mindfullofclutter

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Jazz

For 1,275 Sundays in a row, Marjorie Eliot has flung open the doors to her cosy Washington Heights apartment and hosted a free jazz concert in tribute to her sons. Beginning mid-afternoon, musicians from around the world strum, croon and drift fingers over piano keys, bathed by the glow of a naked red light bulb.

While the first show drew an audience of six, word of mouth has helped swell the number of weekly attendees to at least 60. Marjorie’s home - white-walled, wooden-floored and decorated with newspaper cuttings - is a squeeze. Latecomers too slow to snag a front row seat cram into the kitchen or spill into the corridor. They crane for a glimpse of the spectacle, but while many barely catch that, it doesn’t seem to matter. The music seeps through the floorboards, trickles down the stairs, leaks out the windows onto the street below.

Marjorie stands in a corner, unable to see the living room stage. Wearing purple lipstick, multicoloured zebra-print sunglasses and a stripy bandana, the mother-of-five taps her feet. Later in the set, she graces the piano herself. “It brings me so much joy,” she grins afterwards. “I look forward to Sundays all week.”

Helga Athineos, meanwhile, is on orange juice duty. She has been for the last 15 years. Sliding between bodies with a tray of plastic cups, she ensures everyone is catered to. She also doles out honey oat cereal bars before making the rounds with a donation tin, embracing those who spare a dollar or two. But contributions are optional, and Marjorie is quick to stress that this isn’t a money spinner. They all do it for the love.

Japanese trumpeter Koichi Yoshihara started out as a spectator. “Little by little”, he hit it off with Marjorie, telling her it was his “dream” to play in New York. So she picked him, and he has been part of the line-up since 2003. “It is such a good experience,” he says.

The host, who sheepishly reveals her 81 years, agrees. Her life “revolves” around the sessions. She threw her first concert in June 1994 to honour her son Philip, who died on a Sunday two years earlier aged 32. It spiralled from there. Now when Marjorie plays, she’s also remembering two other sons she’s lost along the way: Michael, who died in 2006 aged 47 and Alfie, 51, who died in 2015.

Marjorie is grateful to her guests for letting her cry. “I don’t have to hide it,” she says. “The people who come here wear their hearts on their sleeves. They’re not peeping in the door treating it like a curiosity. The thing I love about them is they come in and say, ‘This is the way it should be.’ They all know my story. I just get into the music and it’s one way of dealing with the hardship.” “I know you can go to Madison Square Garden,” she adds, “But the intimacy here allows for growth. It allows us to really play the music.”

The two-hour concert is a medley of the sorrowful and uplifting and usually concludes with a jubilant rendition of ‘When The Saints Come Marching In.’ Marjorie, a life-long musician, jigs as she plays the piano. The crowd joins in the chorus. While stemming from a place of heartache, the goal is not only to grieve, but to celebrate. It succeeds. The atmosphere is electric.

When the show ends, Marjorie hangs about. There are no security guards shepherding everybody away. The official concert has ended, but the music doesn’t stop. Another of Marjorie’s five sons, saxophonist Rudy Drears, 52, commands the crowd. Meanwhile, his mother mills around in the kitchen, hugging her guests goodbye.

Read my news article about Marjorie’s Sunday series on Metro UK, here.  

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Depression

I dumped my boyfriend when he was depressed. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. The words jammed in my throat and our tears mingled as we hugged in bed in a dingy AirBnB. He asked me if I meant it and, head thumping with a hangover, I said yes. We went for breakfast at our favorite spot and drank orange juice in silence. Then he pleaded with me to stay as we cried on a park bench. We hugged and kissed, for closure, before I climbed into my car and drove for three hours, back to my parents’ house.

Admitting that I left him when he was at his lowest point fills me with guilt. People will say I was selfish. They’ll say that if you truly love someone, you support them through sickness and dark times. I tried, but it wasn’t working. The reality was that his mental health issues infected my own headspace and I truly was not strong enough to deal with it. The situation left me suffering panic attacks and teetering on the brink of depression myself.

When news broke on Friday that rapper Mac Miller had died o​f ​an apparent drug overdose at age 26, people on social media were quick to point fingers at his ex-partner, singer Ariana Grande. “You did this to him… you should feel absolutely sickened,” one social media user wrote in a tweet directed at Grande. “Treated him like dog shit, threw him to the curb like he was nothing.” “You killed Mac Miller,” wrote another.

Grande and Miller—who admitted using drugs in a Noisey interview well before his relationship with the singer—began dating in 2016 and were together two years before splitting in May 2018. Shortly afterwards, Miller was charged with driving under the influence after crashing his car. One tweet in response to the news, which went viral, said: “Mac Miller totalling his G wagon and getting a DUI after Ariana Grande dumped him for another dude after he poured his heart out on a ten song album to her called the divine feminine is just the most heartbreaking thing happening in Hollywood.” The 25-year-old star hit back: “How absurd that you minimize female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship.”

Reading the reports into Miller’s death, and seeing the abuse currently being directed at Grande, all I can say is: She’s right. Grande wasn’t to blame for Miller’s DUI, any more than she’s to blame for his tragic death. Whether it’s substance abuse or poor mental health, dating someone who’s in a dark place was one of the most challenging experiences of my life.

Max was my first proper boyfriend. We met in Rio de Janeiro while traveling around Latin America. We had our first kiss at sunrise on Copacabana Beach. We made sure our paths crossed again a few months later, in La Paz, Bolivia. I was interning at a magazine and he was backpacking, but we ended up buying a single mattress and a set of Toy Story sheets and sleeping on the floor of an empty mansion adjacent to our friend’s apartment. The property had a cellar, half-painted children’s nursery, and creaky floorboards like a classic horror movie set. It was creepy, huge, and free, so we spent a few months there. Then we returned to our lives in the UK and decided long distance was hell, so we moved in together. I adored him.

We began renting our first flat when I was 19 and he was 22. All my friends were going to college and we were living in a shoebox that we could barely afford but having the time of our lives. We would eat chicken nuggets at a cardboard box table and sleep on a futon. Later, we moved for my job. Things gradually got harder. I was working my first job as a journalist and the long hours took a toll. I was often tired and stressed. Max hated his job but felt helpless because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. I always knew he had depression. As a teenager he was in and out of hospital undergoing treatment for a heart condition, which triggered a long period of low mood. It lingered, always, but it had been manageable until then.

In those few months, we became trapped in an exhausting cycle. We were dependent on one another for our happiness, but we were totally out of sync. A tiny comment or mood swing would send everything spiraling out of control. Max would apologize, convinced he was to blame. I would say it wasn’t his fault. He wouldn’t believe me. I would feel bad for getting frustrated. I would go for walks, drive around the neighborhood, smoke cigarettes in the park, stay late at work to get away. I would have panic attacks. He would take days off. I was working 12-hour days, and I struggled to give him all my attention when I got home. Sometimes, I felt suffocated.

We had no space to breathe or feel emotions without upsetting one other and setting off a chain of events that could drag on for days. I begged him to see a doctor, but he was just handed a tick-box questionnaire with a sliding scale asking him to rate how likely he was to kill himself. Despite admitting he self-harmed and suffered suicidal thoughts, they didn’t consider him high risk. He was prescribed antidepressants and enrolled in a group counseling session where a PowerPoint slideshow recommended he do more exercise. Max was already going to the gym five times a week and cycling to work every day. As there was no one-to-one therapy available on the National Health Service, doctors upped his dose. It didn’t work.

