The Full Monty

While here in Bermuda we offered to help out making the set for the stage production of the Full Monty (Cleo’s day job). An hour or so would have done I’m sure but we got a bit carried away. I can’t claim ANY artistic input at all but there is some damn fine undercoat on some of those bricks and walls and can you tell how much love was put into jigsawing some of those bricks out? Maybe if you look very carefully?

After some pretty hectic days it was great to come back in the evening and watch the rehearsals in some lovely air-conditioning. We even got credits in the program, but they printed my name as “Tim Mintes”, hmmm!

We would be leaving before the opening night but got to see one of the final run throughs. We met so many lovely people in front and behind and around the stage thanks in no small part to Cleo. Great stuff.

Nudity is a deportable offence in Bermuda and, at the time of leaving, the decision on whether to go “full monty” or use rather fetching flesh coloured jock straps hadn’t been taken. The police wouldn’t commit one way or the other.

“Nothing can harm you here”

That’s what we were told anyway. Look at this cuddly thing!

That’s our lovely little Bermuda cottage in the background.

Pirates

 8.30 pm The first day started off pretty well I guess. Think I’ve already written about the VIP military band thing

 Then we were off to meet some of the characters (quite literally “characters” as we would be inhabiting the strange world of thespians and the “show business” for the next 10 days) we’d see at random times on this island of just 65,000 people.

 Pretty much a self service bar was indeed a good start and after some discussion on who  could operate the machinery we settled down for a well earned pint. After our mammoth Cancun-Mexico City-Miami-Bermuda flight with an overnight on the floor of Mexico City airport (ps no seats anywhere in this airport until the gates!!!) it was great.

 After a good few pints we headed to our new home. We were staying with Cleo, our friend from the UK (in Bermuda to create the set for a theatre production of The Full Monty) in a little cottage by Shelly Bay.
Surrounded by millionaire pads we found it quite funny turning up with our back packs of dirty clothes. Possibly that was the beer too. It was about midnight so it was the correct time for a midnight dip. Climbing down the steps in the garden for our first taste of Bermuda’s warm clear water, it was mad. It was time for the phosphorescent algae to come out in the bay. Although completely clear, (and pitch black) the water was full of the stuff and any movement set it off. Swimming around, you were followed by white glittering flashes. Looking down at your feet treading water was just plain weird!
Bermuda is undeniably a millionaire’s playground, relatively safe and also quite conservative; these three facts would serve us well in the coming days and tonight in particular. Millionaires mean huge fancy gardens, boats and swimming pools, safe means a lot of trust and no security, and conservative means everyone goes to bed early!
 Spying a rather nice yacht tied up in the middle of the bay we didn’t need too much encouragement from Cleo to swim over and climb aboard. While sunning ourselves on the poop deck under the starry midnight sky we discussed the virtues of the Bermudan lifestyle. This was our first night and the first of our completely harmless but rather satisfying clandestine escapades.

Bermuda

 Where can I start! We had no idea what to expect and really we hadn’t even thought about this part of the trip. All we knew\were hoping, was it would be a really easy relaxing interlude between some pretty hardcore countries. We had somewhere free to stay, someone to show us around, no language problems and even the phone boxes and post boxes were familiar. And they drive on the right side of the road, which of course is the left.
This was one place I’ll never forget for sure. The people we met and the things we were able to do made sure of that. Most people get off the plane or cruise ship, are bussed to their luxury hotel, play some golf, check out the hotel’s private beach (there is no such thing as a private beach in Bermuda by the way – more on that later), have some sauna treatments, shop on Front Street and go home.
From the moment we arrived we were whisked into the politics, the amazing friendliness, the strange social undercurrents, the luxury, the happiness and madness and the old British reserve and sense of order this place still has. Oh yeh and something completely unexpected, Bermuda shorts. These are Bermuda shorts….!

(Salmon pink is the usual colour)
No kidding, I only saw one man in what we in the UK would call a suit and he really stood out from the hundreds wearing these. In reality, people from all different walks of life, of all ages wore these. I can see how they would brighten up any day!

