Loving the Bomb

Is nuclear power, once again, the way ahead? In doing some reading on energy questions, I concluded that it might be - and then started finding the same view popping up in a lot of places.

A dog-eared 2003 North and South I picked up while on the cycle at the gym had an unusually interesting story on the nuclear power station planned for New Zealand in the 1970s. The history and abandonment of these plans is also discussed in a recent article in the Salient, which makes a cogent case for nuclear power to again be considered for New Zealand. In Britain, pre-election debate stimulated considerable discussion of energy issues, and the New Statesman recently claimed to have uncovered a pro-nuclear industry conspiracy.

Whether on a world or local scale, there's a straightforward reason why nuclear power might be gradually shedding its dire image. As a sober majority start acknowledging the necessity of developing renewable energy sources, nuclear is the only (semi-) renewable that might plausibly provide a significant proportion of our energy in the near future.

For doubters, it's worth clarifying the rationale for pursuing renewable energy. On the one hand, there's the much-polemicized issue of global warming. There are some reasonable doubts about the scale or impact of global warming, and the image of the Earth as a potential fireball dragging a carbon-fulled vapor trail through space is a stupid exaggeration. But the scientific consensus (which we laypeople tend to respect on most other matters) is that the planet is probably warming up, this probably has something to do with carbon dioxide emissions, and this is probably going to create more harm than benefit in the longer term. Therefore, it makes sense to look for alternatives to fossil fuels.

On the other hand, fossil fuels themselves are eventually going to get scarcer. Oil, which produces 40% of the world's energy, may reach peak production as early as next year. It will keep going for a while yet, but will gradually get more expensive, especially as demand continues to increase. This actually alarms me more than global warming, as it's not clear what alternative source of fuel there is for the ships, planes and trucks on which our economies depend. But the least we can do is try and leave the oil for these and other important purposes like plastics and pharmaceuticals, while getting our industrial and household energy elsewhere.

Some environmentalists claim that the solution is a combination of greater energy efficiency plus "green" energy sources such as sun, wind and wave power. All of these are important, but won't do the trick alone. Energy efficiencies might slow the increase in energy use, but in a growing economy (to which I'll return later) won't stop it. Of the green technologies, the most well developed - wind power - is already running into limitations. Both in Britain and New Zealand, even wind power proponents estimate that it could produce a maximum of 10-20% of national electricity supply.

And in both countries schemes to expand wind energy have faced opposition. In rural Auckland and Britain's Lake District, planned windmill farms have been blocked by locals as "blots on the landscape".

I digress here for a moment. The opposition to windmills on aesthetic grounds is partly a failure of imagination; people just don't like what they're not used to. I'm not saying they should cover the entire countryside, but they are sleek, futuristic machines which can be attractive in some settings. I remember being excited to see the windmill farms near Palm Springs in California when I passed through there a few years back; they looked romantically space-age against the desert. Closer to home, most people like the single wind turbine up near where I used to live on Brooklyn Hill in Wellington.

How much uglier are power pylons, which people usually don't even notice? Or regular telegraph-style poles? Or roads, which nowadays people mostly view as part of the natural landscape. Driving through New Zealand's North Island, for me the ugliest technology of all is the endless, dreary, rolling-country sheep and cattle farm, with its fences and deforested hills. But this supports our cloven-hoofed animals, who pay all our bills, so must be tolerated (take a look at these pictures; do the windmills enhance or detract from the landscape?) .

Returning to the point, wind power is limited at present. To provide enough power for a country like Britain, you would have to cover most of its landmass in windmills. Solar is worse; while it will be great to promote the integration of solar panels into new houses (where are the tax breaks, Michael Cullen?), whole deserts worth of panels would be needed to produce major amounts of electricity. And while I fondly imagine the days when fleets of offshore turbines combine wind and wave power to bring light to our cities, by the time that technology really gets going we'll all be buzzing around at skyscraper height in pod-cars like Anakin Skywalker.

Some environmentalists, like the Guardian's George Monbiot, purse their lips and say that we just have to use less energy. We can't expect to keep on with growing populations and growing economies, because Mother Earth has got a finite store of resources to give us, and is already under too much stress.

This simplistic view effectively thumbs its nose at the entire developing world. Huge chunks of the world's population continue to live in poverty - the single biggest challenge facing the world today. Everyone has the right to a decent standard of living. History suggests the only thing that will achieve this is development, meaning economic growth.

And developing-country economies won't grow in isolation. In addition to investment and development aid, they need freer and fairer trade - in other words, for other countries to buy their stuff. It would be nice to imagine we could just "share out" the world's wealth a bit better, but there's no known mechanism for doing this directly. Thoroughgoing socialism hasn't worked within societies; there's even less chance it could work on a global scale.

So a globalised world economy which continues to grow is a necessary prerequisite for improving people's lives. We are going to have to generate and use more energy. Which is where nuclear power comes in. Aside from oil and gas, it's the only currently available way of generating large amounts of energy in a relatively efficient way. There are also reasons to think that the risks and side effects aren't as bad as are sometimes made out. I defer to the Salient article to make the technical case, but even Monbiot is now admitting that it may not be as bad as all that.

It's likely to be difficult to advance this debate in New Zealand. We'll see a lot of emotive reaction and a reluctance to consider the issue with an open mind. People see "nuclear-free New Zealand" as a badge of identity. Though surely, the refusal to accept American warships in the 80s was more a stroppy assertion of foreign policy independence than a reasoned rejection of nuclear technology. Wasn't it?

Either way, we'll have to face up to the questions sooner or later, as our demand for energy continues to increase. We've run out of rivers to dam, our natural gas is dwindling, and wind will only go so far. For many people, the key ibjection to nuclear power is the possibility of a catastrophic accident which produces toxic pollution and harms the environment. It's worth remembering that our other option is burning lots of coal - which definitely will produce toxic pollution.

The Way of the Future

In response to an opinion piece claiming that the late 2oth/early 21st century is producing few new ideas and innovations, the Observer blog listed:

"The top 10 new movements not yet invented but sure to rock the world in the 21st Century."

After considering their list, I have some further suggestions of political ideologies, scientific advances and cultural movements likely to be important in the 21st century:

Mediarology - the prediction of weather patterns through careful and systematic study of the stars and the celebrities

GUT (Grand Unified Theory) - the attempt to discover the quintessential acronym from which all other acronyms derive

Msiism - the belief that all truth and knowledge is revealed through palindromes

Human Lefts Movement - a movement against the systematic right-handed bias in ideology and language. Examples of leftedist linguistic alternatives: "We have the left to protest"; "S/he showed outstanding moral leftitude"; "S/he adleftly manouvered the car into the parking space"

Antinuclear Physics - scientific and technological field devoted to the development of clean, green atoms and other elementary particles

Paleotherapy - a new medical treatment involving being buried beneath the Earth's surface and subjected to intense heat and pressure. Cures muscle and joint problems

Superlativism - the greatest, most incredible, most important and groundbreaking theory ever!

Who can think of any more?

The Daily Minion previews...Hurricanes vs. Crusaders

The Hurricanes will be faced with a big ask as they take on the Crusaders in tonight's Super 12 semi-final. The going will be difficult, and it won't be easy. But if they remain focused, and find some way to negate the Crusaders' superiority on the scoreboard, they have a good chance of coming away with a positive result. Scoring more points than the opposition is usually key in these knockout contests, and if the Hurricanes can remain ahead for the whole game, an upset could be possible.

Hurricanes captain Tana Umaga says that, while he doesn't want to seem overconfident, he's quietly confident going into tonight's match. "We know we need to play well. But the boys are focused on what they need to do, and if we achieve our objectives, we're quietly confident of a good outcome", he says.

Crusaders halfback Justin Marshall says the Crusaders will have the utmost respect for their opposition tonight. "The Hurricanes are definitely a tougher team than most" he admits. "Though, having said that, any team is tougher than most".

Both Umaga and Marshall agree that the team that plays for the full 80 minutes will be more likely to come out on top. "To win the game you need to have the ball - and that means being on the field", explains Marshall. "The side that can achieve that consistently will have the advantage".

For the young, inexperienced members of the Hurricanes, this is their first Super 12 semi-final, with the added pressure that it's their first experience of the big time. That could be a factor if the game heats up, turns into a pressure cooker, or goes down to the wire.

A lot of pre-game speculation has centred on the opposing teams' lineups, but this has been mainly just speculation. Hurricanes flanker Jerry Collins is still recovering from an arm amputation suffered at training last week, but coach Colin Cooper would not rule out him making an appearance from the substitutes' bench.

Tactics have been another hotly-debated area ahead of the match. Cooper insisted that the whiteout blizzard conditions predicted for Christchurch tonight would not have an undue effect on the Hurricane's attacking philosophy. "We'll be looking to play to the conditions" he revealed. "But we won't be letting them affect our style of play".

Almost 30,000 fans are expected at Jade Stadium for tonight's big match, and if things turn out as many pundits are predicting, they'll see a game of rugby being played.

Further Investigation Reveals That...

In Wellington a business has to apply for a licence to use part of a footpath area. One of the requirements is to have public liability insurance of at least $1 million. If alcohol will be served, a further application is required to include the outside area in the premise's liquor licence.

In central Wellington, there is the added snag of Consolidated Bylaw 23.2.1, which prohibits the consumption of liquor in public areas of the central city between 8pm and 6am, Friday and Saturday. The city Council's information on applying for use of footpaths warns that, without the appropriate licence, "your patrons may be in breach" of this prohibition.

The council's "On the Town" food safety and environment newsletter for December 2004 - sounding rather like an Indian mother advising her daughter how to catch a husband - provides some insight into its expectations:

Providing a good look

With summer officially here, we will see a lot more outdoor dining on our streets...

...It is important for the image of both your business and Wellington City that these outside dining areas are kept in a clean and inviting state. The Council’s Environmental Health Team often field complaints from the public about the untidy condition of outside dining areas, unkempt tables and messy surroundings. Customers will get an impression of your business by the way the outside area looks. You should ensure that you clear tables promptly and keep the area around tables and chairs clean and tidy. Making your business attractive helps keep the city attractive.