I distanced myself subconsciously before we broke up. I suggested we both go back home with the intention of saving money but I think that really, I needed to reset. We saw each other once a fortnight and after a few months, decided to go on a weekend away. I didn’t plan to break up with him, but the words came out during an alcohol-fueled row. He asked me the next morning if I meant it, and I realized I did.

In the weeks that followed, Max hit rock bottom. I knew he was suicidal and that weighed on my mind constantly. He had always said I was the best thing to happen to him and he hated his life before he met me, but at the same time he was convinced I’d be better off without him. For the first time, I agreed: and I also knew that he would be better off without me, too. We were stuck in a loop of negativity, and things wouldn’t improve until we escaped it.

After we broke up, I felt sick and feared that he might hurt himself. All I wanted was to be there for him, but I knew that could make things worse. Instead, I messaged his mom to see how he was doing. Deep down, I was terrified that our break-up could lead him to end his life and alter mine forever.

It was the lowest point in both our lives, but it ended up being the most formative. Max spent 18 weeks without help on waiting lists but eventually, with the support of his family, began seeing a private psychologist whom he credits with helping him turn things around. The therapy gave him the tools to tackle negative thoughts that crept into his brain, taught him that he wasn’t to blame when I was unhappy, and gave him self-worth. It also made him realize he wanted to help others in a similar situation and he began studying for a degree in psychology. He’s just finished his first year and is in a good place. He’s no longer on antidepressants. And—plot twist—we’re back together now.

We got back together late last year, after taking things slowly and talking for a long time. Max was doing better, and so was I. Things are far from perfect, but we’re stronger and happier now than we’ve ever been before.

Miller’s death is a tragedy. Regardless of whether he was mourning his relationship with Grande, like some sources say, or had moved on, our knee-jerk reaction to tie the two things together is harmful. It insinuates that Miller might still be alive if she had not left him. This is just not true: Miller talked about substance abuse and battling depression years before his relationship with Grande began. We must stop expecting people to ‘save’ their partners. It perpetuates the myth that women—and men—should stay in unhealthy relationships. They shouldn’t, and to suggest otherwise is dangerous.

In my case, my break-up with Max could have ended in tragedy. If it had, I would have felt responsible for the rest of my life, but I know now that it would not have been my fault.

This essay was originally published by Broadly / Vice. Read it here.

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Sahyadri

Our rickety minibus rattled over dusty, potholed tracks as the sun rose above Goa. With bleary eyes and squashed knees, we snaked away from the coast for two hours until we arrived at Sahyadri Spice Plantation. The farm, situated at the foot of a mountain range by the same name, produces everything from cashews to coffee and is a popular spot on the tourist trail for holidaymakers wanting to learn about India’s rich spice trade.

We ate a breakfast of curry and lemongrass tea and flicked through a ring-bound encyclopaedia of the land’s spoils. A worker then showed our group his aromatic wares before we were led beyond the makeshift restaurant to a patch of land. There, hidden behind a toilet block, stood the other main attraction: two Indian elephants. Guarded by leather-faced mahouts and with chains around their necks, the animals - skin spotted pink with age - were silent and still as us tourists filled plastic chairs laid out in front of them.

We watched like a crowd in a circus tent as, one by one, members of the group scaled steps to a concrete podium and climbed upon the elephants’ backs. Lakshmi, 48, and Lila, 47, gave rides to 16 people over the course of an hour before being prodded to open their mouths and wolf down bunches of bananas for the second round of photo ops. For the third, visitors stripped down to their swimsuits and rode them again, this time doused in water as part of an ‘elephant bath’. As we left, the next coach-load of visitors was pulling in.

I was on a package holiday with my parents, meant as a family reunion after my little brother went off to uni and I moved to New York. My dad is Indian but had never been to Goa and it was a treat to see him light up as he explored a new but familiar place. For the first few days we sipped mango lassi, marvelled at the cows on the beach and, in an attempt to break up our sunbathing, booked a few excursions away from Candolim, where we were staying. This visit to Sahyadri was one of them, billed in the brochure as an interesting stop off on the way to the spectacular Dudhsagar Falls, a four-tiered waterfall on the Mandovi River and Goa’s top tourist attraction. But when we booked it through our Thomas Cook rep, there was no mention of elephants. It wasn’t until we were on the minibus that we learned from our enthusiastic guide, Aravind, that the first activity of the day would be riding them.

I was surprised. Elephants giving rides might seem domesticated but they aren’t, and the process of getting them to a point of such docility is little short of torture. They are frequently captured from the wild and jabbed with sharp hooks or sticks until they are ‘broken in’ - and worn down. The Indian government has been criticised for not doing enough to protect them. Seeing the creatures decorated with paint or paraded along busy streets as a way of drawing tips from tourists isn’t unusual, and elephant riding remains legal, if controversial.

Thomas Cook, however - one of the best-respected travel agencies in the UK - has recognised that the practice is cruel. Two years ago the company hit headlines for offering elephant rides in destinations including India, Thailand and Zimbabwe. Almost 175,000 people signed a petition urging the company to stop offering the activity and in January 2016, it vowed to do so. In a message on its website it states: “Thomas Cook Group is not selling elephant rides or shows in any of its markets,” and claims to be an “industry leader in animal welfare”.

But as recently as December, the firm’s customers were still riding elephants as part of tours promoted by their staff. I took photos of sunglass-clad Brits beaming as they sat on elephants being pulled along on pieces of rope. The spice plantation workers promised that the elephants’ “only job is carrying ants on their back” and “there is no harness so it doesn’t hurt one bit”. But though they claim the animals - gifted to them by the government to produce manure - have good lives, distressing footage shows otherwise. Handlers were seen prodding and hitting the elephants with wooden sticks to get them to stand still or or to coax them to perform for the cameras. This abuse took place in full view of gawking tourists, so I dread to think what happens when the gates close each night.

The rep who sold my family the tour at the Phoenix Park Inn told me the following morning that Thomas Cook has been taking holidaymakers on elephant rides in the region for the past nine years. He never mentioned his company’s promise to stop offering the experience. When I asked him if the rides were popular with tourists, he answered: “Some people love it. Other people think it is not right that they are being used for money. You can’t make everybody happy.” 

When approached for a comment, Thomas Cook said: "It is clear this excursion should not be available to book through Thomas Cook, and we are working to rectify this immediately.

"We were the first organisation to remove animal excursions from sale as the direct result of auditing against independent welfare standards, and we are continuing to review the programmes we offer our customers."

You can read my news article about the experience here.

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South Williamsburg

We huddle next to Otha’s coffee shop to meet a cheery Hudson Valleyite with defiant long, brown hair. A thirty-something mum who was the fifth child of 15, she joined the outside world in 2010 after being pushed into marriage in her teens.

For the last four years, former insurance worker Frieda Vizel has made a living leading curious visitors through the streets of South Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Worlds away from the trendy North, the nostalgia-inducing neighbourhood on prime real estate turf contains an enclave of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews, cut off from New York City by aptly-named Division Avenue.

Hasidism is a Jewish revival movement which was born in Eastern Europe in the 18th century. Following the Second World War, its followers found sanctuary in Williamsburg. Now the area, which is officially one of the most impoverished in New York, is home to some 100,000 Hasidim.

