BACKTRACKER

When in Ethiopia, do as the Rastas do 

Shashamane in the West Arsi zone of Oromia, Ethiopia, is home to some couple hundred Rastafarians who migrated over to settle in their spiritual homeland. This devout lot occupy a small tract of land on the edge of town. They’re a friendly bunch, growing food and selling their wares in a close-knit and well-kept community.

My solo venture there was short-lived, but formative. The town itself is pretty hostile. I’m used to being stared and pointed at living in Ethiopia, but this was next level. The locals found my presence singularly hilarious. A group of kids hounded me down the street. I find it hard ingratiating myself with 6-year-olds as it is, let alone when about twenty are shrieking “fuck you” at the top of their tiny lungs. The two verbal weapons in my arsenal, bekka (enough) and then hidu (go away) did nothing except provoke more laughter at the stupid faranji (gringo) scuttling away from them.

Finding the Rasta’s compound was a welcome respite. Lined with high concrete walls, it’s the hub of their community - a sort of rec centre and place for religious festivals. The older Rastas with crustier dreadlocks spoke only Jamaican patois - I was with some English-speakers who were glad to show me round and chew the fat. They were also keen to ply me with their home-grown bush weed, which was fine till I was subjected to a lengthy oration on their faith and tribe’s history – an exhaustive lecture which I nodded through smilingly as the facts and figures wafted past my unresponsive psyche.

There was one minor panic when they handed me some food – a kind of potatoey pasty with a small pile of what looked like grated carrot next to it. The fluffy stodge sucked all the moisture out of my mouth as I slowly masticated – I felt inward horror as my gag reflex started rearing its head. The thought of chucking up their kindly offered meal on the patio was mortifying. Certain there was nothing I could do, I turned to the orange shavings on the side of the plate. Sharp and tangy whatever it was brought the saliva rushing back, and breathing an inward sigh of relief I ate the rest with gusto.

There was time for one more excitement. Out in the street, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face a fat, toothless man swaying on his feet and saying something probably abusive and hurtful. Before I could react he grabbed my phone from my pocket and stumbled off. My friend stepped in to get it back. Suddenly both men were grappling each other, one hand clinging to the phone, the other pulling furiously at the opponent’s hair. Spectators, enjoying themselves hugely, congregated to survey the two wrestling men and awkward-looking white bloke.

Anxieties of a Reluctant Traveller

By Jack Harry - Winner of BackTracker Erasmus Competition 2015

For one reason or another I’ve never had ‘that’ trip away. A lack of enthusiasm, money or organisation have always come between me and my seminal exotic getaway. Fortunately this isn’t a sob story; I’ve had my Vodka and 0% beer fuelled post-GCSE coming of age week away and my parents’ generosity meant I got drunk on Las Ramblas and went to clubs where I saw people on hard drugs for the first time after being accepted to university. In years that followed though, most of my spare money was put towards underwhelming scores rather than an Iguazu Falls piggybank, not that I minded, I was happy to watch Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents and its spin-offs in smoke filled rooms and decide that it wasn’t really for me.

The thing is, I study languages and now find myself in Chile for 5 months. The first part of my Year Abroad was spent in Bordeaux and it was easy enough not to drift too far from my ‘yeah it’s pretty nice, very French, but a bit boring’ line that I’d got in my head from the outset, but here I’m plunged into the world of the gap-year, the wanderlust afflicted and the nomads. I may have stopped smoking weed now (cheers panic attacks), but my opinions on travelling are still laden with some of the pretension and a lot of the cynicism from my wake and bake days. One of the things that has stayed with me is the uncomfortable immediacy of it all, seeing ‘X and two other friends are at Machu Picchu’ pop up on my newsfeed seems hugely mundane and has induced in me a paralysing and restrictive fear of going to any ‘bait places’ so tangible that it led to a Bucharest ’14 mini-break.

I consoled myself with the thought that mine was a ‘nobler’ quest, that of the linguist who wouldn’t submit to any throwaway 21st century tourism and I stressed the importance of my studies to anyone who’d listen. I wasn’t bringing a Go-Pro, I was the second coming of Hemingway. Then came the first geotagged mobile upload swiftly followed by a tweet and an Instagram on the hostel WiFi. I’m not saying I’ll be taking selfies with Mapuche children before my time in Chile is out, but maybe the first inklings that I might have been a bit of a dick when I was denigrating others are starting to appear. I haven’t had a blindingly obvious epiphany that there isn’t just one way to travel, that it’s subjective and everyone gets different things out of their experiences - I knew this already, but living abroad forces you to confront this and accept it as a truth rather than some wafty notion.

