pooka_silhe

RIP Cuy

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:19:09 GMT

Sadly on the 31 of January 2008, my little man passed away. He was involved in a car accident in the evening. As a tribute to my cat...and as it was something I was going to do anyway, here are some of the cute things that made him Cuy.

1. He used to try to be where my foot was as I was walking around, unfortunately I have more momentum and less perception than he does.

2. When we play with his toys, I could throw them for him, and he would fetch them and bring them back to me.

3. We went to my parents place for christmas, he was outside stalking the kangaroos. He actually caught one! (It happened to be the biggest male in the pack he caught it's tail then paused as he didn't know what to do next, the kangaroo just looked at him and Cuy ran off)

4. When I introduced Yama, the new kitten, he accepted her in about two days...he also brought home someone else's cat for occasional visits.

5. I forgot about the four am early morning breakfast. But that was my fault as when I worked night shift I would get home and give him his breakfast, he continued it when I stopped doing night shift.

There were other things, Cuy used to like being near me as often as he could and at the time of the accident I was in the backyard when he was in the front. But he liked to watch what I did, and when I watered the garden he would follow me out and and look and the water spikes, sometimes even drink out of them, despite the full water bowl. Cuy and Yama used to share the food, as Yama would run in and use her head to push Cuy's out of the way.

I will put photo's of my man up soon, and my little girl Yama.

Finally

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:27:05 GMT

Well I have finally got all the pics up...now I have to annotate them...Be warned though, there is a rather disturbing picture there somewhere!!

Random Thought

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:21:19 GMT

Human one :-
"Awww our little girl is growing up"

Human Two :-
"There are two things wrong with that statement. One, I am not little! Two, I am not growing up...only sideway's, you see it happened when my a$$ and belly had a fight after my a$$ made a comment about my stomach behind its belly button. Now they are going there separate ways"

Don't ask me...it was 11 at night when that hit me?

Cuy the cat

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:42:09 GMT

Well Cuy wishes to use up some of his nine lives, recently when I got home he started running around the house and, at one stage, jumped up on one of my shelves (Which happened to hold some dust collectors). I am not sure how, but Cuy slipped and knocked over three said dust collectors. Two dragon figurines are slightly damaged but can be repaired but, alas my vase that I got as a birthday present from work is no more.

Side note, when I was working as a kitchen hand, years ago, my boss asked if I could work on my 21st birthday as he had a huge wedding he needed everyone there for. I had already planned to have my party on the Sunday so I could accommodate him, but after the wedding was done he made a big show and gave me a vase as a birthday present. (and everyone at the wedding congratulated me on reaching 21 years of age)

The End of our journey

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:43:09 GMT

Our last day on holiday, how sad... so to brighten us up we went to Universal Studios (I really wanted to go to MGM but it didn't look like they did tours in the California set). We strolled around going on a few of the "rides" before heading to the studio tour. It wasn't long before the clock hit 2pm and we had to hit the airport. So after saying a fond farewell to "Yama" we headed once again into the airport. We left USA on Friday night, then landed in New Zealand on Sunday morning, strange...I didn't think I had anything to drink...maybe I should lay off the motion sickness pills... Landing in New Zealand and trouping past the security Bunny had to wait for both Rave Dave and TC, both had brought perfume in LAX duty free, and as TC brought out the unopened Duty Free bag with her purchase inside they waved her through...although Rave Dave had to take out his purchase, open up the bag, take out the perfume from its box, then have security go through the rest of his bag! Back on the plane again and three hours to go...three hours before I am back home facing the dull headache that is known as work...sad again...although Mum did surprise me with a present herself. A young asthmatic cat I have called Cuy. So I know what I will (eventually) type up!

Hooray for Hollywood

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:33:23 GMT

Back up to Hollywood, but first a quick detour to the Vasquez Rocks, we spent about an hour roaming around these rocks (and occasionally on them). In Hollywood we wandered around the stars on the walk of fame and had a look at the hand and foot prints of the celbs, then..as we were walking back to the hotel, we saw....someone... we saw a crowd of people in one of the streets and curious we went to have a look. We think they were filming a movie called "Grave Misconduct" but we are not to sure of the title of the movie or even the name of the celb. (Or if it was a celb!)
TC and Rave Dave have gone off to see Resident Evil: Extinction, while I have continued ambling around Hollywood, I went into the Scientology place and had a stress test done. After the guys came back Rave Dave and Bunny wandered the streets of Hollywood again...but this time it was night! It wasn't as brightly lit up as Las Vegas but it was still nice. We even saw some all female band playing a gig in the middle of the street and a rap group dancing. Finally when we couldn't stand the strangness we headed back to our hotel.