As we wander, our group of around a dozen quickly attracts stares; some of intrigue, others hostility. First, a bearded man dressed in a traditional black coat and with his ear pressed to a rebbe-approved flip phone, loiters nearby as Frieda gestures towards the window of a judaica. Religious paraphernalia line the shelves and in the bottom right corner of the front display sits a boxed children’s Mitzvah Mobil, with branches featuring torahs and candelabras. “Everything you learn prepares you for this one way of life,” she admits: one which coaches women for motherhood and men to become breadwinners. Opposite, kippah-clad schoolboys race around a playground. There’s another one a few blocks away for the girls.

“Men and women are very segregated, but the sidewalks are shared,” Frieda tells me. If a man passes by, the woman steps aside and heads are bowed to avoid eye contact. She instructs us to keep out of the way: people feel uncomfortable if they’re forced to brush against someone of the opposite gender. We wind along roads cluttered with Hasidic school-buses. Long, dark jackets drape the shoulders of men, who sport payots (curly sidelocks) and top hats. Their wives, dressed in billowing calf-length skirts, pumps and tan pantyhose, juggle shopping bags and strollers. They glance over but seem mostly disinterested. Some wear pink blush, lipstick and have neatly-coiffed sheitels. Many wear them over shaved heads and the more pious also wear headscarves, leaving just a slither of fringe exposed. Frieda grew her hair out after turning her back on the fold.

One local takes an interest in us as we pause to cross a road. Many of the lampposts sport stickers prohibiting drugs, weapons and smartphones. Frieda points one out and the spectator, perhaps in his forties, begins to film us on his mobile. It’s an iPhone. If a disobedient mother was caught with one she could face severe punishment: her husband might report her to the local school, where teachers would refuse to let her child attend unless she agreed to give it up, Frieda says.

Rules penned by rebbes say technology is a corruptible influence. Households don’t have TVs, computers or radios and a watered-down version of the web is accessed only in internet cafe cubicles. Freda didn’t even know libraries existed until she was in her mid twenties, and many Hasidim never do. Bodegas don’t sell the New York Times; instead, residents dial a hotline for the daily bulletin. Meanwhile, sidewalk news racks are stocked with Tachlis, a weekly magazine which claims to get to “the heart of the matter”. Ads for wig stores, training courses for aspiring doulas and chocolate-filled sweetbreads decorate the pages. One article, ‘Each one of us’, declares that Hasidim have something in their DNA which makes them predisposed to kindness, empathy and selfishness. “We’re a family,” it states, “and it is incredibly tragic when some of our brethren grow unaware of where they come from and where they belong.”

A visibly-rattled Frieda continues to reel off facts but the man brusquely holds her gaze. We cross the road and he follows. His phone held aloft, he puffs his chest intimidatingly on the outskirts of our group. Frieda asks, in Yiddish, “Do you want something?” He mimics her, reciting the question back. Eventually he walks away but it’s enough to leave a lingering sense that some in the community don’t want us here.

We tuck ourselves into the warmth of a kosher bakery to escape the cold. Here, a goy (non-Jewish) cashier takes orders from men and women, doling out sweet pastries. Her voice laced with curiosity, a young mother pushing two baby girls asks: “Are you all Jews?” The answer is no; far from it. Most of the tourists in this group are Brooklyn dwellers who have only ever fleetingly encountered the Hasidim. As an NYC newcomer it’s easy to miss the entire settlement. Despite the fact it’s brimming with shopping streets, synagogues, parks and schools, many don’t have a digital footprint, so searching ‘bar’ or ‘cafe’ on Yelp is fruitless.

We finish the day eating noodle kugel at a bustling neighbourhood joint. Perched on a plastic chair, Frieda, who grew up in the upstate New York Hasidic settlement of Kiryas Joel before moving to Williamsburg to marry, poses a question: “Do you think women in the community are oppressed?” A strict dress code, separate schools and entrenched gender roles - which forbids women drivers and sees them shunted to the back of the bus while men recline up front - are all key parts of the culture here. So, yes - I think. And I get the impression Frieda must be of the same mindset. In her own words, she didn’t like the rules so divorced her husband, rented a flat and left, taking her son with her.

The price of that choice was that she was shunned, she says. She became the subject of raucous gossip and was bombarded by matchmakers hoping to make a quick buck by proffering suggestions of who could be hubby number two. She lost a support network and while her siblings now own houses overflowing with their young families, Frieda asked, “What do I have to show for it?” Her prize was freedom but for Hasidim, she adds, “the bar for happiness is so much lower”.

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Esperanza

Her name in English means ‘hope’—ironic and perhaps understandable, then, that her eyes betray her as lacking in her namesake.

Nestled between high-rise apartments and post-apocalyptic rock formations sits a settlement inhabited solely by women. This is La Cárcel de Mujeres, a low-security prison for Bolivia’s female offenders, located in Obrajes, the affluent pocket of La Paz.

It feels more like a village than a jail, save for a watchtower and burnt-orange walls that surround the courtyard. But La Cárcel houses 360 women serving up to 30 years for crimes including murder. Petty thieves and drug addicts mingle with violent criminals. Among them, 62 children roam.

The prison is a functioning community, albeit an atypical one. Most of the women secure jobs inside, from cleaning toilets to packing snack boxes with sandwiches for Bolivia’s state-owned airline. There’s a lavandería where garments drip over women kneading soapy piles with bare hands, a chapel, a kindergarten and several fiercely guarded stalls selling chocolate biscuits and papaya juice with little straws for little mouths.

A view from the bleak interview room reveals a ramshackle mélange of metal roofs brightened by a rainbow of sodden clothing drying in the late-morning sun. One woman dyes the tresses of another a disconcerting lilac hue, wringing slosh into a washing-up bowl. Sandals and lopsided toys lie discarded on the walkways separating the gridded slums of toldos, which are metre-square boxes where the women sleep and think when they aren’t working or studying. There are no padlocks and no iron bars.

“We have four roll calls per day,” says grandmother-of-ten, Patricia Arduz, who has been locked up for 13 years for a crime she won’t reveal. The 59-year-old has a slight frame and a warm personality, with smile-crinkled eyes and crucifix jewellery in abundance.

“I arrived at Obrajes last year, and it’s far better than where I’ve been before,” she explains. “Besides the roll call, we choose what to do. You can watch TV, play sports, work or take classes.”

The women in La Cárcel have the opportunity to study courses, from English and social etiquette to therapeutic dance and reusing aluminium.

Rehabilitation through education is the intention and many are better-equipped for real-world employment after serving time.

“I don’t work here but I make clothes which sell well on the outside,” Patricia says. “One item goes for up to 250 bolivianos.” She smiles proudly as she holds a pair of baby pink mittens up for me to admire.

Another prisoner, 24-year-old Esperanza Chambi, will spend her afternoon in a hairdressing class. “I’ve learnt a lot here,” she says, listing knitting and making clothes as skills acquired. “I’m also vice-president of the [inmate] population. I look after the other women and they respect me,” she says, with little tangible enthusiasm.

“It was accidental murder,” she says, hesitating before describing her crime. “I worked in a Chinese restaurant and started fighting with another employee. I pushed her, shouting at her to go away. She fell and hit her head. I ran, but the police found me.”

