Linguistic difficulties

Sigh. I got a response to my e-mail to the hotel in Rio. They have English and Portuguese on their web site, and since my Portuguese extends about as far as 'Obrigado', I wrote what I thought was a basic e-mail in English asking for availability of a single room and prices for a certain period. The reply is obviously a copy-and-paste job (probably from the web site) in Portuguese only. It's clear (and even clearer after machine translating it) that it gives the standard room rates already on their web site (fine, as far as it goes) and makes no comment about availability. Better yet, it says that tariffs for "holidays, vacations, high season etc. are available only under consultation". I have no idea when 'vacation' or 'high season' might be, which is why I tried to consult with them.

Now obviously I could just walk away and find somewhere else. But I had kind of got my heart set on this hotel, not because it's particularly nice (it isn't) but because my long minutes of research had allowed me to convince myself it was tolerably safe.

As I see it, there are two other options. I can write back again in English and hope that gets better attention, but I can't see why it would. Or I could write back in machine-translated Portuguese, which is probably good enough to get the booking done, but I really would like to be booking at a hotel where someone speaks at least a bit of English. (In Brazil, that is. In a Spanish-speaking country I'm willing to chance it.)

Guess I'll sleep on it and maybe get back to them tomorrow. If I'm up early I can e-mail them before they start work anyway, as they're three hours behind me.

Paradoxical paranoia

I checked the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website on Brazil. That is actually more reassuring than the impression I've picked up from the guide books!

Brazilophobia palliation

I've decided I'm only really worried about theft/mugging while I'm lugging everything between the airports and the hotels. Once I can leave most stuff in the hotel while I'm out and about, it's a much smaller deal if I get mugged. It's still quite a big deal, of course. :-)

So in order to minimise the number of airport-hotel journeys, I'm going to fly back from Rio to Sao Paulo the day before my onward flight to Chile and stay in the Marriott near the airport. There's a free shuttle bus and it's only a mile, so that should be pretty safe and easy. It's a bit pricey, but I think it's worth it to avoid the stress of an extra pair of taxi journeys with all my belongings. (I could arguably set the saving in taxi fare off against the higher price for the room anyway.) It will also make things more comfortable in the morning, as the flight to Santiago is at 11am and I think I need to check in 2.5-3h in advance.

I am probably planning on spending 6 nights in Sao Paulo, then flying on to Rio and staying 6 nights there before I fly back to Sao Paulo for the last night in the Marriott. I have e-mailed two cheap but OK-ish looking hotels, one in each city, but haven't heard back from them yet. Maybe this is the fabled slow pace of life in Latin America. :-) I'll give them another day or so then I'll probably have to start trying to find alternate hotels.

I'm completely unsure how to behave in the taxis from the airports to the hotels and back. Some guide books/websites insist you must put all your belongings in the boot (presumably to prevent people smashing the windows to grab stuff when stopped in traffic), while others insist that if you do that then you risk the taxi driver driving off with all your valuables when you get out. Sigh. My gut feeling would be to keep the hand luggage in the back with me and let the bigger suitcase go in the boot, but I have no experience of areas where in-transit attacks are even a remote possibility.

Brazilophobia

I really need to get my initial hotels booked, as well as the flights from Sao Paolo-Rio and back. So I've forced myself to look into it and I must admit I expect to step onto the flight out of Sao Paolo to Santiago and breathe a sigh of relief, assuming I'm still breathing. Both Sao Paolo and Rio sound thoroughly nightmarish in terms of crime and what have you. Nowhere seems to be particularly safe.

