..is 25 hours on a bus.
Sort of like the Paul Kelly song, only in Spanish with more dry ham rolls...when in Chile, catch Tur Bus - you'll know what I mean.
So we're in San Pedro de Atacama at the moment. You'll get no photos because I don't know how to say "USB Port" in Spanish and I can't see one.
Our flight from Brisbane sort of sucked - no more then any other plane, I guess, but 15 hours in one hit is not that comfortable. K's little TV got stuck on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire game and the cranky Chileno hostie couldn't fix it - I don't think she really tried.
A tip - if you take the flight get a seat on the right hand side of the plane because you'll get a cool view of the Andes on the way in.
Santiago was big and busy, but we made it to the hostel in one piece. Easy really, the Metro is pretty good. The señorita at the hostel was really friendly - she told us in a really nice way that we couldn't stay because she'd double booked.
There was a brief moment of panic - but it turned out that they had another, flasher hotel in a better spot. It was more exy, but they gave it to us for the cheaper price. Hot water, cable, breakfast, a flash room you'd pay well over $100 in Oz - was 33.000 CHP - about $60.
We had a bit of a wander around Barrio Bellavista, found a little square called Patio del Bellavista where we had dinner, Pisco sour and beers. Walked around the corner and found a little bar with a jukebox playing Rammstein.
Very traditional.
I tried my "Dos cervesas, por favor" and the guy brought out two giant tallies of Heineken - about a jug each, really. So we gave one back and he just chuckled.
Proximo dia, we caught a bus to Antofagasta.
19 hours.
Heaps fun.
Antofagasta was a weird sort of place. Not a really friendly place, but we did find a coffee shop serving actual espresso.
Another tip - no such thing as a flat white, just get a black coffee and deal with it. And if you order a "cafe capucino", as K did, they'll give you sort of a hot iced coffee with a big stack of whipped cream on the top.
Another 4 hours on a bus to Calama - a mining town in the middle of the desert. It reminded me of Katherine for some reason.
We just hung out at the bus terminal, then got on our way to San Pedro.
Which is really cool.
It's smack in the middle of the Atacama Desert - which is a real desert. There was a good few hundred k's where there was just rock and sand and us - nothing else, not even cactus or desert grassy stuff.
The bus sort of dropped us off on the side of road, which was disconcerting for a second, but we found a reasonable place to stay very easily.
We then had our first showers for two days, and K took full advantage of the hot water in the Hotel Tambillo. And then I took full advantage of the 30 seconds of hot water left after she finished.
We headed out to dinner and found a really cute little place and had fantastic food. K had a steak with mushrooms and potato - sounds exciting, I know, but it was sort of the traditional food of the area and it was bloody good. I had a steak sandwich with goat's cheese. A steak sandwich?
Yep. By that, I mean they had two small eye fillets sort of baked, with this goats cheese in between. With this super tasty sort of mashed potato thing with a basil based sauce on top.
We had some Chilean wine with dinner - Castilleno del Diablo. A cab sav, and one of the best we've had for ages - not that we're expert, but, again, bloody tops.
Incidentally, Chilenos believe removing the balls from animals is immoral, so there a literally dogs everywhere, and something else I thought mangoman would find interesting - this includes beasts.
So the steak you get is all from young bulls. Would make for an exciting cattle property, I guess.
Anyway, our time's almost up, so we're going to go hav a couple of Escudos as we sit by the plaza.
Salud!
Thursday 28 June 2007
Thursday 14 June 2007
Leads you here...
...despite your destination.
How dare the Catholic Church attack Amnesty International on its record of defending human rights?
And another from the BBC which almost made tears come to my eyes.
My question today is about left and right. I have been reading a few blog posts on the topic here
and there. The one at Lonely Planet, if you can get past the wankery, isn’t bad. It’s actually an old post, but interesting.
My thoughts? Well, as I said at Blogocracy, I don’t have enough big words to post at Lonely Planet, so I’ll wank on here instead.
I do have a problem calling myself left.
I think there are a few reasons for this. The first reason is an inbuilt dislike of calling myself anything – sort of a standard Australian dislike of drawing attention to yourself, just in case someone calls you on it – “Left? You? Hah!”
