Plastic is not so fantastic…

In South America plastic is clogging up drains in towns and villages, causing streams to overflow in the countryside, and the local people clearly don’t see there is a problem.

People throw litter in the streets without a care – I witnessed countless children unwrap sweets and ice creams and throwing the wrappers into a lake or ocean.

On my travels I have really noticed the amount of rubbish, predominantly plastic, that is just lying around the countryside on this continent.

The further north I travelled (and to the poorer regions), the more plastic I encountered. Beautiful landscapes littered with plastic bottles, plastic bags, food containers, any type of plastic you can think of is there. Waterfalls strewn with brightly coloured plastics, plastic bags hanging from trees and floating in streams.

Most of this plastic is ending up in the world’s oceans and rivers, even in the most remote places.

The sad thing is that I even saw plastic bottles floating down the river in the Amazon basin. Not a pretty sight.

An American oceanographer says that the amount of plastic pollution in the worlds oceans is so extensive it’s beyond help. ANd a toxic plastic graveyard twice the size of Texas (but no one really knows the true size) lies in the waters of the Pacific between San Francisco and Hawaii.

And plastic kills marine animals. A recent study concluded that in excess of 100,000 marine mammals die needlessly each year from the deadly effects of plastic pollution.

Plastic itself is not the problem, but it’s use in throwaway items clearly is, and a lack of education and resources in developing countries such as Peru and Bolivia means that as yet they have no real way of recycling these items.

At the moment there seems to be little in the way of a solution

So educating local people is key.

But tourists have a massive responsibility too.

Every store I entered offered me a plastic bag, even for the smallest items. But I almost always say no. In fact, the first phrase I learnt in Spanish, on day two in Buenos Aires, ‘No bolsa, gracias’, which roughly indicates that I don’t want a bag!

Plastic bottles are a core part of the pollution problem here, but unfortunately, in places where it’s not possible to drink the tap there is no alternative for tourists.

So for now, I do what I can, I buy my water in larger bottles and transfer it to my water bottle in the hope and I avoid plastic bags like the plague, in the hope that it makes a little bit of a difference.

And I encourage you to think about the turtles, and what you do with your plastic – buy a BEP resuable water bottle and a reusable shopping bag – before it really is too late.

About plastic pollution:

• Plastic bottles take 700 years to begin composting
• 90% of the cost of bottled water is due to the bottle itself
• 80% of plastic bottles are not recycled
• 38 million plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water (not including soda)
• 24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles
• The average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year
• Bottling and shipping water is the least energy efficient method ever used to supply water
• Bottled water is the second most popular beverage in the United States

Ice ice baby.

2010 has been an icy year for me.

Can you believe that prior to my trip to New Zealand in July I had never seen a mountain with snow on it? Not close up anyway. Growing up in chilly England has always meant sunny holidays were a must. The nearest I’d ever gotten to a mountain was flying over the Alps on my somewhere else.

In fact, other than the poxy slushy stuff that we get on the odd occasion in England I’d never really seen snow or ice in any real quantity. But this year I’ve more than made up for it!

I’ve visited two of the three largest ice formations in the world - Antarctica being the largest and the Perito Merino Glacier in Patagonia being the third largest.

I’ve set foot on the Antarctic continent, walked through metre deep snow drifts, sailed through icebergs, tobogganed down icy slopes and eyeballed countless glaciers. Not to mention my very lame attempt at learning to ski! And not forgetting my swim (if only briefly) in some of the coldest water in the world at Deception Island.

Of all the places I’ve visited Antarctica is quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth. Words can’t describe the majesty of the place. It is overwhelming.

A real life Antarctic 'berg

I actually can’t believe I’ve never done any of this before. In fact, in my opinion cold holidays are totally underrated. So if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to venture away from the sun, I promise you’ll never regret it. And the next cold destinationfor me? The Arctic Circle for sure.

 

The Antarctic

Real snow!