I am going to sleep on it a bit and maybe book something tomorrow, but my current rough thoughts are to stay at a hotel in the Paulista area of Sao Paolo, which I believe is about 4km from the city centre. I will probably stay there for 4-5 days, go to Rio for about 3 days, then return to Sao Paolo for the rest of my two weeks in Brazil. It's a bit annoying having to have three separate stays in the two cities, but it's just not practical to avoid it. (If I fly from Sao Paolo-Rio immediately on arrival in Sao Paolo, I have to worry about my translatlantic flight getting in late, or allow a stupidly long 'connection' time. I don't think either is conducive to a relaxed trip out of the UK. Only slightly better would be flying from Rio to Sao Paolo the same morning I make my onward trip to Santiago; I'd have to get a 6am flight from Rio and if I miss that flight or it's delayed then I'm screwed for the onward trip. And let's face it, having three separate hotel stays is not really a major inconvenience.)

The guides make it hard to decide which is safer or nicer, but a friend who's been tells me Rio is supposedly foul (and, perhaps because there's more written about it, the guidebooks give that impression as well - but the beaches are lovely, as if I care...) while Sao Paolo is actually quite nice (the guidebooks don't exactly give that impression, though :-) ). So that's why I'm only doing about 3 days in Rio, just enough to get the main sights in.

The main tourist areas of Rio seem to be (not entirely unsurprisingly) Copacabana and Ipanema, but neither of those actually sounds that safe. I guess it makes sense, if they are ultra-touristy then there must be rich pickings. My current vague plan is to get a hotel in the Catete region, which is apparently cheap but fairly safe. (This guide website (which seems appealingly cynical, but I have no idea how reliable it actually is) suggests the main peril consists of trying to walk through the neighbourhood between it and the centre, which sounds like something I can live with.)

Maybe I'm just being a complete coward, but every single guide I look at it seems to lay so much stress on safety in these cities that I think this goes beyond the 'Foreign & Commonwealth Office' paranoia I experienced before.

Perhaps it's a good thing that the flights into and out of Brazil are the only absolutely fixed flights on the itinerary, otherwise I might well be thinking about giving the place a miss completely, or at least shortening my time there. :-)

Flight details

Here, in far too much detail, are the flights I've booked so far. This is mainly so I have yet another copy of the information available if I need it.

IB3167	WED 13 JAN	LONDON (HEATHROW) to MADRID	1850	2210
IB6825	THU 14 JAN	MADRID to SAO PAULO (GUARULHOS)	0005	0755
LA757	WED 27 JAN	SAO PAULO (GUARULHOS) to SANTIAGO (CHILE)	1100	1415
AR1285	WED 31 MAR	SANTIAGO (CHILE) to BUENOS AIRES (INTERNATIONAL)	1025	1320
CM278	WED 28 APR	BUENOS AIRES (INTERNATIONAL) to PANAMA CITY,PANAMA	1210	1730
CM447	WED 12 MAY	PANAMA CITY,PANAMA to MEXICO CITY	0951	1241
IB6400	WED 23 JUN	MEXICO CITY to MADRID	1205	0600
IB3162	THU 24 JUN	MADRID to LONDON (HEATHROW)	0845	1005

More flights booked

Amazingly enough, the Trailfinders in Canary Wharf is open on Sundays. I just went over and booked some more flights. I plan to book a few more 'privately', but I now have a connected itinerary and in principle could make the trip without buying another flight.

The dates are flexible except for Sao Paolo to Santiago, subject to 'local fees', which I suspect to be a rip-off, but fingers crossed I won't need to change them. The places and dates are pretty much what my last plan had them as; I will probably make an insanely detailed post later on, as much for my own reference as anything.

It's all e-tickets so I don't need to worry too much about losing them. Rab - why didn't you advise me about this earlier? :-)

Minor details

I bought the travel insurance last night. I felt a bit of a sap since I'm using them for the flights already, but I went with Trailfinders' policy. It was a toss up between them and Direct Travel Insurance, but no one except Trailfinders seems to offer a decent level of cover for airline ticket replacement. Logically they shouldn't need to, but I gather airlines can be quite awkward about issuing replacements for lost tickets so you often just have to buy them again.