Another is the increasing inability of traditional Left politics, mainly based on economics and concerned with people (or so I thought), to explain the positions of people we may describe as Right on things such as gay marriage, immigration or the environment, and vice versa. We often forget how straight out racist the union movement was in the beginning – I suppose based on the belief that foreigners take jobs. And the compromises that people like Peter Garrett have to make in their stance on things like logging in
These are the people who are doing okay economically, they have their big tellies and McMansions, but they have the shits with the Conservatives because of the Neanderthal attitude to social and environmental issues. I reckon there’s a few of ‘em that vote, too.
This narrow view of what the Left is brings me to another issue. Calling yourself Left restricts your ability to argue with morons. Granted, this is not normally that much of a problem, but a lot of people have instant associations with the term.
You can never really get away from dealing with generalisations, but unless you want to spend all day ranting loudly against people that rant equally loudly back, sometimes you need to operate in the system.
It’s all well and good to fight the good fight, to never compromise your morals. When I was a teller for a major bank, I could have told the CEO that the company’s overriding focus on profits was a crime against humanity, and that treating staff like crap was really pretty shitty. Then gone and got a new job and felt better about my day.
Pretty bloody selfish, really. Now, obviously I’d be lying if I told you I really stayed to help out the workers, show solidarity, etc – there was a fair amount of self interest involved.
But when I got to management, and my job became protecting the staff from getting shafted by the company, I did so, and I did it well. They all passed their “performance reviews” even if, according to the company rules, they didn’t deserve to. I did make a small bit of difference. That’s pretty small scale, but I’m sure there are many that toe the line for long enough to get to a place they can actually make a difference, even if that means working for a government they don’t like for a while.
It’s always going to be a balancing act, and there will come a point past which you cannot go – a point where you actually compromise a personal belief and not just a superficial position – and at that point you have to have a go.
My point is that labels are useful, but sometimes deceptive, and sometimes unhelpful. Wearing your heart on your sleeve is admirable, but pragmatic passion gets you further.
Tuesday 12 June 2007
About some useless information...
...supposed to fire my imagination.
I like to think I know a little more about politics than your average born-in-the-late-70s-year-old, and maybe I do. But I've noticed that most political blogs authored by people my age tend one of two ways - and mine is no exception (probably why I revert to photos from time to time).
They are either flippant to the point of being nonsensical, or wank factor off the charts by trying to be too clever (a certain Latin titled blog springs to mind).
There really is no substitute for having been there, done that, burnt the t-shirt and walked the picket line. This post by mangoman is an instruction to all of us on the south side of 35 on how to discuss politics.
Don't beat people over your head with knowledge, don't wank on and use unnecessarily large words and obscure thinkers to illustrate your point, actually have a point, and listen.
We all have to start somewhere, I suppose.
I like to think I know a little more about politics than your average born-in-the-late-70s-year-old, and maybe I do. But I've noticed that most political blogs authored by people my age tend one of two ways - and mine is no exception (probably why I revert to photos from time to time).
They are either flippant to the point of being nonsensical, or wank factor off the charts by trying to be too clever (a certain Latin titled blog springs to mind).
There really is no substitute for having been there, done that, burnt the t-shirt and walked the picket line. This post by mangoman is an instruction to all of us on the south side of 35 on how to discuss politics.
Don't beat people over your head with knowledge, don't wank on and use unnecessarily large words and obscure thinkers to illustrate your point, actually have a point, and listen.
We all have to start somewhere, I suppose.
Tuesday 5 June 2007
Television, the drug of the nation..
....
I have a new challenge, based on what has become one of the most annoying TV franchises this side of Big Brother.
Do it at work.
You have to pretend you are on an episode of CSI and explain in great detail exactly what you are doing, step by step, to people who should really already know.
We tried it today.
"A, I'm now pressing the print button on Word, ensuring that the correct print queue is selected, subsequent to which I will walk to the printer, an LXZ5000, and remove my document from the output tray. This will enable me to have an actual physical copy of my Word document I can then peruse whilst seated at my work area."
"Great, R, while you're doing that, I'm going to use insert function contained as part of the Excel program for Windows XP to add an extra column into my financial spreadsheet to provide an extra set of available data..."
And so on.
And, in an amazing coincidence, the world of CSI and blogging have collided.
Eso es todo.
Salud.
I have a new challenge, based on what has become one of the most annoying TV franchises this side of Big Brother.