The Street Art King of Granada: El Niño de las Pinturas

Ok, ok we get it. The Alhambra is the tourist attraction in Granada. The whole of Spain even. And it’s no doubt every bit as beautiful and impressive as it’s made out to be. But there are a whole load of other amazing things to see in Granada as well. The art of 'el Niño de las Pinturas’ (translated as ‘the child of paintings’) is one such example. Home-grown in Granada, this street artist uses the old Jewish quarter, Realejo, as his playground. It was at the age of just 11 that el Niño, a.k.a. Raύl Ruiz, first picked up a can of spray paint. Now, he has travelled all over the world and has murals all over the place - from New York to Venezuela, Morocco to Hungary and has collaborated in projects with organisations such as Doctors Without Borders. His main passion is street art, having his art accessible to everyone. And you’ll be able to find more than enough amazing art to keep you going in Granada. Drag yourself out of bed early as quite a few of el Niño’s murals are on shop shutters. You won’t regret missing that lie-in as these are often the best and most striking pieces. Keep a look out for his portrait of Joe Strummer from The Clash, a notorious figure around Granada in the 80s and 90s after the band went tits up. Treat yourself once you’ve explored to a drink in Bar Ízaro, Calle de Elvira 125; a bar that actively encourages street art, and is covered with paintings by el Niño himself. Inspired by the natural world and the people he meets, his colours and intricate portraits will intrigue you, as will the use of poetry in his work. Some examples: “el camino que nos une no necesita mapa” (the road that unites us needs no map),  “cansando de no encontrar respuestas, decidί cambiar mis preguntas” (tired of not getting responses, I decided to change my questions) and “el mundo está oscuro, ilumina tu parte” (the world is dark, light up your part). Food for thought while you’re making your merry way around.

See more of el Niño’s work at: http://elninodelaspinturas.es/

Apocalypse maybe in a little bit - Nha Trang (part 1)

‘Don't you think it’s a little risky for some R&R?’ and other forced, clichéd references to popular culture.

You know that bit in Apocalpyse Now when they get to that bridge and they find utter carnage: there are people firing into nothingness, I think there are flares being set off by renegades– ‘Who's the commanding officer here, soldier?’ – you know the one. Nha Trang by night slightly resembles this. I recall the guidebook saying that the place was a ‘heavyweight’, and the combative undertones are not to be ignored. It is not nightlife to be taken lightly. Some of the travellers in our hostel were nursing bandages after rubbing locals up the wrong way. Another evening, a petty argument with a barman led to a full-scale evacuation of the vicinity after knives were drawn, although I fear that we might have been writing in a scene from Kidulthood into our otherwise Inbetweeners trip. To my sheltered home-counties mind, I thought that the insistent question ‘where’s Charlie?’ was testament to the permanence of Hollywood rather than a yearning for narcotics. I found Vietnam to be the most interesting of the Southeast Asian nations to travel through; but Nha Trang has a certain grittiness about it that can be quite unpleasant.

With that being said, there are a couple of exceptions. The first is The Sailing Club. Tarnished with the label of ‘an institution’, it feels a bit like that restaurant Sandy Cohen opens with Jimmy Cooper in The O.C. For the homesick, it is the closest thing you will find to Embargoes in that part of the world, but it is on a beach. I thought it was pretty cool at the time, and to be fair it probably is, but I don’t want to be judged as tasteless if you go and find the cast of Ex on the Beach dancing to Pitbull, which is a very real danger.

Apocalypse maybe in a little bit - Nha Trang (part 2)

Vinpearland is essentially a water park with some knock off Disney characters thrown in for the little ones (probably singing that Mickey Mouse song from Full Metal Jacket).The food was atrocious, so avoid that if you can – but I imagine that, it being an island, the billionaire owner has something of a monopoly, and it wasn’t really a picnic sort of place. One bit of practical advice: do actually listen to the lifeguards on the top of the rides. One of the best rides is a giant slide, and to go down you sit in a large inflatable, resembling a paddling pool. Anyone who has been to the new Centre Parcs in Woburn Forest will have experienced similar (albeit on a smaller scale) on The Tornado. Anyway, in Vinpearland, you have to select your reinforced paddling pool, carry it to the bottom of the start of the ride, hook it onto a winch and a guy at the top raises it as you climb the stairs. This little bit of effort on your part makes the ride so much better as you really feel you have earned the exhilaration. We were a group of seven ‘lads’ and when we got to the top we were told that the ride was only for six people. The mutual bond of exhilarated childishness overtook concerns for safety (a good marine never leaves a man behind) and we pushed past the lifeguard whose fevered protestations we should have taken much more seriously. As it turns out the weight of the extra person on board caused our craft to sail dangerously high to the edge of the slide. Vietnamese safety precautions seemed lacking here and at many places, the slide was open wholly above the horizontal. On several occasions I could have sworn we went aerial and nearly plummeted off the side. It got so bad that people were falling from the top of the vessel when we went up a corner and landed on the person sitting opposite them. So organise yourselves neatly into groups of six. Another good ride was the half pipe thing, so go on that as well. As always the lazy river was rubbish; but what are you expecting? It’s something you have to do.

