Thursdee nite in Rondon

"W"hateva "M"inga!

Mmm... With legs and an ass to kill for:

It's all about technique

"Push with your bush"... I lean in towards the ice.

*THUK*
90% of the time, my right ice-axe lands a solid hook into the ice. I test my weight on it, yup, all goot.
*TWAAK* *thuk* *thuk*
90% of the time, my retarded left swing completely misses the spot I was focused on :P I scrape around and look for a hole to hook into instead.

"Stick your butt out like a monkey"... I grip my ice-axes and stretch out my arms. Yup, butt's out there like a monkey's. I look down at my feet, find a spot, and remember to keep my heels down.

*CHUK*
Right foot in :)
*CHUK* *CHUK*
Left foot in :)

I push up with my legs. I hear water, I look to the side. Through the opaque ice, I see water rushing by underneath. There are massive dripping icicles around me.

This is AWESOME!

I fell in love a lot during this trip.

I fell in love with ice when I saw the frozen waterfalls at Lillaz in Italy.

I fell in love with ice-axes when I heard the satisfying *THUK* as it slammed into the ice.

I fell in love with crampons when I realized it was holding me up on my toes to the side of an ice wall. My heels rested on air.

I fell in love with Chamonix when, as I was up high and strapped to a tree by a very slim rope, a bright yellow heli flew right by me barely a hundred metres away. I anticipated the sight everytime I heard the *whoopp* *whoopp* noises of the rotor blades as it took off down in the valley.

I didn't do very difficult climbs. It was just that feeling of making it to the top in such amazing surroundings which made it memorable. The hardest part? Walking uphill in all that dang snow to get to the walls :P

As I'm huffing and puffing away, my guide for my first climb, Isa, who's 5 months pregnant btw, barely breaks a sweat. She's also the one carrying all the extra rope and gear! She's amazing :)

Revelation

Somewhere in the Sahara, my mind flits from thought-to-thought in the early morning sun. My gaze falls downwards and suddenly I burst out laughing *grin*

"OMG! It's true why they call it CAMELTOE!"... Call me childish :)

Here are some manky camel toes for you:

If your's starts looking like this however,
I suggest you visit a doctor ASAP :P

***WOAH***

Thanks Missy W and M-San for such a great girly trip :) So many priceless moments together *grin* From our common tummy issue, to the doorless bathroom in our riad, to the topless hamman together, to the look on Missy W's face when her camel started relieving itself, to the sound of Missy W sputtering sand from M-San's blanket toss *lol*

Loved it, love you gals *MUAH*

Plumber's crack

Wait... You mean it's not because I had to do a whole heap of bad crack before plumbing?!?

I dang well wedgied myself real good for this shot.
Sexy polka dot undies supplied by Tezenis on Oxford Circus :P

(Do you notice anything funny about this kitchen?)

The dang kitchen tap has been leaking for over a year. Slowly but steadily, it'd gotten pretty bad. To the stage where Diskies had started leaving jugs underneath the tap so we could use the vast amounts of water collected for washing up. We had the stereotypical fatass creepy plumber look at our tap once. He didn't do anything about it. So rather than deal with our annoying landlord and fatass creepy plumber again, I tried some DIY :)

This involved me lugging home about 5kg worth of borrowed tools in my white handbag. I squeaked out in aghast when my colleague proudly unrolled his kit for me.

"What do you mean I need all that to fix a leaky tap?!?"

2 wrenches, and... that's about all I can identify out of the 5 :P There was one mother-of-a-tool that could've knocked a baby elephant into a coma. After consulting another colleague, I refused to take that one home with me.

Step 1: Turn off water. I looked like a proper knob with a headlamp strapped on, and spent about 15 mins with my head stuck under the sink looking puzzledly around. Don't get me started on the bl00dy stoptap. Or stopcock. It doesn't exist under my sink. What I have instead are two screws inconveniently placed closely behind some pipes *wrestle* *wrestle* Done!

Step 2: Unscrew tap heads. Use wrench to remove metal-thingy-majig. Voila!

Step 3: Pop down to hardware store and get new washers. The nice guy at the shop gave me two for FREE! Bonus! As I return to my apartment, I greet the fatass creepy plumber who happens to be visiting the door guy and sitting in the foyer *ugh*

Step 4: Replace washers, replace metal-bitty-bits. Turn water back on.

Shiiiiiit, this whole job cost me nothing and plumbers get paid how much?!?

The desert effect

When I think about it, I've seen quite a few deserts in my time. There were the dunes I sandboarded on in Huacachina. I remember looking over the top of the dunes and feeling nothing but desolation. It took me *forever* to walk up the dune. I was too cheap to pay for the "chairlift" - a plastic schoolchair pulley system powered by a tractor. At the top, I slipped my feet through some laughable rope bindings on a waxed plank. I looped my camera strap around my shoelace and attached it to the plank. 10mins later, I was at the bottom of the dune :) All that effort resulted in loads of sand in body crevices sand was never meant to exist in! *lol*

There was the Burning Man playa in Black Rock City, Nevada. Flat as far as the eye could see. Never a still moment. In fact, I had issues trying to pee on the playa at night. Simply because no matter how far I wandered, the desert was lit up by glow-in-the-dark people, bicycles and vehicles!

Then there's the Sahara. The burnt tangerine dunes, the cloud scudded azure sky. My camel plodding tracks in the sand. It's quiet, and I literally felt the ambiance being soaked up by my soul. The sun starts to set real fast, and the sky changes into the most amazing hues of yellow, orange, red and purple.

I've always thought sunrises and sunsets were the same all over the world. None of them particularly memorable. From the top of a volcano in Maui, to the summit of Mt Kinabalu, to the top of a ruin in Tekal, to the background choons of Cafe Mambo... I take it all back. Sunset at the Sahara from the top of a camel hump won my heart over. Colours have never been soo violently vivid for me.

I don't really think my pix do it justice, but here goes. It's a mix of sunset and sunrise at the Sahara:

Next on my desert list - Skeleton Coast in Namibia looks awesome :)

Something about the new year

All I want to do is ketchup with friends and gossip :)

You're probably wondering if I had a repeat performance of last year :P Sorry to disappoint, but this time I actually left the house. To be honest, I left the comfort of my bed mostly because I had international guests to entertain! Anyways, thanks to Milli-San for all the help with costume prep!

Without further ado, here's me dressed as errr, Snow White for Pushca's Grimm Fairytale NYE party :P (Yeah, I don't think anything I could've worn would've convinced anyone an oriental Snow White exists...)

Happy New Year everyone!

Risk taking

Eating week-old curry laksa 3 hours before a 4-5 hour flight to Morocco.

Hrm.

If I didn't eat it, it would've been wasted :P