Christmas

I spent Christmas in a small town (Villa Tunari) in the Bolivian rain forest (Chapari National Park), I went to visit an animal shelter, with a lot of monkey. While I was posing for the picture above with the monkey, that traitorous monkey was searching my camera bag (as you can see if you look at the picture carefully), he then stole my memory card holder containing two memory cards, and I had to literally rustle it out of his hands and mouth.

Back in Cochabamba now, I went to see King Kong last night, that scene with King Kong fighting three T-Rexes was amazing, one of the best fighting scenes I ever seen in a movie, it was a late show that ended at 1 am, but when we tried to get out after the show, we found out that the place was locked, after waiting for 10 minutes with no body having any idea what to do , I went looking around, I found this door with some holes in it, I looked inside and saw a guy sleeping inside, I knocked on the door, but that did not wake him up, so I knocked harder, but still the guy went on sleeping, so I entered the room, the guy was deep asleep but with his eyes half open (scary), and a hand his trousers (iks), anyway I had to shake him to get him to wake up and open the door for all the people waiting, Wael saves the day again.

Archive Blog !

I created a new blog : www.waellists.blogspot.com , here is the introduction to the blog :

These are few useful lists that I have compiled over the time, I needed a place to archive this lists, be able to continuously update them and make them publicly accessible at the same time, this is why I decided to create this blog, an internet page would be more appropriate for this than a blog, but it is easier to create a blog than an internet page, this includes things such as my book lists and links to other pages and blogs.

Football : Boca vs Independiente

Dale Dale Dale La Boca

This has to be on the most crazy experiences I had during my trip, I went to see another football game in Buenos Aires, this time to the Boca Stadium, the previous time I went to the River stadium, to see River Plate, a team associated with middle class people, Boca Juniors on the other hand is associated with the poor people of the Boca neighborhood. We took the bus from Palermo to Boca, at the some point on the way a big group of young Boca supporters boarded the buss, and did not stop singing all the way, their love and passion for the club very evident, the one song that stuck in my head was "Dale Dale Dale La Boca" . It was the game before last of the season, and Boca was second place, one point behind Gimnasia, and still competing for the title, the game was against Independiente who were third in the table, three points behind Boca, and still in the title race as well, and it was the last league game for Boca in their home stadium, all factors added up made this a big game, and naturally the game was sold out, and we had to get our tickets on the street, we paid 45 Pesos for the tickets which cost 14 at the box office.

I decided that I am going to be a Boca fan for the day, so I bought a Boca shirt from one of the stands on the way to the stadium, besides, I found those blue and yellow colors of Boca irresistible. Going into the stadium was a more complicated task than I thought, when we got to the stadium we found out we were at the wrong side of the stadium, and we could not just go around to the other side, because of the police blockades intended to segregate the fans of the two teams, we had the blue and yellow shirts of Boca, and were turned around at several corners to prevent us from mixing up with the red shirts of Independiente, we had to walk about fifteen blocks, making a big U turn in order to get to the other side of the stadium, we get there very frustrated and very angry.

Entering the stadium we were welcomed by a smell of pee and the view of a man urinating in a corner, a sign of what to come. Our stand was a standing one, and we stood their between many Boca fan, in the stand above us were the Independiente fans, later we were going to realize that was not a good situation to be in at all. A flag that covered a complete stand was spread and then folded, the local team then entered, and the crowd burst with cheers and singing, and paper clips rained down from the stands like snow, then when the away team went in, a deafening sound of bowing and whistling erupted in the stadium. The first half started, the field seemed quite small to me, the play was kind of balanced, but then Boca started to take over things, that meant that the action was mostly on the other half of the field, no goals were scored in the first half. The real trouble started during the half time break, slurs were being exchanged all the time between the Boca fans and the Indpendiente fans in the stand above, and we were continuously being spit on, but now they started throwing fire crackers, smokers, water and other heavy objects on us, people moved to the sides and to the back to take cover, anger grew towards the police because they were not doing anything to stop the barrage of objects being thrown, the break seemed to take twice as long as it should be, maybe because I was waiting for it to end, hoping that as the games resumes, the Independiente fans would turn their focus back on the game and away from us.

The second half started and thing seemed to cool down in the stands, the Boca players on the other hand came from the break with more determination, and attacked the Independiente goal with vigor, this time we were right next to the action on the field, and eventually Boca got the goal they wanted, it was a scrappy goal but well deserved never the less, I was totally unprepared for the scenes of chaos after the goal, I was jumped on and hugged, as the crowd erupted in joy. An Independiente player was then sent off, for a second yellow card, it all happened fast and I was not sure he deserved it, but anyway Boca was dominating the game at this point, and just before the end Boca managed to get the second goal, after a great individual effort by Palacio (who's shirt I bought), who set up a team mate for an easy tap in, and then there was another irruption in the crowds, the referee whistled for the end of the match, then a few minutes later there was another irruption of joy and chaos, this time as the news that Gimnasia failed to win their game arrived, meaning Boca was now first place, one point ahead of Gimnasia, with only one game to go.

