Bitten by a dog but not yet foaming

In Ecuador, Vilcabamba and decided to do a bit of a hike up into the mountains to a deserted lodge. We pick up the key from a french lady who owns a cafe in town and bump into a strange jack the lad cockney who raves about medicinal ceremonies and can hardly speak he´s so mashed, he has told the locals he won the lottery … obviously a bank robber.  Anyhow, 45 mins into the hike and we are lost. We already had to take our shoes off to cross a river and then found our way in someones banana plantation. I lead the way through this farmers land and I saw a house between the trees. As I approached, the family who were sat around the dinner table, got up quickly to see who was approaching unexpectedly. This must have sent a signal to the fit but friendly looking dog on the porch. I made eye contact with the family and began a warm and apologetic greeting still moving towards them and in that moment the dog lurched forward biting hard and proper through my shorts into my thigh only a few inches away from the “crown jewels.”

It happened in a split second but the son of the family raced out kicking the dog in the ribs to warn it off. Needless to say we got some directions to the nearest road and the family were extremely helpful. The dog was a muscular fit looking thing, plus I already had some rabies jabs so it was on with the walk and a cracking night on top of a mountain. The bite was as sore as hell for a week but no foaming at the mouth…yet!

(check out the beard)

At the start of this journey in South America I bought an electro classical guitar in The capital of Ecuador, Quito, so I could do some gigs and some writing on my travels. I got to Cusco in Peru last week and I found a shop call Yea Yea Maracuyea which had some psychadelic Incan paintings on the walls outside and thought I wouldnt mind avin a paintjob on the guitar in a similar style. I went in and got a number for the artist (Cesar) who lives outside Cusco to call him and enquire. Now considering my spanish is fairly poor and this chap doesnt speak English plus I didnt really know exactly what I wanted painting, I needed to ask about the possibility of dropping the guitar into the shop and him doing a job on it for me (I was heading off to the mountains for a few days to check out the lost incan city of Machu Picchu)…. imagine the conversation… We spoke for a while, or should I say I bumbled down the phone AT him and at some point we connected, so I said hasta pronto and dropped the guitar off. Machu Picchu was incredible but I was just as buzzing to see my guitar when I picked it up. The design is based on different energies and Nazca pre-incan designs. He gave me a wonderful explanation of how the flows of the painting relate to a spiritual balance and some other stuff I couldnt quite follow but that sounded poetic!

(Me and Cesar)

We met some cool people in Cusco including Silvia from New York who took me for my first Yoga lesson which was really cool. Also had a mad night on “special” chocolate giggling like girls and bumbling round the streets with Monette from darn sarf and Dorota from Poland. I just finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and there were parts of the evening which reminded me of it…

After Cusco, took a bus to Puno and saw some floating reed islands and then headed to cross the border.

Currently am in La Paz in Bolivia. Its so cheap. Bought a Kitsch casio gold calculator watch and had a look at the Llama feotuses at the witches market. Most people on the Gringo trail here are all heading to ride ”The road of death” which is a bike ride on a very thin gravelly road cut into the side of a sheer mountain with a phenomenally dangerous drop on one side. It sounds cool but its essentially a tick in the box, is uber touristy and that just makes my skin crawl a bit. A mint alternative which me and John Watson did, is a full day mountain biking some of the toughest single track in the world with Gravity MTB tours (ridden by world champion Cedric Garcia) and it was unbelievable. Although I fell off and did a back slide over some rocks, luckily this time I didnt shatter anything or need a helicopter ride to hospital (those who know me will remember). To top it off we went to see Kubrick´s “The Shining” (albeit with spanish subtitles) at Cinematica Boliviana. Jack Nicholson plays  the best nutjob.

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