In another section, more detail is provided about who can serve drinks outside:

Pavement permissions in the liquor ban area

A number of premises have been granted permission by the District Licensing Agency to have tables and chairs on the pavement. This enables customers to enjoy alfresco dining as well as accommodating smokers when the Smokefree legislation comes into force on Friday 10 December 2004. There are a few monitoring issues that should be considered while your patrons are utilising the pavement area.
These include:

• which staff are responsible for ensuring that persons are not intoxicated or minors are not being supplied liquor in the outdoor area


• whether processes are in place to ensure that dirty dishes and glasses are cleared regularly and any rubbish such as serviettes, cigarettes and dirty ashtrays are removed so they don’t litter the footpath and street


• whether signs or information are available to customers using the pavement area to ensure that liquor is not
  removed from that area other than going into the actual premises.

The last point is particularly important because of the liquor ban that is in force in the central city on Friday and Saturday nights until 6am the following day. The approved outdoor area does not contravene the liquor ban area, however, should your area suddenly increase in size without approval or customers leave the area with their drinks, then this would be a breach of the ban.

Aha! So now we have some insight into what rules Kitty O'Sheas might have fallen foul of. You're left wondering whether there were not "processes in place" to clear dishes and glasses, leaving the area "unkempt" and "messy" (though this pretty much describes Courtenay Pl on a Friday anyway). Or did their area "suddenly increase in size without approval"? A brief local distortion in space-time, perhaps, that hadn't been vetted by the council's envorinmental safety team?

Either way, you can now be unkempt, drunk, messy, disorderly, suddenly increase in size, or all of these simultaneously, and you can even do it outside Kitty O' Sheas. You just can't sit down quietly at a table with your drink.

Land of the free...?

But if you assume that excessive regulation and the interfering/nannying/etc state is a recent phenomenon, it's instructive to read about these 19th-century laws which have survived on the statute books in various states of the U.S.

For example, in Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth. In Montana, it's illegal for unmarried women to go fishing alone. And...in Texas, it's illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.

Ahhh, so that's where the practice of lying down drinking out of the hose from the beer keg came from...

Anti-social Outdoor Furniture...

Last night Simon Doherty and I went to have a drink at Kitty O'Sheas on Courtenay Place, one of the few Wellington bars which has remained more or less its dingy, democratic self over the years. It's always been a good place to sit and have a few pints of Guiness and argue verbosely about the possibility of a Kantian ethics or the author-character relationship in Martin Amis novels.

Going into the bar we noticed that the pavement outside the bar was empty; the sidewalk chairs and tables were missing. That seemed a little odd, but we didn't think anything further of it as it was a chilly evening anyway. We bought a couple of pints and, after a bit, it was time for a cigarette. This of course now means leaving the bar, and we were starting to walk out the door when the doorman blocked our way and said we couldn't take our drinks outside. The bar has apparently lost its licence for its outside area, which explained the lack of tables and chairs on the sidewalk.

We asked what had happened, and he shrugged. Apparently the bar had to reapply for that aspect of their licence, and it was denied because the outside seating area had reportedly been an "obstruction" or an "anoyance" to passers-by. We struggled to imagine how serious this could have been. The bar had seemingly not been guilty of any major offenses such as repeatedly serving under age drinkers or intoxicated people, or fomenting significant antisocial behaviour, since this should have jeopardised its principal licence.

Was it a question of overly jovial patrons hailing passers-by and making a nuisance of themselves? Again, it's hard to imagine how serious the problem could have been. Courtenay Place on a Friday is a colourful and seedy boardwalk of sloppily drunk people, at times a bit feral occasionally amusing, generally a little depressing. If you don't like it, you avoid it, which these days I mostly do. The part near the Cambridge Tce end where Kittys is located is probably a little more civilzed and adult than the other end; there are fewer teenagers, and Kittys itself tends to attract an elcectic crowd including a mix of international tourists. I struggle to see how people sitting at tables outside one of the more relaxed bars could be a threat or a disturbance amidst the wider ambience.

It also seems unlikely that obstructing the thoroughfare was an issue. Other bars and cafes in the same area have outdoor tables, and the tables at Kittys always left plenty of space for people to go through. If it was a problem, they could always have required the bar to move their tables, rather than banning them.

But, whatever the reason for the heavy-handed ruling, you now can't smoke inside and can't take your drink outside. The doorman , who initially said we would have to leave our drinks on the windowsill and "keep an eye on them" while we were outside, took pity on us and opened the large window. This meant we could sip from our drinks sitting on the windowsill (technically inside) while we had a cigarette in the fresh air.

It was a nice temporary solution, but we still left feeling depressed at the increasing encroachment of regulation which, in the name of the health and morality of the community, seems to be gradually eroding the few simple pleasures we're still permitted to indulge in.

Land of the Cloven-Hoofed Cow

The foot-and-mouth scare which panicked New Zealand yesterday is almost certainly a hoax, the Minister for Agriculture Jim Sutton assured the nation on TV last night. The Minister, strangling any unwary vowels and looking more like a a 70s bureaucrat than a contemporary politican (an endearing feature, I think), also reminded everyone that the disease is no threat to humans, only affecting "those with cloven hooves". In other words, various species of farm animals plus Satan, the Great Deceiver.

But the most telling point was the Minister's reminder that over 50% of New Zealand's export revenue comes from cloven-hoofed animals. Today I've seen claims that it accounts for up to 65%. This is somewhat chastening. Forget the film industry and Wellywood, adventure tourism and NZ Inc, wine, fruits and other niche crops, high-tech, the Knowledge Wave and the e-economy - it's sheep and cows wot pay the bills.

Sitting in their offices in Wellington and Auckland, urban New Zealanders like to kid themselves that they now live in a land of lattes and liberalism, Cafe Culture and clean-green Pacific Rim Fusion, avant garde paua-and-greenstone jewellery sold via the internet from a cottage in Takaka, $50 bottles of pinot noir squeezed out of Central Otago terroir, a kinder, gentler hip-hop washed by the warm Pacific and popular in Europe.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to wince slightly on being reminded that we all depend for our prosperity on blokes and blokesses who wander through the mud and drizzle in gumboots and swannis to hammer in fenceposts. At the end of the day, its still a land of cloven-hoofed animals. As people I met in Peru would say: "A lot of ganaderia, no?

Here's a Quiz:

In which English newspaper was the following the list of the most-read stories for the previous week? (try and guess without following the hyperlinks just yet).

1) European Cup quarter-finals: Juventus vs Liverpool
2) Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue'
3) Japan's virgin wives turn to sex volunteers
4) European Cup quarter-finals: Chelsea vs Bayern
5) Sea life 'killed by exploding star'
6) European Cup quarter-finals: Bayern vs Chelsea
7) Scientist calls for world DNA database
8) Daniel Craig picked for Bond
9) Howard refuses to sack candidate over doctored photo
10) Pope laid to rest

The answer is not The Sun or The Daily Mail, but the venerable Guardian Online. Just goes to show that, while we may prefer a higher tone, better writing, insightful analysis and a range of international perspectives, readers are still drawn to the same old topics as the tabloid-reading masses: football, sex, dramatised popular science and celebrity. The week's serious political scandal is down at number 9, and the Pope's funeral number 10 (though to be fair, that story may already have been getting old). The list fits almostperfectly with the online Sun's self-summary: "NEWS SPORT BIZARRE LIFE FUN TV"

It's worth noting that, while the Champions League quarter-final beat out the sex-related stories that week, the top-rating story for the *three* prior weeks was "Necrophiliac duck ruffles research feathers". This gem from the Guardian's science pages retained top spot long after the front-page link was removed; readers clicked through from the link in the top 10 list itself.

While it's not that surprising that what most grabs people's attention doesn't change much between low-brow and high-brow, what is interesting is that the list also looks a lot like the contents page of a lad's magazine. The topics are what are normally thought of as being classic "boy's stuff".

What's the explanation? Are there less females accessing the Guardian's pages? There's no evidence for that, nor reason to believe it likely. Restricted choice of subject? Hardly. While it's probably fair to say that the British tabloid media can be savagely misogynistic, the Guardian is full of intelligent material by for women. From moralistic Polly Toynbee to hip and snarky Zoe Williams, there's lots of good writing by women, and plenty of news and stories on things that women are interested in (I don't presume to define what these are, but the Guardian's got most topics covered off). Yet we never saw Andrea Dworkin's obituaries make it into the top 10 list.

Maybe the answer is that woman readers are more individual and have more subtle preferences. What they read covers a wide range of topics, so that no individual story collects that many "votes". In contrast, us blokes have short circuits in our forebrains, causing little light bulbs to sparkle whenever we see "Bayern vs. Chelsea" or "Japanese virgin wives".

Possibly. Or maybe we just all like the same stuff; despite their distinct and sometimes impenetrable approach to conversing in public, girls are interested in the same things we are. This could mean that Cosmopolitan, which I always assumed had a largely male readership, really is a women's magazine. Only maybe they need to put in more articles on football and exploding stars.

Excuse the boring, put-upon-middle-class tone of this post, but...

Is it my imagination, or have things in New Zealand got much more expensive while I was away?

I'd already thought I detected about a 20% increase in average rents when I was looking for flats. I know there's been a property price "boom" and I assumed that was the explanation. Though it was also possible that arriving just after the peak rush for rented accommodation - the start of the university year and new employment contracts - all the best deals were gone.

Recently I've also been taken aback by the cost of groceries. It seems that it's costing me $15-20 for a couple of meals' worth of goods. This is a supposed fruit and vegetable-producing country, which trades freely with another nearby one (Australia), yet almost all the fresh stuff at the supermarket is prohibitively priced. $8.00 a kilo for peppers! $3.75 for a single avocado! $6.00 for a small bag of kumara! Not to mention things which don't look particularly exotic, but have apparently now moved into that class, such as asparagus (currently $19.90/kilo) and eggplant ($12.00/kilo).

I've considered the possibility that I live in an expensive area in an expensive city and shop at an expensive supermarket. For prices, New World Thorndon may even shade its compatriot New World Wakefield St (Mt Vic/Oriental Bay), which even in 2003 was known affectionately as "the most expensive supermarket in the world". But anecdotal reporting (i.e. my flatmate) suggests that in rural towns such as Greymouth and Palmerston North prices are even higher.