Do it at work.
You have to pretend you are on an episode of CSI and explain in great detail exactly what you are doing, step by step, to people who should really already know.
We tried it today.
"A, I'm now pressing the print button on Word, ensuring that the correct print queue is selected, subsequent to which I will walk to the printer, an LXZ5000, and remove my document from the output tray. This will enable me to have an actual physical copy of my Word document I can then peruse whilst seated at my work area."
"Great, R, while you're doing that, I'm going to use insert function contained as part of the Excel program for Windows XP to add an extra column into my financial spreadsheet to provide an extra set of available data..."
And so on.
And, in an amazing coincidence, the world of CSI and blogging have collided.
Eso es todo.
Salud.
All the lonely people....
...where do they all...find the time to carry on so much?
But, really, it’s all relative, isn’t it?
I’ve just been in a conversation with some folk telling me how hard they work. Apart from that sort of garbage pissing me off in the first place (the irony of having time to congregate in little groups and whinge about how busy it is seems to escape most public servants), I find it hard to sympathise.
Many will argue that the sort of work that goes on in the public service is not the same as that which happens elsewhere – that it can be mentally challenging and leave you feeling drained at the end of the day. As buggered as you would be after a day digging holes in the sun, just in a different way.
While that may be true, I doubt you’d find many people that wouldn’t swap digging in the sun for an airconditioned office fairly smartly.
At the moment, my job is fairly crap. It’s as boring as batshit, and doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That’s not to say I’m stuck in it, but I will move on, probably in the next few months if I can swing it.
But I still like working here. All I have to do is imagine what life was like about two years ago and I feel pretty damn good about things. I content myself with simple equations.
2 years ago: 50-60 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay
Lunch: 45 minutes only when no one else was gone.
Now: 40-50 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay and the rest in flex.
Lunch: whenever.
Obviously people on contracts and that sort of thing still tend to get ripped off, but it will NEVER be as bad as the conditions in private enterprise.
The common thread that runs through the complaints about how much hard work public service is that the people making them have either never done anything else, or it has been a long time since they have.
Interestingly, the higher up the ladder you climb the less people tend to complain. I suspect this is because these are the people intelligent enough to realise how good they have it.
The other one that crops up is “but the stuff we do is sooooo important! It’s for the minister/ director general/ CEO/ insert grand poobah/ etc. We have deadlines/ meetings/ presentations to be ready for!”
Whoopdee fuckin’doo. Possibly, if things weren’t checked eight times and the meetings about having meetings about how good we all are were cut back there would be more time available. The term ‘sycophantic pedants’ comes to mind.
I watched the Four Corners show on torture last night. Finally, the reason that spending your whole working day with the eyes of a hundred people boring into your head, a hundred people that have been waiting in a queue for longer than they’d like, became clear. Finally it made sense why it made you stuffed at the end of the day.
But all I had to do was remember back to being a cook for a year.
$10 an hour, stinking hot kitchen, singed eyelashes and stupid hours.
But then, to brighten my day it was just a matter of remembering how my scumbag sister would bribe me into doing her chores (the going rate was a dollar per tree planted, that sort of thing) then not actually give me any money. My own stupid fault for not getting the money up front, really.
Stupid IR laws.
The upshot of it all is that my job is pretty good. I do my work, listen to my headphones, have my lunch, listen attentively to the complaining folk, and leave at four on Fridays for a beer.
Sometimes others even join me.
So if I sound like a cynic, sorry, I don’t mean to be.
Have a good one.
Salud.
But, really, it’s all relative, isn’t it?
I’ve just been in a conversation with some folk telling me how hard they work. Apart from that sort of garbage pissing me off in the first place (the irony of having time to congregate in little groups and whinge about how busy it is seems to escape most public servants), I find it hard to sympathise.
Many will argue that the sort of work that goes on in the public service is not the same as that which happens elsewhere – that it can be mentally challenging and leave you feeling drained at the end of the day. As buggered as you would be after a day digging holes in the sun, just in a different way.
While that may be true, I doubt you’d find many people that wouldn’t swap digging in the sun for an airconditioned office fairly smartly.
At the moment, my job is fairly crap. It’s as boring as batshit, and doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That’s not to say I’m stuck in it, but I will move on, probably in the next few months if I can swing it.
