Last night, I met the McPoylesWell, well, well. I'm on a farm to the west of Buenos Aires and there are a few things happening here which I imagine are of little interest to anyone, last night I was introduced to the “Twelve Tribes” religion. I realise that this description might seem offensive, but I'll try to keep it to objective observations only. I really wasn't sure what to expect. I heard there was a lot of dancing and no drinking, but great food. As we (four other workawayers split in to two couples and Mark, the erratic/paranoid/insane guy running the show) walked up towards the building I was surprised by how nice it was, considering it is in a fairly shitty area. As soon I passed through the doorway I felt like I was transported to the world of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There in front of me was the entire family group of the McPoyles. Monobrows. Hair tied back. Grey headbands. Fairly uniformly dressed, in a style you might expect to see in southern US sixty years ago. OK, so I came back to finish this and it sounds like a slightly uncool kid picking on a super uncool kid at school. The end of the story is basically that they mostly have a great outlook on how people should behave, being generous and kind and helping people out, they danced A LOT and were really welcoming, but it was super weird that they are working towards God returning to earth in 55 years so they need to prepare for him. Also they are racist AF, dividing people in to white, black and yellow. Apparently black people loved to serve. I found out about this the following morning which was probably for the best. RewindFrom El Chalten I caught a bus back to El Calafate, couchsurfed a night with a rad overworked dude who told me the WiFi passwords for the airport and gave me essential tips for my movement to the farm. I told him how my workaway host said to get to his place and as I revealed each new part of the plan he laughed ever more drily and finally confirmed that there is no way I should be in those places at night (flight landed 1910). Thanks new workaway host. I found a place to couchsurf in BA and the next day got to the farm. Mark, the host, wasn't to be seen all day because he was hungover from the night before. Not the best first impression. Especially because everyone was telling me about how much of a dick he is and how he was calling them all ignorant idiots when he was drunk. He didn't sound like the kind of guy it's nice to hang out with. Eventually I met him and he's the kind of guy that buys in to every conspiracy theory there is, preaches what he perceives as the truth and anyone who thinks different is an idiot (sound familiar?) and he only a weak grip on reality (often seemed to forget entire days, maybe it could be all the weed you smoke mate). The work generally has been building a storm protection system for parts of the garden, making concrete for the foundation for the new house, building an adobe fireplace and general gardening. Mark is hard to deal with because he'll say one thing and do another and he'll try to join in on what we are doing perfectly well and changing it to be his way until eventually he sees it won't work and he goes back to what we were doing initially as if it was his original idea. He uses flowery language to impress and confuse people, but doesn't seem to know what the words mean and has no real logical thought. That said, a lot of what he said about certain governments being corrupt and counterproductive resonated with me, he always wanted to pick a fight and find something that I thought that was counter to his narrative so he could tell me how wrong I am. For instance he believes that we are devolving from a higher species rather than evolving. Trying to have a logical conversation with someone who can accept that as a legitimate point of view is not possible. You can read my workaway review here (if I remember to come back and put the link in). One brief example of him not actually understanding what he says, is him trying to show that evolution is made up by saying that "first law of thermodynamics, you can't get something from nothing". He then went on to say this shows that you can't get life from nowhere. I exploded in to a rant, overusing the term "ludicrous" as I am want to do, about the fact that life isn't special and everything we are made of is exactly the same as what a rock or the sea is made of, when you take it to the most elementary particles we are aware of. He accepted this, which was obviously a mistake (all he wanted to do was win the argument, he'd never change his opinion, so he should have at least flat out said I was wrong), and then went on to his next point. This acceptance shows he knows that doesn't know what he's on about. The language he uses is seriously impressive though. The redeeming factor here of course, was the company of some of the other workawayers. There was a French couple travelling in a van with their dog, Hyuki who were lots of fun. Aud, the female of the male-female relationship was one of the hardest working people I've worked with. I taught her and Martin some cricket which they weirdly seemed to enjoy. I'm sure they were just pretending. Bernie and Mary, an Irish couple who stayed for five weeks were funny and fun too. If they hadn't stayed as long as they did, I probably would have endeavoured to leave earlier. Now I'm in Buenos Aires until Sunday when I'll catch a bus to Cardona in Uruguay to work on an actual farm near there. There are sheep and cattle, but most importantly horses. For the unenlightened, horses are the most intelligent, most evil animals on the planet, and I think I'll be using them for transport.
