I have a .22 in my room. Kitten is cute and full of fleas.Day 1: Starting at 7 we went to move cattle. I felt mostly useless, but I think the little bits that I helped made it a lot more efficient (not thanks to my obvious genius, it was just the situation). Estela was on the horse, I was in the ute. She just called her “chicas” at the start “Venga! Venga! Venga!” and 61 out of 84 eventually turned up and went in the place they were supposed to. Then we looked around for the others. If they had wanted to continue hiding, they easily could have done. Lucky she has obedient cattle. We then checked some fences. The electric fences were solar powered. I remember at home that if anything touched the electric fences, like branches or tall grass, it was a problem. During study, the physics behind this was learnt. After “checking” about a kilometre of fence through the bush, we got to a bit where the “wire” (which was actually that very thing wire/plastic combination that is used for temporary fencing) was broken and Estela wouldn't touch it because she thought it might still be live. I know this seems like I'm taking the piss out of someone for not knowing about how electricity works, but really I just thought she would know from experience that it wouldn't be live at that point. Day was done by 11.30am then made lunch, siesta, reading etc. (during mad storms) dinner then bed. Day 2: Didn't need to be up so early but was anyway. Went to town to shop and tried to get a sim working for me but apparently I should have registered my device upon entry for a prepaid local sim to work. Who even does that? But because I didn't know that I bought the sim anyway. Waste of money. Then lunch, then siesta, then the vet came so we rounded up some sheep and cattle. The vet did something with the e-tags of the cattle. We inoculated the sheep and drenched them, using inferior systems. The way we drenched at home was with a backpack full of drench with a tube coming out the bottom so one person could do the job alone reasonable easily. Here we put the drench gun into the bottle of drench, sucked up say 100mL, then it came out in 5mL doses so it was squirted four times in the mouth of each sheep. It had to be reloaded every two sheep. Ridiculously time consuming. The inoculation was similar, but only needed to be reloaded every eight sheep and as the capacity of the race was about 15 sheep, this wasn't so annoying. The yards were well designed. A curved race gets the sheep to run better, but drafting them at the end was somewhat exciting, especially using a heavy comma metal gate. We didn't finish until about 8pm and it was dark. Weirdly I'm fine with being hungry when doing farm work. Pavlov's dogs and all that. Another thing like that, when I was growing up, dad would always listen to 80s and 90s music and now, here, on the farm, they listen to exactly the same music. I'm beginning to think that maybe farmers will always listen to that music. Maybe they always have since the Agricultural Revolution! Day 3: Started work at 7.30am and until 11.30am, all we did was move cattle about 10km down the road. All I needed to do was drive the ute in front. Estela's dad was with me. He old. He would keep telling me to stop so he could put up string and close gates on the side of the road so the cattle wouldn't go in there, but the cattle just caught up with us and Estela would yell at him and he'd slowly walk back to the ute, then we'd get to the next one and he'd do the same thing. At one point I asked if it was really a good idea and he was totally sure it was. The same thing just happened. The cattle didn't even want to go in the other paddocks. Poor old fella. This afternoon I put the kitchen in order. They live like they've just moved out of home and don't know that finding things easily generally requires them being put back somewhere vaguely sensible. There should be a place for everything and everything in it's place. Sanj taught me that. The food is pretty average. I've done all the cooking so far. So you could blame me. Ingredients are not amazing though. Frozen hamburgers? No herbs or spices? Come on. Plenty of fruit which is great. I would like beans though. The last workaway had so many beans and lentils, and I recently learnt that beans are key to having a long life. People in the blue zones all eat beans. Rewind: I can't remember where I left off last time. Shit, gotta check the chicken. It's ok. I'm so hungry. Anyway, I was in Buenos Aires for a few days with Mariana with whom I've been Couchsurfing while I was there. We went to her cousin's place for NYE which was fun. Great asado, great wine, great scotch, great company. We had a good few days there, didn't do anything crazy which was nice. Then I got the boat across to Uruguay, didn't register my device at customs, got a bus up to Cardona, then was picked up by Estela there. Day 8: Holy wow, where have the days gone? I checked my phone the other day wondering if it was Thursday or Friday and it was Saturday. Crazy. Thing that have happened in the past five days include normal farm stuff, me getting incredibly frustrated with the volume (amount and power level) of speech coming from my Workaway and the lack of logic in most of what she does. “Bring me another thing like that from the shed” pointing to a plastic drum. I look in the shed, there are no plastic drums there. I say “Like that?” and point to the drum and make a drum shape in front of me with my hands. She says yes, I say there isn't one there. She looks at me like I'm stupid then walks into the shed and comes back with a bag of wheat. Dafuq? Anyway, Estela and her dad have gone to the beach for the week. They left yesterday (Sunday). The day before we went to town for supplies for me for the week. I bought a bunch of stuff, probably just enough, didn't want her spending heaps of money (money is tight, but it's fine). By the time they left on Sunday, they'd eaten most of the bananas I got, and they took with them most of the oats and a 5kg tub of honey. That doesn't make any sense. So I'm here by myself looking after the plants and animals which takes about 15 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. It's so hot. So far I've finished one book, watched the remaining movies on my laptop (Southpaw is a terrible movie). I think I'm going to try the gun. Fast ForwardI'm in Montevideo.