I lucked out on the 'minor flu-like symptoms' of the vaccinations, although the the top of my left arm was sore for a bit more than 3 days, so it probably evens out. :-)

Apparently Brazil will insist on seeing the yellow fever vaccination certificate before they let me in. Good job I got it done I guess.

World Cup

I really don't give a flying fk (I have no idea what the blog policy is on swearing, but I'll be careful until I'm writing about being mugged :-) ) about the World Cup, but I saw a list of dates earlier and noticed I will be in Mexico for the first two England games. I've put them in my diary, it might be cool to watch them if timezones permit. And especially for the USA v England match I wonder who the Mexican crowd will be cheering for. :-)

Linguistic doubts

Feeling a bit worried about how I'll get on in Brazil, I am doubting the 'speak Spanish slowly' plan suggested by my Spanish teacher will pan out that well.

My Spanish isn't great but I know from experience it's good enough for casual tourist stuff at least. This will be the first time I've been to a country where I don't speak the language since I went to Prague over five years ago.

I guess I'll see if I can dig up a few phrases online and maybe even buy a language tape or something. Those things never work that well - you learn what to say, but not to understand what people say to you - but at least it will show willing and hopefully make people a bit more helpful.

At least two weeks in Brazil feeling ultra lost because of language should make things seem more comfortable once I get onto the Spanish-speaking countries. :-)

First flights booked

Just got back from booking the transatlantic flights at Trailfinders. I fly out of Heathrow at 18:50 on Wednesday 13th January, change in Madrid and arrive in São Paolo at about 8am (local time) on Thursday. So the Wednesday is a bit wasted, but I should be able to sleep on the plane and this also means I can travel to the hotel in broad daylight.

It occurred to me to ask about flying out at 18:50 on Tuesday 12th, since my checkout at the flat is at midday, but I decided it was just going to be too stressful.

I come back from Mexico City at about midday on Wednesday 23rd June. The return date is flexible (on payment of a hefty fee, admittedly) but that's the date I've booked it for.

Will muse a bit further over the 'intracontinental flights' and probably book those next week. But for better or worse I'm now a step closer.

I need to get travel insurance ASAP so I can claim for cancellation if some unexpected emergency occurs.

Brazil and the Falklands

Was talking to a friend last night who has been to Brazil. He says Rio is not very nice, so I am inclined to go to Sao Paolo instead and maybe just pop over to Rio for a couple of days to do the classic tourist stuff (the big statue and Sugarloaf Mountain, I think). Apparently Sao Paolo is the main hub anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem to get flights in or out of there.

Someone else also suggested I should go to the Falklands while I'm out that way. My gut feeling is that it's too awkward to get there and it's probably a bit dull, but I haven't checked either of those statements yet. Unlike the Brazil stuff, this has no bearing on the big picture itinerary.

Still not booked the tickets but I hope to get it done this week.

Vaccinations

I just spent £70 for up to three days' worth of suffering. ;-) That is, I just got vaccinated against yellow fever, typhoid and swine flu. I already had hepatitis A, diptheria, tetanus and polio.

I can apparently expect a sore left arm and mild flu-like symptoms for about three days. Which sucks, but I guess it's better to suffer now in the comfort of my own home than while I'm away.

I will get a week's worth of malaria tablets as well but apparently it's cheapest to get the ones I want from the pharmacy at Asda (£2/tablet). I just need to find an Asda now...

Gas leak: the denoument

Everyone who might care already knows, but for the record: it was a minor if genuine leak (in the pilot tube, apparently). Guy said it wouldn't have caused an explosion and I probably didn't notice the smell as I was used to it.

Very nice chap, as was the last Transco engineer I had out.

So at least I've had my evening spoiled for a genuine reason. Now in a cab over to the gig at Garage in Highbury & Islington. First cab driver had the light on but refused to take me in that direction, I had some idea they were obliged when the light was on, but even if I knew that was true the last thing I want is an arsey driver...