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Just like the last post I can't really be bothered doing a description of all the things so this time I'm just going to annotate photos. It's Patagonia so enjoy. So many new desktop backgrounds to choose from. Punta ArenasBasketball courts in Punta Arenas. Don't miss the board, it'll go in to the sea and end up in Tasmania. On the long walk back to the hostel in Punta Arenas there was a cemetery. We went for a peek. Roast chicken. Dog. Reminded me a bit of the red train in Perth (Tasmania) which I used to play on, on the way to visit Nan and Pop in Campbelltown. Down by the water in Puerto Natales, one step closer to the National Park. T'was a nice sunset. We started on the second. Great conditions expected. The advice of “get on last to get off first” was spot on. Les Mis fans, this is the number, right? Or was it 34601? (I have since checked, it's 24601.) Ready to go! After the walk up to the first camp site, we set up the tent then walked on to some lookouts, one of which was across this bridge. Glacier Grey. The foray to the lookouts was much less busy than the road to the camp site from the catamaran. I had some time to relax and take timer shots. Apparently this guy is pretty rare. It's a red headed woodpecker. This fella wanted in on the tent action. He'd been kicked out of his home by the missus for drinking too much and always getting in late. I bought him a beer at the bar which cheered him up a bit. He wanted to get straight on his bin bag bitches to drive home, but a quick breath test showed he was over the limit. I didn't report it to the rangers. These flowers were interesting. I like the view from the top. The colour of the water was pretty beut. Bridges in the National Park ranged from ridiculously over-engineered to blatantly unsafe. This was in the middle of the range. This was near the second camp, Camp Italiano. The water was freezing. I spent a lot of time watching this mountain. On the way to the second camp. The amount of time you've spent watching a mountain waiting for a small avalanche will determine how much this photo means to you. EP, Yo and Robin. Walking along the blue lake on the third day. About twenty minutes before the camp site, there was a little beach with a beachfull of skipping rocks. Is this a photo of Tasmania which got mixed up in here? We will never know. The view from the second lookout in the Frances Valley. Jan chillin'. Looking back up the Frances Valley. Some switchbacks down to the lake. I miss switchbacks on my bike. Heading up the final part of the W. Outside the final camp. The Towers! Swim time. Pose time. GTFO time. Destroyed by a rampaging river. “Map made from recycled stone.” Interesting claim. Illing by the towers. Chilling by the towers. Huevo! Breakfast! This is an angry man on a snowmobile chasing a small animal which is about to have a wave crash on it's head. There is a cloud in the sky. Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas are both home to the most well fed street dogs in history. I left Morgan and EP in Chile and headed to El Chalten in Argentina. I couldn't book the bus to El Calafate because it was full, so I hitchhiked to the border, caught up with the bus and asked the driver if I could get on (he made me pay, but that's ok), which wasn't full. He took me to the junction towards El Chalten where I tried to hitchhike for an hour. I gave up and got a lift to El Calafate where I then paid for the bus. Met up with the Germans again. I made Henning spend so long to take this photo as I wanted it. Photo does no justice. This view of Mount Fitzroy was epic. The water here was much clearer and tastier than in Torres del Paine. Nearly as good as Tassie water. Beautiful clear lake. With a nice little beach. Looking back as the sun was setting. A view of El Chalten. Apparently during winters here there are only about 50 people who stay. Pretty epic place for a town.