I tried the gun, it worked, it was fun. The lamb died. The water ran out. I got really bored. I read another book. I eventually looked up the visa requirements for Brazil, thinking that it would be similar to Argentina in that I would need to pay money and print a thing out, but as it happens I needed to visit the consulate (according to the website). So I fully changed my plans, left the next day to come to Montevideo to do the visa thing. Visa requirements include a ticket in to and out of Brazil, which is stupid by the way because there are so many people who don't plan that far in advance. I was going to book a bus in and out, but I couldn't use my bank card because it wasn't a local on, instead I had to pay a third party but that didn't work either so I ended up booking a flight with a rubbish cancellation policy so I'll end up losing at least $150 on top of the $65 that the visa costs. Also the lady at the consulate said it takes a few minutes to do but regulation requires a five day wait starting the following day. This was on Wednesday and I have a flight next Wednesday from Porto Alegre which is already in Brazil which I won't be able to make if my visa arrives on Wednesday. Also, considering all this rigidity, it becomes even more ridiculous because only people from the US, Canada, Australia and very few other places require visas like this from Brazil. To add to that, nobody needs a visa like this for the second half of this year because of the Olympics. So they really don't give a shit, they are just getting at certain countries because those countries have strict visa policies for them. I understand that, but I don't agree with it. What I would do is say Australians can come without stupid visa requirements for 90 days, then in two years, see if Australia has changed it's policy for people from Brazil and if they haven't, say it costs something stupid like $5000 to get in, or just ban Australians completely. Because why do we have such strict requirements? And maybe the worst thing is that apparently at Iguazu Falls you can get your visa processed in only one day. It's on the border and the website specifically says you can't just turn up and get a visa, but apparently you can. So stupid. So now I'm just waiting in Montevideo for the visa people to do something super easy which will save me hundreds of dollars and much time on a bus.