And I've now collected documentary evidence. A pint of Speights at the Backbencher was $4.00 before I left; now it's $5.00. An espresso coffee had a base price of $2.50. Now it's $3.00 across the board. Returning to the vegetable bins at Thorndon New World, in the corner directly opposite the main entrance there are still helpfully chopped-up "heads" of broccoli (the right size for single, urban people). I recall clearly that they used to be $1.99; now they're $2.25.

Has there really been 12-25% inflation in the year I've been away? I've factored in the possibility of higher oil prices knocking up transport costs - but what about the New Zealand dollar, which has got steadily stronger? It was always used as an excuse for higher fuel prices when it was weak; shouldn't the converse be true now?

There's the fact that I've missed a performance review round and any possible salary increment. But I still earn a decent wage, and have no major responsibilities apart from chipping away at my student loan and trying to start saving again. I wonder what those people who have kids or a mortgage (a first one, rather than a speculative second or third) think of things at the moment? Certainly, maintaing a healthy, varied diet, which we're all encouraged to do, could be one of the things to get squeezed out. You'd have to cook pretty plainly, or with innovation, to beat the $4.00 it costs (even in Thorndon) for a fish and a scoop of chips.

And it's not that I've just been in South America. When I stayed in London recently, I thought that food and groceries were surprisingly affordable. Simon and Jill confirm that they are significantly cheaper than in New Zealand, especially when purchasing power parity is accounted for. Something has changed there - when I lived in London in the late 90s it still seemed more expensive than NZ. I can recall laughing at the 30p it cost per apple in Sainsburys (Cromwell Rd), when you could get a 2-kilo box of apples at the orchard gate in NZ for the equivalent of 30p.

When I went from London to the U.S. in 1999, the lower cost of living was striking. I shared an apartment in South Beach, Miami, with Cecilia and an Australian guy called Todd, and we shopped at the supermarket down the road. For a collective $100 we packed our fridge to bursting point with (among other things) beer, ice cream and legs of meat. We (mainly Todd, actually) cooked sumptous dinners and stuffed ourselves, having to lie down afterwards, perspiring quietly in the South Florida heat.

As a country, New Zealand is obviously never going to be as rich as the U.S. , and we can't afford to pay our farmers huge subsidies to keep prices at rock-bottom. But in a primarily agricultural nation, the question of why basic goods are so expensive warrants further investigation. You also have to start questioning the value of so-called economic growth based on inflated house prices, when its chief effect is to raise living costs for the average person.

Polite and quiet Colombia...??

In the terminal at Ipiales, near Colombia's frontier with Ecuador, a mother makes the sign of the cross in front of her daughter who is about to get on the minibus headed for Cali. An hour down the road, I can see her logic; I 'm making involuntary signs of the cross myself as our driver leans on the accelerator and prepares to overtake another truck on yet another blind mountain corner. Forget guerillas, kidnappings, gun-wielding drug dealers - by far the greatest danger in Colombia, as far as I can tell, is from normal citizens' approach to highway etiquette "Is this guy crazy, or does everyone drive like this here?" I ask the guy in the seat behind me. He grins from under his broad panama hat and shrugs his shoulders. "This is normal".

Staring into the Russian roulette of the blind bend, we gradually inch past the truck; around the corner the next oncoming vehicle is thankfully still some distance away. The driver glances complacently across at the pretty girl he's selected to occupy the seat next to him in the front of the van, then, moustache twitching, leans forward once more onto the accelerator.

The fact that this is a near-universal driving style is probably a blessing in disguise. Vehicles rounding blind corners *expect* to find someone on their side of the road. Most people honk as they head round the bend. Not everyone is as lucky as us, however. On the road to Cali we see the results of two multi-vehicle accidents, as well as an overturned truck-trailer which has spilled its load of sugar bags all over the highway.

Meanwhile, the scenery is utterly spectacular. As green as Colombia's famous emeralds, the hills of the western cordillera are separated by wide valleys and dizzying ravines. We drop into hot lowlands and climb over cloudy hilltops. Ubiquitous banana plants tumble down the hillsides with their floppy fronds, while the pasture lands at higher altitudes bear resemblance to the prettier parts of Northland, New Zealand. On the roadsides the red-tiled roofs of cottages are framed by sunflowers and bougainvillea, with chickens pecking on the grass outside.

Colombia's fame precedes it like no other country in South America. Images of drugs, danger and violence are triggered off by its very name, and when I email my current location friends and family react like Kathleen Turner's timid romance novelist in Romancing the Stone. "You're where!?!" I'm not immune to the prejudices, and have to suppress a chuckle as we pass lorries with big "Made in Medellin" signs on the back canopy. Later, I find that such reactions aren't restricted to ignorant westerners, but extend to customs officers in neighbouring countries. On returning to Ecuador, I'm subjected to extensive search and questioning by Ecuadorean officials - the first time in about fourteen border crossings in South America I've been given more than a cursory glance. Then, boarding a flight from Peru to Argentina, the sight of the Colombia stamp in my passport provokes a flurry of questions and sharper-than-normal review of my bags from the Peruvians.

But nothing is ever quite as you expect; what I see of Colombia turns out to be considerably more laid back than reputation, or the British Foreign Office, would have it. Strongest first impressions, apart from the driving, are people's almost old-world politeness - in a shop or restaurant you're greeted with a bright "A la orden!" ("at your service!") and farewelled with an effusive "con mucho gusto!" ("it's a pleasure!") before you even have a chance to say "gracias". And the food - you could get fat quickly and happily in Colombia. A regular lunch is big, cheap and hearty, while the stomach-stretching bandeja paisa features five kinds of meat, plus eggs, rice and beans. Plus fried banana with every course – you even get it in your soup.

Everyone's heard stories of tourists getting kidnapped in Colombia by leftist guerrrillas who roam the countryside. But to find a guerilla these days, you'd really have to go looking. The dollars poured in by the United States as part of its "War on Drugs" seem to have given the Colombian army the resources to dominate areas where guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries previously roamed freely. While my Lonely Planet warns that even a stretch of the main highway between the frontier and Cali may be under guerilla control, all we see are a series of army patrols every 50 km or so. Some people whisper that there's collaboration between the army and the guerillas to maintain the conflict and keep the dollars flowing in, and I hear stories of a colonel ordered to pull back when his platoon had surrounded and trapped a group of guerillas. The civil war has been going on so long that a whole generation has been born into the guerilla lifestyle , and no one can explain to me exactly what the conflict's ideological basis is, if it still has one.

Nevertheless, many people seem to be cautiously optimistic about their country's future. "Alvaro Uribe is a good president" says Beatriz, who with her husband Hildebrando runs several small businesses in Cali and around. "He's actually interested in the good of the country, not just in lining his own pocket". Not everyone agrees - I see graffiti criticizing "Fascist Uribe's" privatization policies under a bridge in north Cali. Nil, an anthropologist specializing in Afro-American history in Latin America assures me that “Colombia's biggest problem isn't the guerrilla war - it's corruption”. I question him about other people's view that Uribe is an honest president and he shrugs. "Maybe, but he's in the same pot with everyone else". But even he grudgingly agrees that things are probably on the improve.

The city of Cali sprawls on either side of the river Cauca in a wide valley between the western and central cordillera, dominated by the cultivation of sugar cane. It's neither truly ugly nor pretty - the centre is dominated by bland seventies tower blocks, but it's green in a kind of shaggy, unkempt way. The climate is delicious, the equatorial heat moderated by 1,000 metres of altitude and a breeze which springs up from the river in the aftenoon.

Apart from its fame as the Second City of cocaine, behind Medellin, Cali is also renowned for its nightlife. But either I'm missing something, or this too is exaggerated. Along the 6th avenue in north Cali are a string of gaudy discotheques with flashing lights, tinted glass and overeager doormen hustling for customers. Closer inspection, however, reveals that even on a Saturday night they're largely empty. "I would never go out there anyway" says Monica, a recently graduated clinical psychologist. "Those places are where the lower classes go - and the narcotraffickers. As a girl, you don't really want to attract their attention" I go with her and some friends fifteen blocks north to the "Zona Rosa" where there are a number of bars with cover charges playing a mixture of rock, salsa and electronica But even there, the rumba doesn't quite match the all-night drinking and dancing marathons to be experienced in Peru or Argentina.

Maybe everyone is still recovering from the Feria de Cali, the city's major festival which runs from December 25 – January 1. Or maybe it's just not as wild as it's cracked up to be. A more typical experience seems to be a Saturday afternoon in Chipichape, a popular shopping mall in the converted railway station, where people sit around sipping cerveza michelada, beer served with lemon and salt spread round the rim of the glass. In a well-stocked bookshop the attendant cheerfully spends ten minutes helping me get beyond the Garcia Marquez volumes and find the "contemporary" novel I insist on reading. We skim through a range of tales of political corruption and drug-related violence. "This one used to be banned" she says hopefully.

The next week, on something of a caffeine addict's pilgrimmage, I head up to the coffee-growing region three hours north of Cali. Beatriz gives me a lift up as far as the town of Tulua, where she has a restaurant. On the way we're stopped by, successively, the army, the police and traffic police. The first two are probably looking for "guerrillas and drugs" according to Beatriz, but the traffic police just want to check if we have our lights on. It's now compulsory to drive with your lights on in Colombia, as research has shown it reduces accidents (mind you, so does staying on your side of the road), and the police routinely hand out instant fines for failure to do so. Hildebrando has apparently managed both to collect a couple of tickets for having his lights off, and flatten his car's battery by leaving them on. Beatriz shakes her head and says something about "revenue collection"

Some things don't change - I laugh and tell her about people's frustration with speed cameras and quota-filling traffic police in New Zealand. But although she gives hard stares to the series of nervous and scarily youthful-looking officers who stop us, she supports the principle of the checkpoints. "It's good that they're concerned about security" she says.