Vaseline

 Never leave home without it! We’re collecting little bits and bobs on our travels, I’m working on filling one of those fancy Victorian curio cabinets with nik naks from far away lands and Kath is being a bit more girly and going for jewellery and bags. This route almost ended in tears however. The dangers of trying on rings cannot be underestimated. Were it not for a tin of Vaseline, the liberal application of it contents and use of the correct force (ie loads!) we might still be in Mexico with a big blue finger and one expensive unwanted ring!

Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself!

 Having failed miserably to learn Spanish before we left we’re fully equipped with a mini Lonely Planet Latin American – English phrasebook. Takes some getting used to, and we’ve found some things that just aren’t in it but reading through the “chat-up” section cheered us up one boring bus journey! Kinda reminded us of looking up rude words in the dictionary as a kid every English lesson. If you want the Spanish for any of these we’ve got it covered.

You have (a) beautiful.. (body, eyes, hands, laugh, personality)
I (don’t) like that
Please stop!
Please don’t stop!
Oh my god!
Oh yeah!
I can’t get it up – sorry
Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself
It helps to have a sense of humour
Piss off
I never want to see you again

Buttercup

 With our new found bartering aggression we headed off fresh from Snorkelling to rent some bikes. Cozumel is only a small island and we’d heard there were lovely beaches just up the coast so we toddled off to rent some bikes, knowing the going rate for bikes was $12 a day we weren’t going to take any sh*t. Sure enough the price was $15 but with so many people offering everything you could possibly want we had no qualms in haggling to the death. By this point in the day everyone had disappeared though, their prey would not return until the following morning. Undeterred, we found someone who looked at us as if we were mad wanting push bikes and was immune from haggling. Next and last option, possibly my best haggle and we got bikes for $12. Two seconds later we had a scooter for $20, what were we thinking with pushbikes anyway! Up the road to the office and what should be parked in the front of the lot? The best VW Beetle ever! Bright yellow and open top. We had to have it.

Possibly a highlight of the whole of Mexico was us bombing around in this beauty. The freedom of the open road on deserted roads and deserted beaches. I’d say, if you come to Cozumel this is an absolute must!

Jacques Cousteau Island

Where scuba diving was brought to the masses via the ground breaking TV documentary of Jacques Cousteau. Cozumel is Mexico’s largest island and only Caribbean island and was made famous in the 60’s by the famed French marine biologist.
We booked a snorkel trip from the mainland and caught the ferry over to the island, serenaded on the way by the ship’s house band who were pretty good! Getting off, we instantly realised we’d been done on the snorkel trip tickets we’d bought on the mainland. Lines of eager boat owners and tour touts lined the dock and this would be the place to buy. All in all though, if we were two weeks in, we were the palest white of tourists ever, and this was the first time we’d been ripped off it wasn’t bad! We vowed to get our money back by being the hardest barterers ever from now on though.
 Snorkelling in the legendary crystal clear waters was the idea and the water really was amazing. The clearest and bluest I’d ever seen. Loads of fish and strange things. The island had been ravaged for 72 hours straight, by a huge storm not so long ago though and lots of the reef had been destroyed. It’s returning but the bits we saw were not the best. Kath met some people later who said the scuba diving was the best they’d ever seen. They must have gone a bit out of the way of our standard tourist boat I think.
 One of the ideas of this trip was for us to go Scuba diving together everywhere. Kath had her PADI qualification and I didn’t even think about not being able to do it, even though I’d never even opened my eyes under the water before and didn’t particularly like being anywhere except on top of it. I have to admit that I really didn’t like snorkelling, it freaked me out and I realized why I’d never really pursued it before. It wasn’t a good sign for the scuba diving to come!