Esperanza is six years into a 30-year sentence—the maximum sentence allowed for murder under Bolivian law. Her name in English means ‘hope’—ironic and perhaps understandable, then, that her eyes betray her as lacking in her namesake.

For the first two years of Esperanza’s time in Obrajes her daughter, now six, lived with her. Now, she and her eight-year-old brother live with their father in the countryside 12 hours away.

“They don’t visit often any more—just once a year in December. I’m here for 30 years but the worst punishment is that I can’t see my children growing up,” she says, letting her steely-eyed defence down as she sobs, speaking at an increasingly inaudible volume. The edges between “criminal” and “human” blur, but she catches herself quickly.

“I’ve changed since being here,” she asserts, drying her eyes. “I’ve changed the way I think. Maybe outside will be worse. Maybe there is a good reason I’m here now.” Her tone is hollow; her eyes expressionless.

Some argue that the children are better off living with their mothers, no matter how unnatural the environment, given the alternative of being cared for by potentially untrustworthy or distant family members.

Ex-prisoner Helen Pereyra disagrees. The 26-year-old, who has two Bolivian parents but a misleadingly fair complexion, served one and a half years in La Cárcel.

“Settling in to Obrajes was difficult. The women were unkind, calling me ‘La Leche’ (the milk),” she remembers. “I tried to keep a low profile. They threatened to cut my face like they did another fair-skinned woman. “In the first week I cried because I was scared and missed my daughter. Then I took sleeping pills that I got from a guard to try and forget.”

Since leaving la cárcel, Helen has returned to living with her daughter who was just four when her mother was imprisoned for falsifying government documents. “I didn’t want her to live with me inside,” she says. “I decided to be strong for myself, but in prison children learn bad things.”

Bolivian law allows infants to live with a parent inside until they turn six. La Cárcel is home to 51 children under that age limit but 11 others, the oldest aged 12, live here too. As many as three share a single bed with their mother in a dormitory sleeping 40 inmates.

There is a kindergarten inside Obrajes and educational posters decorate peeling paint walls. But this inefficient and opaque justice system caters primarily for adults—not the estimated 1,500 children across the country who live behind bars with them.

“We have a team whose obligation it is to provide health care, social work and work in conjunction with other institutions,” prison director Luz Alaja Arequipa explains. “But children shouldn’t be here. They have nowhere to play, and when they’re old enough to attend school they face bullying and discrimination.”

Sergeant Nancy Villegas agrees that prison and children should not mix. We sit in a high-ceilinged office with an ornate light fixture and a wooden desk. She and the prison director face me, both attired in khaki uniforms and polished boots.

“My good experiences here are mostly with the children,” Nancy, a guard of seven years, says. “I’m always there to protect them. But children suffer. They don’t belong here.” She is straight faced as she elaborates. “Mothers are under pressure, and they take it out on their children. It’s not normally physical violence but psychological; they lose their patience.”

Walking around La Cárcel, however, the children seem happy. Rosy-cheeked toddlers sip juice and run around the courtyard. One young girl sits cross-legged on the concrete, feeding spoonfuls of pasta shells to a baby in a cardboard box cot. She giggles and says “buenas tardes” (good afternoon). Another plays hide and seek, weaving between toldos draped in flowery sheets and women shielding their faces from the sun with Tupperware lids.

Their innocent obliviousness and adaptability inject energy and optimism into this place. And their faces are a reminder that, no matter how cold or concrete or crowded it is, Obrajes, to many, is home.

“I’m leaving the jail in a couple of weeks,” says grandmother-of-ten, Patricia Arduz, squeezing the crucifix dangling around her neck in her palm. “It’s not going to be easy after 13 years—there’s everything you need here.

“I’m afraid because I don’t know what people’s reaction will be. They might hate me. I’ve been here for along time.” Her face creases with worry.

And then we reach her toldo—her personal space. I bend my neck to fit inside and our bodies fill the space. Patricia gestures at a modest television set and a bed blanketed in soft pinks.

It’s small, cosy and made sunny by slightly wilting yellow flowers in a coffee jar vase. A collage of faces of beautiful women cut from glossy magazines covers one wall.

“I chose these photos because I like to see the happy, open smiles of women,” Patricia says, beaming and becoming one of them.

Her grin childlike and her skin soft and wrinkled, she looks harmless. Her eyes sparkle. She looks happy.

I wonder what her crime was.

This report was originally published by Bolivian Express. 

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Dementia, my grandfather and me

Late one night, my grampy woke up disorientated and wandered, starkers, around his village.

I was so young I didn’t even know what dementia was, but that’s what they told me he had. Quickly, Sunday dinners at local pubs became family gatherings by his hospital bedside. It wasn’t long before that hospital bedside turned into a care home sitting room.

Some days when we’d go, my nan would have to play his mother and my mother his sister. “The nurses are trying to kill me,” my grampy would tell us. One day, they’d have stolen his wallet. Another, they’d neglected to feed him. The next, he’d point at a shuffling resident with slippers and cane and whisper “She’s cheating on me,” to his hurting wife. 

He still loved whisky, fudge and barbecue ribs. He never stopped fiddling with cameras or making this funny clicking noise with his mouth. But Christmas became raffles and nibbles in a room with “Merry Christmas” written on a whiteboard to remind residents what day it was. Lies about where we’d been and where we were going and why couldn’t he come with us became second nature. Nicknames of affection plastered over the cracks in his knowledge of who I was.

The things he did were funny. He’d look out of the window and see sheep grazing on the dual carriageway. Turf wars with a man he called "the loopy one who thinks he’s related to the queen” escalated, and there was amusing tension over whose seat was the one with the best view of the telly. Taking a sip of his tea, he’d make an expression like it tasted bitter and ask me to sneak in another four spoonfuls of sugar with a wink. He didn’t know he was in a care home. He thought he was on holiday - and the staff at this place were pretty good. It was easier to laugh than to get upset.

But my brother and I walked into that room apprehensively each time. Each time we smiled hello we’d watch him scrutinise our faces, our memory on the tip of his tongue. Some days he’d take longer than others, and sometimes it wouldn’t click into place at all. Usually, though, he recognised that he should recognise us.

“How’s school?” he’d ask me. “Will you ever stop growing?”

Then, he’d turn to my brother and ask “How’s football?,” squeezing his cheeks hard enough to conjure up a grimace and gritted teeth. 

“How’re you?” one of us would ask, though we knew he didn’t really know. If you’d asked him what the weather was like, or what day of the week we were on, or what he’d had for dinner, he wouldn’t know. But if you asked about his past, he’d tell you in detail. So that’s what we started to do.

I took a book of war photography to him on one visit and he sat with me, poring over the pages. He reminisced about how, when all the young children around him were being evacuated to the countryside, he’d flat-out refused to be separated from his mother. Then, how he’d signed up to go into the army and fought on Egyptian turf. He told me that he was a drummer boy, and the sense of pride and optimism it had given him. And then, how he’d been shot in the kidney.

We’d never known much about our grandparents. Up until now we’d been too young and self-important to ask and it wasn’t a conversation either of them had initiated. But as we sat together, around a table or on the arm of his chair, I learnt more and more. There are holes in the story, still - of course there are. The things he probably would’ve told me but I felt rude asking about never got mentioned. But in his hazy, muddy, between-worlds state, I was transported back through those 80 years of life as he relived them through mixed-up memories. I got to know my grandfather a little bit better than I had before. And it was dementia who introduced us.