Back in Cali, on a Sunday afternoon Beatriz and Hildebrando take me on a drive through the south of the city and up to Cerro de Cristo Rey, for a panoramic view of the valley. Sprawling out into the sugar cane fields to the southeast of the city are the new settlements of desplazados, people who have migrated from rural areas, often as refugees from ongoing violence in their homelands. The settlements are home to the grim reality described recently by Martin Amis and mirroring that of Medellin's hillside comunas depicted in novels and films such as La Virgen de los Sicarios and Rosario Tijeras

But while most Colombians have been touched in some way by their country's troubles, they don't exactly appreciate the almost voyueristic focus that they receive in the outside world. Monica gets mad when I show her the Martin Amis article. She is currently applying for two jobs - to work with traumatised desplazados or in a government programme designed to address inter-family violence, a huge problem in Colombia. She also has plenty of stories from her time as an intern in the public hospital. But she's still upset about the obsession with all the worst things about her country. She mutters something about "ignorant foreign journalists", and I have a hard time explaining to her about the brilliance of London Fields and The Information.

Everywhere you go in South America people want to know "what do you think of (insert country/region/village)?" But in Colombia they have an additional question. "What do people in your country who haven't been here think about Colombia?" I have to tell the truth; people think it's dangerous, they're a bit afraid to come and visit. My questioners nod their heads sadly. What exactly, it seems they're wondering, does this beautiful and welcoming country have to do to beat its bad press?

New Zealand in "Most Expensive Place to Study" Shock

Ha! According to this article , New Zealand is the most expensive place in the Western world, behind Japan, to undertake university study. An independent study has established that, once the cost of living and the amount of support that comes in the form of loans is factored in, NZ easily beats out supposedly expensive places like the U.S.

I knew there was a reason why I spent good parts of my honours year eating a cup of rice per day and still got saddled with a loan that was growing faster than I could pay it off for my first two years as a hard-working public functionary...

And this comparison is made in today's environment, where students and their families know what to expect, and those currently studying are exempted from paying interest on their loans. I started studying in 1990, against the background of a long history of minimal fees and a universal student allowance. The next year, without any warning, the government allowed fees to increase tenfold and dumped student allowances. But financial support was still available - just sign up for a loan! The catch was that we started paying interest from day one, at a fixed rate of 8%, which for much of the intervening time has been above the market rate. By the time I finished my degree, I'd already been charged thousands of dollars in interest.

Meanwhile, the University Bursary and Scholarship awards, which were originally intended to support high-achieving students, had been allowed to be frittered away to a pittance by inflation. I got an 'A' Bursary and four subject scholarships, which netted me a grand total of $200, almost enough for a couple of textbooks.

My time at university spanned from 1990-94. It wasn't until 1999, with a change of government, that the system was reformed somewhat, with interest rate exemptions and write-offs, and the reintroduction of genuine rewards for doing well at school (I believe a subject scholarship is now worth about $1,000).

Am I bitter and twisted? Hell no. There's no point fretting about the time and place you were born into; we're still amongst the most 0.0000001% most privileged people to have ever lived, as Simon Doherty is fond of saying. And I've never exactly been stopped from doing anything I wanted to do. If I hadn't taken off to travel for 3 years, my loan wouldn't have compounded quite so much or so quickly. Although on the other hand if I'd taken my supervisor's advice and gone off to do a PhD in Philosophy in Indiana it would have grown just the same.

But the revelation that, compared to our OECD cousins, life as a student really is quite tough, makes me feel a bit less guilty about some things. Like quitting my 20-hour per week job at the gas station with its miraculously entrenched penal rates ($13.50 an hour on Sundays!) towards the end of my third year of study. After all, I had worked there four years, and 20 hours a week is substantial - my grades did actually improve afterwards.

It could be argued that NZ only appears to be more expensive than places like the U.S. because the comparison is with public universities. And to get a good education in America you have to pay exorbitant fees for somewhere private, right? Whereas in NZ all the public universities are of a "good standard". Well, I can't speak for the quality of the state universities in the U.S. (though I understand that many of them are very good; my sister is studying law at one right now). But at the University of Canterbury when I was there, I can offer testimony that the English (first-hand) and Modern Languages (second-hand, from my sister) departments were both sub-par. If anyone learnt anything or was stimulated/challenged in stage III English, it certainly wasn't related to the classes. By contrast the Philosophy department, where I ended up doing Honours, was great :)

One more thing - this study is an international one, and I would say has been done principally at the spreadsheet level. It doesn't even take into account the actual conditions students have to live in while they study. There's no way they will have drilled down to the level of analysing:
-what kind of houses do students live inhabit in NZ (old rotting wooden ones)
-what direction do they face (south)
-what is the average temperature in, say, Christchurch, during the winter months (pretty damn cold)
-how much does it cost to properly heat one of these houses (more than students can afford).

OK, so it was never exactly like being a campesino in Juliaca, but the more I think about this, the more self-righteously indignant I get. Could the level of genuine difficulty in getting by be an excuse for why I didn't advance in any sporting, social or cultural fields when I was at university, and didn't really achieve anything apart from passing my courses?

It could be, if it wasn't for the beer...

Epiphanies of the Selfish Genes...

Once in a while you have a little epiphany; the mists of your ego roll away, and something about the world becomes clear and concrete. Struck by what you feel is a new understanding, you resolve to become a different, better person. Usually, you're soon back in the grip of your weaknesses and foibles and stupid little hang-ups, which short-circuit your better intentions. But at odd opportune moments, something of your moment of clarity resurfaces and reminds you to get some perspective – occasionally it even stops you from behaving like quite so much of an asshole. So in some incremental way, you have in fact become a better person…

Last weekend I met for the first time my five week-old niece Alexandra, or Alex as she'll be known from now on unless she perversely decides to prefer the longer version of her name. She's small and delicate, not quite entirely helpless, and is just figuring out that the humaniverse comes in discrete person-size packages. I should stress that I do not “like babies”. At my workplace, when the latest new mother brings in her baby to show off at morning tea and have colleagues compete to goo-ga at the child, I usually become extra interested in the report I’m writing. Frankly, I find the baby-appreciating ritual an uncomfortable mixture of baffling, cloying and frightening.

But seeing Alex was different. It’s not like I was suddenly in raptures of joy, struck by the beauties of babydom or, god forbid, convinced that I’d like one myself. But I did feel something new and unique; when she smiled at me (or was it a yawn) I felt like I’d been favoured by royalty. I wanted to protect her, give her presents, maybe teach her some stuff when she gets older. It was genuinely sad to think that I mostly won’t be around to see what happens as she grows up.

This is, of course, because she’s related to me. As Richard Dawkins, Stephen Pinker et al would happily point out, my sudden attack of tenderness is related to the fact that a whole bunch of my selfish genes are seeing themselves perpetuated, and without even any effort on my part - happily, Sophia and Jeremy have volunteered for the task of cleaning up the poo. But who cares? It’s still an epiphanistic experience, and I know that young Alex will pop up in my thoughts every now and again to remind me not to be so bitter and grumpy – she’s one more reason to live.

How to Make a Comment on this Blog...

If you want to comment on a current post, scroll down to the bottom of the post. You will see a little hyperlink which says "comments". Click on this, and it will take you to that post's individual web page. Scroll down again to the bottom of the text, and you will see a hyperlink which says "Post a Comment". Click on this, and you will be able to write your comments...

Bidsta comments on the cricket...

Into the 4th day of the NZ vs. Sri Lanka test at Napier, and although the flat pitch might have made a high-scoring draw inevitable anyway, one might have expected even a smidgen more imagination from the NZ selectors in the hope of snatching a win while the Sri Lankans are still adjusting to conditions.

But with all the pace bowlers with any kind of variation or penetration (Shane Bond, Jacob Oram, Ian Butler) injured, and Daniel Vettori rested, to whom do the selectors turn to fill out the bowling complement? None other than Kyle Mills, who has taken one test wicket at 99.0 and is notable for delivering at a friendly pace and being hit all over the park in the closing stages of one-day internationals. What was the expectation? That Sri Lanka would be lulled into a false sense of security by the sheer ordinariness of a pace bowling lineup reading James Franklin, Chris Martin, Kyle Mills? Or - Kyle Mills is supposed to be a nice guy - was he intended to gently persuade the Sri Lankans to get out in return for a round of beer?

The inevitable answer is that resources are thin; who else would they turn to? Well, ideas a bit more geared towards the prospect of actually winning would have included someone who tries to bounce the ball, such as Wellington's Mark Gillespie, or a second spinner (not quite sure who).

Now, as Sri Lanka scores rapidly to overtake 561, there's even the prospect that NZ will be left with a tricky day-and-a-bit and will collapse dramatically against uncoventional but pacy SL Malinga the slinger. It will be decribed as an "inspired" spell of fast bowling, such as those that players such as Sami, Ahktar, McGrath, Waqar Younis, etc. always seem to produce specifically against us, causing the entire batting lineup to collapse in a snivelling heap in the 3rd or 4th innings. Call me pessimistic.

Crazy beat journeys across the dark (South) American night...

Hmm, my deadlines say I've left myself 2 days to get from Popayan in Colombia (two-three hours southwest of Cali) to Màncora in northern Peru. Got to cross all of Ecuador in one go. It's a mad nerve-fraying trip through three countries, with about fifty changes of transport, and the whole dirty underbelly of non-luxury slow lane Latin American transit, not to mention the border crossings....Here's how it happens.

Popayan, Colombia. Good breakfast at hostal. Taxi to bus station.
10 am minibus Popayan-Ipiales, seven hours. Smooth enough ride through beautiful green hills of southwest Colombia. A snatched lunch of potato chips and chocolate because the roadside restaurant we stop at is so crowded there's no chance of getting a proper meal in the 20 minutes available.

Taxi, Ipiales bus station - frontier with Ecuador. Exit stamp from Colombia. Ten minutes negotiation with money changer to get acceptable exchange rate. Then 45 minutes revision by Ecuadorean customs officials looking for drugs. Sample conversation:
Customs official "Do you consume drugs?"
Me: "No"
Official: "Have you tried drugs?"
Me: "What, like, in my life?"
Official: "Yes"
Me: "Well, yeah, I guess"
Official: "What, just experimentally, to see what it's like?"
Me: "Well, yeah"
Offical: "Ah, that's ok then"

Entrance stamp to Ecuador. Collectivo, frontier -Tulcán bus station.
Dinner of cheese sandwich and chocolate from a store by the bus station. Bus at 7:30 pm Tulcán - Quito, 5 1/2 hours. Seems to stop every couple of hundred metres to pick up or drop off passengers. Steadily worsening headache reaches epic proportions as we pull into Quito. Taxi from bus station finds first hostal full. End up staying at relatively expensive hotel in the new town ($13 USD), but allows rest and recovery in peace.