Stranded in Carlsberg

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:24:18 GMT

TC left us in Carlsberg while she caught up with an old workmate. Rave Dave and Bunny strolled aimlessly around the town stopping at a farmers market to buy strawberries, Starbucks to buy drinks, and the beach to watch...no-one...apparently no one wants to do anything in the "cold". After TC got back we stole the car and drove to the local shopping center to dag out for the evening.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:07:26 GMT

Again another cost drive, we stopped at Miami beach where we decided against roller blading down the boardwalk, TC didn't want to do it at any stage, Rave Dave had hurt his neck that night and the Bunny had decided that she wasn't going to provided the others amusement). We stopped at Hollywood briefly but as none of the hotels had any accommodation we continued down the road to Carlsberg.

Relaxation day

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 05:00:26 GMT

Today was a cruise along the coast where we stopped at Ventura beach for a bit of a swim (I swam, the others thought it a bit cold) After that we had dinner at a local fish and chip shop where the roof was decorated $1 us bills that had been drawn on by (we think) customers. That night, while relaxing in the pool Rave Dave and the Bunny fished pennies and dimes out the water (we replaced them when we had finished).

At this point our number plate game had ended, here is a list of the plates we found:
California, Nevada, Arizona, Government/military car, Mississippi, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, Florida.
New Jersey, Maryland, British Colombia (Canada), New York, Missouri, Oregon, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Indiana
Georgia, illinois, Tennessee, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan
Wyoming, Virginia, Alaska, Iowa, Minnesota
Mexico, South Dakota, North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Louisiana, Connecticut, Kentucky

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:45:36 GMT

We have finally made it back to LA, we were planning on going to the Joshua park...but didn't, we had spent a lousy night trying to sleep so we were just eager to go to a hotel and sleep. Now the guys had been raving about some "amusement" park for as long as they had planned this trip, so they didn't waste anytime locating it to work out what was the earliest time they could visit. They were rather crestfallen to find out that they only had four hours today. So while they went to make themselves sick the Bunny went next door the the water park to get all wet! I even went on all 3 high thrill rides (Although on two of them I asked for the lamest path and the other was a wave simulator) I still had fun although I suspect that this park was geared towards the smaller humans....ahh well now I have to wait until six flags closes or the others are sick of making themselves sick....the park closed.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:38:16 GMT

Well the guys bit the bullet and looked up the stores (REI) location. I still don't know what the fuss was about (It's a camping store guys!!) but they were happy. Also Yesterday we were stopped by the border security and after admitting we were Australian they asked us to pull to one side and show them our passports. Well it wasn't safe where we stopped so we moved a little further down...only to see four border security guys coming towards us. (we are not to sure if they thought we were about to do a runner or weather it is normal proceedure) One more security check and we are starting to think Rave Dave really is cursed (he was the driver). Day four of our game 6, Day five- 0, Day six - 5, Day Seven-3 and todays total-1.
All up we have 40. But we also included Canada, Mexico and government/military cars to this total.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:28:51 GMT

The storm passed and we hightailed it out of Wilcox, still trying to get to the biosphere. Well after breakfast we decided to dome the biosphere and instead head out towards Phoenix as TC wanted to find a store called REI. After driving around uptown Phoenix, then downtown Phoenix, Bunny wanders how the humans of Phoenix are not melted lumps like some chocolate bar that is left in the car for too long. The hotel we (eventually) arrived at had a pool and the Bunny made good use of it while Rave Dave and TC shopped. When they got back Rave Dave sat near the pool and I splashed him (accidentally) I spend the evening fishing (yes) my thongs out of the pool, one time TC had snuck up behind my and scared me. They couldn't decided what was more amusing for them, the sight of me getting my thongs out or the height I obtained as TC scared me. (I did wander what Rave Dave was laughing at)

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:18:44 GMT

It was a grey and overcast day as we exited Roswell, the sky looked like the skin of some alien (ok so I had to put that in). We drove (occasionally the wrong way) to the VLA radio telescopes. We did a quick tour of the facility and as we entered the gift shop we met an interesting bloke who, despite his USA accent, had been living in New South Wales and works in our own Radio telescope. Well we had a chat about home and telescopes (you can stop yawning now) before jumping back into the car and heading towards the biosphere, although Albuquerque seems to want to draw us back to it.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:10:41 GMT

Today was spent exploring the town of Roswell, especially the little souvenir shops as we waited for the space museum to open. The museums main theme, aliens, but it was very nice (and we could take lots of photos). The rest of the evening was spent writing up postcards and aside from an encounter in Walmart (someone recognised Rave Dave t-shirt as one from Peru) nothing else happened.

GEEKS TOWN!!