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Drinking Ayahuasca: a Shamanic healing ceremony in Peru's Sacred Vally

Imagine every single little worry that’s niggling away at your brain pouring out of you. Imagine the sensation of having all those things you barely even realised were dragging you down evaporating into nothing. Guilt, jealousy, anger, loss; all the feelings you routinely sweep under the rug - subconsciously or otherwise – battling to escape the dark corner they’ve been shoved into.

Ayahuasca (or yagé) is an ancient psychedelic medicine brewed from the roots of the ayahuasca plant and the leaves of a shrub called psychotria, which contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT). It has been used by the indigenous peoples of South America for centuries for healing purposes and its medicinal qualities. Basically, it shows you all the bad things you’ve done or experienced and you feel pretty rubbish. Then it shows you happiness and all things wonderful. Then you wake up and it’s as though you’ve gotten everything off your chest.

A lot of respect goes hand in hand with drinking the stuff. You can buy it on the side of the road but you shouldn’t. Legitimate shamans and those who regularly partake in ayahuasca ceremonies thank Mother Earth before drinking and don’t underestimate how powerful its effect can be. They don’t view it as an easy high or a fun time, because it’s not.

Instead, the experience is like unscrewing the cap of a vigorously-shaken bottle of fizzy drink. Say that humans are those bottles of fizzy drink taking the medicine is the action of opening one up. You twist the lid and all of a sudden everything explodes, the drink fizzes up and pours out all over the place so you’re left with the flat remainder - the stuff that’s content with staying where it is. Handing yourself over to the vile-tasting, gloopy brown concoction is essentially saying “Sort me out, ayahusaca.” Instead of being a sweet and sticky outpouring, though, it comes in the shape of a grim purge of watery puke, jaw-dislocating yawns, gushing tears and, if you’re one of the unlucky ones, burning diarrhoea. So, yes, you might shit yourself and you’ll probably be sick in your hair. But once you’ve done it, you’ll wonder why the whole world doesn’t swear by the stuff.

One thing worth bearing in mind is that if you only open the bottle a tiny bit, only a little bit of fizz will be able to escape. In other words, if you don’t give yourself over completely, your experience will be sort of ‘meh’. One of the things that was drilled into me by everyone I met, from fellow travellers recounting their stories to our soft-spoken shaman, Eduardo, is that you have to trust in the medicine. Sit upright with your legs crossed – don’t curl up in a ball because you feel safer that way. He advised me that if you do, “the bad energy will be forced to go round and round in circles and you’ll just end up feeling sick.” My friend Duncan found that he wasn’t feeling much until he unclenched his nervous fists and sat with his palms facing upwards – I found that the same worked for me. The most important thing is to just make sure you believe how strong ayahuasca can be. Seasoned experimenters, this one’s for you: don’t doubt it and don’t resist it by thinking arrogantly and boasting with conviction that “it’s not really doing much.” If you swallow your pride as you drink it down and open yourself up to its potential then it will wash over you completely.

I’ve tried ayahuasca twice. Both ceremonies were held at night in the Sacred Valley of Peru, not far from the ancient Incan wonderland of Machu Picchu. In the dip of the glorious valley and hidden between towering trees was nestled a round, thatch-roofed hut at the end of a meandering gravel path. Photos of the Dalai Lama adorned the walls and pretty cushions and blankets softened the floor. It wasn’t a million miles away from a nice big sleepover. Well, besides the part where we traded lemonade for a really strong psychedelic brew, I suppose.

Picture the setting. About 20 people are sitting in a circle inside the hut, good-naturedly moaning about the person who keeps leaving the door open. The “Is this your first time?” conversation does the rounds and after a bit of waiting and watching the shaman set up some bits and bobs on the floor in the middle, we’re offered some words of advice and informed of what we’re in for in the most calming, lisping voice that I’ve ever heard.

He explains what’s going to happen: how each person in the circle will kneel before him, thank mother earth for ayahuasca, hold the and “connect” with the medicine however they choose, and then drink it. He describes how the effects will take about thirty minutes to an hour to kick in; how they’re going to turn all of the lights off so we’ll be sitting in complete darkness; how there’s a chance you might need to run to the toilet, so to map out an escape route. The ceremony will be a mix between “medicine songs” – singing, guitar playing and leaf-rustling – and a “noble silence.” You’re not allowed to talk, hum, tap or make any sort of noise that could affect other people’s experience, unless you need help.

Eduardo also tells us that we can go for round two, saying “If you’re sitting there and thinking that it’s not doing much, or wondering about how you should’ve gone out for dinner instead, then you haven’t had enough.” So, feeling pretty prepared and in the know, I was only a little bit terrified when went up to kneel in the middle of the circle and down my share.

After all the build-up, ceremony number one turned out to be a bit underwhelming. I drank two medium-sized cups of the stuff and was sick a lot. Then I saw patterns and swirly things, perplexing images and disorientating hallucinations. It was nice, but certainly not on a “spiritual awakening” or “rebirth” kind of level. It was more a, “Oh. Well that was fun but what the hell is everyone banging on about?”-type situation. So I doubted the whole thing. Were people really having as amazing a time as they were rattling on about? Or was everyone just in the “I should be having fun” travelling mentality where they felt the need to boast and have the best story to tell? I couldn’t figure it out.

The next week, buried beneath pillows and piles of thick blankets, I decided to drink ayahuasca once again – this time a lot more open and a lot less scared. I spent the entire session crying. Had the lights been switched on, an outsider looking in might’ve been concerned about me, but these tears felt amazing. I thought I was laughing, for starters. Then I’d touch my face and feel my sodden cheeks and be like, “Is it raining? Oh, wait, no, my eyes are wet… So why does this feel so great?” I’ve not got a clue what I was crying about but I definitely felt better after I did.

That said; everything felt great. I bonded with a lovely green bucket and sat with my chin resting on the edge for about 4 hours. It doesn’t sound particularly comfortable but I can assure you, it was. That wonderful, plastic creation became my pillow for the night and, by the state of its contents come morning, it became quite familiar with everything my stomach rejected. I only remember throwing up a tiny bit, though – and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the normal, horrible, being sick and feeling sick kind of situation. I didn’t really know what was happening and it was nice.

I lost all sense of what I was doing, where I was and who I was, even. I forgot what it felt like to be sitting down and when I wriggled my pins-and-needles-wrought toes, it was the most amazing thing in the world. Other amazing feelings included stroking my own face because the sensation of touch was so heightened and my skin felt insanely soft, biting my hand really hard because it didn’t even hurt (though I probably looked slightly odd) and, best of all, yawning. Yawning was an incredible sensation where I thought my mouth was opening mind-bogglingly wide and it was as though I was actually breathing for the very first time. It was amazing.

Some people claim to undergo a rebirth of sorts after drinking ayahuasca. I can’t say that that happened to me but I did have a slight realisation. Though admittedly not the most profound of sorts, I think it still counts.

Somewhere in between the amazing yawns and trying and failing to stand up, I saw a big wooden door. You know the whole thing about one door closing and another opening? Well that saying has been kind of relevant to me recently, considering I’ve been at a crossroads and contemplating what to do with my life career wise, money wise and relationship wise. It kind of felt as though, unless I really focussed and made the right decisions, all of the doors would close on me and everything would fall to pieces.

