I am honoured to be able to use this sentence and mean it:
The bride rocked an American apparel lace catsuit. Her g-string and breasts clearly and gorgeously visible. A wrestling belt bisected her torso. Her Mohawk quivered gently as she shivered, teeth chattering in the brisk morning air of Bow.
Her groom stood tall in gold hi-tops, silver spandex legs topped with a white tux. A peach tutu swung about her as she turned to and fro, eyes sparkling at her guests. The sky - a perfect blue-bird blue - had dressed for the occasion. Even the sun had his hat on.
The wedding party made their rag-taggle way towards the registry office. A collection of gender-bending friends (their chosen families) and a confused pet - each carrying a single flower - whooped up Bromley High Street and onto Bow Road.
The staff at the Registry Office smirked.
We filed in to the serious room designed only for waiting, and decorated the stern furniture. The wedding attendant looked slightly nervous. The security guard merely laughed. It did look farcical but actually wasn’t. A universal feeling gripped the room.
Laughter bubbled up into each gullet, threatened to spill from each grinning mouth. The unanimous feeling was reflected on every face: wedding-happy grins smothered us all. Lucky – the ring-bearer and only sausage dog in the room – skipped happily from guest to guest as we awaited the call and we admired each others finery. ‘Nice wig!’ ‘Nice boa!’ ‘Nice tits!’
Periodically Lucky would grow frustrated, snapping at the pink bag attached to his back. The bag contained the ‘rings’ (or lockets, hastily purchased the day before at Spitalfields Market the bride confessed.) Each contained a lock of the others’ hair.
None of us could quite believe we were here.
The wedding attendant stepped finally into the waiting room and opened the double doors. “Will the guests please be seated.” Much guffawing and last-minute introductions, (“Hi hi, yes, I’m with the bride, nice to meet you too!”) and the party cleaved to people the chairs each side of the aisle.
Then, signalling time, the first bars of the wedding song chimed forth and everyone shut the hell up. Warren G’s ‘Regulate’ filled the room. We giggled and nodded our hip hop heads in approval.
“It was a clear black night, a clear white moon Warren G was on the streets, trying to consume…” and, on cue, the gaggle of chosen grooms-men, best men and maids of honour hotstepped smugly up the aisle.
The groom was waiting with tears in her eyes. Then in strutted the bride, bouquet in hand, Mohawk still quivering.
Vows were exchanged. Lockets were exchanged. Tears were shed. Photos snapped. The groom, laryngitis or party husky, said “I will.’ The bride acquiesced also. We cheered. Lucky howled, pleased as punch that his mistress had been made an honest woman.
A poem was read about wings carrying two souls and then we followed the bride into the garden where, grinning further still, she shivered under the perfect blue-bird sky and said, “Let’s go to the pub.”
The Bow Bells was the venue for the wedding breakfast: here platters of chips and two bottles of vintage cava were shared. Pool was played. Jokes were cracked. Arrangements were made for this party and many more. We had to bang on the door to get them to open up for us. “We’ve just got married!” the newly-weds gaily declare. “Happy new… I mean congratulations!” the barman said, wiping sleep from his eyes.
The past was a mirage we’d left far behind. And now they were married, joined together forever.
Showing posts with label awe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label awe. Show all posts
Monday, 9 January 2012
Thursday, 18 November 2010
The Quest To Machu Picchu
We are running through the night. Past open drains, feet smacking the rough downhill, the darkness full of backpacker zombies, stumbling blindly through town and groaning. Shouting for our group, this 4am halflight is all torches and confusion. We are all racing to the gates. A collection of the most hardened and ambitious lead the pack.
To get to Machu Picchu on foot one must climb over 2000 steps. A climb known as The Gringo Killer. The gate to the path opens at 4.45am. If you make the climb in under and hour you beat the first bus and guarantee yourself a stamp to climb Waynapichu - the famous peak pictured in all the Machu Picchu moneyshots. It´s all very competitive.
