Darrell vs The World

OK, here's the first of the non-travel related blog entries. I've noticed more and more that the uni student mentality around this time of year is one of "x days to go till I'm free!" And when exams are finished, it becomes "x years to go till I'm free!" Back when we were in school, we tortured ourselves with study with the attitude in the back of our minds, "when exams are done, I'm free forever! Sure, uni's next, but that's no big deal. You only have to pass!" When I work over the summer, it's often "x days till I'm back to uni and out of here!" When I'm back at uni, it's "x weeks until I'm finished again!" When I was saving for my trip, it was "x weeks till I leave!" When I was homesick and killing time in an obscure Peruvian city it was a (more fervent than ever) "x weeks till I'm home!" Basically, it seems that for nearly everything that is happening, w...

During my time at SKIP, I planned in eager anticipation what was to be a legendary ten day “whirlwind finale” that would take me to as many new places in as short a time as possible, from the door of the SKIP house right back to my home back in Melbourne. Not everything planned happened as a result of a couple of things, but it was nevertheless a great finish to a great trip, and I spent a bit of time doing what I had not done before, which was just chilling out. After farewelling the SKIP gang in a hurry, I took a luxury overnight bus (not wanting to take risks with dodgy buses again after the theft in Ecuador – plus a luxury bus in Peru for nine hours is just AUD$28) to the mountain city of Huaraz, which is renowned as a backpackers’ and trekkers’ mecca. It’s easy to see why just standing anywhere in the city. The place has the most spectacular snow-capped mountain range, the Cordillera Blanca, standing to one side of the otherwise modest city. From the rooftop of my hotel I coul...

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25411&l=c4496&id=629670868 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28707&l=a5e56&id=629670868 SKIP (Supporting Kids in Peru) volunteer work continued for me in June, as well as a couple of trips to break it up. I apologise that this blog is not as long as the last one, for those of you who love a comprehensive entry. I continued going on visits with the economic development team in the very poor district of Alto Trujillo. There were some interesting cases. One woman had 10 soles ($4) left to repay on her loan which was unpaid since November, but she had paid on time and on schedule up to then. We visited her often, trying to get to the bottom of it, not understanding what the problem was. Every time we ran into her (which wasn´t often) she promised money later that week, but it never happened, until one afternoon when Brook, in charge of the program, bumped into her and she almost seemed to have had enough of this game and cou...

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25411&l=c4496&id=629670868 As April rolled to a close, I prepared to begin a new chapter of my trip, the longest one: one which I had expected to be the most valuable to me in the long term and the one which would give me the most insights and teach me the most lessons. After two and a half months of traveling continuously, spending no more than 7 nights in any city, I was to spend seven weeks in Trujillo, Peru participating in a volunteer program with Supporting Kids in Peru ( http://www.skipperu.org/ ) Leaving exciting Lima behind, I took a day bus up through the unspectacular Peruvian northern desert towards my new home. On the way the bus provided a game of bingo, the prize for winning which was a return ticket. I didn´t win. SKIP works in an outer district of Trujillo called El Porvenir, a desert settlement surrounded by rugged mountains that you can rarely see as it is mostly overcast. My first walk through it, and its ne...

Photos part 1 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24075&l=b99e5&id=629670868 Part 2 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25411&l=c6eb0&id=629670868 If you break down my itinerary, the second most time spent in a country is Germany with 10 nights. The first is Peru with about 75. And what a place to spend a bulk of a trip! It offers amazing mountains, a rugged and beautiful coast, centuries of history of civilization after civilization and all sorts of other stuff I'll enthusiastically outline below. I continued my Budget Expeditions trip from La Paz, Bolivia, finishing in Peru's bustling capital, Lima. A month ago I flew from Lima (where I was in transit) to La Paz in under two hours. It took me a month to get back to Lima by road, with some of the most amazing stops along the way. In some ways Peru is quite similar to Bolivia. The traditional dress that many of the women on the street wear is very similar, the handicrafts in the shops and the food in the res...

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22998&l=58bd6&id=629670868 When people imagine their dream holiday destinations, I doubt that Bolivia is high on many lists. Probably there are quite a few Australians who don't even know where Bolivia is. And the obscurity of it adds to its excitement. To be fair, it is still quite popular with tourists, especially the areas I have visited, and I have ironically visited it in a more touristy way than all the far more tourist-heavy places I have been so far.Bolivia is smack bang in the middle of South America and it definitely feels like I am deeply immersed into the continent in which I will spend the rest of my trip. Llamas mill around by the side of the road once you get out of the city, stunning mountains surround the ridiculously high altitude cities, markets rule the streets, minivans cough out huge clouds of black smoke as they climb steep hills, and there is a little bin in the cubicle for your toilet paper, which is...

Photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22725&l=18a35&id=629670868 Cuba, Costa Rica In Monty Python they always used to say "And now for something completely different" and then follow through on that promise. My trip is like a big Monty Python movie where John Cleese is sitting behind every customs gate, around every corner, floating down every city waterway. Nowhere has this been more true than when I walked out of my front door in Old Havana to greet the morning city street the day after I flew in from Madrid. I arrived at night (complete with taxi driver jumping out of the car, pulling off the windscreen wiper on his side, replacing it with the one from the other side and continuing in the rain) and couldn´t see much of Cuba's charm as I arrived at my casa particular (bed and breakfast lodging). The tableau that greeted me as I stepped out struck me and confirmed my hopes that Cuba was going to be an amazingly different place. On paper it probably does...

Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain The second half of my European trip has been fast-moving, allowing little opportunity for reflection. I´ve powered through a host of major cities and some minor ones too and have emerged on the final evening of this sector of my trip with many observations, but I understand that I can´t be too quick to jump to any conclusion about any country or city from a 2 or 3 day trip there. The world is far too complex and multi-layered to judge a nation or its people on how one tourist-friendly city appeared in a weekend. What I can do is talk about my experiences and what I think I´ve got out of my few weeks getting a taste of Europe. One could call it a Euro-sampler. I had a brief whiff of each city and then I was either back to home base (Freiburg, Germany) or straight onto the next one. It was exciting and didn´t allow me much time to get bored. I found that without a local to point out the secrets of a city, there was only so muc...

Germany, Denmark, Sweden My photo albums: Europe: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20885&l=1212a&id=629670868 Singapore: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=20884&l=045b6&id=629670868 Paul's Pies: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19880&l=3d65b&id=629670868 After a big final meal with the family in Singapore, it was time for the mega flight to Frankfurt, Germany to start the second leg of my journey. I realised that it's near impossible for me to sleep on a plane; on the thirteen hour journey I managed two or three half hour blocks of sleep while wriggling around trying to emulate my normal sleeping position on the seat, which was horribly unsuccessful. However by some inexplicable stroke of good fortune I managed to almost completely give jet lag the slip and settle into German time quite easily. Good luck has been a theme of the first leg of my Euroscramble. The very second we arrived at Copenhagen's Amalienborg Palace, the changing of...