This door in my mind, however, was open and then closed; constantly swinging and blowing in the wind. “The door isn’t open; nor is it closed,” said some words floating about. Swirling, white letters made from smoke formed the words, “It’s blowing in the wind. As long as there’s wind, you can push the door open. And there’s always going to be wind, because you live in Bristol.” A revelation, indeed! Oh, ayahusaca - oh, you. So funny! So wise!

Other things that happened to me included having a brief conversation with my late grandfather, who said to me, “I told you never to touch a cigarette!” and I felt bad. One of the guys leading the ceremony shook leaves right in front of my face which sounded nice. A woman was singing beautifully and it was like angels were stroking my ears.

I was just in the process of transforming into a tiger (my spirit animal, I’ll have you know), when three candles were lit in the centre of the circle. And after about 4 hours of being in our own little bubbles, Eduardo’s soft voice broke into the noble silence that we had been keeping. As soon as that moment comes, something in your mind clicks and brings you back to reality in an instant. After saying closing prayers to a soundtrack of heaving and weeping, I fell into the sweetest sleep imaginable, and I woke up the next morning feeling incredible.

The best way that I can describe the experience of ayahuasca is that it’s like dreaming. It’s a big mash-up of everything you’ve been thinking about and everything you didn’t know you were or should have been thinking about, all scrambled into a story playing out in your brain that doesn’t make much sense at all when you wake up. Trying to describe it to the next person will make you sound and feel like an idiot. It’s all just too much at times – absolutely terrifying, completely devastating and then, all of a sudden, it becomes unbearably beautiful at the precise moment when you feel like it’s the worst thing imaginable.

“Ayahuasca will show you the bad, and then it will show you the good,” said one person who recommended me to try it. “If you open yourself up, it will lift a weight off of your shoulders that you didn’t even know was there.”

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Celebrating the New Year in beautiful Amsterdam 

With funds not looking particularly healthy, going to Amsterdam smack bang in the middle of the busiest season of the year probably wasn't the smartest of ideas. Oh well.

By opting to travel by bus rather than flying, I managed to quieten the voice of my guilty conscience for a few days and enjoy myself - at least when we'd arrived, that is. It was quite a tumultuous journey and, after breaking down within the first couple of hours and waiting for a replacement bus for an age, finally crossing over the border into Holland was quite lovely. Bright blue skies, wooden windmills and snow-coated postcard views were first to greet us through the early-morning mist blurring our windows - all things we would've missed in an aeroplane. It made the achey backs and cramped legs worth it!

The burnt orange walls, high-reaching clock towers and majestic entrance of Amsterdam's central station made for a grandiose first impression of the city itself. The rows of charming, coloured houses lining canals on every street, the sweet bridges leaning over them and the cobblestoned roads leading up to them captured my affection early on, as did the salted caramel and banana waffles from the waffle shop dangerously positioned adjacent to our hostel.

Then came the strangeness of seeing things I've grown up being told are wrong, freely available and regulated in a fully functioning society. Crowding into overflowing coffee shops of people queueing up to buy their weed from behind a counter and walking past prostitutes posing in windows rather than lingering on roadsides felt weird. Head to an area associated with drugs and prostitution in the UK and the likelihood is you'll be looking over your shoulder more often than usual. But by stripping away the excitement, I suppose, of illegality with these things, the whole place felt safer than I could've imagined - but then, I was on the outside. Hoards of horny men window shopping in the tiny, red-tinged alleyways wasn't something that sat easy with me. I'm still not sure what I think.

Drugs and sex in Amsterdam were pretty controversial conversation sparkers between my boyfriend and I, and that wasn't the only thing being sparked. The actual New Year celebrations were crazy. Fireworks and firecrackers had lit up the sky from when we'd first arrived on the 29th, but as the countdown grew closer the frequency with which the things were let off increased drastically. On New Year's Eve itself we headed to the epicentre of the celebrations - bustling, jostling Dam Square. There was no official countdown clock and no arranged firework display, so at midnight (give or take a minute or two) the sky was illuminated in a flurry of crackling, glittering fireworks exploding in all directions without so much as a countdown. Near and faraway, from within and into the crowd they came, one after another after another. It was electrifying - and noisy! There must've been a thousand parties across the city and 999 of them were probably out of budget so, instead, we soaked up the free atmosphere and drank champagne, danced, watched the sky and cuddled against the cold to welcome in 2015. 

Aside from the wintery cold, Amsterdam proved to be a wonderful city for walking. We wandered uptown and downtown, getting lost all the time and stumbling upon different picturesque canal views each day. Peaceful Vondelpark, with its shimmering lakes and bendy trees, was a chilly, pretty sanctuary of calm just streets away from the shopping crowds - I loved it. And strolling with no intention also led us to a bright, busy Chinese New Year celebration on the final day of our trip, complete with a dancing dragon and firecrackers - to see us out on the same, noisy note as we were seen in. 

In all, I found Amsterdam to be a city of contrasts. From its endearing, inconvenient cobblestoned roads and dainty canals to the garish sex shop signs and lap dance lights decorating the old buildings leaning over them, from its noisy celebrations to its stoned pace of life, its old, handsome churches overlooking windows filled with scantily-clad bodies and the sex museums sitting alongside remnants of life in a Nazi-occupied Netherlands, Amsterdam is bizarre, exciting, intriguing and fantastic. Go!

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I meet my tour guide on El Prado, the busiest street in Bolivia’s administrative capital, La Paz, as the city yawns and stretches into consciousness.

A small girl, hidden behind a shock of black hair, introduces herself as we navigate the early-morning rush. “I didn’t know my mother and my father used to beat me,” she explains as we clamber into a shared taxi heading for a less wealthy area. “So I left. And I started to shine shoes.”

The 22-year-old is part of Hormigon Armado, a group set up to take care of the shoe-shiners who work on every street. The organisation teaches the lustrabotas to lead tours of La Paz, to show tourists how it looks through their eyes.

Paceñas, citizens of La Paz, walk by, oblivious to wrinkled hands cupped for change and their owners desperate eyes. Traffic warden cholitas wearing bowler hats, trailing plaits and hi-vis vests which clash against the puffy layers of their traditional skirts wave weary cars down the city’s winding backstreets. Mothers lean babies on hips and tie knots over one shoulder, cradling them in patterned rainbows of heavy fabric. Students run to lectures, stray dogs seek out scraps, newspaper sellers announce their wares and minibuses tangled in traffic jams stammer into action. Sugary popcorn-like panskallas are scooped by bare fingers from giant containers into bags at every corner. Tailors hem and stitch at roadside workshops; chewing gum sales-children pester for pennies with round, open faces at traffic lights; signs advertise the salteñas (meat-filled pasties) on offer at every second sales outlet.

Amongst them all, the lustrabotas of La Paz sit; watch; wait. “Shoeshine, señor?” they ask, as confused, flip-flopped gringos wander and brogue-wearing businessmen stroll importantly past. Perched on hard, wooden toolboxes containing brushes, cloths, and polish - their survival weapons of circumstance - some chatter whilst the worst-off slump, glue-sniffing themselves into a state of semi-consciousness. Many hide behind thick, black balaclavas. They treasure anonymity; protecting reputations, covering scars and intimidating recently-arrived tourists - not with violence, but the violence their facial attire symbolises.