http://picasaweb.google.com/tim.minter.pics/Cozumel

STA Explorers

As an STA Explorer the heavy weight of the expectations of the internet world bare down us every day. Well not quite! Especially when there’s (mostly) no blinkin’ internet in most of the world! Possibly the first time I’ve used the word ’old’ to describe myself, but I’m old enough to remember the world before broadband, even, at 33, old enough to remember not having anything on the other end of that little wire to the world except some distant voice. They were still trying to sell us something though. Come to think of it, I’m old enough to remember getting our first computer, and black and white mobile phones and only having 24 pictures in a camera and…

The fact is we’re still getting there, still on our way to a connected world. Not quite there yet and in some places definitely miles away. Some might say that’s a good thing. I saw an article about an experiment. Someone wanted to go back to the electronically disconnected world. Live without an internet connection for a month. I actually can’t remember anything more about it except the gist of the title so pretty pointless to bring it up here except to say that the mere title must imply that for a connected person, it is near impossible\madness to live disconnected. Couple this with the average connected person’s desire to share every intimate\interesting\dull moment with anyone who cares to care and quite possibly one of the few times when the average person has anything interesting to share ie when travelling and you’ve got a problem.

Some people go away on holiday to get away from it all. But what if there’s nothing really horrible to get away from? That’s kind of how I feel. I’ve grown very fond of the world I have and although there’s so so much more I want to see and do, and will see and do, there’s nothing much I want to leave behind. I want to bring it all along with me for the ride!

Sure you can be an STA Explorer, a roving explorer testing the limits of social media while travelling the world in loads of places. Loads of places have the technology and if you have a massive budget even not having the technology shouldn’t be boundary. I’m told you can get a mobile signal at Everest base camp for example. I wasn’t quite willing to shell out for 8 months of the mobile data packages available right now though (about £400! If they work at all). The final and most important thing I think is; you may not be travelling alone! And the other person may not be too impressed with their partner spending ages tapping away on a keyboard or snapping away with a camera when they want to be enjoying the world with you! There’s definitely is a balance to be struck there and it can take a bit of time to sort out.

Is the world set up for this kind of exploring yet? Is the technology ready for it? I think the answers are “not really” and “no” at least when it comes to anything big like an around the world trip. Most countries have vast numbers of internet cafes or hotspots in Starbucks etc, Some have pretty much none though, like Cuba (possibly Tibet too??). The main reason though is the time involved, time in internet cafes when you should be out and about taking in the place you’re in, and time involved in getting the technology to work eg this GPS thingy I have – is fine if you’re connected to the internet full time on you own computer with the software loaded but of course you can’t do that in most internet cafes. If you’re not connected there’s not a lot you can do and try connecting a load of trips or days together to show a big trip and it’s been impossible so far. I’ve spent ages playing with the raw data, much longer than someone sane or travelling should! Hopefully I’ve fixed the problem but only after writing an Excel spreadsheet with formulas and other gubbins to convert it to the right format for Google maps! What was that about striking the right balance between this and experiencing travelling the world?

To do this properly around the world I think you’d still need things that don’t exist or are too expensive right now. Until cameras, GPS devices, and mobile phones come with fast world wide internet connectivity at the press of a button you’ll need a lot more time than you ever thought you’d need to actually create a full on day to day internet travel blog as you go.

Having said all this, I’m still as determined as ever to make this work, it’s just taken a while to figure out what is and isn’t possible right now, and what limitations the places we have been and are going place on this kind of thing.

Things should get easier after Cuba and in hindsight Mexico was so easy (just didn’t have anything to write back then)! I’d imagine week or longer breaks will be normal just because we’re really here to experience the trip rather then the inside of an internet café and Starbucks are still not that common some places!

So… hope someone is reading this, and virtually see you soon!

Still here!

Hello from Cuba! In a country where time stood still around 1950 (I should know exactly when after the cultural extravaganza of the first few days here!) It´s a bit difficult to stay in touch, get internet, money, food or other things outside of a tourist area. Independent travel here is a bit trickier for sure! Didn´t quite expect to find this internet cafe after weeks of techno drought so not very prepared. More soon!