I permit myself one day in Quito with good breakfast, lunch and dinner. Of course it's the start of carnaval and everyone's travelling....not a single ticket to the frontier at Huaquillas for the night. Compromise and get the last remaining ticket for Cuenca, in the south of Ecuador, for 9pm. Guy at the bus companuy advises me to get to the terminal early, but time drifts by and it's 8:35 when I collect my stuff and get a taxi. Don't think it will be a problem since I walked to the bus station in 30 minutes during the day. But taxi has to go by different route, traffic is heavy, it takes over 30 minutes, I'm panicking. Past 9:00 when I get dropped off outside the bus station, still have to negotiate roundabout entrance and three flights of stairs to Quito's crazy bus terminal.

When I submerge myself in the zoo of buses waiting to depart (no such thing as a "platform" in Quito), my bus has already left. Guy takes me (panicking) out the back gate and round the corner; all the buses leaving the terminal have to do a big loop and exit here to get onto the street. There's a long queue; possibly my bus hasn't left yet. It hasn't - I manage to jump on and look for my seat. Driver has let on about 7 additional people, woman is in my seat. She vacates it for me (I feel a bit guilty) but her, her two daughters and another guy are nested around my seat, a single spot in the very back of the bus. There's nowhere to put my legs, so I have to rest them on some plastic moulding in front of my seat,where I also dump my backpacks (no chance to stow the big one in the luggage compartment as the bus was moving when I got on).

As usual, there's a guy on the bus there to sell/beg. Starts with some jokes; sample:
"I have 100 turkeys and I vendo (sell) one, how many do I have?"
Someone on the bus: "99"
Guy: "No! I have 100 turkeys and I vendo one, how many do I have?"
Someone else on the bus: "99!"
Guy: "No! I still have 100 turkeys - one of them vendado (bandaged)! I had 100 turkeys and I vendè (bandaged) one"
Everybody: "groaaaan"
(note of explication: the first person of both vender (to sell) and vendar (to bandage) is the same: yo vendo...very groanworthy pun.) I buy a couple of his trinkets.

Nine hours to Cuenca, first very hot in the back of the bus, then cold. Woman who had my seat complains and whimpers all the way, and I lose all sympathy. She could have taken the bus in the morning, dammit.

Anyway, I'm stuck with my feet 30 degrees above my head for the whole ride - not too uncomfortable by the standards of this bus, but the novelty certainly starts to wear off.

In Cuenca, find I've missed the direct connection to Huaquillas so instead I jump on a bus headed to Machala, the self-proclaimed "banana capital of the world", 3 1/2 hours away to make the connection there. We pass fields full of *lots* of banana plants. Driver lets me off at the junction where the buses to Huaquillas pass and, as luck would have it, one passes by soon. Jump on and head all the way to Huaquillas. When I get there it turns out the Ecuador border control post where you get your exit stamp was a couple of kilometres before the town itself. Bus driver says "Hey, you should have told me you wanted to stop there". Well...he did ask me "frontera?" when I got on the bus and I said yes sir...

So I have to take a taxi back to get my exit stamp, then another one back to Huaquillas...the town is shared by Ecuador and Peru, so you walk through a crowded market, round a corner, over a bridge and voila!, you're in Peru. Unfortunately, the Peruvian immigration post is out of town, another 4km down the road...

There's no official taxis, and in the crowded market hover a menagerie of conmen and shifty money changers, all looking to connive a quick buck. I'm descended on by an entourage offering to change my money, carry my bag, give me a ride to Tumbes (first town of any size in Peru). As it happens, I do need to change $20 USD (the sole currency in Ecuador), though I also have some Peruvian soles. I say ok, maybe I'll change some money...
Shifty money changer: "How much you want to change?"
Me: "$20"
SMC: "Only $20! That won't be enough! Today's a holiday in Peru, nothing's open"
Me: "Well, that's all I've got..anyway I can get more money out from an ATM"
SMC: "There's no ATMs...you need to change more cash"
Me: "There's an ATM in Tumbes"
SMC: "Nooo...not until Chiclayo" (about 500km away down the coast). "You'll really need more"
Me (losing patience): "Look, I happen to *know* there's an ATM in Tumbes...anyway, I only *have* bloody $20 to change!

So money changer guy shrugs and whips out his calculator. "I'll give you a rate of 3.5" he says. Which is weird, because the official rate varies between 3.25 and 3.35 soles to the dollar...But he's already punching away on his calculator. "Twenty times three point five is......42!" he announces. "What!" I take the calculator from him. "I think you'll find that twenty times three point five is..." the "equals" button is not where it should be, so he helpfully leans over and presses a button. On the screen appears the number 42. "Fourty-two" he confirms.

This is where I get mad. Some kind of lack-of-sleep too-much-travelling thing snaps, and I start yelling at my entourage. "Just piss off, all of you! Yes, piss right off!" In particular to SMC guy "How stupid do you think I am? I may be a gringo, but it doesn't make me an idiot! Twenty times three point five is 42? Jesus, even twenty times *three* is sixty!" (the kind of ironic thing here is that my brain is too tired and frazzled to actually calculate 20 * 3.5)

SMC has started to shuffle off, but his face lights up when I say this and he starts back. "Sixty! I'll give you sixty then". "No! Bugger off!" I shout. I think what offends me is not so much the brazenness of the attempted rip off, as the appalling insult to my intelligence.

So I wander out the other end of the market and cross the bridge. The thing is, I still need to get to the Peruvian immigration post somehow, so I'm forced to converse with the next set of shady looking guys who come up rubbing their hands and offering me rides. But I lose patience rapidly when they offer me exorbitant deals. "All the way to Tumbes for only $20!". Look, I know I can get a collectivo from immigration to Tumbes for a couple of soles, I just want to get to the immigration post, I explain. "OK, to Tumbes for $15!" they say.

I'm about to despair when I spot a uniformed Peruvian official walking along ahead of me, a police or immigration officer. I rush to catch up and say please señor, can you help me. "Can you point out to me some kind of official taxi to get to the frontier, and tell me how much I should pay to get there, and to Tumbes?" I ask. The Peruvian policeman looks amused but kind. He points to an old guy leaning against and ancient Buick sedan. "That gentleman will take you to the immigration post, and shouldn't charge you more than one sol. Then you can get a collectivo to Tumbes, from opposite the immigration, for one sol fifty".

I feel relieved to have encountered an honest, helpful Peruvian official (no, that's not an oxymoron!), and go over to where the old guy is. We wait for a while for other people to show up, but when no one does, I say I'll pay him the full five soles ($1.50) to get to the frontier. From there it all gets easier. I pass through immigration, change my dollars with the official money changers sitting outside (suspiciously inspecting every note, to their amusement) and then jump on the collectivo headed for Tumbes.

In Tumbes people are nice, and helpful! The guy who gives me a ride to the central plaza in his moto-taxi (ubiquitous three-wheeled buggies with motorbike engines) explains where the ATMs are, where to eat, and how to find the collectivos to Mancora. I get money out, the food is great, people in the restaurant are also super nice, and the plaza in Tumbes is pretty with murals and mosaics. Having eaten my first proper meal since Quito, I'm feeling relatively sane. I find the collectivo to Mancora, which is another hour and a half down the road.

The guy who collects the money and shouts "Mancora! Mancora!" has to lean against the door of the minivan to keep to closed as we rattle along through the scrubby coastal desert. But it's all good - there's a sweet warm breeze blowing through the window, and I'm about to finally reach my destination and chill out. Mancora is a popular spot "the most beautiful beach in Peru" supposedly, and it's full with holidayers from Lima and from Ecuador. But I eventually find a little cell of a room in a hotel/restaurant one block from the beach, jump into a blissfully cold shower and think about getting some beer.

London Calling...

London remains, for me, definitively the greatest city in the world. Endlessly interesting, more earthy and democratic than Paris, and a genuine melting pot in a way that New York isn't. It's difficult to pin down what it is that so fascinates and attracts about London, but I think it has something to do with the fact that it's been a city, and a highly important centre of trade, culture and commerce, continuously for over 2,000 years. The sense of histoy is palpable in every little corner. The original city swallowed up the surrounding villages and countryside, but gradually, allowing them to retain some of the character of villages and countryside. Contrary to what some imagine, it's also an immensely green city, full of parks and woodland.

I stayed with Simon and Jill in Whitechapel, which is a grittily attractive area just east of the City, only about 20-25 minutes walk from Tower Bridge. Whitechapel road is like Little Bangladesh, with a daily soukh of vegetables, clothes and other goods dominating the sidewalk. Women in Islamic headresses bustle through the markets: some of the younger ones are quite attractive, and the headress adds an alluring mystery. I really wouldn't be surprised if they eventually find their way to being a fashion accessory among Western girls.

On a Sunday the cafes off Brick Lane are full of antipodean, French and Spanish twentysomethings in black duffle coats and scarfs, smug about working abroad and living in the middle of it all. And the food is improving: they now serve the kind of fusiony cafeteria food that in New Zealand you might whip up on short notice in your flat. Not quite to the standard of actual cafe food in NZ, but an improvement on just sausage and chips.

Meanwhile Britain, despite Tony Blair's Cool Britannia and the Orwellian-sounding Modernisation Agency, remains what we only half-jokingly called a "Stalinist State". According to people I'd caught up with there, trying to open a bank account remains a Kafkaesque exercise in futility. Simon and Jill hadn't even been able to *re-open* their previous account, largely due to not being able to talk to the same person twice. While I was there, the bank where they had managed to open an account, managed to deposit their rent money into *the wrong account*. Whew! In NZ you have to be dealing with WINZ or some other genuine branch of bureaucracy to find that kind of incompetence. To buy a stamp so I could send a single postcard, I had to line up for 20 minutes at the local post office. I actually found myself gratified that the line, which stretched all the way out the door, moved faster than I had expected. Then, when I went back to the public gym where Simon and I had gone two days previously, the girl at reception told me she had to see my gym membership card in order to let me in. I tried to convince her that I just wanted to pay for one session, but she wouldn't accept the cash. Just because.