"It burns for the first 400" I hear. These steps aren´t normal steps, but jagged, uneven giant steps. We hit them running, still at the front of the pack. After 2 minutes I´m breathless.
As I climb I think of my friends. My family. Casting my mind into the wonderous pool of happy memories, plucking them out still breathing. I think of the birds, who are singing despite the soft sheet of rain. And of Yale University, who have some relics (mainly gold) which were taken from the site of Macchu Picchu and still have not been returned. Halfway up, (we imagine) and it feels as if i have been climbing steps for my entire life.
Thirty five minutes and we are at the top, soaked in rainwater and sweat, with twenty others already in the queue at the entrance to Machu Picchu - the Old Mountain.
The four days preceding this moment have been utterly amazing - some of the finest of my trip. Day one was mountain biking from 4000m to 1000m: through the freezing mist down into the jungle. The three day trek snaked through unbelievable mountains, hugging the cliffs, falling away hundreds of feet on one side to a river. One of our group suffers vertigo and had to crawl, not looking down. Bananas, mangoes, avacado and papaya grow in abundance in this lush landscape. The perfect day ends at the hot springs beside a raging river. Floating in the hot water and watching a storm roll in, huge drops falling on us as we loll in the massive bath.
That night we have no electricity and the storm drains are overflowing, splashing down the slick streets.
Our group has swelled to 21 people and the cameraderie is immense. A snake which stretches a mile or more as we trek along the riverbed. Finally we glimpse what we have been aiming for in the distance. And after hiking along the railway tracks singing Stand By Me and idly looking for bodies we reach the town at the base of the mountain.
2000 steps and a small piece of my soul later and I´m at the gates.
You see a thousand pictures of this place but nothing prepares you for what surrounds this mystical city. Impossibly steep, jagged cliffs shrouded in mist. A river snaking through the valley. And perched amidst it all is a ruin so perfect it has become the holy grail of Peru.
The rocks are placed so elegently you can not slide a piece of paper between them. One has 21 sides and fits snuggly into the wall like a jigsaw. So much beauty your eyes can scarcely comprehend.
The mountain towering above the ruins is Waynapichu and glowers down upon us all until we give in and scale the beast. The climb is amazing. Steps so steep you are climbing not walking. And crawling through a cave to reach the top, you are greeted with a stack of boulders precariously placed, gringos perched on each one grinning.
With all its shams, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
To get to Machu Picchu on foot one must climb over 2000 steps. A climb known as The Gringo Killer. The gate to the path opens at 4.45am. If you make the climb in under and hour you beat the first bus and guarantee yourself a stamp to climb Waynapichu - the famous peak pictured in all the Machu Picchu moneyshots. It´s all very competitive.
"It burns for the first 400" I hear. These steps aren´t normal steps, but jagged, uneven giant steps. We hit them running, still at the front of the pack. After 2 minutes I´m breathless.
As I climb I think of my friends. My family. Casting my mind into the wonderous pool of happy memories, plucking them out still breathing. I think of the birds, who are singing despite the soft sheet of rain. And of Yale University, who have some relics (mainly gold) which were taken from the site of Macchu Picchu and still have not been returned. Halfway up, (we imagine) and it feels as if i have been climbing steps for my entire life.
Thirty five minutes and we are at the top, soaked in rainwater and sweat, with twenty others already in the queue at the entrance to Machu Picchu - the Old Mountain.
The four days preceding this moment have been utterly amazing - some of the finest of my trip. Day one was mountain biking from 4000m to 1000m: through the freezing mist down into the jungle. The three day trek snaked through unbelievable mountains, hugging the cliffs, falling away hundreds of feet on one side to a river. One of our group suffers vertigo and had to crawl, not looking down. Bananas, mangoes, avacado and papaya grow in abundance in this lush landscape. The perfect day ends at the hot springs beside a raging river. Floating in the hot water and watching a storm roll in, huge drops falling on us as we loll in the massive bath.
That night we have no electricity and the storm drains are overflowing, splashing down the slick streets.
