Though it is said that you learn something new every day, most of my knowledge about the liberation of South America from Spanish colonial rule has been obtained by a sort of osmotic process over a year: statues and street names, obelisks and museums, artworks galore. I am at the point where I could recognise a silhouette of Sucre or the back of Bolivar (though the portraits of the latter by Julio Blanco (a good link to which I cannot find) were something different).
Before noticing a museum two days ago (behind the Monastery of Santa Catlina, where she was raised after her mother died a month after giving birth), the name of Doña Manuela Sáenz meant nothing to me, however. No feminist will be surprised to hear that the woman Bolivar called the “liberator of the liberator” (she is said to have saved her lover´s life on three occasions) had been airbrushed from history until recently.
The tour round the museum (again, “no photos”, again, a lenient guide) was more of an attempt to insert her into the liberation story than a genuine reflection on her life (I had learned more from Wikipedia last night) but most of her belongings had been burned when she died a pauper´s death in Paita, Peru. We were told she was a brave woman, fearless: unfortunately there is little left to illustrate her heroism.
We had been warned that the Quito school of religious art tended towards the gory. Yesterday, we were guided around the Monastery of Santa Catalina, whose nun "inmates" have only one hour per day to talk to each other or watch TV, and saw some particularly macabre examples. There was the image of sheep drinking the blood of Christ from a trough as it poured from his wounds. Additionally, we were shown a painting of Christ skinless after flagellation, imaginatively called "Christ´s spine". I guess after seeing pictures such as these, even the nuns count their blessings.
After a run of five without a win, which included the humiliation of giving soon-to-be-relegated Peterborough their first away win of the season (and the double over us since I last wrote about the Horns), Watford beat Ipswich at Vicarage Road on Tuesday to relieve a little of the fear of relegation that has deepened since I may have counted chickens at the end of 2009.
My nephew Joss will only have seen us win three times in 2010 (all home Tuesday night games, against Bristol City and Sheffield United too) but I haven´t had a text report from him now for ages. I think he needs some nagging. It also looks less likely that I will be back in the UK to shout on the Golden Boys before the end of the season.
Instead, I intend to compensate by going to see a match in Quito on Easter Sunday when the present league leaders from this beautiful colonial city take on second-placed Barcelona (de Guyaquil), who I will be supporting because their kit is the same colours as Watford´s (they have quite a name, too).
As I am sure you know, the "Panama" hat is from Ecuador, and Cuenca is the capital of hat-making. Today we were shown around Alberto Pulla´s workshop by the man himself, who has been featured in articles across the world.
Forget the US thing for "shrinks", in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Shuar avenged murders by reducing the killer´s head to a tsantsa, the size of a tennis ball.
Being vegetarian, I deprive myself of many of the culinary delights of the countries I visit, meaning, for example, that I missed out on roasted guinea pig in Peru. I do my best to compensate for this failure by trying every beer (and other new alcoholic drinks, come to that) I come across. To that end, I can report that I managed twenty brewed-in-Peru cervezas in my six months in the country, which ended Sunday.
The A-Z list is:
Anpay*
APU cerveza de coca
Arequipeña*
Barena
Club*
Cristal*
Cusqueña blonde*, malt, red, wheat
Franca*
Perkas*
Pilsen Callao*
Pilsen Polar
Quara
Real McCoy`s Amber Ale dark and light
San Juan
Trujillo*
Zenda*
The asterixed majority are same-samey bubbly lagers, the best of which may have been Club, the worst Perkas. Barena and San Juan were similar but had a Red-Stripe tang to them, a positive in my book. Cusqueña´s malt was too sweet for many but I found it and the targeted-at-women Quara to my liking, though Pilsen´s black beer,
called Polar for some obscure reason, was my favourite. The coca-leaf beer is something to try yet not savour, though I would steer clear of Cusqueña´s “limited edition” red beer, if it is being marketed when you are in the country.
Well, I never even knew such things existed before we got to Pimentel beach, north Peru, at noon. A bit of research later and I found out this rainbow round the sun (the pic doesn´t quite do the colour justice) is formed when light is refracted through hexagonal ice particles in thin high level clouds such as cirrostratus. Another "wow" on my long trip away.