This is in danger of turning into the 'Steve@Home' blog so I'll shut up now. :-)

Evidence I made the right choice

Just been summoned home when I was supposed to be going out because the letting agent was showing someone round and she says they both smelled gas in the kitchen from the boiler.

Not happy right now to say the least, but this does at least suggest I made the right decision in giving the place up when I go away. If my caretaker (whoever that would have been) had smelled gas while I was away it would have been a lot more stress. And even more so if the leak had gone unnoticed for a while and caused an explosion of course...

I bet it's just a dead mouse or something, That's what the guy said false alarms usually are the last time I had to call them. (Though that time I got a neighbour in before I called and he was a bit doubtful, I may have half imagined it myself as even I wasn't that sure, but of course you can't take chances.) I don't know what it smells like now as I am on the way home, I didn't notice anything this morning but I do have a slight cold. Be interesting - although not *that* interesting, compared to what I was supposed to have been doing - to see what it smells like when I get there.

Of course if it is a dead mouse no doubt the landlord will claim that's my fault and whack me with a huge bill for extermination.

FFS

Machu Picchu

I had a vague recollection admission to Machu Picchu was via some kind of highly oversubscribed lottery. I happened to have a conversation with someone who told me it wasn't, and it seem they're right. So now I guess I have to go there too and do my bit to contribute to its destruction... :-)

Karaoke

My treacherous memory has dug up a plan from my last trip to Mexico. I should sing karaoke in every country I visit in Latin America. I've already done Mexico, admittedly on my first trip only, but I did it.

This could be the Dave Gorman-style goal which adds structure to the trip. :-)

I think Rio might be possible, assuming they have karaoke there and Spanish or English songs to choose from. It might be too hip for me, but I don't have to sing well, I just have to sing. Chile and Argentina should be OK as well, I'll have quite a lot of time in Santiago and Buenos Aires. Peru and Bolivia might be tricky if I do go there, as I doubt I'll be in any major settlements. But hey, even the smallest town must have a karaoke bar, right? :-) If I can manage that, I'm sure I can find somewhere in Panama City. And maybe if I manage everywhere else, I'll deliberately return to Guanajuato in Mexico to finish my Latin American tour where I started in 2006.

"No es que sea el alcohol la mejor medicina, pero ayuda a olvidar cuando no ves la salida"

A minimal amount of additional research

To quote A E Housman, "Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time." In keeping with this, I've spent an absolutely minimal amount of time tonight flicking through guide books regarding northern Chile and the areas of Peru and Bolivia around Lake Titicaca.

My current thinking is that I will completely omit Peru and Bolivia from the main set of flights I'm booking via Trailfinders. That would mean the 'big picture' itinerary is as follows:

Wednesday 27th January - Rio->Santiago
Wednesday 31st March - Santiago->Buenos Aires

As before, I'd try to pop off to Tierra del Fuego almost immediately on arriving in Chile. From there I'd make my way back up to Santiago, probably by air, perhaps with one or two stopovers en route (perhaps at Puerto Montt, about which I know very little except that some flights from TdF to Santiago change there). I'd then make my way overland, probably via a series of hopefully relatively short bus journeys, up to the far north of the country. I gather the scenery is good on that route. From there I can hopefully visit the Atacama desert, go to Arica, stuff like that. Then go by bus into Peru and onto Lake Titicaca (off the top of my head based on what stuck from the guide book, probably via Tacna and/or Arequipa).

With luck some of that would help acclimatise me to the altitude and I think I could quite easily get a flight from somewhere round there on to La Paz. I'd probably fly back to the same place from La Paz and change there for a flight back down to Santiago. Then I could spend some time in Santiago and go on from there to Buenos Aires.