Our group has swelled to 21 people and the cameraderie is immense. A snake which stretches a mile or more as we trek along the riverbed. Finally we glimpse what we have been aiming for in the distance. And after hiking along the railway tracks singing Stand By Me and idly looking for bodies we reach the town at the base of the mountain.
2000 steps and a small piece of my soul later and I´m at the gates.
You see a thousand pictures of this place but nothing prepares you for what surrounds this mystical city. Impossibly steep, jagged cliffs shrouded in mist. A river snaking through the valley. And perched amidst it all is a ruin so perfect it has become the holy grail of Peru.
The rocks are placed so elegently you can not slide a piece of paper between them. One has 21 sides and fits snuggly into the wall like a jigsaw. So much beauty your eyes can scarcely comprehend.
The mountain towering above the ruins is Waynapichu and glowers down upon us all until we give in and scale the beast. The climb is amazing. Steps so steep you are climbing not walking. And crawling through a cave to reach the top, you are greeted with a stack of boulders precariously placed, gringos perched on each one grinning.
With all its shams, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Friday, 12 November 2010
The Great Big South American Ticklist
Be warned. The smugness of this post may make you sick.
The things we ticked off our lists, our great, ever-expanding, life-long lists, were plentiful. Whilst on the road, Andy Ellis and I:
* Ate the Steak of Our Lives in Argentina.
* Rode pillion on a motorbike in the biggest favela in Rio.
* Looked a Southern Right Whale squarely in the face and heard her mammoth inhalation as she filled her lungs.
* Went to a Brazilian rave in the country wilds of Sao Paulo.
* Sunk numerous caipirinhas on Copacobana Beach in Rio.
* Swam in the thermal waters of a hot volcanic spring.
* Breathed the sulphuric stench from a geyser in Bolivia.
* Got chased by llamas.
* Rode a horse into the red desert where Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid battled it out.
* Chewed coca leaves in Bolivia.
* Rode tipsily round the bodegas in Mendoza, sampling the wines.
* Felt the spray of the Iguassu Falls on our faces.
* Saw a Tango Show in Buenos Aires.
* Were robbed blind.
* Watched the sun rise over the Bolivian Salt Flats.
* Accidentally ate cow lung soup. (Big white hexagonal tissue which flails like coral in the hot liquid. Rising bile.)
* Dived into a glacial river.
* Saw smoke rising from two active volcanos.
* Slept in a hotel made entirely from salt.
* Cycled down the World´s Most Dangerous Road.
* Visited the world´s first cocaine bar.
* Crawled down a stifling silver mine in Potosi.
* Hiked through the Amazon rainforest by night.
* Watched the sunrise over Lake Titicaca.
* Survived a light aircraft flight over the Andes.
* Hiked through the jungle to Machu Pichu.
* Sandboarded screaming down the world´s biggest sand dunes.
* Ate a Mexican Christmas dinner in a palm fringed courtyard.
* Were battered by the waves in the Pacific as we played frisbee on Christmas day 2010.
* Had severe food poisoning thanks to a cup of unboiled tap water.
* Toasted marshmallows in an active volcano.
* Burnt effigies at a political rally in Honduras.
* Waded through a flooded Columbian barefoot.
* Got rained on everytime we visited the Caribbean.
* Veered too close to the crocodiles in a boat screaming with tourists.
* Traveled with a group of 11 of our best friends and siblings for Christmas and New Year.
* Missed home.
* Came home.
The things we ticked off our lists, our great, ever-expanding, life-long lists, were plentiful. Whilst on the road, Andy Ellis and I:
* Ate the Steak of Our Lives in Argentina.
* Rode pillion on a motorbike in the biggest favela in Rio.
* Looked a Southern Right Whale squarely in the face and heard her mammoth inhalation as she filled her lungs.
* Went to a Brazilian rave in the country wilds of Sao Paulo.
* Sunk numerous caipirinhas on Copacobana Beach in Rio.
* Swam in the thermal waters of a hot volcanic spring.