But I still like working here. All I have to do is imagine what life was like about two years ago and I feel pretty damn good about things. I content myself with simple equations.
2 years ago: 50-60 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay
Lunch: 45 minutes only when no one else was gone.
Now: 40-50 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay and the rest in flex.
Lunch: whenever.
Obviously people on contracts and that sort of thing still tend to get ripped off, but it will NEVER be as bad as the conditions in private enterprise.
The common thread that runs through the complaints about how much hard work public service is that the people making them have either never done anything else, or it has been a long time since they have.
Interestingly, the higher up the ladder you climb the less people tend to complain. I suspect this is because these are the people intelligent enough to realise how good they have it.
The other one that crops up is “but the stuff we do is sooooo important! It’s for the minister/ director general/ CEO/ insert grand poobah/ etc. We have deadlines/ meetings/ presentations to be ready for!”
Whoopdee fuckin’doo. Possibly, if things weren’t checked eight times and the meetings about having meetings about how good we all are were cut back there would be more time available. The term ‘sycophantic pedants’ comes to mind.
I watched the Four Corners show on torture last night. Finally, the reason that spending your whole working day with the eyes of a hundred people boring into your head, a hundred people that have been waiting in a queue for longer than they’d like, became clear. Finally it made sense why it made you stuffed at the end of the day.
But all I had to do was remember back to being a cook for a year.
$10 an hour, stinking hot kitchen, singed eyelashes and stupid hours.
But then, to brighten my day it was just a matter of remembering how my scumbag sister would bribe me into doing her chores (the going rate was a dollar per tree planted, that sort of thing) then not actually give me any money. My own stupid fault for not getting the money up front, really.
Stupid IR laws.
The upshot of it all is that my job is pretty good. I do my work, listen to my headphones, have my lunch, listen attentively to the complaining folk, and leave at four on Fridays for a beer.
Sometimes others even join me.
So if I sound like a cynic, sorry, I don’t mean to be.
Have a good one.
Salud.
Sunday 3 June 2007
We only come out at night...
Yo!
How was your day?
Good?
Great...
I haven't put anything up for a while, so I thought I would just post some photos of a trip K and I took up to the Bunya Mountains, west of Brisbane.
These are clouds, over the cars at the camp site.
These are some more clouds.
And a couple more clouds.
Clouds, and a tree!!
Clouds, trees, power lines, even some cars. This is looking towards the start of the walk we took the next day. I've got some photos of that I'll put up tomorrow, or later.
It was a really nice trip. We sort of wanted to try out some of our cold weather clothes, and the Bunya Mountains didn't disappoint. It was pretty cool at night.
This time, in contrast to our last effort at camping, we took chairs and a mattress with us. It made for an infinitely more comfortable camping trip.
Had nabe for dinner - which turns out to be the best camping food ever. Just chop everything up before you go, whack your pot on the stove thing, and away you go.
We even had plenty for breakfast the next day. This turned out to be crap.
Tip: nabe reheated the next day is hopeless.
Good camp site, too, the only sour note the noisy Christians who had some weird kumbaya style sing along late into the night, long after the drunken teens closer to us had gone to bed.
Cheers
How was your day?
Good?
Great...
I haven't put anything up for a while, so I thought I would just post some photos of a trip K and I took up to the Bunya Mountains, west of Brisbane.
These are clouds, over the cars at the camp site.
These are some more clouds.
And a couple more clouds.
Clouds, and a tree!!
Clouds, trees, power lines, even some cars. This is looking towards the start of the walk we took the next day. I've got some photos of that I'll put up tomorrow, or later.
It was a really nice trip. We sort of wanted to try out some of our cold weather clothes, and the Bunya Mountains didn't disappoint. It was pretty cool at night.
This time, in contrast to our last effort at camping, we took chairs and a mattress with us. It made for an infinitely more comfortable camping trip.
Had nabe for dinner - which turns out to be the best camping food ever. Just chop everything up before you go, whack your pot on the stove thing, and away you go.
We even had plenty for breakfast the next day. This turned out to be crap.
Tip: nabe reheated the next day is hopeless.
Good camp site, too, the only sour note the noisy Christians who had some weird kumbaya style sing along late into the night, long after the drunken teens closer to us had gone to bed.
Cheers
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