Some ice cold facts:

• The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It holds 70 percent of the world’s fresh water.
• The Perito Moreno glacier is a 250 km² (97 sq mi) ice formation, 30 km (19 mi) in length
• It is the world’s third largest reserve of fresh water
• It is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that is growing
• If all land ice melted away, the global average sea level would rise about 266 feet, with the Antarctic ice sheet contributing about 240 feet and the Greenland ice sheet contributing about 25 feet.
• Permanent snow and ice cover about 12% (21 million square km’s) of the Earth’s land surface. 80% of the world’s fresh water is locked up as ice or snow.
• The thickest layer of ice is found in the Antarctic; in one spot the ice is 4,770 meter thick.
• The oldest ice ever probed and examined was found in the Antarctic and is ca. 750,000 years old.
• The coldest temperature ever measured on earth was recorded on the Eastern Continental Glacier in the Antarctic: minus 89.6 degrees Celsius.
• At a thickness of just two inches, ice will support a man. At a thickness of four inches, it will support man on horseback.  At a thickness of eight inches, will support heavy loads. At a thickness of ten inches, will support 1,000 pounds to the square foot.
• Icebergs are created from ‘calving’ glaciers or ice shelves
• 75 percent of an iceberg is under the surface of the water
• Eventually the balance of an iceberg will change and it will flip over or rotate
• Ice is blue because of the light going into it – red light is absorbed by the structure of the ice so the rest is reflected as blue. When there are more air bubbles white light is refracted. This means the older the ice is the more it reflects blue light because it is more compacted

Buenos Aires arte callejero

www.graffitimundo.com - awesome tour company

On my last day in BA I thought it was time to get some ‘culcha’ and decided to take a tour of the BA street art, which I had seen so much of around the city.

According to the guide, it has seen a re-emergence in the city since 2001 when Argentina crashed financially and the people of BA took to the streets and expressed their anger by painting on the walls.

Over the years it has evolved to become the colourful street art that it is today, but you can still see how people protest and share their feelings on the walls. The day the ex-President, Kirchner, died, suddenly the walls of many government buildings were covered in graffiti and writing from people sharing their feelings about his death.

Here are a few of my photo highlights. You can see them all on my flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/55428994@N07/sets/72157625175978053.

 

The day a President died

A revolutionary city...

Does anyone recognise this guy?

Buenos Aires – one giant rubbish dump?

 

 

Buenos Aires - one giant rubbish bin?

One of the many things that I read about Bs As before my arrival was the problem of rubbish and being the 15th largest city in the world, you’d expect a fair amount. But when I arrived in Bs As it seemed that the whole city had turned into just one great big rubbish tip.

A brief strike by ‘garbage workers’ had left the city overwhelmed by 20,000 tonnes of rubbish, left on every street corner in the city. Every street corner had a pile of bin bags on it, that as the days went by got larger and larger, often ending up like the one in the picture. The smell started to get a little out of control and I saw a few things on the pavement that really shouldn’t have been there.

Bs As is a beautiful city but has the potential to be devastated by its rubbish problem. It seems that it has always been an issue and a lasting image for many of the city are the Cartoneros or ‘night pickers’, who take care of the city’s recycling.

There seems to be little formal recycling in the city, and so it is down to the cartoneros, who roam the streets each night ransacking the garbage bags left on street corners for paper, metal, plastic and card, and just about anything else they can sell on for recycling. In 2001 following the financial crash there were an estimated 40,000 cartoneros in the city. Thankfully this number is now down to around 3,000.

It was quite a confronting sight for me to witness them in action, and particularly during the strike when really it seemed like they were making the problem worse as the sifted rubbish was no longer in the bags but strewn across the pavement.

However it seems as though the local government has decided to make them part of the solution. Many of these pickers already belong to co-operatives and will now be paid by the local government to collect recyclable waste. This is especially significant as the new ‘Zero Waste Policy’ means that by 2010, the city’s rubbish should be reduced by 30 percent compared to 2004 (one and half million tons), by 2012 a reduction of 50 percent and by 2017 to 75 percent.

It will be interesting to see what happens as they cannot continue the way they are right.