* Breathed the sulphuric stench from a geyser in Bolivia.
* Got chased by llamas.
* Rode a horse into the red desert where Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid battled it out.
* Chewed coca leaves in Bolivia.
* Rode tipsily round the bodegas in Mendoza, sampling the wines.
* Felt the spray of the Iguassu Falls on our faces.
* Saw a Tango Show in Buenos Aires.
* Were robbed blind.
* Watched the sun rise over the Bolivian Salt Flats.
* Accidentally ate cow lung soup. (Big white hexagonal tissue which flails like coral in the hot liquid. Rising bile.)
* Dived into a glacial river.
* Saw smoke rising from two active volcanos.
* Slept in a hotel made entirely from salt.
* Cycled down the World´s Most Dangerous Road.
* Visited the world´s first cocaine bar.
* Crawled down a stifling silver mine in Potosi.
* Hiked through the Amazon rainforest by night.
* Watched the sunrise over Lake Titicaca.
* Survived a light aircraft flight over the Andes.
* Hiked through the jungle to Machu Pichu.
* Sandboarded screaming down the world´s biggest sand dunes.
* Ate a Mexican Christmas dinner in a palm fringed courtyard.
* Were battered by the waves in the Pacific as we played frisbee on Christmas day 2010.
* Had severe food poisoning thanks to a cup of unboiled tap water.
* Toasted marshmallows in an active volcano.
* Burnt effigies at a political rally in Honduras.
* Waded through a flooded Columbian barefoot.
* Got rained on everytime we visited the Caribbean.
* Veered too close to the crocodiles in a boat screaming with tourists.
* Traveled with a group of 11 of our best friends and siblings for Christmas and New Year.
* Missed home.
* Came home.
Friday, 29 October 2010
Planet Bolivia
What to say.
Fresh off the back of a four day tour of the Bolivian wilderness. Fresh is the wrong word. I am anything but fresh. I now know what it truly means to slum it. Extreme changes from searing sun to below zero, air so thin you catch your breath getting in and out of a jeep. Stone beds, rationed electricity, 4am alarms, gobsmacking sunrises. Sweating in the odd boiling, but also freezing climate, the last four days have been a lesson in just how hard life can be if you are born in a country such as Bolivia. The villages we stay in are built mainly from mud and dry stone walls. They are accessed by a rubble strewn track suitable only for 4 wheel drive. They make their living swapping llamas for food. The nights are so cold the streams freeze. The days are so hot they only come out as the sun rises and falls. The llamas are fine whatever the weather.
Bolivia is literally like nothing I´ve ever seen. The landscapes are so extreme and changable it´s difficult to believe. Laguna Verde at the foot of a 5000m Volcano is actually gorgeously bright turquoise and green. Mineral deposits make it so. Laguna Hedionda (foul-smelling lake) is toxic and sulpher-saturated, black and oil-slick sticky. Laguna Colarada is bright red. All have robotic flamingos of varying pinks strutting through the shallows.
We approach a series of geysers emitting serious steam. Boiling mud belches from the centre of the universe. Such a hostile environment I have never seen. Chinchillas bounce around and we spot a sly young fox eating abandoned tourist crisps. Last night we slept in the Salt Hotel. A building made entirely from salt, we lick the walls and laugh, light-headed with altitude and beer. The majority of the tour has been conducted above 4000m. At one point we nearly reached 5000m. The pressure on my cranium keeps me awake. And the excitement.
This morning, after hooping while the sun rose on the pure white salt flats, we visit an island in the salt where many cacti grow. We met one that is over 1000 years old. The cracked salt plains are a lake bed that is 12000km squared. Pure white, further than the eye can see. So bright it hurts your eyes. It fills during rainy season to create a perfect mirror.
Our Bolivian arrival hinted at the harshness and extremity this country has to offer. Spewed off a bus at the 7am border, into the freezing blue light and headlong into a 2 hour wait because the officer didn´t like our emergency passports and their predictable lack of an entry stamp.