I have no idea what the timescales are like there, but my gut feeling is it's quite easily doable without rushing. Apart from any general travel safety issues, the biggest problem I can see is Peruvian immigration perhaps refusing entry because I wouldn't necessarily have a ticket out of the country. I might hope land border control is not quite as awkward as at airports and I suspect just making sure my bus ticket to cross the border is a return would suffice. I'll probably call Trailfinders visa helpline and/or do some web searching around this issue once I've fleshed out a possible route and the time it would take to cover and checked it actually makes sense in the time I have.

I suppose I could also make the border crossing by air if it made things easier with immigration or safer in terms of avoiding dodgy bits of the country. it would probably be cooler to do it by bus though, I've not actually crossed a border by land yet (well, unless you count Eurostar).

What I do like about this plan is that it makes it easier to get the main flight booking sorted out, since all the niggly details don't really make much difference.

Re-reading this, it is vaguely tempting to do the entire length of the country by land - bus all the way up from (say) Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego to Arica near the border with Peru. I need to check the timescales on that for sure, that might well be pushing it, but maybe not.

Something that occurred to me earlier is that I really ought to see if I can get a half-decent mobile contract sorted out before I go. I suspect mobile reception isn't great in a lot of these places, but I bet there's some, and if I'm going to be moving around a lot it would be nice to know I can call hotels or whatever to confirm reservations without too much difficulty. Pay as you go is not going to cut it, I think - roaming charges might always be a killer, but PAYG is probably even more insane.

I'm being ridiculously lax about my general preparations. I kind of hope that once I've booked the flights I'll really get my arse into gear. I'd rather not leave everything that late, but it's also probably the case that the week before Christmas when I'm in London but no longer working will be fruitful in terms of grinding through the various preparatory chores.

Yet more plans

OK, I went to Trailfinders again. The new itinerary is more-or-less possible, although maybe slightly more expensive. However:
- It's not possible to fly cheaply/conveniently from La Paz to Buenos Aires.
- The agent recommended taking a land trip up north from Santiago through the Atacama desert region to somewhere around Lake Titicaca. This sounds good, although I'd need to look into it more, especially in terms of convincing immigration officials to let me in without an onward plane ticket.

I need to have a rethink and see how all this fits together. Apart from the apparent difficulty of getting out of La Paz on the original itinerary, I am having doubts about Bolivia based - admittedly - on the F&CO website. For a start, they are currently unable to issue emergency passports if yours is lost or stolen. They say this is temporary, but it all starts to seem a little bit extreme. I will have a look at a guide and think about it. It would still be cool to go to La Paz though.

The guy said I probably have about 2 weeks left to book the transatlantic flights before the cheaper seats sell out and probably longer for the shorter flights. So there isn't too much time pressure although I can't hang around either.

Complete change of plan

OK. I have my leaving drinks at six tomorrow so I need to get in early but I'm going to waste time on this instead.

Had my planned itinerary all set out and was ready to go book the flights. I decided not to go this afternoon and thought I'd go tomorrow. That way I could have a chat with my Spanish teacher about it (he's Argentinian). Hey, it's good practice and he knows more about the continent than I do anyway. I'd been having some doubts about the itinerary myself anyway. Let me write it out:

Wednesday 13th January - London->Mexico City
Wednesday 17th February - Mexico City->Panama City
Wednesday 3rd March - Panama City->Lima
Wednesday 17th March - Lima->Santiago
Wednesday 12th May - Santiago->Buenos Aires
Wednesday 9th June - Buenos Aires->Rio
Wednesday 23rd June - Rio->London

I came up with that based on a set of countries I fancied visiting, the order they came up in a nice route round the map and the time I though I wanted to spend in each.

I'd already been warned by my teacher not to go to Buenos Aires in January or February, as it's very hot. I suddenly noticed this itinerary had me going in May/June when it would be probably too cold. In fact, none of this was planned to take climate into account.

And yes, the climate is bound to screw me up no matter how carefully I plan. But I can at least have a go, and maybe on average I'll do better than if I completely ignore weather statistics.