Getting to Workaway29/11 – Flying to Punta Arenas It is a Sunday. I'm writing this on the plane. I would rather be reading about Tim Urban's experience in Japan then Iraq on the Wait But Why blog, but I haven't written anything for a while and this is some decent downtime. I'm looking out the window at mostly clouds, but occasionally through the clouds I glimpse glaciers ranging in size from barely visible to unfathomably large. Snow covered mountain tops peek out at the sun at various intervals. A plane just flew by in the opposite direction and there's no way it was commercial at the speed it was going. The crew just served sweet cake, dried fruits, beverages of varying temperature and even beer for those who asked. For free. You don't see that too often these days. So let's rewind a bit to my departure from Cusco. I got a bus to Arequipa (ten hours), then another bus to Tacna (seven hours, no toilet), then a taxi to Arica (one hour). Sup Chile. I met up with Morgan, took a shower and ate a whole, horrible pizza. The markets provided me with some ridiculously cheap produce with which to cook a dinner I didn't really need, then it was time to jump on the 28 hour bus to Santiago. It was the first bus which had enough space for me to fully extend my legs and in the end it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Morgan and I parted ways for a while, her to Jack's house, myself to the west of Santiago to a new Workaway. I had decent instructions on how to get there and everything went to plan until the taxi driver from Curacavi didn't really know where Fundo Lepe was so we just kept driving for a while and he dropped me off somewhere with a locked gate that it might have been but who knows and started his 17km journey back to Curacavi. I yelled a bit and eventually someone responded by approaching and speaking rapidly in Spanish. I pretty much said “Ken?” and was granted access. Within an hour I was picking lemons. That was Friday morning. The OthersI can't be bothered writing about all the things that happened, so I'll just write about the others. There were a lot of other workawayers. I don't want to write profiles for all of them because maybe that's too judgemental to be putting on the internet, but I'll put in a little story trying to capture something about them. Stories are real and require no speculation. If someone is offended by a true story about them, that really means they are offended by themselves. Right? Probably not. Anyway. Anna – Croatian/Australian. Loud. Opinionated. Perceptive. Favourite Anna moment was us trying to beat Ken down with his anti-vax, eugenics, conspiracy theory views on my second night over some vino. She was better at letting it go than me. Anna left on my first Tuesday. Julia – German. Friends with Anna. Had some good chats regarding AI and what happens if we stop being human. She was not in to the idea. Julia left on my first Monday. Francois – Patriarch of the Canadian family. Grew up speaking French and would relatively regularly mess up English sayings. Dana – Matriarch of the Canadian family. Provided a great motherly presence in terms of calling things as they were and trying to make things fair for everyone. Kenya – Canadian daughter, 11 years old. Great kid, good at maths. Seemed keen to do the tangle-tables I gave her. Also I loved her enthusiasm regarding Minecraft and getting the pool clean for her dad's birthday at all costs. Luca – Canadian son, nine years old. Also hooked in to some tangle-tables and loved Minecraft. Luca spent a while showing me his coin collection. I told him that he might live on Mars one day. The Canadian family left at the end of my first week. Ezgi – Turkish girl. My favourite (and first) Ezgi moment was bonding over how constantly loud Anna and Julia were whilst picking lemons. Ezgi left on my second Wednesday. Natasha – English girl. The first time we went to the river to jump off rocks, Natasha spent about an hour umming and ahhing and eventually walked back down. The look on her face the entire time was totes hilair. She was on a two week holiday from work in England. So why not come to Chile to work on a lemon farm. Natasha left at the end of my first week. German couple – I am totally blanking on names. They were German-level practical which was good at work. Everyone from here on arrived while I was there and remained when I left. Florian – Belgian guy. Florian arrived on my second day. He reminded me a bit of Benoit, a friend from Montpellier. We decided to get things done and build a greenhouse instead of pissing around with germination beds. Hopefully I'll meet up with him again in Rio. Elvira – Swedish girl. Elvira was quiet and if you're obnoxious and drill her with questions, very interesting. I enjoyed teasing her about how much fun fixing the irrigation is and trying to get her to say that she prefers one group of people over another. Arya – English guy. Serrrr funny. Reminds me of Godfrey. He was so high on life and just generally having a good time. Loves lighting fires, chainsawing, digging, picking lemons, exploring on bikes, making up songs, percussion, dressing up in outlandish clothing and pretending it's normal, declaring that every meal is the best meal he's ever eaten and me. I'll catch up with him in London fo sho. Becca – English girl. In a great relationship with Arya. Puts up with him and loves it. Didn't like me at first and for some reason changed her mind after a while the fucking bitch (don't worry, that's an in-joke that only some people on this Workaway will get, very relevant to the blog in general obviously). Her assessments of Arya and