Last day in Bayacas
We are awaken early at the morning by knocks on our door. With half opened eyes I stumble over our half-unpacked clothes to open the door. There`s Sarah with a unknown couple. I`m very surprised and they seem to be too.
It figures out they are some prospect Australian tenants who came to see the house, which we were supposed to clean and make attractive in exchange for free lodging. But we didn`t get Sarah`s sms about today`s viewing so the house is in a terrible condition.
We ask for 10 min and in a crazy tempo start tidying up: we pick up all the clothes and bags from the floor, chairs and tables and tuck it under the bed, along with half of the unwashed dishes. The other half goes into the bin. All the other things which don`t fit under the bed or in the bin must go behind the shower curtain, as the only drawer they have has a stucked in door and we simply don`t have time to make it open.
As a last adjustment I spary some of Mike`s hairspray in the air to provide some kind of a scent and then we let the people in, in the same time slipping out the door and saying we`re off for a walk til the viewing`s on.
We`re secretely hoping they won`t be here by the time we`re back, in case for some strange reason they open up the bin and look under the bed. After 20min we go back, Sarah is there and to my surprise she tells us that the Australians do like the house and likely will rent it. We are relieved.
Volunteering in orgiva on the olive farm, flat hunt in Granada, volunteering in Bayacas, crazy bus drivers, midnight walk, ghos.
One week has passed. We`ve been working 3.5 hours daily, clearing the irrigation channels, weeding and cutting off the cactuses, murdering millipides and having a little scare when a young guy trespassed on the property looking for marijuana (he choose the wrong address, appearently only Chris`s neighbours have plantation, Chris and his family doesn`t have time for it).
Chris told us that not long before we came somebody else broke into their car, flipped through their CD collection but at the end didn`t take any of the CD`s - which, knowing Chris`s taste, doesn`t surprise me much.
We`ve also went to Granada with the mission of renting a flat but as we don`t speak the language and the avarage Spanaird doesn`t speak English, it was more nerve racking then we`ve expected to be. None of the three estate agents we talked to spoke any English, so we conversed using my unsubstantial Romanian-Spanish and the Babelfish.com. They didn`t want to rent out anything for less then 9 months, also, as an agency fee wanted to charge us 1 month rent.
So we found another solution: her name is Estela, she`s a Spanish student who speaks reasonble English. We`ve found her name and number on a wall, advertising private English lessons, so we hired her for a couple of hours to call some private advertisments and promised her 50 euros just to find more flats for us, phone the landlords, arrange the viewings and help us with the contract.
When coming back at the evening to Orgiva, on the same hairpin-curvy road with the craziest of all bus drivers, a 60 or so white haired guy with a `Heeere's Johnny! `- smile , we met a English girl, Sally. She told us that a week ago one of the same company`s buses on the very same route started to smoke, then burn and not long after the people fled the bus it finally exploded.
I tell you, this is not something I wanted to hear there and then. It turned my imagination on and during the rest of the drive I died many many times in my head, from a basic crashing over the barrier of the road down into the ravine to some more complex and sophisticated ways of passing away.
Anyway, we`ve managed to get to Orgiva by 11pm and then by the moonlight we walked home to Bayacas, up the mountain, through a little forrest, on a deserted narrow pathway. The journey was very atmospheric but rather long, it took almost 2 hours. When finally got to Bayacas we felt suddenly the need for a cold beer so went to the only pub the village has. There was a big group of English hippies and some local people, old and young sitting around a fire and singing Spanish songs. We joined them for a drink and walked home only when they invited us to dance, Mike not wanting to scare them off with his visually disturbing movements.
Both of us were completely exhausted when we finally got in the house. Mike straight ahead went to the bed and fell asleep. I didn`t even switch on the light just went to the window to open it, as i wanted to enjoy the health benefits of a particulalry mild evening and got almost a heart attack when I got face to face to a ghost stuck on the the other side of the window. It was white with huge owl-like eyes and had a high picthed whimper which made the little hairs stand up on my neck. (on a second look it figured out that it was the white kitten of our neighbour ).
some photos from Orgiva and Bayacas
Madrid - Granada - Orgiva
We woke up early to make sure we get in time to the Estacion Sur, where we`ll take the 10.30 bus to Granada. We get lost only twice so we`re fine, this is already calculated in.
Being used to pay directly to the driver (see Romania) we don`t bother to buy tickets from the station, so the driver doesn`t let us in, despite the fact that all of our five big luggages are already inserted in the storage area, under the other passangers luggages. He does swear a bit but unfortunately our Spanish is not good enough to thoroughly grasp the meaning.
