Jasper, Alberta

We are here and one week into working for our new employers!

I will start from the beginning as to give the most accurate description of the events that have passed since our arrival.

We took the Greyhound Bus from Vancouver, and I was unpleasantly surprised at just how SHITE it was! I never imagined the scenario where I would be comparing buses in Canada to those in South America (on the large part in Brazil, Argentina and Peru, admittedly) and turning my nose up at them! The seats didn't recline, it was cramped and the bus was old. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that is Greyhound for you.

However, the ride was quick and smooth and the driver was very helpful. The view from the window was stunning too - tall pine trees, trickling glacial rivers and tall mountains capped with snow. For ten hours, all I saw was the above. As you can imagine, looking at the same thing, whether beautiful or not, for 10 hours becomes tedious. Furthermore, given that we passed very few signs of life on the way into Jasper during the journey, I was struck by a scary feeling of remoteness - it felt like I was being led into isolation! I had one vivid and worrying thought - 'what if Ｉdon't like the place / the people / the job?'. It stuck with me for the remaining 2 hours of the journey and shaped my mood until the day after our arrival.

When we arrived into the bus station, or rather got dropped off at the bus stop (Jasper is SMALL), a lovely guy called Dwight was waiting there to meet and greet us. He was instantly likeable and we've had good banter ever since. However, he wasn't instantly recognisable. All I had been told through e-mail was that his name was Dwight and he was head of maintenance. Thus, when I descended from the bus and saw a portly gentleman in his 60s with a grey beard, I was certain this would be Dwight. I know that if my name was Dwight and I was head of maintenance, I would be portly and have a grey beard. Even if I didn't have grey hair!

Following this initial shock, Dwight loaded our bags into the van and took us of a quick tour of Jasper. Now, as I mentioned, Jasper is small. I'm not sure there is anything other than a quick tour therefore. I am certain there are some Wetherspoons' in England that are bigger. All the same, we were guided to all the main points of interest.

We arrived at our apartment block and again I had mixed feelings - the outside of the building was quite impressive, however the corridors were hideous - they would not look out of place in The Shining. Once the door to our apartment was open, I realised we were on to a sweet deal. Uninterrupted view of the snow capped Rocky Mountains, plenty of space and a nice new bathroom - perfect!

Despite the great apartment, my feeling of unease and slight sadness persisted.

On our first whole day in Jasper, Cressy and I got busy making ourselves acquainted with all the local facilities that we'd be using, i.e. library, gym, grocery shop, second hand shop etc. They were all excellent. Further to that, we were introduced to the other members of our chain gang for the next 6 months, and they all seemed normal and nice! I started feeling a lot happier, and since then, I definitely feel like this is a place I can happily call home for 6 months!

One last thing about Jasper - in spite of its minuscule size, there is an incredible amount of things to do here to keep oneself entertained. For example - plenty of good pubs with regular special offers, countless walks to explore the beautiful surrounding countryside, green / blue lakes with ample sized beaches to swim in and bbq around, excellent leisure centre and a library with a fantastic stock of good books and fast internet access.

I should mention the job too. The staff seem like the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life (apart from me obviously), the location, log cabins and grounds are in fact even MORE beautiful than the pictures on their website, which is a first for me and I have variety in my work. I am The Maintenance Man (in capitals as I am sure they will release a film about me in this role in the future) and have already checked smoke alarms, made sure TVs are working, shifted tonnes of dirt and driven a big manly truck that has the ability to tilt its back end and dump stuff. In addition to this, I get to ride a 3 wheeled bike with a basket on the back (I challenge any male to ride one and NOT look camp) next to a glacial river and look at the mountains whilst moving from job to job. I literally ride along whistling, smiling and wondering what my friends and family are doing at home!

This last section will be reserved to revere Dwight. He already has gained legendary status, for a few reasons. Firstly, all inanimate objects are female. For example, when referring to a garden rake, 'oh, just chuck her over there'. In addition, he calls his truck, 'the old girl'. Finally, he says very often, in a southern USA accent, 'Ooh heck'. Need I say more?!

I look forward to the next six months, and in particular the visits of my parents, some friends, and Cressy's family. I still dearly miss my family at home that I won't see until November and hope they can make it out before then if possible! Big up to the T Wells crew and Darren.

Keep it real homies and don't let David 'I'm an arseh*le' Cameron win the election!!

Island Life

S'up!

So, here I am, back where I started, in Brian's chair in his apartment in Vancouver, using his computer and mouse that has a lead that is a fraction too short to be convenient - the perfect length to rile me but not short enough to incentivise me to do anything about it. I believe the formula is "perfect length / the square root of annoyingness".

Today is a sad day - Brian beat me at squash. Correction, he whooped my sorry, tired, lazy traveller arse. Admittedly I had a turd racquet and we used a blue dot ball which made my task all the harder, but a whooping still it was. My tail is well and truly between my legs. A rematch is defo on the cards!

Canada - we're back. And my god is it expensive. It literally pains me in my chest when I now pay $5.50 for a beer, having paid on average $1 for the last 4.5 months in South America. Thus, Cressy and I have resorted to shopping in what they call Thrift Stores (charity shops) for clothes, and convincing ourselves that the items do infact look excellent on us. I did get a Jansport jumper for $5 that looks in perfect condition - you have to see it to believe it.

Vancouver Island was heaven like. Our plan was to head to the west coast to a town called Ucluelet, or Ukee as the locals call it to surf, then head across to Mount Washington to snowboard. I spoke to the guy I know (Mike) who runs the hostel in Ukee, and he told me that hitchhiking is very common on the island. Cressy and I decided to do it, and along the way ended up saving ourselves over $150 and met some incredible people.