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:02:55 GMT

Today was an epic (for us) drive straight to Roswell. Taking only a slight detour in the morning to look at the painted canyon (Rave Dave wanted to see the petrified forest but decided that it was too far away). So we saw miles and miles of rocky outcroppings, making us look for Wile E Coyote at every rock top, they soon gave way to farmlands.
Roswell itself, this town took the whole alien theme and made a town out of it. The MacDonald's has a spaceship for it's kiddies playground and the streetlights are little alien heads. We are eager to explore tomorrow.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:56:35 GMT

This morning Rave Dave and the Bunny decided to breakfast at IHOP. We enjoyed our pancakes thoroughly, then we enjoyed our waiter, who asked us where we were from, we admitted we were Australian, so he asked us how to say thank you in out native tongue... we did tell him but when we got out we were laughing so hard our sides hurt.
We got ourselves back on the road at 11am, our heading, the grand canyon, and in the general direction of Arizona. We drove along the Hoover Dam, and again we saw a lot of american tourists who would pay to stop their car, hop out and walk along the dam, walk back, jump in their car and drive along the Hoover dam. Bunny has no photos as, once again, her camera has no power. Started playing a game where we find the states of America in number plates. Yesterday's total was 16, Total I had found an extra 9.
We drove along to the Grand canyon to have a look (south side only) then onwards to Holbrook for the night.

Day two in USA

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:48:18 GMT

Rave Dave drove towards Las Vegas. Spotting the famous black/white letterbox, he drove that way.After awhile we arrived in Las Vegas. Again the Bunny's afternoon was lost in a drug (medication) induced sleep, but that night Bunny saw the neon city. There seemed to be only tourists in Las Vegas as we saw more camera flashes than neon lights (and there were a lot of neon lights). We only went into two casino's, MGM and Ceasers, Bunny gambled away $4 US (I lost it completely without winning anything back).

The first full day in the US of A

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:42:00 GMT

The first full day in America was spent driving along through the California and Nevada desert. We drove along death valley and had a pit stop at Eddies world, a candy store in the middle of the desert. Most of the afternoon was lost to the Bunny as she had brought strong cough meds to combat a cold she acquired before leaving La Paz. We ended up spending the night in a caravan park in Rachael.

Bye Bye La Paz...Hi America

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:38:03 GMT

Getting up at 3.30am we wearily trudged downstairs and out to a taxi. Loaded up and racing off through the empty streets we were starting to relax about South American driving...until our driver hit a piece of cement in the middle of the road. No damage done to the humans, but we did remain more alert for the rest of the trip to the airport. So far that was the most exciting ting to happen today. Well except for Rave Dave getting caught by customs at both San Salvador to LAX and LAX to LA city and was hassled at Lima to San Salvador. The poor guy had to remove his shoes at the LAX to LA city.
Jumping into our hire car (we have called in Yama) and taking off, our heading Las Vegas. First stop, some random hotel along the way.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:30:54 GMT

Well after bidding a fond farewell to our tour guide Uriel the three OZ travelers joined up with another Intrepid group, while the NZ trio went out shopping. A 3 hour bus journey to the temple of the sun, a massive complex consisting of three parts. The first part was a museum holding all the fragile artifacts fold in the area, we couldn't take many photos of this area. The second was the site itself, with the main sections still being excavated and we could take as many photos as we wished, except for the third section, where they were still excavating the area. We actually saw the excavation team uncover the skeleton of a llama as we passed.
We stayed in the area for lunch where we were reminded of the exchange rate. Our lunch cost us 20 BD, which is about 10 sol....around $2.50 AU, and it tasted like it!!
Afterwards we cruised around La Paz, killing time before we left to LA. (it was here that I actually started typing up the entries...)

Bye Bye Peru....Hello Bolivia

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:08:33 GMT

On the road again, destination, Bolivia - La Paz. Bunny didn't sleep to well as this was her last night in Peru, or the cuy was a little bad. A brief stop at the border of Bolivia and Peru for a passport stamp. As I had renewed my supplied of medication I was fine for the trip from Puno to Cocabana where we hopped off the Peruvian bus and hopped on the Bolivian bus.
The Bolivian bus was a small cramped affair where we sat (or in Rave Dave's case folded) for about 30 minutes before a ferry ride over the lake (still Titikaka) then back on the bus. As not all of us could fit on the one ferry we waited for the rest in the bus, but out driver, impatient to get going, started off, missing one english tour groups guide. One of them ran down the bus and asked politely in spanish for the bus driver to wait a moment and jumped off the bus to yell at the guide "get on the bloody bus, he isn't going to wait for ever" (or something very similar). The rest of the journey to La Paz wasn't as eventful, although our bus driver needs new brakes and to lay off his horn (the whole trip either consisted of his squealing brakes or him tooting his horn for no obvious reason).
La Paz itself is massive, noisy and crowded. The large amount of trucks and buses in the town make it hard to breath...and the altitude didn't help.
Poor TC and Rave Dave had to choose between extreme downhill mountain bike ride and a trip to a pre-inca ruin. The downhill biking is the worlds most dangerous track and we had heard stories of no breaks , or pedals.
The temple was something that Rave Dave had wanted to go on right from the start, so in the end both went to the remains knowing that they could do something dangerous in the states.