telling of stories about their adventures were mint. The Workaway I'll be going to near Buenos Aires is one which they were at previously. Apparently I'll get on with Mark like a house on fire. Johanna – Austrian girl. Arrived on my first Wednesday. Rocking cool. Stayed up until 2am one night just chatting shit, mostly listening to me blabbing on about my Higher Being and The Fog and correcting me on stuff. I'd love to have had more time hanging out and travelling together. Ida Maria – Austrian girl. Travelling with Johanna. They've been friends for 20 years. These two hitch-hiked through most of Chile. Favourite moment was probably boxing (hard to pick, there were a few). She used to box Johanna's ex-boyf when they had too much pent up energy and frustration and since he wasn't there, I offered my services. I'm not sure who won. I still am sore. Lawrence – English guy. Looked like Russel Brand. Started crimping in the car at one point. Fairly quiet normally but any comments he made were funny. Favourite moment was one morning discovering that he still had both arms after a terrible dream in which he had an accident followed by an amputation to the shoulder followed by another accident. I guess I was projecting Huey's (the dog who had a front leg amputation) on to Lawrence. Terrible times. Molly – English girl. In a relationship with Lawrence. I got the feeling that she wasn't too keen on me at the start, but I think warmed to me. I need to work on first impressions. Maybe. I'll do a post about that. I didn't have many personal moments with Molly, except maybe the time I was in creep mode and started giving her a head massage in the car without warning, after noticing her disgust at me doing it to someone else. I'm not sure she loved it, but she understood. Anita – The mother of two Kiwi lads. The three of them have been travelling the world for the last 48 weeks after she sold her house. What a cool girl. So many stories about the stuff they've done. My favourite moment was probably when she arrived and started laying down the law about how disorganised things were. Nobody can get a crew in shape like a mum. Oh, and her story about Erriott on the boat. Elliott – Kiwi lad, 25. Son of Anita. Tall, tanned, dreamy blue eyes, great body and amazing smile. We threw poo at each other one time. Reid – Kiwi lad, 16. Son of Anita. If I were to guess his age I would have said 19 or 20. Crazy grown up for a kid, but I guess travelling the world for a year at that age you would be. I just wondered for the first time if he just quit his formal education or what the deal was there. Spent the entire time with a shard of glass in his foot. Ripped out some great shakes for everyone and once cooked me some eggs. Ida – Swedish girl. Friends with Elvira. Well, they met on a travel website for Swedish people which apparently exists and they met for the first time at this Workaway. Generally quite but when she spoke she swore a lot. Wasn't weirded out by things which would often weird people out. I popped a pimple on her back without warning one time, and she just said thanks like it was normal. I understand that she didn't have the weirdest role in that story. Josh – Aussie guy. Didn't have his luggage for the first five days he was there. Honest, straight up guy, fairly typical Aussie who has travelled a bit and sees the bigger picture. We had fun building the greenhouse, combining to make one builder's brain. Jaela – Aussie girl. In a relationship with Josh. Also didn't have luggage for five days. Bit of a tomboy, which was awesome. One of the lads, practical, didn't take any shit. Great cook. Made popcorn and made my day. Anne – French girl. Currently living in French Guyana. Very chilled and open. Loved getting around the fire with the ukulele and ripping some tunes. Also joined us on the building site for the last day to help get things done. Juan – Argentinian guy. Boyfriend of Ann. Made me realise that everyone's story is amazing. Also is hooking me up with a scuba tank filling for scuba course deal. Jodi – Hawaiian girl. Very outgoing, liked to get involved. Didn't take any shit and spoke her mind. I thought she was a bit precious because was coming to the river but not to swim, then she saw the fun everyone was having and just jumped in with her clothes on. Jumped from the high rock too. Ken is the guy that was running the place and you could call Ian his deputy. Their professional relationship was interesting. I think I got along well with them both, but I'm not sure. Ian was like a wise but spoilt child trapped in a man's body. A whole lot of shit went down last year and earlier this year involving fraud and cheating and hostile occupation of the property and theft. If it wasn't for that, the whole place would be a fully functioning lemon farm, organic farm and place people could move to on top of their own little hill. I feel bad for Ken that it's not the case, but I'm sure he'll get it back to better than it would have been.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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