“There aren’t many female lustrabotas. And I’m the only one who does tours,” my tour guide tells me, a small smile of pride tickling her full lips. We suck sugary coffee through straws in plastic bags, weaving expertly as two between stalls brandishing everything from dried llama foetuses to mobile phones. I follow her through different sections of the market, down whole streets of shops devoted to a single thing; from traditional hats to bread to carnival decorations.

We reach the city cemetery and wander around. Rows of eerie, rain-worn concrete walls house hundreds of small, padlocked glass-fronted shrines in various states of disrepair.

“We used to sleep in those,” she says, pointing at the graves. “We’d get drunk, take the doors off and curl up in the concrete holes. People don’t respect us. The men used to look after me, but now they look out for themselves,” she tells me.

"We all have to look out for ourselves."

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Why Argentina's attempt at Lollapalooza 2014 kind of sucked

I had high hopes for Lollapalooza Argentina. Why shouldn’t I? Held in a swanky Buenos Aires suburb, boasting Red Hot Chili Peppers andArcade Fire on the lineup and with South American party spirit as a given, I thought it’d blow wellies and tents in the drizzly British countryside right out of the water. How wrong I was.

Accustomed to the infuriating lack of urgency overwhelming the continent, it became clear as we neared the gates of Hipodromo de San Isidro that queuing was inevitable. Granted, most festivals come hand in hand with waiting in line for an hour or three here and there. But take one polite British tourist, a couple of thousand assertive (/rude) Argentinians and the slowest bag-searchers in the world, and what you have is half a day spent leaning against fences and listening to sweet, sweet music from the wrong side of the arena barriers.  This may be a minor and relatively short-lived problem if you’re arriving early to pitch your tent at a festival where the concept of exchanging tickets for wristbands is widely understood. Not so at Lollapalooza. They didn’t fancy giving the whole camping thing a whirl, which means that the order of the day was arrive, queue to get in, watch music, queue for food, watch music, queue to get out, queue to get bus/taxi back. Day two: repeat. The ratio of queuing to not queuing is all wrong – kills the mood somewhat.

Speaking of atmosphere, Lollapalooza Argentina scored pretty low on the whole. A major contributing factor to this was the glaringly obvious absence of alcohol, which was rubbed in by the festival being sponsored by Argentinean beer giants whose logos decorated tents which only sold non-alcoholic versions of the stuff. Cruel. Now, this isn’t the organizers fault exactly; more a pesky obstacle in the form of a law banning drinking in arenas. And I’m not for one second insinuating that fun can’t be had without alcohol (…), but it’s just not quite the same. Sipping extortionately-priced drinks out of plastic cups whilst swaying along to whoever is essentially a match designed in heaven. My left hand felt kind of redundant with no crowd-maneuvering or into-mouth tipping to be worrying about. Even worse than hands hanging awkwardly by sides was the crowd of stationary Argentinians who were cold, flagging by 10pm and didn’t know the words. I’ve certainly learned to appreciate overpriced cider and tolerate 20 minute bar scrambles a hell of a lot more.

Lack of intoxicated energy, mud wrestling and free hugs aside, the line up wasn’t shabby. I heard half of Cage the Elephant’s afternoon set from outside of the festival gates but the half I saw was impressive; the crowd small but jumping. Phoenix was fun and pulled in an impressive audience and Kid Cudi recovered a boring set with an all-guns-blaring remixed rendition of “Pursuit of Happiness” as a finale. New Order headlined the alternative stage and then the whole arena flooded to the main stage for an Arcade Fireset played in the freezing cold. It was the first real time that the festival truly impressed, but that didn’t stop the back layers of the audience filtering out before the end to beat the rush for transport home. That says something, I suppose.

By day two, the prospect of standing up all day achy-kneed and without the warm jumper of tipsiness wasn’t very appealing. Hip flasks concealed in underwear was the first step, and then bigger plans were hatched. The day was kicked off with an infectious drum show by local group La Bomba de Tiempo on the main stage and Vampire Weekend played a sunny set to an equally temperate Buenos Aires. Then, darkness fell and cue amigo with an array of important-looking wristbands, fancy camera, brisk walk and a helping of faux confidence; sneaking into the press area to fill water bottles with complimentary cocktails proved little obstacle. Result: 5 drunken gringos dancing in a crowd of 100,000 tiring Argentinians. I had fun.

Everything wasn’t completely lost. Lollapalooza had one more trick left to play, and from the moment Red Hot Chili Peppers took to the stage, the festival made a good attempt at redeeming itself. What the Chili Peppers had to their advantage here is that South America – as in, the entire continent – is obsessed with them. From Brazil to Bolivia, hostel soundtracks and radio playlists seem to be characterized by Anthony Kiedis and co. People actually (gasp) knew the words. I’ve never been in a more densely-packed stage scramble – the crowd was, quite literally, going crazy. Fainting, crying, screaming plus the entire audience chanting “Red Hot” with an Argentinean lilt saw the whole Hipodromo lit with an actual, tangible energy. Forgotten lyrics forgotten, a so-so weekend was unarguably ended on a high.

All in all, however, the fact of the matter is that if you’d have plonked that lineup on stages constructed in the British countryside, the whole thing probably would’ve been 10 times as good. Had Lollapalooza Argentina focused on the Argentina side of things a tiny bit more, people might’ve known the worlds and the atmosphere then, most likely, would’ve been better. Post-Lollapalooza, my opinion of the other festivals I’ve been to has more or less skyrocketed. Crawling out of a tent straight to the music far beats getting a taxi there and back, before and after each day. And, well, I just think Brits are quite good at forgetting everything and jumping into a bubble of escaping reality for a couple of days. If expensive food, shit weather, terrible organization and long lines are characteristics of every festival, I’d much rather have mine served alongside a muddy campsite, patterned wellies and good-morning sausage baps aplenty, por favor. The toilets were nice, though.

Originally published over at DrunkenWerewolf

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Buenos Aires, Argentina: why BA is my favourite city in South America (so far!)

Read about the rest of my South America 2014 trip here  

I arrived in Buenos Aires at the beginning of April with a few days to spare ahead of Lollapalooza Festival (which kind of sucked - I wrote about it here). I had some time to kill so explored a little bit and did a fantastic bike tour with Biking BA which taught me a whole lot about the city and its history. We visited different neighbourhoods and attractions, perhaps most memorably the colourful La Boca neighbourhood where tango dancing originates (photos 2, 3 and 4) and the grandiose Recoleta Cemetery (photos 5 and 6). We also sampled local cuisine including alfajores, which are essentially biscuit sandwiches with dulce de leche (condensed milk-type stuff) as a filling, which were amazing! 

I ended up getting stuck in the Argentinian capital for longer than anticipated and spent a few weeks learning how to dance(...), enjoying amazing (and amazingly cheap) steak and wine and scouring the entire city in search of replacement flip flops for a pair I lost in Brazil, which was surprisingly difficult! Particular highlights included a drum show called La Bomba del Tiempo, the Sunday market in San Telmo which was one of my favourites of my trip and the architecture in general. 

Buenos Aires ticked a lot of boxes for me. It's beautiful, with great nightlife, lots of history, colour, culture and things going on all the time. I definitely fell in love with it more than a little bit!

