Well I'm a freaky streaker like Winnie the Pooh...

..t-shirt and no pants I dance the boogaloo.

So, back to the photos. I’m starting to forget what went on , so I’ll do my best.

First, another picture of the street in San Pedro, me walking down it.

There’s this cool little museum in the town. These were some artefacts showing how Incas and others used to use different things for snorting an ancient form of cocaine (for purely ceremonial reasons, of course!)

Ancient drop spindle.

500 year old thongs.

Us on the Bus, just before our first ever land border crossing.

En la mañana, tenemos ir a La Paz.

Chao por hoy.

Set the bullshit...

...to warp factor one.

If ever I’m having a good day normally all I need to do to bring me down is read the comments on news.com articles, particularly if it’s to do with gay marriage or Muslims.

But it’s stopped working. Just like drugs, I have to read more and more of the moronic neo-con ignorance just to get a bit riled. I have developed a resistance to the gummos of the world.

Happily, Larvartus Prodeo sometimes provides me a hit of stupid. While the posts recently have been reasonable, I can still rely on the comments threads for a bit of insular academic twaddle.

Failing that, online opinion gives both sides too – one-eyed-left and no-eyed-right comment.

And there are countless others which can be relied upon to distract from my spreadsheets.

Why was I thinking this, you didn’t ask? Well, basically, Howard gives me the shits. That’s fundamental, and I think that most of the commenters on the blogs I read would agree with that.

That of course does not automatically mean they support Rudd, and that is reasonable. After all, it is the black and white view of the world, usually the realm of the neo-cons, that really is a worry.

Academically, it’s great to see the progressive, intelligent folk stand up for their principles. Whether it’s the feministas ranting about the wrongness of strip clubs, the greenies upset about the me-too ALP forest policy and the loosening of uranium mining rules, the secularists worried about pro-Christian values, or militant unionists angry with the attempts to show some sky between the ALP and ACTU – I’m impressed. Principles are important.

I do have a question, though –

DO YOU PEOPLE WANT ANOTHER THREE YEARS OF HOWARD? (or maybe costello or probly turnbull coz costello’s shit and downer had a go already and abbott is a bit loony but you know what I mean).

Did you answer no?

Well then, fucking suck it up and stop being stupid.

I find Rudd about as exciting as dressage, but I’m not stupid enough to vote Green just to show my disapproval for some of his mee-tooism.

I just want shut of Howard.

But anyone would think, from reading LP and other political blogs, that there’s a (admittedly, vocal smaller-than-minority) chunk of people that would prefer to live under the boot heel of General Johnny for a while longer than to compromise their principles. People that plan to vote for a minor party or an independent because they just can’t stand the options available. I realise that there may never be a time that it’s not going to be a bit risky to vote independent, and that it means it will always be a choice between the crap and the crappier – but, cripes, that’s pretty much life isn’t it?

It could be that it’s time to take down the Smiths posters, throw the bucket of stinky water out, and have a look outside*.

Maybe they don’t own a house, have no kids, have already got their degrees, and don’t like wombats – I just don’t know.

But whatever the reason it’s comforting to know that, just like the Piers/Bolt/Blair cheer squad commenters, their views have extremely little to do with the real world (I guess that includes me – oh well, as a great man once said “the salt of hypocrisy stings the eye and hardens the artery, but hell doesn’t it enhance the flavour of fish and chips.”)

Chao, gracias.

Sorry, I’ll put photos up when we get our internet back.


* most of this statement is for effect. If I had a Smiths poster, I would probably have it up.

San Pedro de Atacama

Hola muchachos.

A few more for you today. Then we're off to the Powerhouse to see the Indonesian open day thingo where I'll be able to lament the amount of Bahasa Indonesia I've forgotten.

First, K looking a bit more relaxed on a street in San Pedro.

The plaza at San Pedro, taken from the place we sat back and had lunch a few Escudos

K writing the postcards at our hotel. Really nice place this. It even had enough hot water for k to have a shower first, and leave ten seconds worth for me!

A view of the volcano near the town.

The Andes behind the town.

A desert sunset on the edge of town.

This was the pub at which we watched the Chile v Paraguay game with a bunch of drunken locals.

That's it for today, Viva Chile!

Chao.

I like my sugar...

…with coffee and cream.

Which is pretty much what you get when you order a cappuccino from this place. This was a café in Antofagasta – a fairly unwelcoming sort of place in the north of Chile. While you can’t see much of the café, it does show the results of deciding to give your hair a trim with the clippers after some farewell drinks. It has mostly grown back. To my left was an electronics shop which sold, next to the washing machines and stereos, motorbikes. I was impressed.

This is the mall at Antofagasta. As you can see, k was very impressed with the town. We had to spend a couple of hours here while we waited for the bus to San Pedro de Atacama. We did originally have plans for staying at least a night – these were soon shelved and we decided it would be a top idea to spend the night on a bus instead.

And here is La Iglesia de San Pedro de Atacama. I’m not sure if that is the actual name, but it sounds pretty. Great little town, this, although I am told that in high season it can become a little touristy. It was very relaxed when we were there, though. Later in the day there were all sorts of flags and banners around the church as they geared up for some saints festival. I’ve always been a little against religion, but I will say that the Latin American version of Catholicism allows for a hell of a lot of parties for one reason or another.

This is a shot of the San Pedro bus terminal, such as it was. As I said below, a little disconcerting to get off a bus in the pitch black on the side of the road, but that was just our uncertainty avoidance poking out.

That’ll do for today – more of San Pedro to come.

Chao.

And when I come back home again...

...never more will I say, goodbye Muirshin Duirkin.

Buen dia.

So, we’re back in town. Actually, we’ve been back for a few weeks now, but who’s counting.

I’d promised to put some photos of the trip up here so you could have a look if you like, so it begins. Although, as I took about 2,000 photos, I might just put a few up at a time. Some of these earlier ones cover bits I think I’ve already talked about, so scroll down or whatever if you need to know the context.

This is ‘Patio Bella Vista’. The bit at the back is the Hotel del Patio at which we stayed the first night. Really a very nice place, if a little expensive at about $80 a night. A small hotel with not much more than 20 rooms, I think. Behind the hotel is an area with a few bars, cafes and shops – they’ve made an attempt to gentrify and keep a bit of Latin American feel, and it’s not too bad.

This one we took from the verandah outside the breakfast room at the hotel. The building there is some sort of mobile phone company’s HQ – clever I thought, if a little dated now that mobiles look more like ipods.

Same spot – just that this one has K in it.

More to come.

Salud.