So we buy tickts for the next bus, it`s in 1 h time, meanwhile we eat some bocadillios (sandwich) and buy a SIM card for my phone. The little Indian guy in the phone shop luckily does the whole registration process for me, it takes him 5 min the call from which just the spelling of my name is 2 min. (In Spain since the madrid bombings, where they used phones to activate the bombs you need to officcially registrate your phone card, telling to the centre all the infos from your passport and your address in Spain).
The bus arrives, it says : no 1 Granada. We happily load in again our baggages just to be shouted at when we hand in our tickets to the driver, who with expressive gestures and mimics lets us kow that our ticket is for the no2 Granada bus. No2 is exactly beside number 1, it looks the same, goes to the same place, but nevertheless, obediently we take our stuff and along with some other ignorant passangers we move to no2.
The 5 hours journey is uneventful, but I must mention the olive trees, the abbundance of olive trees, the infinitive ocean of olive trees which so much impressed us at the beginning of the journey but made us almost suicidal after the first 3 hours.. We stop once in Castilla la Mancha province, by a little gift shop full of little bronz statues of don Quijotes and Sancho Panzas, and despite Mike`s frowning on them I would love to buy one, but as I`ve promised myself not to buy anything unnecessary til I get a job, I don`t do it.
We get to Granada at 4.30pm and with the help of a old German guy we find the bus to Orgiva. The bus takes 1 hour and a half to go up to the Alpujjarass, the little white washed villages of the Sierra Nevada mountain. The journey is unforgettable, we go past castle ruines, ravines and sevareal enourmous white wind turbines, with the usual olive, fig and almond trees, and the higher we get, the sharp curves of the road becomes a chain of continuous hairpin curves and the higher we go the faster the driver drives.
We get to Orgiva at the end, meet the middle aged English couple on who`se olive farm we`ll help, they drive us to their home (a stunning little cortijo with a large garden full of olive, almond and fig trees, also cactuses and a cristal clear swimming pool) and after a tuna and pasta we fell into the bed.
Madrid
Amid the usual applauses of the Romanian passangers the Wizzair plane lands in Madrid. It`s 7.50pm. Quickly we pick up our luggages and proudly using the few Spanish words we`ve learnt during the flight we enquire one of the airport staff about the underground.
He tells us that there`s no more metro tonight, so we take a taxi and pay 40 euros to the Masalana hostel, somewhere in the centre. Later of course it figures out that actually there was a metro, only we misunderstood him.
Moral: in important matters it`s better to rely on the good old English.
The hostel is full of young backpackers, I think we are the oldest. Never mind, at least we get respect and they don`t steal our food (appaerantly it happens).We are hot, exhausted and thirsty so we take out two cervezas (beer) and put 2 euros in the little `honesty` jar designed for it.
The room is ok (very minimalistic, not even bedbugs), and we are 6 of us sleeping in it and as one of the German girls is sleepwalking we are not bored at all.
The missing China photos: http://zsuzsakinaban.freeblog.hu/
www.zsuzsakinaban.freeblog.hu
2 more :)
Beautiful Longsheng
More photos
Beijing, Summer Palace
Yangshuo
Mike, preparing for a huge jump, but instead had a very spectacular trip over.. :/
Interesting..
Poor dogs, they were slaughtered not long after this photo..
Yangshuo
Hello everybody, Mike is reading The wind in the willows (which i`ve finished a few minutes ago, and very much enjoyed it), so i was able to kidnap his computer for a bit.
We arrived here 4 days ago and enjoyed it so far, apart from the weather. Yangshuo is a beautiful little town beside the Li river, its tiny, in 1 hour you can see every bit of it. We`ve been swimming, and biking, and eating weird things (dove and frog..), but the problem is that it`s incredibly hot and humid, so between 12-5pm we just stay in the room cause otherwise our whole body gets instantly wet. The heat actually goes on our nerves, we are much slower mentally and phisically, and are missing badly the English weather:)
Our accomodation is very interesting, a little room without window, it`s very humid also, and has cockcroaches, but tomorrow we will move into another room, a hopefully better one. All 6 volunteers have 2 small bathrooms, which consists of a dirty sink, a hole in the floor (that is the toilet ), a shower head and the aforementionend cockcroaches. But the scenery is amazing, and swimming in the beautiful warm green river by fantasically shaped lush mountains is very much a compensation for the lack of comfort and hygiene.