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Desert Island Disco @ Bestival // photo set #2

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Another year, another Bestival: disposable camera photos which came out with varying levels of success // photo set #1 

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From Brazil to Argentina: Iguaçu Falls 

Read about the rest of my South America 2014 trip here  

When it comes to Iguaçu Falls (warning: incoming cliché) I feel like pictures speak a thousand times louder than words. 

Hearing about how great something is tends to make me skeptical about how great it actually is going to be because I don’t want to be disappointed. In short, however, IguaçuFalls was far from a let down.

How could it be? Thousands of gallons of water cascading from 275 individual drops of up to 80m is pretty impressive as it is. Add hundreds of hilarious, racoon-like coati wandering around the park and a beautiful rainbow over the whole thing and it’s no wonder I found it so difficult to drag myself away.

Also, I did a skydive over the falls and the Itaipu Dam which was amazing. In all, it wasn’t a bad few days…

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Ubatuba, Brazil: the surf capital at sunrise

Click here to see more of South America

The surf city of Ubatuba on the southeast coast of Brazil was never on my itinerary. I found myself there out of the blue and I’m glad I did. We spent days sleeping early and getting up at sunrise, lounging on the beach, sampling “the best açaí in Brazil” and attempting to learn to surf. I wasn’t very good but, fortunately, the beaches were. And I could lie on them without smashing my chin on a surfboard or swallowing half a litre of seawater. 

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Ilha Grande, Brazil: picture-postcard views, sleepy beaches and coconut water

Read about the rest of my South America 2014 trip here  

Where to begin with Ilha Grande? 

Imagine the busy, bustling, non-stop party spirit of Rio de Janeiro; then imagine somewhere that's the complete opposite. Travel 3 hours by coach and 11 miles over water and you'll find yourself stepping ashore Ilha Grande; tropical paradise, car-less haven and the perfect place to go to recover when Rio's hectic nightlife and relentless energy has rendered you little more than a shell of life form. 

Post-carnival Rio just wasn't the same. We had to get out. So, sleep-deprived and keen for the beautiful beaches and dozy pace of an island whose reputation had preceded it, we headed to Ilha Grande. 

When we arrived at the town of departure for boats to the island, we were greeted by one of the heaviest downpours I've ever witnessed. We hauled our bags off the bus and threw them under the closest tree. Huddling  under our rain shelter with questionable effectiveness, we unpacked rain covers to protect our stuff as best we could before making a beeline for the nearest cafe. We were absolutely soaked to the skin by the time we made it. 

An hour later, we'd near-enough sussed out the place and managed to find ourselves aboard a cramped, open-top speed boat. Not the most pleasant journey of my life I can recall: seated in the dead centre and facing forwards, I was pelted by slicing sheets of rain and pinching wind for the entire time. An experience, however, it was indeed.

Bombarded with rain, the island wasn't quite the dreamy paradise we'd pictured in our minds. Instead, roads were nearly rivers and the sky was grey. The pace was slow, however, and people were smiley. Our hostel owner was sweet and it soon became clear that free-flowing caipirinha and guitar sing-a-longs were to become the defining characteristics of our stay.

Over the next few days, we drank a lot of Cachaça (a distilled Brazilian spirit made from sugarcane juice), sat on a lot of beaches at sunset and let a lot of waves wash over us. One day, we took a boat to the opposite side of Ilha Grande to Lopes Mendes, which is listed as one of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil. It was pretty beautiful. We drank coconut water, swam in the warm sea and fell asleep on the soft white sand for hours, reading, writing in journals, listening to music and not doing much else. Besides us, the beach was completely empty by the time we left. On our walk back to the hostel in the evening, locals lavished us with enthusiastic conversation, non-stop beer, meat and dancing at a birthday BBQ they insisted we join. Sleepy from hours spent lounging in the sun, it was the perfect way to end a day.

All in all, the "big island" treated us to warm sunshine, black sand beaches, hidden waterfalls and picture-postcard views atop every hill. Incredible place, beautiful weather and friendly people: Ilha Grande is a paradise.

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (part two): Insight into Rocinha 

Read about the rest of my South America 2014 trip here  

On one of my final days in Rio, when most people had moved on and those of us who were left were on a bit of a downer as the reality of 'normal' life (ie. not carnival) began to sink in, we visited Rocinha, the largest favela in Brazil. The name means "little farm," which is odd considering it's neither of those things. Instead, it was colourful, huge and maze-like. Perhaps the people who name these things should've named it "big colourful maze" or something instead.

Anyway. We decided to contact a guy whose tours had been recommended to us by a few different people and whose business had grown solely by word of mouth. When we met up with our guide outside a fancy hotel, he was smiley and enthusiastic. His tours had been recommended over the ones offered by our hostel primarily because he was born and raised in Rocinha as opposed to some of the others which were run by companies set up by outsiders. He knew all the nooks and crannies and places not to go, he had friends all over the place and had loads of interesting stories and background info. Walking through the favela with him I, for one, felt safe. 

We travelled by motorcycle taxi to the top of the favela - the cheapest part to buy housing - and walked back down to the lower parts. Rocinha was an absolute labyrinth of narrow, winding alleyways, crazy wall murals and colourful buildings stacked upon one another wonkily like a too-high pile of books. Children sat banging metal saucepans noisily and doing handstands for tourists who gathered to watch them. One boy stood on the roof of his house flying a makeshift kite, completely oblivious to the audience he'd attracted.

Rocinha surprised me a little if I'm honest. We got shown around spacious houses and walked down streets lined with banks and modern shops. It wasn't like the image of a slum I'd created in my mind at all - it was more like a crowded, wonky, colourful, concrete jungle where building up not out was the thing. The people we came across were friendly and although I know it can be really dangerous, I felt more unsafe on the streets of Copacabana than I did wandering around the favela.

Earlier on during my time in Rio, we also went to a huge party in the favela which was lots of fun. The guy organising the night advised us to stay upstairs in the area set aside for the delicate "gringos" (South American nickname for Americans and therefore tourists in general - they tend to assume you're from the US) instead of going downstairs into the big, scary pit of dangerous favela dwellers in the main club. That's what it seemed like he was insinuating, anyway. But the gringo area was really boring - essentially a balcony looking over the rest of the club, giving you a great view of everyone else having loads of fun. So we didn't stay up there for long and  went downstairs to join the actual party. I'm glad we did because it was a great time complete with lots of grinding, very loud music and no other gringos in sight. 

I think people write off the favelas in Brazil too quickly. I came away from my time in Rocinha feeling like my eyes had been opened somewhat and having learnt that yes, it can be a dangerous place - but then again, so can the whole country. It seems to me that the main issue is that the favelas symbolise poverty and crime. Sitting on hillsides, they're very visible from main parts of the city and therefore all of the issues they represent are impossible to hide away from. It all boils down to tension between the "rich" and "poor" and the fact that the divide between the two is impossible to ignore. The government does little to narrow the gap which results in widespread discontent; that's the real problem. Not that the high-spirited Brazilians would ever let it show!

Note: the last two photos were taken in Lapa, the city's main area for nightlife. The back streets are characterised by worn-out buildings, street art and inspiring posters with slogans like the ones in the penultimate photograph, which say "I love you" and "more love please." That's the spirit!