We must have travelled in excess of 500 miles just hitching, and every person who picked us up felt like our friend after a short period. The Vancouver Islanders are such a warm and friendly bunch - we were even invited into two of their houses, introduced to family and shown around like we'd known them for years. Each one said they'd hitched in the past and just wanted to help us out.

On a sadder note, having taken lifts from a couple of people who were Native Canadians (or First Nations people as they preferred to be called) I learnt about the atrocities the British committed against their ancestors in the past. First Nation children were forcedly removed from their families and sent to 'residential schools' where their culture and language was essentially beaten out of them. Physical punishments, brain washing and sexual abuse was commonplace. My heart literally felt heavy upon hearing the stories and at times I felt ashamed to be British. The situation has improved today to some extent, as they are allocated reserves where they can live tax free, but it is scant reparation considering the ethnic cleansing that occurred.

The time has finally come - we're off to Jasper tomorrow to start work! It's been a long journey, we've met some amazing people along the way and had lots of fun. I'm looking forward to having a routine again, and most of all, a uniform. Actually, I will be the resort's handyman, so in fact the most exciting thing is that I will have a tool belt. All I need is some stuff to put in it! I am already imagining the phone calls from guests - "yes Mrs Smith, I'll be right over, but this is the FOURTH time I've fixed your fan this week, are you sure you're not trying to seduce me?". We will see!!

BABY RUTH!

The Lost City is so 2009!

So, it's all done with now. The verdict on our final trek: the jury is still out. There were parts I enjoyed, and other parts I didn't enjoy, and actually found annoying.

I'll start with the parts I enjoyed. Firstly, I loved the physical exercise - the challenge of walking uphill in temperatures exceeding 30 degrees centigrade at a fast pace was excellent. I've definitely discovered that the bigger the challenge, the more I enjoy it. I couldn't imagine anything more boring than a life without challenges and variety - if it hurts it is doing you good! Secondly, the scenery was beautiful - jungle and pristine waterfalls and rivers to cannonball into and then swim in. Made some nice friends too - Roddy, a nice chap from Northern Ireland was good banter and Julian from Adelaide was a laugh - the highlight of our exchanges was helping to locate the tics on his body and smothering them with Vaseline (not because they had dry lips, but because it suffocated them).

Now onto the things I didn't enjoy. For the first time, I think we got a sh*t group. There were two Swiss girls who made scant attempt to befriend others, with the exception of Julian whom they fancied, and spent the majority of their time just mumbling to each other in Cherman and letting out a constant fake laugh which was the audio equivalent of someone scraping a cheese grater on my face by the end of the 5 days. Also, I attempted general chit-chatter with them (which I am averse to) a couple of times, which was greeted by silence and a look on their faces which would normally result if I'd just farted and wafted it in their direction. There was a British guy who tried to make a joke out of literally EVERYTHING which got very tiring and a miserable git from Ireland who became irritable if anyone dared complain about anything, e.g. 'it's only a feckin' hammock, just pick one and feckin' get on with it'. In summary, I felt like the atmosphere sucked for about 60% of the time. For an unknown reason, I suffered my highest count of tumbleweed moments EVER in 5 days - I may not consider myself to be of Jonathan Ross' calibre (well, actually...) but I am 9/10 content with my level of banter. It's like they'd been paid to shut up when I said anything. To quote Eddy Murphy in Coming to America ("taste the soup!") 'aah, wha'd ya know about funny?'

By the end of the 5 days, I was happy to see the back of the majority of them and looking forward to having fun again, and most importantly HAVING MY EXCELLENT JOKES LAUGHED AT.

Following our return to Santa Marta, I returned to my modus operandi i.e. laying next to a pool and sunbathing. On occasion, for variety, I would get into the pool, then get out to dry off. If I was feeling wild I would leave the hostel premises and buy an ice cream. It's as energetic as I got.

Cressy and I met a lovely Colombian guy in our hostel called John Freddy, who had travelled all the way from from Medellin (the double 'L' in Medellin is pronounced like a soft 'J') on his Vespa moped. We are talking in excess of 800 km - in short, he is a complete legend. He walked and talked with a Caribbean-esque pace and oozed friendliness. We spent a day with him visiting a waterfall and he helped me to practise my Spanish and in return I helped him with his English. He bought us beer and food and told us a lot of interesting information about the surrounding nature and Colombian history. It's his dream to come to England and I intend to help him do so. The poor chap's Dad died only a few months ago and it was very evident how close to him he was. My favourite moment was when he told me a phrase his Dad had often told him when growing up, 'es mas importante para tener amigos que dinero', i.e. it's more important to have friends than money. Right on!

Now to Cartagena. I won't mention the bus journey where our driver crashed into the front of a taxi (albeit at only a few MPHs), neglected to stop, then got chased by the driver of the taxi, who promptly boarded the bus when it next stopped and started punching the driver of the bus and looked like he was trying to pull a gun out of his - to say I nearly cacked myself would not be far wrong - it would take too long.

Playa Blanca - what an experience! It's an idyllic beach approx 45 minutes from Cartagena and most easily reachable by boat. More or less, it is heaven on earth. As we approached I noted the white sand beach, clear turquoise sea (forgive the oxymoron), hammocks to sleep in and the bars selling beer. I was contented. We duly spent the next couple of days doing virtually nothing except sunbathing, relaxing, eating, swimming in the sea and tanning. And oh yes, I have a tan! Photos to follow. Several times I said out loud, "this is a hard life".

Now we're in Cartagena, following a one hour flight which cost less than $50! Perfic. On the plane a good looking Colombian girl stopped me as I was going to toilet and asked if I wanted to sit next to her. I politely declined, so she settled for two photos with me. She obviously has very good taste.

3 days until Canada. WEIRD!!