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Hello people I barely remember,
Well some of you I remember some features about. I remember Geoff is tall, Charlie is short and Reading are the greatest team in the world. Pre historic cultures have been formed on lesser truths than that.
Hairy old 70's popular beat combo 10CC once warbled that "life is like a minestrone". I disagree; I think it is more like a Heinz Treacle Sponge Pudding. No reason, just that I quite like them. Then again on that basis life could be like Toad in the Hole or a lovely block of mature Cheddar. It definitely would not be a Banana though.
So, in today's fun filled file and delete e-mail...
DON"T SPARE THE HORSES, WHATEVER THAT MEANS...
Although it may not seem it I decided I'd been waddling along a little too leisurely of late and so about a month ago I resolved to put my foot down. In a homage to Christmas time holiday filler ´Planes, Trains and Automobiles´ (but without the trains) I've covered zillions of miles, made four border crossings, and travelled everyone of plane, boat, automobile and huskies sledge. For my art I even suffered a ropey 12 hour bus journey in which a lady of mature years, walking in the centre aisle, was unable to make the toilet on time: Someone get me Steve Martin's script writer. I nipped across to the Atlantic coast, back again to the other side and over the Andes in to Chile. Chile always seemed odd for its strange shape and comedy name. News just in, it is still an odd shaped country and it is most definitely chilly in Chile (HONK!). I didn't get on to well in Chile first as I appear to have picked up a knack for being stalked by aggressive tramps and drunks. Perhaps they smell something familiar such as clothes unwashed for weeks. Still, I engaged my not inconsiderable wisdom and indecision: you have my grotty cheese & tomato pastie and I leg it. Pleased to still be alive I took a boat trip down the bottom third of Chile through its mountainous fiords: Amazing stuff aside of the sea sickness which somewhat ironically in a Bolivian fashion involved Spag Bol...ah for the days when you always had to make sure you had an empty plastic bottle with you on bus journeys.
I MAY BE GONE SOME TIME
They (the ubiquitous "they") say the great outdoors renews the soul, strenghtens the sinews, energises the senses and invigorates the cliches. So in an attempt to be a 'real man' and boil cornflakes in a billy can or pick the weevils out of biscuits, or whatever they do on outdoor adventures, I went on a 5 day trek in a place called Torres del Paine: jagged peaks, giant granite pillars, hanging glaciers, milky glacial lakes, icebergs, the whole bit. See the thing is here's the snag. Nobody goes at this time. It's winter. Should have really twigged at that point. The name ´Torres del Paine´ sounds a bit like "Torrents of Pain" which perhaps is a tad overstatement. Perhaps rather it could be named "modest-eso del discomforto-io". Two days of rain, low cloud, driving hail and discovering that it really is possible for wind to knock you off your feet...and then salvation intervened. As Blackadder once said ´God is quick these days´ : 50cm of snow came down overnight and me and my ´Mullens of the NotAntarctic´ expedition were rescued by boat. Not that I was unaware before but I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot to be said for an evening with Marks & Spencer´s Toad in the Hole, gravy, a bottle of Green King IPA and a telemevision. By the way I tried rubbing two sticks together to make fire like Ray Mears does, but it didn´t work. I blame someone else other than me.
IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD IT'S JUST A VERY NAUGHTY BOY...
When I was little I thought Bristol was the end of the world. I mean, it still is in many ways but back then I thought that the water simply rolled off the edge at Bristol like off a piece of flat card. So it was with some excitement that after four months on the road I reached a genuine far flung corner of the world, the bottom of South America and the end of worrrrrrrrrrrrllllddd (a town called Ushuaia in Argentina), to see if water really did roll off the edge. Hilariously, it didn't and whats more there were no dragons either. Still, it looked the absolute part. Bleak, windswept and very moody...the end of the world is the sort of place you get to and then want to stay for a long time. Why be anywhere else? It wasn't difficult to imagine Charles "Dazza" Darwin trundling down a stretch of water here he named the Beagle Channel. This is a big ol' country.
SIDESHOW BOB
Fed up of being guilt tripped every time by locals with 'how do you have the money?' to come here and 'you must be rich?' I gave thanks to my considerable inability to take proper holidays from work, to settle down with the emotionally competent couple thing or to get a house. But most importantly I made an offering to the mighty pound and its super human exchange rate. My personal sacrifice...I went to Easter Island - the things I do in the name of avoiding going home. I´d like to have some wry amusing remark about this tiny island and its big heeeeed statues but there aren´t any. 2,000 miles from the continent and 1,500 miles from the next inhabitable island, surrounded by the most surreal and impressive culture...couldn´t have been further from anywhere else on earth. Sickening isn´t it?! Thankfully though there was always a niggling thought gnawing away at the this happy state, why do all the statues have a striking resemblance to Sideshow Bob?
REMEMBER RIO AND GET DOWN
All set to leave Santiago for Rio any second. On the good side it is Rio and the end of the world winds and rain are on the way out, at last I can be warmer than in Blighty (no more woolly coat, woolly gloves, woolly hat, thermal underwear...yesterday it reached 40C there!). On the down side even after eight months I am just a tad anxious about what will become of me. Duffed up on Copacabana beach, what a way to go. Still as Mark has told me, how can I be afraid of some girl who ´dances on the sand´?! Bring it on!
So dear reader after eight months you are still reaching the end of these e-mails. You are either my family, have little to do at work/bored (Charlie, Andy, Mark) or are reading this e-mail two weeks later in a scheduled moment on your to do list (Martyn), in which case new photos on line at www.statraveljournals.com/mrpaulmullens including fantastic glaciers, fin del mundo and squishing a big heeeeeed.Huesta Luego,Paul."YOU MEAN WINNE THE POOH ISN'T AMERICAN?": THE WORLD BECOMES A BIGGER, COLDER PLACE FOR ONE LUCKY AMERICAN.
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