Oh, and the pubs still close at eleven. If you're half way through your pint when closing time comes along, it's knock it straight back or leave it.

But, give me a job, let me live somewhere within Zone1-2, and I'd still rather settle there than pretty much anywhere else.

A week in Rio de Janiero...

is not really enough, but I'm trying to squeeze as many tick-off-worthy things into the seven days I have here. Done the trip to the top of the Päo de Azucar and been to the Maracanä to watch a local derby, Flamengo vs. Botafogo. Today am hoping to make it to the Corcovado and the Christ statue. Also taking four days of Portuguese lessons, which is doing my head in a little. Oh, and beaches and a couple of clubs as well. All this doesn't leave much time for blogging, for which reason the Colombia and Peru stories haven't advanced at all. Will have to wait till I get to London or maybe, dear oh dear, back to New Zealand.

In other news, for those who are reading this but aren't actually related to me (I hope there's some of you), I am now an uncle (exclamation mark, can't find it on this keyboard). Alexandra Simone, ah, Bidwell I think, was born somewhere between Sunday and MondayBrazil time, as far as I can work out. Sophia is apparently still in hospital until today, but I'll call her as soon as I get the chance (most likely from London). Pretty exciting, no?

Beer, Sweat and Insects in Argentina...

Flew from Tacna to Córdoba the 19th at around midnight. Got stuck in Córdoba for five days amidst a daze of heat, humidity, stinky hostel rooms, ravenous mosquitos (I've been bitten over every inch) and hangovers (the place is a 24/7 party town, and although I wasn't at all in the mood, if you can't avoid them, make a half-hearted attempt to join them. Swarming with beautiful students, it made me anxious to get back to the gym and salsa classes. Tuesday made it to even hotter Carlos Paz, with its pretty green hills and sadly stinky, polluted, river and lake.

Arrived yesterday night in Buenos Aires. Perhpas even more humid, with a continuation of the stinky hot hostel rooms, but thankfully mosquitos are shut out. Huge, bustling and stimulating, like a Latin London, and the buskers actually outnumber the beggars...

Stories from Colombia and North Peru still being worked on...stay tuned.

UPDATE

Flew to Quito 19th January, headed to the frontier with Colombia, spent almost two weeks in Colombia, two days crazy travelling from Popayan in southwest Colombia to Máncora in northern Peru, couple of days on the beach in Máncora, two days in Chiclayo and around, a day in Trujillo, down to Lima where I met Paola and we spent a couple of days before heading back to Arequipa. Have a ticket for Friday night on a small airline from Tacna in southern Peru to Córdoba in Argentina. Intend to spend a couple of days there before continuing on to Buenos Aires for almost a week, then via Mendoza to Santiago again, from where I fly out to Rio on the 3rd of March. Have until the12th in Brazil, then fly Rio-Miami-London on the 12th-13th. Four days there to catch up with friends, then complete the circumnavigation of the globe on the 17th-19th, arriving back in Wellington on the 20th to start work on the 21st.

Stories are coming, don't panic! Keep checking this space over the next couple of weeks, I'll get them finished as soon as possible.

Dispatches - 22 Dec 2004 - 19 Jan 2005

I spent Christmas with Paola's family; as seems to be traditional here, Christmas Eve was reserved for present giving and a formal dinner, while the next day was dedicated to a bbq. It being Peru, this means a drinking marathon, no matter how respectable and reserved a family might appear on the surface.

I had brought a bottle of Sol de Ica pisco from my trip to the Ica vineyards as a present for the family, but first we had to work our way through a bottle of pisco from the valle de Majes, and later there were a series of wines from Majes, sweet but fresh and eminently drinkable.

The tradition here is for everyone to drink from the same bottle and glass, which are passed round from person (this would no doubt give infection control practitioners nightmares, but I think the alcohol tends to kill most germs). My introduction to this practice was another bbq at Paola's place, for Fathers Day. I wasn't aware of the rules, and on being handed a bottle and glass, assumed they where for my personal consumption; the others would have their own drinks too. I was sipping slowly from my glass and absorbed in a conversation with Paola's mother, when someone called out "Qué vieja tiene la botella!" ("What old lady's got the bottle!"). The old lady was me, and I learned my lesson. However, Paola's uncle delights in teasing me, and nowadays as soon as I'm passed the bottle and glass he shouts "Qué vieja tiene la botella!". Highly amusing.

Paola was fortunate enough to receive a phone call from her best friend Vanessa, which meant she could abstain for an hour. But in any case, the women of the family were quite within their rights to pull out, and wave "no thanks" when the bottle was passed. Not so the men. "You don't *have* to keep drinking" Paola told me when I confided to her my apprehension about the afternoon's bbq. Actually, I kind of do, I explained. When her father, grandfather, uncles, cousin and brother-in-law keep taking their turns, I can hardly wimp out. Masculinity has its subtleties too.

By 6pm I managed to convince Paola to head to HUgo and Lizbeth's, and we escaped. Of course, they were having a large bbq as well, and the drinking continued. The video camera was brought out, resulting in some hilarious footage, including Hugo dancing a huayno in his sandals and walk shorts. I hope to get some of the film onto CD and take it with me. We then made our second escape, and headed into the centre to meet Vanessa, dance some salsa, and polish off the last couple of beers of a dizzying Christmas.

New Year we spent in Arica, which was pretty blissful. At the crossroads of Peru, Bolivia and Chile, Arica is friendly and tranquil, avoiding the strident national identities of any of those three countries (though the Chilean army maintains a watchful presence). In addition, by January the climate is at its best, warm days and humid nghts with a refreshing breeze in the afternoon. If it hadn't been for the unusal quantities of jellyfish washing ashore, I might even have been persuaded to spend more than a couple of minutes in the water.

We stayed at the Sunny Days hostel run by Ross (NZ) and Beatriz, (Chile) where I had spent some time and worked briefly in May. From there it's a short walk to the beach, where we spent New Year's Eve drinking some beers and watching the fireworks explode over the Pacific ocean.

The two weeks post-New Year I spent trying to tidy things up, finishing off the websites I've been working on (didn't quite manage that, still more to do). Between times we spent a weekend at the beach in Camaná, three hours away on the Arequipan coast. Camaná used to be *the* place for Arequipeños to take their summer holidays; discoteques lined the beach and the parties were long and hedonistic.

In 2001 the huge earthquake which toppled one of the towers of Arequipa's cathedral triggered a localised tidal wave which descended on, and swept away, most of La Punta, the beachside part of Camaná (the town itself is on the Panamericana, a little inland). About thirty people were killed, and most of the buildings destroyed.

In a way it's a tragic story. Before the tidal wave, the sea fell back, leaving hundreds of fish stranded on the beach. Unaware of what was to happen next, local people rushed down to collect the fish, and many were drowned when the tidal wave hit.

On the other hand, it was probably lucky that it happened on a Saturday afternoon in June, when the place was more or less deserted. On a Saturday afternoon in January the beach would have been packed with half of Arequipa, and the tragedy would have reached epic proportions.

Camaná has never really recovered; summer vacationers now spread themselves out at different places along the coast, or go elsewhere. The restaurants, hostels and bars have returned or been repaired along the waterfront, but the residential areas remain in ruins, a grim reminder of the tidal wave. Paola's family had quite a substantial beach house at La Punta, which was completely swept away. We went to visit the site, the first time Paola had been back; not even a ruined wall remained.

That aside, it was a nice weekend on a not-too crowded beach, good seafood, cold beer and even colder water, which didn't tempt me to do more than briefly dip my toes. The waves at Sumner beach in December are balmy by comparison.

Sunday 16 I moved out of my apartment, which I've had since August 20 of last year, and stored a disturbing quantity of stuff with Paola - will have to do some rationalising when I get back. We were both a little irritable /tearful during the packing up process, but cheered up once it was over and the flat was delivered back to the landlord - it felt like one era had finished and a new (though uncertain) one begun.

Sunday 16 January at 8pm I was on the bus to Lima. I spent two days in a little hostel in Miraflores, which is one of the wealthy parts of the city. It's by the sea, with modern, American-style office towers and fast food joints, green parks, and an outdoor shopping mall, "Larcomar" hovering over the ocean.

The coast terminates in some dramatic cliffs dropping to the coastal highway, with an esplanade, or "malecón" along the top of the cliffs. I went for a run along the malecón the second night I was there, which was beautiful, the sunset fiery over the Pacific, the air warm and humid, and the perfectly groomed parks along the way full of modern public sculptures, most un-Peru-like. The most famous of these is the "Park of Love", featuring a giant sculpture of a man and a woman embracing, surroundede by pretty mosaics. I noticed that all the municipal signs, asking people to keep the place tidy and so on, referred to "Miraflores"; as a concept, "Lima" was not in evidence.

The morning of the 19th I took a taxi to the airport and hopped on the Lan Chile flight to Quito, bound for adventures further north.

Trip to the Coast & Desert - Ica ...

The bus took a long time getting out a crowded Lima, and it was a good 4 1/2 hours before we rolled into Ica. I was pretty beat, so shelled out 25 soles for a comfortable hotel room with a private bathroom, and crashed hard (that's less than $12 NZD / $8 USD, by the way - Peru is cheap, you should visit!).

Next morning I did a bit of exploring round the centre of Ica, confirming my impression that in Peru what is known as "the coast" shares certain characteristics. Ica was as chaotic, dity and haphazard as Lima, though obviously on a much smaller scale (200,000 inhabitants). Three-wheeled taxis, similar to the model made famous by Mr Bean, dashed comically round the uneven streets, adding to the feeling of disorder.

This is the hottest part of South Peru - inland away from the cold sea, and at an altitude of only 500 metres. Still not as blazing as you'd expect at this latitude - only really hot between 10am and 5pm, and refreshing outside those hours. But enough to give the town a heavy, lazy feeling.

I visited the Vista Alegre bodega (vineyard) 5 minutes from the centre of Ica and was taken on a tour to see how they make the wine and pisco. It finished with an opportunity to taste the various products, and I was pleasantly surprised by the wine. I had formed the impression of Peruvian wines, perhaps with some prejudice, as being unsubtle and oversweet. A bit of sweetness is indeed unavoidable, given the lack of a real winter, but these wines were smooth, eminently drinkable, and swimming with aromas of herbs, fruits and spices. I would have bought a bottle, but it's pisco that is the most "typical" product of Ica, and so I opted to take a bottle of the classic Sol de Ica to present to Paola's family, with whom I was to spend Christmas dinner.