Maradona was somewhere in the vip stands, I could not see him, but I know he was there because I seen it on TV several times, and because I heard the crowds cheer his name at some point, as someone with leaned out of the vip stands. It took a while until we were allowed to leave the stadium, as the crowd exit is controlled by the police to avoid fan trouble, the away fans are usually the first to be allowed to leave, then the home fans. Eventually we were allowed out, I was hungry and tired, but I will be able to say that I was there when Boca probably won the title. "Dale Dale Dale La Boca" , the song still resounds in my head.

Tierra Santa

Tierra Santa is a park in Buenos Aires, intended to be bring the holly land to Argentina, including Arabic costumes, building architecture, miniatures of the holly sites etc. It sounded like a cheap commercial stunt in the beginning, but they went to great length to make the place authentic, when we entered the synagogue we had to put a kipa on our heads, and when we entered the mosque we had to take off our shoes. There was also a live Arabic music performance with a belly dancer, she was really good, better than some belly dancing shows you would see in the middle east. Also the place featured restaurants with Arabic food, serving Shwarma, Falafel, Kabab, Humus, Tabole, Labane, Baba Janush and more, the meat was really good, as you would expect from Argentinean beef, and all the dishes were very tasty. I went there with Billy (Florida) and Mayra (Mexico), we had no idea what to expect before going there, which made it an even more pleasant experience, as we were surpriesed for the better, especially with the musical show and the food.

Buenos Aires

I am back in Buenos Aires, this time I am staying at hostel Tango in Palermo, a neighborhood of cafes, pubs and discos. The hostel is very busy, hosting manna people, and everyday there is a batch of new faces and names, too many to keep track of, my brain just got to saturated. I went out to a few clubs, 69 and Bahrin were crap, Podestá is a smaller and cheaper club, it was not bad, mostly playing 80s music. I met a Dutch girl at the hostel, from Breda, she made speak Dutch with her, and sing "Hawdo en Bedankt Holey Holey". This is city is huge, and you could spend months here discovering all its neighborhoods and avenues. Eating outside here is dirt cheap, a "Tenedor Libre" at a Parilla (All you can eat grill restaurant), with a 10 meter long salad and desert bar, costs 8 pesos (2.5 Euros), a personal Pizza costs 6-8 pesons, and decent bottle of wine costs a few Pesos. I generally like eat launch at Plaza Serrano, setting ouside one of the cafes, reading my book, the weather is generallyy nice, with moderate spring temperatures, but sometimes there is strong wind or some light rain. Yesterday I went to Tierra Santa with a couple of friends from the hostel (Billy from Florida, and Mayra form Mexico), which was a really cool, I will make a separate entry over that.

Pucon Volcano Climb Take 2

I decided to climb the Volcano next to Pucon another time. It all started when I heard from a few people that just returned from the volcano, they told me that saw lava, apparently the volcano has been quite active for the last two days, and the weather was good, permitting a clear view of the inside of the volcano. I was tempted and decided to give it another go, maybe I will see lava this time. It was 20:30 in the evening, I hurried to the travel agency, asked for second time discount, got it, and I booked my trip for the next morning, then I hurried to the supermarket to buy some snacks for the trip.

I woke up in the morning to find a cover of cloud over the town, but when I got to the office they told me it was going to be a nice day, and after driving for a while we broke out through the layer of mist that was covering the valley, and we were under a clear blue sky. There was a big German group with us, apparently on an organized trip in Chile, and there guide was translating all instructions to German, so I had to hear everything twice, once in English and then in German.

Midway through the climb the weather started to change and I had the feeling of Deja Vu. It was quite fascinating to see the process of cloud formation from close, white patches just appeared from no where, these patches got thicker and thicker as the wind blow them up the mountain, accumulating around the top of the volcano, but this was not a good sign, and soon we were engulfed by fog, and visibility became limited to a few meters. This did not get better as we got closer to the top, the wind just got stronger and colder, I made it to the top for the second time, this time much more comfortably, I did not feel so tired as the last time.

We headed down sliding most of the way, and when I reached the bottom I was sun burnt but wet and cold at the same time, but worst of all, with the disappointment of leaving the volcano for second time without getting a glimpse of that lava.