 

 

A Buenos Aires cartonera Picture obtained from http://eternabuenosaires.com/2010/07/los-cartoneros-estaran-integrados-al-sistema-oficial-de-recoleccion-de-residuos.

 

A Buenos Aires cartonera

Hablar espanol?

My primary reason for spending two weeks in Buenos Aires was to learn to speak Spanish. Having only ever learnt French and German at school, and with the prospect of 6 months on a Spanish speaking continent looming, I figured the least I could do would be to increase my vocabulary from three words (por favor & gracias) to at least 100, minimum.

So I signed up for two weeks of classes – 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. 20 hours a week in total. No hay problemo I thought to myself.

On the way to my first lesson it suddenly occurred to me that it was at least 22 years since I had started to learn a foreign language from scratch. This immediately put paid to any confidence I may have had previously.

I sat down in the classroom and the teacher instantly starting firing questions at me. As it now turns out these were pretty simple:

1. Como estas?

2. Como se llama?

Instantly I could feel the heat rising as I broke out into a sweat wondering a) what the hell is he saying b) how the hell do I respond and c) is it late to run away now?

The teacher spoke almost entirely in Spanish throughout the lesson and to my surprise, we covered a lot of ground that first day. By the end of the lesson I was even able to answer his questions.

However, all my grand intentions of learning espanol by day and then sightseeing were long gone. Absolutely shattered, my classmate Michelle and I headed for a pizza and then I staggered home with a full belly but even fuller brain!

The thing that I had forgotten about language learning is how incredibly frustrating it is. Not being able to communicate a simple concept when it would take no more than 10 seconds in English is one of the worst feelings I’ve had in a while.

And to make matters worse, I suddenly had developed what felt like foreign language tourettes. Every French or German word I had ever learnt was suddenly there at the front of my mind yet the Spanish one nowhere to be found!

By the end of the first week my Spanish had come along in leaps and bounds, and by the end of the second week I was able to hold (albeit very limited) conversations with taxi drivers, shop assistants and wait staff!

I realise how much I have learnt when I look at signs and ads no longer with total bewilderment and when I ask the waiter to please not speak to me in English.

My proudest moment of the week was when last night I asked the waiter:

“If I buy a bottle of wine with dinner can I take it to my room after I have eaten?” Only to be brutally wounded when he told me how bad my Spanish was!

But you know, as they say practice makes perfect, and I am determined to crack this language on my travels. So watch this space and maybe in 6 months you’ll be wishing you’d learn as I type this in good old espanol!

The long bus ride to Buenos Aires

At £45 for an 18 hour journey though my expectations were low.

But I was mistaken and it seems that this kind of reclining seat is fairly standard for this

 

part of the world.

In fact, the 18 hours passed really quickly, mainly because:

1. We were given a 3-course meal for dinner by the bus company

2. I managed to get a full 9 hours sleep in the semi-cama seat

3. Breakfast was served on board the bus in the morning

My only complaint – as I was warned by nearly everyone who has ever caught one of these buses – was the aircon blasting a chilly gale throughout the whole journey. But at least my sleeping bag was useful!

Arrival

Well I’ve landed in Sao Paolo and there are a few things that have struck me on my travels so far:

1. I am a nervous traveller. Not so much the flying, but all the things that could go wrong along the way. I need to go with the flow a bit more. Like today, was panicking that I was going to miss my connecting flight to Iguazu. And I did. And what happened? They put me on the next one. Panic over.

2. I need to become more organised as I travel. I have already ‘lost’ my passport and purse and am not even 24hrs in. Thankfully I just hadn’t put them back in their rightful home.

3. Sao Paolo airport is not as scary as I thought. Having said that am in no hurry to reach for the Lonely Planet but am not nervous sitting here tapping away on my mac.

4. My love affair with the Kindle and my Macbook Pro is going to get me through many a long wait for planes, trains and buses.

5. The language barrier is already a problem. Will need to learn some spanish ASAP. Hopefully will get onto a course starting Monday!

6. Brazilians don’t seem to rush much. Will have to drop down a gear or two over the next few weeks!