm clock, so I was good to go anyway. Sadly he wasn't there the next morning, so I couldn't ream him out. I mean, I could have reamed somebody else out, but then what's the point; I wanted to make that other guy feel bad, not some random guy. I ate the driest sandwich ever made for breakfast at the airport (I swear it took me 20 minutes, it was like eating sand), and finally got down to the boarding gate just in time for them to tell me that "I vood have to vait and zee iv I could get on ze plane" (which I noticed was about half full when I finally did get on; apparently they were expecting a rush of last minute pyramid seekers).

The plane to Cairo was uneventful, which come to think of it is quite nice when it comes to plane rides, and I spent most of the time reading my bible (Lonely Planet: Egypt). I assumed that the hotels would be basically empty and so jumped into a car with 3 Aussies and headed downtown, full of confidence. Well, it turns out that basically all of the hotels down here are sold out due to the weekly Friday celebrations in Tahrir square, so I might be sleeping on the proverbial (and actual) couch tonight. There are currently about a hundred thousand Egyptians in the square; it's pretty amazing to say the least!


Currently I'm sitting on the rooftop patio of my little hotel, watching the sunset and listening to the celebrations from afar. Tomorrow I'm off to see the pyramids of Giza, the only remaining wonder of the seven wonders of the world, upon which I plan to unleash a full photographic assault. After that I'll likely make my way down to Aswan on the overnight train, and then come back up the Nile on a boat to Luxor; basically I'm going to try and cram all the historical stuff into about a week and then deke out for the beaches, leaving me as long as I want to laze about in Dahab, a backpacker's paradise on the red sea. Awesome. I can't wait to get this trip underway!

Well, that's all for now, I'll update as I can over the next few days.

C