Picture warning Here!!

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:36:04 GMT

After a fitful night sleep we breakfast with Rosi and wandered back to the dock, as a gift of appreciation I gave Rosi a picture of a kangaroo and koala from home. After we bidded Rosi a final farewell we were boated over to Taquile, a large island mountain made up of six communities around it. We spent 3 hours wandering around, and up, before heading back onto the boat to Puno.
As this was the last night in Peru the OZ troupe decided to try the local delicacy Cuy. Rave Dave ordered his without the head, but TC and Bunny were more adventurous and got ours with the head still on, I even tried to eat the head but could only manage the lower jaw. (We also had to hide the head from Rave Dave who was almost put off his meal by the sight of these creatures looking at him.)

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:21:04 GMT

Today was a 6 hour bus trip to Puno where we stopped for the night before heading out over Lake Titikaka (Titi- little cat/puma and Kaka-stone although Kaka does mean something else and they point out that the Bolivian side of the lake is where the words Kaka are usually placed...)The boat ride was to two different areas. The first stop was the Uros floating islands. These islands are made out of the local reeds. The base of the island is the root stock of the reeds which they anchor to the lake bed, then they layer freshly cut reeds on top of the base in a criss cross motion. They renew the top layer of reeds about once a month. These reeds are the life of these islands as the locals make their houses out of them and even eat the white fleshy part of the reeds (it doesn't taste like much). After the floating island we had a three hour boat ride to Amantani where we had a delicious home made soup, made by our Mumma Rosi, after lunch we had a game of soccer with the local kids. It was the tourist V the locals, where the kids had the advantage of a) having the hoe ground with the bonus of living at high altitudes so they weren't affected by it and b) TC and Bunny are from Australia so the game and the rules are still a little unfamiliar to us (although I didn't grab hold of the ball with my hands, so that was a plus). After dinner we were meant to go to a local dance but a storm had moved in, with lightening hitting the ground around us, and Rosi telling us to go inside everytime we went out to watch.

The day after the night before

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:59:33 GMT

Well no hang over and I was told that as I didn't experience the room spinning around, or throw up, I wasn't officially drunk. Today we visited the ruins of Setchywoman (these are the ruins we were going to go to yesterday). The original Cougar shape of the city that the Inca's planned has been lost to the sprawl of urban development but we were standing in the head of the cougar. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing before a parade, where we have been warned against bringing cameras, wallets, bags, or infact anything of value, well the bunny was feeling off in the afternoon so she was escorted back to the hotel, again assisted by Rave Dave, where she was told later that she didn't miss much.

Note : The illness that besieged me had NOTHING to do with the alcohol I had consumed the night before, but was due to me drinking local water for mot of the week and having it finally tell on me.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:51:12 GMT

Today dawned dark, overcast but not to be put off by the weather we trouped out and caught a local taxi to a local ruin. About halfway there the heavens opened up and it began to rain...then hail, still we drove up to the ruins to see what we could see. Bravely we stepped out of the cab and dashed for the crowded cover, quickly we put on our raincoats or ponchos and cautiously we stepped out and made our way up the muddy slops to see where the Incas worshiped water. It was planned that we would hike back down to town, stopping along the way to some other ruins but we persuaded our tour guide that it would be a much better idea to catch the local bus back into tow instead so we could dry off before visiting a local church. The church was originally a place where the Incas worshiped the sun, moon, rain, stars and rainbow before the spaniards came and converted it to a christian temple, destroying it in the meantime. After the church we saw some brightly dressed locals, curious Rave Dave and Bunny followed. There was a parade of sorts happening for, we assume, a saint. Most of Peru is Christian and they celebrate all the saints with fire crackers in the morning, and if it is the patron saint of the city, a parade at lunch. In August there is usually not a day that goes by without bing awoken at dawn by the sounds of crackers going off.
After dinner we all headed over to a pub (the highest Irish pub in the world), the Bunny resisted the temptation to drink but, after admitting that she has never gotten wasted, Rave Dave and TC convinced her to get a drink. (actually I lost a bet, ticket in Spanish is Ticket). What happens when you give a non drinking bunny 2 alcoholic drinks at high altitude in the space of about an hour. Rave Dave had to help me into bed.