The charms of Ica central somewhat exhausted, I headed the 5km out to the oasis and tourist haven of Huacachina. A little pool fringed with palm and orange-flowered acacia trees, the oasis is surrounded by enormous sand dunes, which have become extremely popular for sandboarding - one of the things I had to tick off my tourist list. I didn't particularly like the vibe of the hostel where I stayed, though - it had a transient, slightly seedy feel, and I thought the young guys who ran the reception and travel agency were rather insolent. Yes, that's the word - sometimes I really think I'm getting *old*.

The next day it was off with a group of other palefaced tourists to go sandboarding on the dunes. The ride in the buggy was a bit of an adventure in itself, as we plunged vertically up and down the steep ridges and hollows. This is probably all kinds of disaster for any ecosystem exisiting in the dunes, but I put that out of my head like a good tourist.

The sanboarding itself was a bit of a laugh, the dunes high enough and the sand hard enough to get some speed going, but the boards didn't allow much manouvering and got sandlogged before reaching the bottom. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, with my few experiences snowboarding, I was one of the least incompetent, though still took plenty of tumbles on teh way down.

On the way out to Hucachina the taxi driver had told me about a local legend - the village of Cachiche and its "seven-headed palm tree". Cachiche is said to be the centre of witchcraft in Peru, and diabolical influences are responsible for the form of this particular palm, which has grown in twisted loops, repeatedly burying itself in the sand and sprouting another leafy crown. According to the legend, there was a local witch, who lived to th age of 106 and is supposed to have cured the stutter of a local boy who later became a congressman. On her death in 1987, she prophesied that when the seventh head of the plalm tree appeared, Ica would be wiped out.

In 1997 (an El Niño year) massive rains in the hills above Ica sent flood waters hurtling down the valley, breaking the banks of the river and burying Ica in a tide of mud. At this time, the villagers of Cachiche noticed that the seventh head of the palm tree had appeared and sprouted leaves. They quickly set to the task of cutting it off, at which point it stopped raining, and the flood waters ceased, just before they entered the village of Cachiche.

I decided to check out the story at first hand, and the next day dragged along an Israeli guy and English girl in my dorm room and took another taxi to Cachiche. Five minutes from the centre of Ica, it was a poor, sleepy looking collection of ramshackle houses and fruit trees with a few bored-looking people sitting around in the heat. We drove right up to the diabolical tree itself, and the taxi driver sought out a local woman to recite the legend in return for a small tip and a soft drink for her daughter.

Not everybody coincided in their account of the legend. According to the second taxi driver and the local woman, it hadn't been the "good witch" of 106 years who was responsible for the curse - she would never have done such a thing! In fact, the palm tree had historically been the centre for the ceremonies of the "bad witches", who had performed human sacrifices in return for knolwedge of the future. One of these witches, when she drew the short straw and was to be sacrificed, violently objected and placed the curse of the seventh head as she died. These days, she said, the villagers were always very careful to lop off the palm tree's seventh head the minute it showed signs of sprouting.

Meanwhile, just round the corner, was the meeting place of the "good witches". These were just "curanderas", we were told, who had practiced healing rites. The 106-year old had been one of these, and had cured the future congressman when he came to her as a 14 year-old boy with a crippling stutter. As a gesture of gratitude, he had a statue erected in her memory. It's a golden Art Nouveau nymphette with a head of curls. The good witch was said to have been something of a babe; she "bewitched with her beauty" according to the plaque on the statue.

Opposite the statue, where a local boy recited its history in return for a small tip, resided the current witch of Cachiche, a smiling man in his fourties doing a slow trade from his little store, sponsored in the bright yellow of Inka Kola. He offered to read our palms, but we instead opted for a couple of chilled Inka Kolas to quench the thirst.

The Ica regional musuem, which was supposed to be very good, was closed, so I cut my losses, grabbed my bags from the hstel in Huacachina, and jumped on a local bus headed for the two and a half hour ride through the desert to Nazca.

Trip to the coast - Lima...

It's summer in Lima. Remarkably for a city only a few degrees south of the equator, it spends eight months of the year shrouded by the garua, a thick coastal fog produced by the cold Humboldt current, and in winter the temperature hovers around 17-18 degrees. But by December a hazy sun has come out, the temperature is up to 25-26 degrees, and the high humidity makes the air thick and steamy on the streets.

The true extremes of Lima are supposed to be the leafy mansions of San Isidro and Miraflores, and the desperate poverty of the pueblos jovenes (shantytowns) on the rim of the city. But in the centre itself you can pass from tranquility to chaos within one block. In the area around the Plaza Mayor, the pedestrian mall on Jiron de la Union and the boardwalk along the Rimac river by the old railway station, Paola and I walked on clean, spacious pavements past splendid colonial buildings under the watchful eye of abundant police.

A couple of blocks away we crossed the avenida Abancay, officially the most polluted and noisiest street in the whole of Peru. Crowds of people hovered on the sidewalks waiting to dash across the avenue between the dilapidated minibuses belching clouds of smoke. We picked our way through the usual menagerie of sidewalk kiosks, street sellers, hawkers, beggers and thieves, only to be submerged in the pre-Christmas chaos of the barrio chino, where a human flood tide surged in all directions past shops and galleries filled with cheap jewellery and trinkets, and it wasn't clear who was buying and who was selling.

And we almost didn't even get there. With tickets booked for the 5:30 pm bus from Arequipa to Lima, I reluctantly took at face value Paola's promise that she would "pick me up from my place at 5:00 sharp" I had desisted from promising to pick her up, as I thought she didn't want her parents to know she was going to Lima with me. In fact, although she can't stay the night at my place, and I'm forbidden from ever going upstairs (where her bedroom is) when I visit her place, her mother had been told casually "I'm off to Lima with Simon". Complexities of Peruvian morality.

Although we were really supposed to *be at the bus terminal* by 5:00, I gritted my teeth (sometimes I think I'm turning into Dad) and accepted the 5:00 pm pick-up time, and was dutifully waiting by my front door at the indicated hour. At 5:10 I called Paola's cell phone. "You're already in the taxi, right?" I asked. "Yes, yes", I could hear her lying.

By 5:15 I was starting to sweat; I smoked two consecutive cigarettes pacing back and forth and checking the clock in the store by my front door. At 5:20 I phoned the desk of the bus company at the terminal and spoke to the guy we had bought the tickets off. "Can you make sure the bus waits for us?" I begged. We're, uh, having some problems with the taxi but we'll be there soon". The bus company guy winced. "Well, the bus has to leave at 5:35 sharp....where are you?". "In the centre" I replied. "Ufff" I could hear him shaking his head. I hung up after a couple more desperate supplications to wait for us.

By 5:25 I was renouncing any relationship that might ever have existed between Paola and I, rehearsing the last string of insults I would ever deliver to her, and readying myself to make a last desperate attempt to get to Lima by myself.

At 5:26 a taxi stopped by my place bearing a grinning Paola. "What are you trying to do to me, woman!" I blustered. "We'll never make it!"
"We'll be fine", Paola assured me. "It's only 5:20". After consultation of various timepieces and the radio, it did appear that my clock had been five minutes fast. But we still had to get to the bus station, normally at least ten minutes south of the city centre, through rush-hour traffic. I squirmed in my seat as we waited at traffic lights and urged the poor taxi driver to take any possible short cuts.

The taxi clock was reading 5:32 as we pulled up by the bus terminal. I grabbed all our bags and made a desperate rush for the terminal entrance and the Cromotex counter, Paola trailing in my wake. Fortunately the bus was still there on the tarmac and we were able to load our bags into the luggage compartment. But as we climbed aboard, the bus was already moving. We had made it by the absolute skin of our teeth.

I was still shaking a little as we pulled out of Arequipa, with the sky getting dark. Paola curled up in her seat and glanced up at me. "Everything alright, baby?" she asked innocently.

Once in Lima I was dragged into what seemed like *every single* clothing boutique on Jiron de la Unión and suffered in the non-airconditioned galeries of the barrio chino while Paola painstakingly inspected a huge variety of jewellery and other trinkets. But it was good to be there. Lima is everything Arequipa is not, or aspires not to be - humid, dirty, and chaotic - but it's good to get out of the provinces for a change. Lima is also one of the culinary capitals of the world, and the seafood in particular is delicious. We ate cebiche (chunks of raw fish marinated in chili, lemon and onions) in sidewalk cafes and enjoyed the warm air.

In between the shopping, we also made it to three different musuems - the Musuem of Popular (Folk) Art, an exhibition on "Women in Peruvian and Mexican Prehispanic Society" in the old railway station, and the Musuem of the Inquisition near the Congress building. This was my favourite - a historical tour through the building that housed the Lima branch of the Spanish Inquisition up until the 19th century. The same building later housed the Peruvian Senate, which was featured in the second half of the tour. This is one of those nice ironies which remind you you're in a country that doesn't make any sense.

We also made it to a silver workshop, and were given a guided tour through the process of forging the silver and making it into jewellery. Paola has ambitions of making and selling her own jewellery, in funky designs of silver and alpaca, so was keen to inspect the possible competition. But design wasn't the workshop's forte - mostly the rings, earrings etc were in predictable moulds for mass export consumption.

After two days, Paola had to go back to Arequipa on the 7pm bus. I had drifted into her time zone, and we suddenly found ourselves with 15 minutes to get from the hotel to the bus station - again through rush hour traffic. On hearing about our deadline, the taxi driver changed direction and threw us a blanket. "Put that over your backpacks" he said. "We'll have to go down Abancay".

On the way through the chaos of the avenida Abancay Paola and the driver swapped carjacking stories. Apparently Paola and a friend had once been attacked in a taxi in Lima; the assailants managed to leave her a nasty cut, but didn't actually take anything. "Yeah, they're usually half-drugged" said the taxi driver. "You know, the other week a guy tried to jump into the car when I was with a señora. He grabbed hold of the lady's purse, but I accelerated and shook him off onto the sidewalk. Then she goes mad at me, says I was in cahoots with the thief. Jesus, I just saved her from getting robbed! What thanks do I get?".