Last week we were in Chachapoyas and were told that the nearby Catarata Gocta was the thid highest waterfall in the world. Naturally, we added it to our list of things to do. We have seen a fair few in the sixteen months we have been away, on walks in Australia and New Zealand, a visit to the fantastic Iguazu Falls as well as from buses throughout the Andes. I have been looking forward to seeing the world´s tallest, Kerepakupai-Merú (known since 1933 as Angel Falls), in Venezuela on this trip.
At the registration point for the falls was posted a Washington Post piece which stated that there was some disagreement about the status of Gocta, due to there not existing a universally recognized standard of waterfall measurement. It turns out that lots of factors need to be taken into consideration when considering what can even be defined as a waterfall (or what type of waterfall it can be defined as). Vertical height is one of those, slope is a second, volume a third. Finally, the question of whether non-bedrock cascades should be included in the measurement of a waterfall is an important and too-long-to-go-into-here element.
Wikipeda only deepened the confusion. On the waterfall page it said Cautley Spout in Cumbria was England´s highest. On Cautley Spout´s page, it saidGaping Gillin North Yorkshire falls a greater distance (but into a pothole). The waterfall page also names Gocta and another waterfall as the world´s third highest. Seems to me, I could do a better job of measuring them than that.
Anyway, further research suggests that Gocta is actually only the third highest waterfall in Peru. Catarata Yumbilla at 870m or 896m falls in four tiers, while the Three Sisters Waterfall has three tiers and reaches about 914m. The World Waterfall Database has Gocta at 16th. Somehow, I don´t think this information is going to change the marketing strategy of the agencies around Chachapoyas´ Plaza de Armas.
Well, well, well. Today in the Bruning National Archaeological Museum, Lambayeque, Peru, I saw a large earring dating from around 750 AD that clearly has a Union Jack a millennium before the Act of Union.
We came to Chachapoyas to see Kuélap, the mountain-top "fortress" that predates Machu Picchu, consists of more stones than the Great Pyramid and was built by the "warriors of the cloud": the Cultura Chachapoyas. We got more than that: we saw
the world´s third-highest waterfall and sarcophagi to boot.
I asked the iPeru office to send me an electronic version of the map of the region so that I could begin planning my next trip. Apparently, the museum at Leymebamba is not to be missed.
Movil tours now does a direct bus (50 soles) leaving at 6am and taking around 12 hours. The views are breathtaking but don´t look down if you are afraid of heights: the road is only centimetres wider than the bus in parts, with no crash barriers to prevent that plunge.
Most places in Huánuco (we were coming from Pucallpa) told us we needed to go (backwards) to Lima in order to then advance to Chavín de Huantar, site of the ruins of the oldest civilizaton in the Americas. This seemed rather ridiculous given our relative proximity on the map and we eventually found a scenic route along the Cordillera Blanca that took in some great peak views.
In Huánuco, we caught a La Union-bound bus from Union Transport at cuadra 4, Jr. Tarapaca.
From La Union, we caught a 45-minute collectívo to Huallanca (3 soles).
From there we caught one of the thrice-daily (4a.m., 4.4.5a.m., 1pm) buses to Huaraz.
Our original intention had been to stay in Chavín, which would have meant alighting at Catac on the last bus and catching another. We decided last-minute to stay in Huaraz and that was definitely the right decision.
For information on where to try Ayahuasca in Pucallpa, click here.
My experiences with Ayahuasca varied but not to the extent that my wife Jun´s did. Her very first time and her first time with a second curandero, Jun exhausted superlatives in her attempt to capture how wonderful she had felt. In contrast, her last three nights were not so positive and the penultimate one was especially bad, so much so that she requested the help of Don Marçial to help her get through her bad trip. This seemed to be largely due to fear resulting from a lack of physical strength. The brew overwhelmed her.
It has been said that using words to try to describe the ayahuasca experience is an exercise in futility. My worry is more related to the fact that listening to other people describe a dream they had can be painfully tedious. I will try to avoid that fate by remaining general.
My encounters ranged from feeling nothing to undergoing a mammoth horror show, which, however, I would not describe as a bad trip because at no point was I afraid or paranoid. On the whole, the adventures consisted in large part of random memories plucked from the depths of my unconscious mind and served up for my consideration; the vast majority of these were negative: incidents of violence, bullying and maltreatment that I had inflicted or suffered.