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I happened to be looking through one of the two little books that I've been writing it on and off since departing Australia on February the 13th, 2012. I found one entry from about a month ago and one from about 16 months ago. I can't believe how much has changed in my head in that time.. Montpellier to CondomHere's something I found in my journal from the time I moved from Montpellier to Condom on my 50 euro rubbish bike with all my worldly belongings tied to the rack. Sunday 27th Set out from MTP at 6.45am, couldn't even get the bike down the stairs without Boris' help. The first bit I kinda knew and it was OK, chatted to an old guy for a bit (he was from Sété). Google sent me on dirt roads over farms so I switched to car mode. I stopped in Beziers for a snack, then in Montady for lunch. They were having a tapas extravaganza. Got to a place with 51km to go and broke down. Knocked on a door and the guy (Belgian, Michel) sat me down, handed me a beer and we watched the end of the Budapest F1. Riccardo won. Then he drove me to Carcassone where I met Laurent. Laurent was anorexic and weird, but nice. His apartment smelt like cat piss. Slept on boxes on the floor. Was exhausted. If my bike didn't break down, I may have done. Monday 28th Bike shops shut, went out to Decathlonand bought a new wheel and inner tube of 35 euro total. Put it on and cycled to Mélissa's place. It was huge. So was Roger the rabbit, and the cat. Mélissa was incredibly attractive. Two of her friends were in the Algeria plane crash so everyone was pretty devo. Her housemate (Julie) had her parent visiting from Lyon. It rained a bit so I was glad I wasn't riding. Mélissa and I walked around for a bit, then painted some signs for Julie's organic food festival. Had a cheesy mash thing for dinner. Tuesday 29th Set out at 7.45am and stuck to the car route for a bit. Was in Castelnaudry for lunch at 10.30 and ate ½ baguette and a whole roast chicken. Not long after I started up again, I switched to the trail along the Canal du Midi. At first it was dirt but soon was paved and great for riding. Wednesday 30th – Thursday 31st Stayed with Charlotte, we banged on the second night, Toulouse is great, ate delicious food. Friday 1st Rode along the canal, it was great. Once I left it was OK, rack then broke in a thunderstorm, got a lift with a guy with a name like Karim or something. He took me to his place 4km down the road then decided to take me all the way to the workaway place another 30km away. Saturday 2nd These people are so negative. Caroline is always complaining, Paul earns minimum wage (that's what it works out to be) and his business plan is terrible. I mowed grass and scraped a driveway. Hard work and for around 7 hours. They complain about money, I really think there is no chance of me getting paid ever. Tomorrow I will look for new work. They watch TV and movies all the time. The negativity really gets to me. Torres del Paine againHere's a much more recent one I totally forgot that I wrote in my diary while I was in Torres del Paine National Park. Thursday Sitting in Camp Italiano listening to the periodic cracking of a distant glacier seems like a perfect time to write. It's night two of Torres del Paine “W” circuit. I mainly can't be bothered describing my experiences and how I've felt for the last few days. Nothing special. Coffee doesn't make you pee more. There are many bugs trying to drink me. Photos in presumably the following section will prompt memories of my positive experiences. All I have to say now is how much better bushwalking and camping is in Australia. Also I'm not in walking shape AT ALL!!! Sore. Lucky I love my shoes. I want to “speed date” everyone here to find out if anyone is interested in the same stuff as me. I don't want to start a conversation with only one person randomly, just in case they suck. Interestingly there are a lot of people from the US here. This makes me like people from the US more. I think I'm looking forward to the next Workaway already. Mark sounds great. There are people here that I would probably enjoy socialising with but I kind of can't be bothered because what is there to gain? This is a terrible attitude, I know. I think I'm sick of the shit same questions. 1. Where are you from? 2.How long are you travelling for? 3. Where are you going next? 4. Chk chk…. Saturday I need to stop ranting about Elon Musk and going to Mars. I need to stop ranting about me and my shit. Anyone who knows me knows this, but I just prefer to talk about that stuff than most other stuff. New rule: don't mention Musk or anything WBW related unless asked until I meet Mark near Buenos Aires. I need to find some questions which illicit interesting replies from boring people. Anyway, we just set up camp at the base of Torres del Paine. We'll head up in ten minutes because the weather tomorrow is supposed to be rubbish. Getting up early will still be worth it. I'm not sure if this post should be a description of events during this adventure or of insights. Nothing profound is bursting forth, so description it is. I'm getting in to “Panic Switch” by Silversun Pickups lately for some reason. I wish I had my Kindle. There aren't too many opportunities to read, but it would be great at times. ReflectionsFrance
1. I literally (literally) feel like this was five years ago. Since then I've lived in Melbourne, cycled around Europe and bussed around the large island of South America. I can't believe it's only been 16 months (it was the end of August I think). 2. At the Workaway I stuck it out for I think three weeks, then booked a flight home to save money for my cycling trip in Melbourne. Torres del Paine 1. There were plenty of interesting people I could have met. The Germans, Daniel, Tom, the Australia med/law students from Sydney, one of whom was in to AI stuff. 2. I'm full narcissist sometimes right? I find most people interesting for their perspective. I guess I was tired when I wrote that bit, but I also am like that fairly often. 3. What a lesson I learnt with Mark!! |
Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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