Welcome to Lima.

As it happened, we arrived to Cromotex terminal shortly after 7:00, and things were running on a more typical Peruvian schedule; people were still lining up to check their luggage. By now I had abandoned the idea of heading to the north of Peru; there wasn't time before Christmas, all the bus companies were raising their prices, and it would be hard to even get a seat in the last week before the 25th. Instead I said goodbye to Paola and wandered two doors down to the Flores terminal where I jumped on the first bus headed for Ica, three hours away in the desert south of Lima.

I saw this article on the Stuff website and would have to dispassionately say that this time they've got it right. Yes New Zealand is beautiful, but yes, it's also a bit boring and is not necessarily the best place to live, though a tourist will almost certainly have a good time.

It also inspires me, after having done a bit of travelling, to provide my own list of the best and most beautiful. I've still (hopefully) got a couple more countries up my sleeve in South America, so it'll be interesting to see if that changes anything.

Make comments!! On the website, rather than sending them to my email. That way other people can see what you've put too. Of course, I've never really been to Asia or Africa, so would be interested to hear comparisons from people who have, and have also done Europe/North America/Latin America like me (Paul Bryant, are you out there?).

Here goes:

Most beautiful country: Guatemala, by streets. New Zealand comes second, so I'm not being deliberately anti-patriotic! Guatemala, in addition to tremendous variety and constant beauty within a small space, has an undefinable feeling of magic.

Most livable country: Spain. To live somewhere, you want a combination of things: natural beauty, economic opportunity, security, friendliness, climate, vibrance, urban beauty, outdoor life, history and culture. Spain gets good ticks on most points.

Friendliest people: Argentina. This one surprised me, as I generally find travelling Argentinians a bit tiresome. But in the country itself - welcoming, educated, generally respectful, and with a touch of joie de vivre. And even paleface tourists like me get treated like normal people.

Most beautiful big city: Paris. Untouchable. Despite its awful outer ring.

Most beautiful medium-sized city: lots competing,and at this point beauty and liveability become intertwined. Some candidates are Venice, Italy; Seville, Spain; Wellington, New Zealand; Salta and Mendoza, Argentina; and Arequipa, Peru. Everywhere has its ups and downs - Venice is indescribably beautiful but very touristic - could you really live there? Wellington would win easily if it weren't for the climate and the lack of social life for 25-35 year old single people.

Most beautiful small town: La Antigua, Guatemala beats out Grenada, Spain. Volcanic cones and green hills hover over cobblestone streets and ruined baroque churches with red, purple and yellow bougainvillea climbing over the crumbled stone. The climate is delicious; at the end of the wet season you can sit under a moonlit sky and watch the lightning flashing in the hills.

Most liveable place: After much thought, London. But you *have* to have a good job and the ability to escape on holidays to the continent. I'd need to spend much more time in New York and perhaps San Francisco to make the comparison. I like the saying "If you're tired of London, you're tired of life".

Ugliest place: A tie between Newark, New Jersey and Juliaca, Peru. Neither place is actually particularly poor, but seem to share a collective disgregard for the quality of life.

Of course, many of these opinions have been formed by fleeting visits or initial impressions, so I'd welcome corrections or disagreements.

News Brief from Peru - "Rebellion" in Andahuaylas...

Don't know if any of this has filtered through to the ourside world - it was on CNN en español, but hadn't been picked up by the AP...some of you might find it interesting anyway....

While we were sunning ourselves and eating the world's best olives in warm, tranquil Arica over New Year, a group of young army reservists led by a former Peruvian army major and aspiring politician Antauro Humala took over a police station in Andahuaylas, between Ayacucho and Cusco, and 832 km southeast of Lima. Four police officers were killed by the group, who espouse an ideology called "etnocacerism" and demanded the resignation of Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo.

The rebels had originally planned to attack two army bases near Andahuaylas, but on discovering that the bases were on alert, opted for the police station, which was unguarded but held a substantial store of arms. The takeover was apparently achieved without a shot being fired, but the four officers were killed later when they tried to approach the station.

A standoff followed as the rebels held 17 police officers hostage and Peruvian police and army units surrounded the area. Crowds of people gathered in the streets, largely in support of the rebels, and formed barricades near the police station, blocking the approaches. Meanwhile, mediation efforts were underway, led by the Ombudsman's office and the parish priest.

Antauro Humala is being depicted by the national papers as something of a charlatan and an opportunist. His brother, Ollanta Humala, has been a military attache in France and South Korea and is supposed to have been behind some shady events including a "staged" uprising in 2000. Antauro at one point received 6% in a presidential poll but has recently dropped out of view, and it's being said that the events in Andahuaylas are an attempt to gain political attention and leverage.

The Etnocaceristas are described as having an "ultranationalist" ideology. From what I can make out, it's a crude mix of indigenous resentment, and xenophobia directed in particular at Chile and the United States. "Etno" is "ethno", and "cacerista" comes from Andrés A. Cáceres, a Peruvian hero of the 1879-1883 war against Chile. (see the full translated newswire article below). Of course, Humala is not himslef indigenous, and was educated in the Franco-Peruvian college. Unsurprisingly, his main adherents are young, little educated, unemployed men.

Early afternoon yesterday (3 Jan), after negotations had broken down a couple of times and various incidents had left one of the rebels dead, Humala gave himself up, along with 50 of his comrades, in the municipality of Andahuaylas. Other reservists remained barricaded in the police station with the hostages until this morning, when they also gave themselves up.

The whole episode was brief and seemingly pointless, but worrying, in that it presents a precedent and model for other groups to vent their frustration or make a name for themselves. It's hardly the best thing for Peru.

Meanwhile in Arequipa...

The events in Andahuaylas had also triggered off unrest in other regions of Peru. We arrived back here yesterday a little past midnight and this morning the streets were tranquil, giving no indication of the events of yesterday. I was updated by the girls at the agencia and the newspaper, accordng to whom things had gotten a little ugly. Three thousand protesters and a handful of members of the etnocacerist movement gathered in the centre of the city around the plaza de armas. The rowdy protests got a bit out of hand when news came through that in Andahuaylas Humala had reneged on a previous decision to surrender.

In a fit of excitement and jubilation, the protesters started ripping up stones from the plaza and forming barricades. The police responded by dispersing the crowd with tear-gas bombs. According to the paper, the worst-affected were children and old people who happened to be passing through the area at the time, and suffered breathing problems. There were seven arrests made.

La Republica reported that "tourism shouldn't be affected" by the incidents, as it was all over fairly quickly. I can make an assurance to the contrary, however. Prior to going to Arica, Tessy and I had responded to a request from an agency in Cuzco who had 14 tourists wanting to do four days in Arequipa. We put together a programme, worked out a budget and provided the programme and proposed price to the Cuzco agency. On my arrival back here Lizbeth informed me that the tourists had accepted and were all set to come. However, news of the disturbances in Arequipa filtered through to them and, anxious for their security, they decided to cancel. Instead they will be heading for Bolivia. That's a loss of what would have been a considerable earning for our agency, not to mention the about $3200 cash that it now not going to be spent in Peru. You hardly need the tear gas to make you want to cry...


Some Background...

This is quite interesting. I've translated it directly from the online news service.

Lima, 4 Jan (EFE).- Antauro Humala, leader of the ultranationalist movement "Etnocacerista", which took over a police station in the Peruvian city of Andahuaylasm, told EFE, hours before being arrested, that he compares his actions with those of the presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and of Ecuador, Lucio Guitiérrez.

Humala indicated in a telephone conversation with EFE that the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan presidents, who led military coups in their respective countries before governing them, "represent a generation of officers who seek to stamp out the corruption of the military class stemming from the School of the Americas in Panama controlled by Washington".

While denying that his uprising has electoral ends, Huamla noted that "we are officers of medium rank who want to put an end to the moral collapse of the old generation of soldiers in Latin America who are linked to narcotrafficking and other war crimes".

The retired major and leader of the ultranationalist movement "Etnocacerista", who defends executions as an effective method to get rid of corrupt politicians, said that he acknowledged that Chavez "has revolutionary and historic merit, because he stands firm against the pressures of the United States".

Commenting on the issue, the ex-minister of the Interior Fernando Rospigliosi said that "Humala wants to imitate the spectacular actions of other Latin American military officers like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador, who made coup attempts which catapulted them to popularity and ended up winnign elections".

Peru began the year 2005 shaken by the takeover of a police station in Andahuaylas (832 km from Lima) by some 150 members of the ultranationalist movement "Etnocacerista", who took control of a large stock of arms, held 17 police hostage and killed four.

Antauro Humala indicated that the uprising was intended to demand the resignation of the Peruvian president, Alejandro Toledo, who has a 9% approval rating according to the latest polls.

Regarding the date of the rebellion, which coincides with the Cuban revolutionary victory in 1959 and that of the "zapatistas" in Mexico in 1994, Antauro Humala acknowedged that he chose the date "because we knew we would find the police unprepared after the New Year festivities"

Humala, who may face charges for the rebellion that imply an average of 25 years in prison, revealed that he chose Andahuaylas to begin his rebellion because "in Peruvian history it was the epicentre of the rebellion by the Chanca culture against the Incas (13th century) and the peasant army which liberated Lima from the Chileans was formed in 1883".

He emphasized that he is "afraid of death" but that he "has spiritual peace which allows his participation in this historic movement which has already achieved its revolutionary task".

According to unofficial figures, the followers of Humala in the marginal zones of Lima, Ayacucho, Tacna, Moquegua, Arequipa, Puno and Apurimac reach 4,000 persons, who are mainly youth with few resources, little education and without any possibility of finding employment.

"Etnocacerismo" takes its name from the marshall and ex-president of Peru Andrés A. Cáceres, hero of the war against Chile (1879-1883), and feeds on xenophobia againstChile, the United Sates and Israel with a discourse which uses the terms of indigenous complaints and demands.

The chief "etnocacerista", a retired major, and his brother, Ollanta Humala, a retired commandant, took part in 2000 in an uprising against the president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who quit the presidency of the Peru in that year in the midst of accusations of corruption.