Beyond this – especially when I increased my dose on my third night with Don Marçial – the episodes included scenes of imagined horror which could have been from a film like “Hostel” or “Saw” and hypothetical dangerous or threatening situations that challenged my ability to respond. If this all sounds gruesome, I am afraid that is because it was. The fact is though that I was never “lost” to the extent that I had no control over the reels playing through my mind.
Whilst there were a few recalled memories that brought a smile to my face, the main positive I got from my experimentation was confirmation of my successful transition from child bully and coward to the man I am today. I am aware that this may seem a modest achievement but IMHO, in a very un-Peter Pan way, many people never manage to grow up.
Iraq inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot said he was “dismayed” to see Tony Blair disappear in a nebulosity of hypotheticals. The former Prime Minister, defending his war as “immoral, yes, you know, but not illegal”, was giving evidence in front of bereaved families.
Bliar said “it would have been better if headlines about the 45-minute claim had been corrected”, using the passive in a conditional sentence to suggest it was not his own job to inform the public of the truth. “After all, you know, if I had been a newspaper editor and not the Prime Minister, you know,” he told incredulous inquiry members.
With hindsight, he said, he would have made it clearer the claim referred to battlefield munitions, not missiles, and would have preferred to publish the intelligence assessments by themselves. Though the grammar he used is often accompanied by expressions of regret, none were forthcoming from the blood-splattered Catholic convert.
Asked to clarify whether he would have supported the invasion of Iraq if he had thought Saddam did not possess WMD, he explained to the inquiry, “you know, you would not describe the nature of the threat in the same way if you knew then what you knew now, you know. You know, knowing now what we know, you know, means you would, you know, know something you didn´t know when you thought you knew what you knew, you know.”
Neither Jun nor I had heard of the plant ayahuasca a year ago. Hitchhiking out of Futaleufu, Chile, in mid-February we were given a lift by a fisherman who was taking Patrick – a U.S. citizen – through the Andes and over the border into Argentina. In the course of the journey, Patrick mentioned its curative properties and Jun asked him to write its (hispanicized Quechua) name down. (The plant has other monikers – most notably “yagé” as in “The yagé letters”: the correspondence between William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg that was made into a book.) Since then Jun has spent hours reading testimonies and papers on the medicine and even gone so far as to suggest that it has become the reason for our round-the-world trip. A trip to Iquitos to try it became a “must do”. I have been less awed by the hype but willing to experiment, as ever. In Cuzco I talked to several people who had partaken of the ceremony and one who claimed to have seen her future. I was also told by one guy I got chatting to that Pucallpa is the emerging location for shamans. The “ayahuasca” of the ritual is usually a “tea” prepared with two plants: the B. caapi vine that bears its name and chacruna. The result is a concoction that doesn´t entice in smell or taste but that bears psychoactive properties incomparable to any others known; there are those who swear by its curative capacity too. We came to Pucallpa, on the fringes of the Amazon jungle and seved by one of the great river´s tributaries, to experience it for ourselves. Iquitos – we figure – is just too touristy and commercial for discerning cultural appropriators like us. Having done some research on the net, we already had our eye on Don Marçial at km26 and caught a collectivo there but my first glance at the conditions – Jun had been considering a prolonged stay on a special diet – told me they were too “rustic” for my posh-bird wife and we left with a vague (and dishonest) suggestion that we might return a few days later. The next day though – after stopping off at not-for-us Jardín Botánico Ayahuasca (near the airport, they have good maps on their Jardín Botánico FB page) – we had two encounters with people that led to opportunities and were sitting in a darkened room the very same night with a handful of locals and no other gringos.