Sledging down a volcano in Chile

Villarrica Volcano erupted. Luckily BackTracker's Henry Faber made it down in time. He had this to report:

Admittedly it would be advised to wait until bone meltingly hot lava has stopped spewing from the top. But in less explosive periods, Villarrica Volcano is the central attraction of Pucón in Chile. For $75 each, up to a hundred travellers a day wake early to scale the snowy peak 2,860m above sea level.

The sun is hot and the gear is heavy. With large pack, ice pick, helmet and cold weather clothing, each climber is ready at Villarrica’s base by about 7am, facing between 5-6 hours of zigzag walking to reach the top. Guides are mostly young but vastly experienced. In six years of work a guide can average up to 800 ascents, many choosing to walk in heavy ski boots and carry stubby skies for a quick descent.

The first hour involves a steep hike over volcanic rubble and red sand. For those less keen, the most expensive chairlift of your life lets you skip the dusty torture for a cool $22 extra. Even the hardiest of hikers are sweating heavily by the time sand is replaced by snow, and zigzagging starts through deep and crusty ice. Some say the climb is magical, a sunny walk up a perfectly sloped mountain side, others complain of boredom; it is a long, straight view to the waiting summit, 4 hours up above. 

Reaching the summit, thin, sulphuric vapours start to grate the throat and cause breathing difficulties. Even when not erupting, Villarrica’s activity is high and lava bubbles around you. Bring marshmellows. The crater dives deep through layers of rock and sand; there are even helicopter trips available for the most glamorous of travellers.

The Gates of Hell, Turkmenistan

Goodness gracious great balls of fire

What do you get if you chuck a burning match into a pit of methane? Why, only the fiery setting for Lucifer’s steamy wet dream.

Local legend has it that this is what the Soviet Union did back in 1971. The Darvaza Crater, nicknamed the Gates of Hell, opens up ominously in the desert of the Ahal Province in Turkmenistan.

Apart from the astonishingly depressing white marble dream world of the capital Ashgabat, reminding us why psychotic despots shouldn’t be given the pin code to the national credit card, Darvaza is perhaps one of very few things to see in Turkmenistan. But by Lucifer, it’s worth it.

Clean Monday Flour War, Greece, Mon 23rd Feb

In the quaint little village of Galaxidi, in the south of Greece, you’ll find one of the most recklessly messy festivals in the world. Not unlike an extremely starchy version of Holi festival in India, the Clean Monday Flour War (paradox?) has been covering the village with flour every February since the 19th century.

It comes as the celebration of Clean Monday (or Ash Monday), which also happens to coincide with the beginning of Greek Orthodox Lent and the end of Carnival, which they also celebrate. The war, also known as alevromoutzouromata or “people throw flour at each other”, sees villagers dyeing bag after bag of flour with food colouring, painting their faces with charcoal and doing very floury, but altogether quite safe, battle.

It’s an ordeal that’s taken pretty seriously by the residents of Galaxidi, with around 3,000 pounds of flour being dyed each year. You’ll see spectators in surgical masks, overalls, safety goggles, etc., to protect themselves from unwilling flour consumption whilst the village’s historic buildings receive the protection of a number of plastic tarpaulins.

3000 players and 1 rule: No Murder

Of all England’s sporting traditions, Derbyshire’s Shrovetide Football must undoubtedly be considered royalty. Every Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras Wednesday, the quiet town of Ashbourne splits into two teams: those born on the north side of the Henmore brooke and those born on the south side: the Up’ards against the Down’ards.

The game itself dates back over a thousand years and holds claim to the oldest running sporting rivalry on earth. Or so the locals say. The Victorians took it, adapted it and wrote rules and regulations to create modern day football. There are two goals, 3 miles apart and the object is to tap the ball 3 times against your own goal. You have 8 hours to do so. Apart from this there are no rules, save for murder. In fact only a few years back the oh-so-cunning Up’ards won by hooking up a fence to an electricity source, stopping the Down’ards in their tracks. With 3,000 people taking part what you witness can only be described as a mixture of football, rugby and American football, if it were played by a herd of marauding wildebeest.

But to those taking part it is the be-all and end-all. Those lucky enough to score have claimed the feeling was better than the day their child was born. The game is a passage to local greatness for the common man bored by the mundanity of everyday life. To fully understand this you have to stick around afterwards for the victory celebrations that would beat any World Cup trophy, and witness the deification of the goalscorer.