The people here are very laid back and nice, both Chinese and foreigners, we play cards and table tennis together. The locals take up every opportunity to practise their English, so we are constantly smiled and and spoken to, there is even a sweet little girl in our building who very much likes Mike and sometimes comes in, looks at him and without saying anything (she doesn`t speak any English) is stroking his hair and arms, and smiling at him, which Mike very much enjoys, and as the girl is only 7 i don`t mind also:)
There are lots of other things i would like to write about also, but as i said before, my brain is not working on full mode:), plus for some reason i have fever, 38.5 and headache and dizziness and upset stomach (dongue fever..? yellow fever..? or possibly bubonic plague..), so I have a shower and trying to sleep. Hopefully tomorrow will be still alive.
P.S. my phone number is +86 152 1036 7427 if you feel like hearing my voice
p.S.2 the teacher assistant, who is responsible for us, volunteers, it`s a little, mad Chinese fellow named Walter. The first day we arrived he greeted us, we chatted for about 1 hour, he took us to the accomodation etc., but the following morning he didn`t recognize us, and asked again if we are new volunteers and where from!! plus he is continuously smiling, with a big wierd smile, his all behaviour is strange, that kind of person you can imagine would take a gun and go inside a classroom and shoot everybody. The only thing i`m not worried about him doing this,because I know that in China is not easy to get guns unless you have permission. And if the Chinese authorities have any sense they would never give such a permission for our crazy Walter.
And he has a son, not more than 6 yrs old, who when the first time saw us coming, run to Mike and started to punch his stomach, than went away and came back with a huge sharp stick and prepared to stick it in Mike`s bum.. And all meanwhile Walter was smiling and just saying `noty boy, noty boy`! Later we`ve heard from the other volunteers that this little boy is not only punching, but also kicking, spitting and biting, because his favourite movie is the Kung Fu master and he thinks this is what Kung fu fighters do.
Some links about volunteering and English teaching, which i`ve promised some time ago..
The first 2 are great volunteering placements, no fee, flexible, I used the 1st to come out
www.workaway.info
www.helpx.net
This one is about teaching English, u must stay 3 months but u get money for it
http://www.jobchina.net/index.php?post_id=9870&show_emp=974
Photos
A few photos, and i won`t have time to write till the weekend. Wednesday we go by train to Guilin, 24 hours journey, than by boat to Yangshuo
Beijing
We`ve here for the last 4 days and enjoy it a lot, though the first 2 days were quite stressful.
Arrived at Hong kong on Tuesday, after 12 hours of flight where I ddin`t sleep more than a minute, cause for some strange reason i was sure if i really fall asleep the plane will crash.. I just saw the airport`s area, but i found it beautiful surrounded with hills full of trees, the air hot and humid and could hardly see any Europians, which made it feel like even more dreamlike.
Some funny things: only few minutes before landing did the stewardesses put up their face masks, which`s aim is to protect the passangers from the possible contamination, whcih is very silly cause before that they had very close contact with us for 12 hours.
The security service from Hong Kong was searching our bag for 30 min, and than in Mike`s sunglass-casetehy found a secret pocket where a scissor was hidden, have no idea for what reason exactly there, we never knew about it, and went through already a least 4 European airport check-in without them noticing!!
A few things i`ve noticed since here:
The avarage Chinese don`t speak English, don`t read the pinyin (the Chinese character`s romanized version), which makes the whole communication very slow, tiring and unefficient, but it has it`s own charm. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed explaining with body language in the pharmacy that I need antibacterial mouthwash cause my gums are inflammed
The traffic lights have solely decorational function, nobody takes them seriously which makes the road crossings a unique, adrenaline-fueled experience
Hello everybody, already 1 week in China but I have finally photos and internet!!
As the days here really seem shorter and the internet is quite unreliable I won`t have any long writings, just a few lines where we are right now, and a few photos. Especially that the Facebook is not working here, this and the mails will be my only means of communication with you, so please, please, do write me emails and send photos once in a while, to know what`s happening with you!
So, since i left my beautiful beautiful London (the more time is passing since I left the more I appreaciate it), I`ve been to Romania for 2 weeks, than finally Mike came there and the whole time became much better, we went hiking in rain in the neighbouring forrests (full of bear), went fishing and caught nothing, visited different relatives of mine and got headache from them and from the pálinka (traditional Hungarian alcohiol, it`s like vodka), etc.
The only bad thing was that I continuously had to translate, cause my people don`t really speak English, Mike knows only a few words and a nursery rythm in Hungarian, so big communication couldn`t really happen there. But at least i had the power to make them say to eachother silly swearings, cause they naivly asked from me how to say this and how to say that, so at the end was quite funny.
Underneath a few images. On the 1st is Mike, on his face the `im with Zsuzsa`s mother but trying to look happy` smile
Me and my handsome brother:
Mike and me (in spite our seren face, after the photo taking, when we stood up noticed that I sat on a lizard and killed it..)