That was arranged through Miguel Tang. We met him at Yarinacocha when looking for a boat trip on the laguna. We did that (and saw Jardín Botánico´s lakeside retreat) and he mentioned that we could do a ceremony for 50 soles each, a very reasonable price. Miguel – who is also known as “Pituco”, after his boat - is also mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide book so we knew we could trust him. Contact him on 961928694. Since we knew the process involved “purging” (vomiting is usual, shitting a distinct possibility) and had heard of one guy soiling himself three times during an evening´s experimentation, there was an element of trepidation involved in our first encounter. When the ceremony began, Alejandro, our “strong” shaman, blessed the concoction (there were syncretic Christian elements throughout the event) took the first drink and I was the second to receive it. Agua de Florida was given as hard-to-swallow chaser. Jun was second and had purged within about twenty minutes and began a journey that she was to describe as the best of her life. Sitting in the dark, I had trouble getting comfortable and relaxing into receiving the “spirit” of the plant. I spent the best part of three hours yawning. Finally I got up to go the toilet and was surprised by how disoriented my body was. I subsequently purged from both ends but saw nothing. Four nights later – after a jungle excursion - we tried again. This time I took a follow-up swig and received shallow visions and experienced some feelings of insignificance and self-criticism. My trip, however, was over within an hour of imbibing for the second time. The next day we bought some prepared ayawaska (the preferred Quechua spelling) and tried it on three consecutive nights without a shaman. Nothing to report, unfortunately. Finally, we made the decision to go back to Don Marçial (061788754) at km26 and phoned him to arrange it. We then spent four consecutive evenings there (coming back to town in the morning to rest at our hotel) and – especially on the third night, when I increased my dose by 50% - I finally felt the concoction overtake me. Click here to read my description of my dark but rewarding journey.
What is happiness for a football fan? I argue that the elements are largely in place for followers of the Vicarage Road club.
Only two weeks ago I was at work telling people Watford had gone into administration, having left home before the deadline for a deal was due but fearing it would not happen. Despite a home defeat to Derby straight afterwards, I have since been reflecting on the factors in the equation of what makes a football fan happy with their lot.
First of all, there is the relative league postion of the club. The key word here is “relative” because it relates to two things, the first of which is the expectations of the fan. As with all the elements in the equation, this is subjective.I grew up watching the Horns on their rise from the old Division 4 to second in the old Division 1 and UEFA Cup football and an FA Cup final. For a while after that, my expectations were of top-flight football but thoughts of that era have long since passed. Nostalgia is dangerous, after all.
With the financial meltdown the club have suffered since their season as the Premiership´s basement boys – and more specifically the fact that we sold most of best players this summer and many of us feared we would be relegation fodder – expectations were low and therefore even a mid-table position exceeds them. Recent draws at home to high-flying Nottingham Forest and away at Bristol City´s Ashton Gate are results many of us would have taken beforehand and solidify our safety for the season.
The second part of happiness with the relative position of the club is a fan´s eye on the competition. This could be described as a sort of schadenfreude factor. For Watford fans, this would primarily mean laughing at our bitterest local rivals: Luton Town, whose descent to non-league status after a 30-point deduction last season most of us would recognise as unfair (but would still take some satisfaction from). I personally wish them a speedy return.
Queens Park Rangers would be our second local rivals and although the billionaire club are generally on the up, our recent 3-1 defeat of them at the Vic and the fall-out from that game (with their now ex-manager Jim Magilton involved in a post-match “incident” with midfielder Akos Buzasky) was a source of glee.
There is also a large slice of schadenfreude in seeing Brendan Rodgers fail at Reading (and recently receive the sack) after we felt betrayed by his decision to move away from the Vic after six months. Similarly, seeing our ex-defender Mike Williamson fail to make an impact – or even start a match – at Portsmouth after his petulant behaviour and transfer demand brings a wry smile to Hornets fans´ faces.
Another (perhaps less important) element of happiness goes beyond results and their effect on league position to style of play. When Watford were higher in the league but playing hoofball under former manager Aidy Boothroyd, there was booing amongst some of those attending the Vic.
I was wrong to doubt the credentials of manager Malky Mackay when he was named successor to Rodgers. He has ensured the team play some attractive football and has made shrewd signings (including loanees) which have seen the Horns outplay some far bigger teams. Whilst the January transfer window will likely see his team further depleted, Malky should be able to keep the young team on the rails (as he has after heavy defeats this season) and on track for a mid-table finish.
It is happiness regarding future prospects that leaves Watford fans with an element of uncertainty. Although billionaire shareholder Michael Ashcroft paid off the (approximately five-million-pound) loan that was being called in and therefore threatening the club with administration, he seems reluctant to invest the money that would make our future more certain.
The final element involved in the happiness of a football fan might involve a cup run. This looks unlikely for Watford this season with their impending FA Cup Third round tie at Stamford Bridge, but defeat at Chelsea will be more lucrative than one elsewhere and gives the fans a good day out. Expectations will not be high and can therefore not be disappointed.