Once we are in, it´s all smiles, freshly squeezed oranges and women in bowler hats. Hilarious, wonderful, filthy cheap and no ATM´s. We jump on a bus which fortunately costs pence and i spend 3 hours with my sarong stuffed into my ears to bar the ´Casio keyboard on steriods´(Andy) from perforating my eardrums.
Tupiza. Bolivian wild west. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked it here. We mount two untrustworthy steeds and ride off into the red rocks through a canyon, one hand holding the sombreros, the other the reins. Pointless as the horses do whatever they like.
We are properly and securely into the groove. I don´t know or need to know what day it is. My most valued possesion is the Spanish i am collecting like hard-earned coins. I am amidst a continent i have dreamed of seeing for at least as long as I´ve known a certain boy. This dream has been running uninterrupted for nearly a decade. And now we are living it.
I apologise for my smugness. But I cannot contain this feeling. What it is to be ALIVE.
Fresh off the back of a four day tour of the Bolivian wilderness. Fresh is the wrong word. I am anything but fresh. I now know what it truly means to slum it. Extreme changes from searing sun to below zero, air so thin you catch your breath getting in and out of a jeep. Stone beds, rationed electricity, 4am alarms, gobsmacking sunrises. Sweating in the odd boiling, but also freezing climate, the last four days have been a lesson in just how hard life can be if you are born in a country such as Bolivia. The villages we stay in are built mainly from mud and dry stone walls. They are accessed by a rubble strewn track suitable only for 4 wheel drive. They make their living swapping llamas for food. The nights are so cold the streams freeze. The days are so hot they only come out as the sun rises and falls. The llamas are fine whatever the weather.
Bolivia is literally like nothing I´ve ever seen. The landscapes are so extreme and changable it´s difficult to believe. Laguna Verde at the foot of a 5000m Volcano is actually gorgeously bright turquoise and green. Mineral deposits make it so. Laguna Hedionda (foul-smelling lake) is toxic and sulpher-saturated, black and oil-slick sticky. Laguna Colarada is bright red. All have robotic flamingos of varying pinks strutting through the shallows.
We approach a series of geysers emitting serious steam. Boiling mud belches from the centre of the universe. Such a hostile environment I have never seen. Chinchillas bounce around and we spot a sly young fox eating abandoned tourist crisps. Last night we slept in the Salt Hotel. A building made entirely from salt, we lick the walls and laugh, light-headed with altitude and beer. The majority of the tour has been conducted above 4000m. At one point we nearly reached 5000m. The pressure on my cranium keeps me awake. And the excitement.
This morning, after hooping while the sun rose on the pure white salt flats, we visit an island in the salt where many cacti grow. We met one that is over 1000 years old. The cracked salt plains are a lake bed that is 12000km squared. Pure white, further than the eye can see. So bright it hurts your eyes. It fills during rainy season to create a perfect mirror.
Our Bolivian arrival hinted at the harshness and extremity this country has to offer. Spewed off a bus at the 7am border, into the freezing blue light and headlong into a 2 hour wait because the officer didn´t like our emergency passports and their predictable lack of an entry stamp.
Once we are in, it´s all smiles, freshly squeezed oranges and women in bowler hats. Hilarious, wonderful, filthy cheap and no ATM´s. We jump on a bus which fortunately costs pence and i spend 3 hours with my sarong stuffed into my ears to bar the ´Casio keyboard on steriods´(Andy) from perforating my eardrums.
Tupiza. Bolivian wild west. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked it here. We mount two untrustworthy steeds and ride off into the red rocks through a canyon, one hand holding the sombreros, the other the reins. Pointless as the horses do whatever they like.
We are properly and securely into the groove. I don´t know or need to know what day it is. My most valued possesion is the Spanish i am collecting like hard-earned coins. I am amidst a continent i have dreamed of seeing for at least as long as I´ve known a certain boy. This dream has been running uninterrupted for nearly a decade. And now we are living it.
I apologise for my smugness. But I cannot contain this feeling. What it is to be ALIVE.
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