Two turtle doves

it was brown with streaks of white and it smelt nasty... but it would I suppose... being bird shit. Until yesterday I was able to stand up and say with pride that I had never been shat on by a bird... and then what happened: in one day I was shat on twice! TWICE IN ONE DAY... what are the chances... I go my whole life blissfully spared from avian air-raids and then the little fuckers gang up on me and bombard my hair and shoulder in the same day.

Anyway, according to some heads in the hostel, being shat on is good luck and being shat on twice in one day should be considered a sign of something big and good coming my way... So I´ve got my eyes peeled for bundles of cash lying on the pavement although I don´t really adhere to all that black-cat-under-ladder sh1te.

Sooooo, guess what... I´m still waiting for my frickin´ visa... These Colombians are treating me with the utmost suspicion. You´d think they´d be used to Paddy and Swiss backpackers coming in for Visa´s (the only two backpackers that actually need one) but apparently not: they still think that we´re out to train the FARCs (the Paddies, I think they just don´t like the Swiss cos of their neutrality, banking and toblerone of course).

I do have something remotely interesting to report though. I went down to Pisco for a couple of days: a coastal town about four hours away from here surrounded by desert on the land side. It was interesting to see how the desert meets the sea in this part of the world... It makes for interesting formations such as pillars, sea stacks, arches and a plethora of caves. There´s also a group of islands down there called Las Islas Ballestas a.k.a. the Galapagos for poor people. (The Galapagos is far off the Ecuadorean coast and costs a small fortune to get to and do anything there, however its supposed to be a fairly unique habitat).

Aaaaaaanyway, we went on this boat trip around the islands and saw dolphins, sea lions, penguins and a piss-pot full of birds. Twas good craic. The highlight was that night though. My two travelling companions who had come from Lima with me split down south and as I was heading back to Lima, I decided to stay another night or two on my tod.

That night there was a bit of a fiesta going on in the main Plaza (de Armas). There was a parade with floats and salsa dancers and fireworks and brass bands and lots of other stuff. I met some cool Peruvians and we went to their bar afterwards (they owned it) and drank Pisco Sours (a common cocktail made from Pisco - the national spirit of Peru - although Chile claims it as its national spirit as well). Had a frickin´ great night and even managed long, political discussions with my Spanish... was v. proud!

So I´m still in Pisco and I´m just about to make my way back to Lima. I am hoping that I can start making my way to Bogota any day now.

In other news, I had my first experience of crime in South America the other day. I went to the beach here with some people from the hostel and we were lying there soaking in the rays, when these two punters sat down very close to us (too close for comfort on such a big empty beach). I stood up and was walking around our spot when another guy came over and started rabbiting horseshit to me about the beach being dangerous and that we should take care not to stand on broken glass. Everyone was looking at him while he rambled on and on. In the meantime the two muchachos who were sitting close to us took the opportunity to go through the pockets of my jeans which were beside my towel. Luckily enough, I hadn´t brought anything to the beach with me except for about 50 cents worth of small change, and he didn´t seem to think that that was worth his effort so they got away with nothing.

None of us had noticed this but as soon as they were gone some locals came over to us and told us that he had gone through my jeans while we weren´t looking. They appeared quite embarrassed by the antics of their compatriots so they invited us to play raquetball with them on the beach to show us that not all Peruvians were thieves. So in the end, we lost nothing and it helped us meet some locals who we had good craic with.

That was my first experience of crime here in South America, which isn´t too bad for six months of travel here in this "dangerous" part of the world. I felt a bit silly for not having noticed the weird combination of two lads sitting close to us and an obvious distraction, but because I had nothing of any value, i wasn´t really on my guard... I´ll know better for the next time.

Right, that's it for this edition of Conor´s (currently quite stationary)travels. Tune in soon for a Colombian special.

Pics of Pisco can be found here by the way and there are some pics of Lima here.

L8r amigos.