So I have identified five elements in an equation that I feel contribute to a fan´s happiness and believe Watford fans can feel happy in relation to them. Have I missed any factors? What else is involved in a fan´s happiness? Can you be happy with your team in relation to these factors?
At the end of October I blogged about Kiva, a microcredit organisation that helped facilitate loans from people like me to entrepreneurs who couldn´t access the traditional financial system because they did not have the requisite capital. I lent a group called Emprendedores de Sicuani $25 to help them acquire merchandise. Today I had my first repayment of one-third of the amount.
Since I have credit on my pay-pal account (due to winning a prize for my “Video technology in football” piece), I decided to make another loan now that I can see the money is paid back. I chose to lend another $25 to Manuela, a woman who lives in the city of Pucallpa, which Jun and I will be visiting in the new year. Manuela is a single mother of two children and sells general merchandise from a small store set up in her home. She needs a 2000 sol loan to buy grocery items and beverages to sell in her store.
I encourage all who would like to help alleviate poverty in the world to sign up to Kiva and make a loan to someone who is trying to help themselves. It feels great and all this at no cost to you.
This is my second "..of the decade" list. These things are always subjective and I am ready for the backlash: the list is unashamedly based on the view of an English football fan and includes five on-pitch and five off-pitch moments.
England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich After Keegan´s walkout, England fans feared not making the Japan-Korea World Cup. Sven Göran Eriksson inspired the national team to a series of victories in the remaining qualifiers, and the icing on the cake was this 1st September 2001 win, in which Michael Owen notched a hat-trick. The Germans being Germans, they still went on to be the most successful European side in the following year´s World Cup Finals.
The Collapse of ITV Digital The cost of the football rights was the main reason for the 2002 liquidaton of the company and its failure to be forced to pay (the Football League´s lawyers – Hammonds – were sued for 150 million pounds but asked to pay only four pounds in damages) meant it was the league teams which suffered, having budgeted for the television contract.
A ten point penalty for entering administration Football league club woes were added to two years later when the league introduced a penalty for those clubs entering administration (a procedure allowing businesses to keep operating without being forced to sell assests in order to pay their debts). This has affected a number of clubs – most recently Southampton – and threatens more this season. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of teams having points deducted for other (often related) reasons and that the number of points deducted has shown a gradual increase (ask Luton fans).
France 0 Senegal 1 Pape Bouba Diop´s goal provided one of the biggest World Cup shocks in history. The holders went out at the first hurdle without scoring a goal and unfancied teams such as South Korea, Japan and Turkey performed far better than anyone expected. The trend in non-favourites exceeding expectations continued into Euro 2004, and culminated with Greece winning that competition.
Leeds implode After 14 years in the top flight and extensive loans taken out to chase the dream (I´m not sure they quite lived it), Leeds went into freefall and – after suffering a ten point deduction as outlined above – plunged to football´s third tier. The financial problems associated with adapting to relegation from the English Premier League have been experienced more recently by a number of teams including Charlton.
Abramovich buys Chelsea While many Football League clubs were impoverished, in 2003 the world´s super-rich began to see the English Premier League as an outlet for the pesky interest on their billions. Roman bought Chelsea back to back titles (with no little help from Jose Mourinho) and since then Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City (twice), Manchester United, Portsmouth (twice) and most recently Birmingham have been sold to foreign owners, though admittedly with differing levels of benefits to the clubs concerned.
Zidane uses his head “Magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all”: the thoughts of the great French player some time before he headbutts Mazerrati and ends his final professional match as the first man to be sent off in a World Cup Final.
Andres Iniesta scores against Chelsea The late late Barcelona goal prevented a second all-English final in a row, which would have been the first time ANY two teams met in consecutive European Cup/Champions League Finals. Much of the world felt grateful until they were forced to sit through the lamentable Manchester United – Barcelona final. Spain win Euro 2008 The “perennial underachievers” ™ finally shrugged off that title in style.
Real go for Galacticos II After Barcelona´s fine year, their great Spanish rivals Real Madrid went on a spending spree to shame Roman Abramovich, yet their purchase of Manchester United´s Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool´s Xabi Alonoso may prove to benefit Chelsea more than anyone else in English football. The resurgence in Spanish football might also see a decline in English clubs recent (relative) domination of the final stages of the Champions League.
How wrong did I get it? What would you include in your key footballing moments of the decade?
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