All things being equal, I'd probably rather finish in Mexico than Brazil as well. I expect I'll enjoy it more and it would be good to end on a high.

Initial thought is 'why not just reverse the original route', but that doesn't take climate into account either.

So I had a chat with my Spanish teacher and I've spent the rest of the evening flicking around guide books and the web trying to get a better idea.

I've always planned to go to somewhere in Tierra del Fuego, and having looked into the climate there, it turns out I need to get down there pretty early in the trip before it turns cold.

So my new proposal, which I will go and discuss, but not book, with Trailfinders tomorrow if all goes well is this slightly more crazy looking route:

Wednesday 13th January - London->Rio

A couple of weeks here. I'm not that bothered about Brazil, but it would be quite cool and/or sad to go to Ipanema :-) and it's almost on the way and what have you. I might love it when I get there. Judging from the climate charts it is always very hot and very wet in Rio, just sometimes wetter than others. So there's no problem going there in the middle of southern hemisphere summer.

Wednesday 27th January - Rio->Santiago

I'd plan to fly down almost immediately from Santiago to (say) Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego. Then do 'some other stuff' in Chile for a few weeks; Santiago is quite hot at this time of year so that should probably wait 'til near the end of my time in Chile, which also fits in with getting a flight out from there. I'll probably try to visit the Atacama desert while I'm in Chile, I guess it makes little difference what time you go in terms of climate there (although my guide book is somewhat vague on the subject to be honest). And subject to cost etc I will probably take a few days to go out to Easter island.

Wednesday 17th March - Santiago->La Paz (Bolivia)

I've dropped Peru/Lima from the main route. I can imagine going to the area around Lake Titicaca, but I suspect that is an option, perhaps as a land crossing, from either northern Chile or La Paz. (Arica in northern Chile sounds nice and is convenient for crossing into Peru, at least.) La Paz was originally a little bit of a time filler while I wait for it too cool down in Buenos Aires :-), but it sounds quite an interesting place to go and I guess I should experience altitude sickness at least once in my life. :-) It's so high up it's always pretty cool there, so going in late summer/early autumn isn't a problem. It's the rainy season, but probably better (and more dramatic) that than the dry, colder season later in the year. Not that I have that much choice of time anyway.

Wednesday 31st March - La Paz->Buenos Aires

It's finally, I hope, cool enough to enjoy Buenos Aires. Apparently it's a very relaxing city with lots to do. I can also imagine taking the ferry across to Uruguay at some point; apparently the city where the ferry goes is beautiful, and my Spanish teacher also says Uruguay is probably the most civilised country in South America. His words, not mine!

Wednesday 28th April - Buenos Aires->Panama City

Temperature is the same all year round here by the looks of it, and in any case I have little choice with regard to time because if I want to go I have to go en route from South America to Mexico. April looks like it's the start of the rainy season, but what the hell, I'm British, how bad can it be? :-)

Wednesday 12th May - Panama City->Mexico City

I'll finish the trip in Mexico, maybe visiting several places - I'll book some internal flights nearer the time. I'll be here on my birthday.

Wednesday 16th June - Mexico City->London

Coming back on the 16th June makes it 5 weeks in Mexico. This is a week earlier than the original itinerary, so I may extend Mexico by a week on the initial bookings if I go with this plan unaltered.

I suspect this won't survive my encounter with Trailfinders tomorrow, but at least it's a starting point. And I'll probably find it interesting to look back on the evolution of my plans afterwards, even if no one else does. :-)

One more obstacle dealt with

Just confirmed that check-out from my flat will be on January 12th. That makes it seem a lot more final.

But anyway, I am now free to go ahead and book flights for the 13th. A severe attack of cold feet inclines me to postpone the booking until tomorrow.

On the other hand, I am going to be annoyed if I can't get a flight I want because I delayed. Not that I'll know I could have got it if I'd only booked today, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it. But it would be nice to have got the booking out of the way.

I can't decide...