Sweet (Jesus) Mayte

Ferris (his real name) is from Australia. Sydney, to be precise. I know this because every fourth word out of Ferris is "Sydney". With some room for manoeuvre, the other three usually include some variation of "orsum", "like" and "is". Sydney itself is of course, "like orsom". The beaches in Sydney are "like todally orsum". The weather? "aawwww, like! Seriously orsum". Food? "like it's like todally seriously orsum". He is currently giving a pain in the face to both me and his new best Turkish Facebook friend by talking about the Turkish community in Sydney. A community which is, in Ferris' opinion, "orsum". He has some Turkish friends in Sydney who are "like the orsumest". Sydney, apparently, has "like the biggest number of Turkish living in…" he pauses for thought, before arriving at "Uh-straya". His buddy nods blankly. I might as well have said that Belmullet has the biggest Turkish population in Mayo for all the frame of reference he has. 

On this occasion i don't need it, but I have discovered the off switch for Australians abroad. It is to tell them that I am, while Irish, living in Australia. Melbourne to be more precise. I have no idea why it works, but it does, almost immediately. They shut down. This has proven itself exceptionally useful on several occasions, for there are many tools besmirching the already ropey name of Australian travellers out there. With a few exceptions they typically fall into one of two categories. First the shirtless bogans. Usually they are young, and often these are not, in fact, shirtless, preferring the wearing of the Bintang wifebeater from the todally orsum trip to like Kuta last year. Often this look is rounded off with Australian flag shorts. Like many Americans of all ages, these are people who don't know that "like" is a verb, and "party" isn't. Like many Irish backpackers, they tend to do very little except get drunk in hostels with other shirtless bogans. In essence, they typically go everywhere and do nothing. Second are the thirtysomethings. They are very cool and always say "that's expensive" when you mention you're going, or you've been to somewhere off the beaten track. Well yes it might be you think, but then i can afford it because I'm not backpacking with eight grand worth of SuperDry clothing, 2 iPads and 11 pairs of shoes. Although they don't get drunk in hostels with their compatriots, these people typically - also - go everywhere and do nothing.

Today we are on a bus tour of red-bricked Medellin. Specifically, a Pablo Escobar bus tour. Not a bus tour driven by Pablo Escobar - that would be impressive - rather a tour to some buildings and places - including his grave - that have a connection (sometimes tenuous) to the man himself. It's interesting, and the guide is knowledgeable and engaging about all things Pablo, Medellin, cocaine and Colombia. She is not, however, in possession of limitless patience. Ferris, who is still from Sydney, has recently learned the word "perception", although patently not quite what it means. He asks the guide four times what the "perception" of Pablo is now. She explains with escalating impatience that it's mixed, some people think he was a saint, some people a bastard. The fourth time she ignores the question and fiddles with her chemically-straightened hair. I don't need to switch him off because he's gone quiet at the snub, preferring instead to focus on the guide's new-mom boobs and probably thinking to himself "orsum".

It's not as big as mine Paul.

Meet Malcolm. He's in his mid fifties by my reckoning, going on 11, and we're sharing a 6 day cruise. He's English, but refuses to admit it. He is Australian he says (at every opportunity). He has lived in Melbourne for an undetermined number of years. "Thirteen" he blurts out, instantly bettering my "twelve", when we first talk. I later hear him tell someone he's been there "around ten years, maybe a bit more". He betters everything he hears. He has done everything you've done, but better, for longer, in a more authentic fashion, and with cooler photos and memories. And naturally, more insight.

Yeah, not in those shoes mate.

When we talk about diving he wants to know if I've done a famous wreck in the Pacific. "Yes", i tell him, "i did a couple of…" I was going to say "days", but on the off chance that "trips" was the next word out of my mouth, he interrupts to quickly tell me "I've done it three times". His questions are always those to which he already knows the answer, often including the answer in the question. He used to work for Logica in Melbourne. I tell him a friend of mine works for Logica, and does he know him. I give the name, but he interrupts me midway through the surname to say that yes he thinks he knows Carl, but anyway now he work for Fujitsu and he manages the blah blah account which is worth snore million dollars, which is much better for them obviously to have him on board and anyway he has more experience and has a better job than me.

We were all in school with a Malcolm. Usually primary school. He's the kid who has everything you have only better, or bigger, or newer. And more of it. You got the Lego Moon Station Rocket Launch Set (™) for Christmas? So did he, but he got the Lego NASA Space Shuttle Mission to Mars Add-On Set (™) as well. And he got to open it on Christmas morning so it was built by dinner and he didn't have to wait until after dinner to open it like you did in your family so it wouldn't be built until the next day by which time he had taken it all apart and made his own Super Space Rocket Shuttle Mars Moon Space-Station (™ Malcolm). 

There are few people on the planet who could attempt to out-wildlife the Galapagos, fewer again while actually in the Galapagos. But Malcolm does. Oh this is all very nice I suppose, but the wildlife in Australia is just as diverse, probably more so, and more threatened, but the parks and the government do more to protect them etc. and so forth. "You're English you tool" I want to scream, but I don't, because despite his best efforts, he can't ruin the place. It's just too magical. Too strange. Too unbelievable. Words and photos don't do it justice, and though it doesn't stop them trying, even twats like Malcolm can't spoil it.

Beached as, bro.

I'm on a beach in Nicaragua. I've been here for an hour or so. It's a warm, almost moonless night, and I've just watched a turtle haul herself out of the water, climb a small sand dune, dig a hole nearly half a metre deep and start to lay eggs. The only noise is from the crashing waves. But then They - inevitably - arrive. Americans. 8 of them. Women. With the subtlety of a tank wearing a mu-mu. The silence is replaced by endless chatter. "There she goes again";  "oh my God";  "pop, pop, there was two of 'em right there"; "okay, I'm just going to go ahead and take my phone out and take a photo real quick". An iPhone appears out of nowhere and lights up half the beach.  Mercifully, we are near the end of the laying, and shortly after, wen she has her nest covered, she is done, and turns to head for the sea. But the Americans have built themselves into a half moon blocking her return, causing her to detour up the beach - which they track, the fucking tools. Eventually they give her a path, but trot ahead, constantly in her field of vision, forcing a much longer, diagonal walk to the surf. Incredibly, they take it upon themselves to go up each and every one of them and touch her shell, causing obvious distress. Finally, when she hits the sea, they applaud. You couldn't make it up.

A few weeks ago, on the Honduran island of Roatan, I listen to the amazing Jeff (from Brooklyn) tell his newest buddy in a bar about how "these negroes down here, they work hard. Harder than our ones". Referring to the local Garifuna population, descended largely from British-Caribbean creole-speaking, refugees. Jeff is showing admirable ignorance of the volume of his own voice, and the colour of the skin of both the barman fixing his cocktails (unseen, below bar level), and the gentleman grilling his chicken (unseen, in the kitchen). Casual racism clearly being just as de-rigeur for the yachty cruisers of the Caribbean as it is for the west of Ireland of my parents' generation.

Prior to this, on a dive boat in Belize, I am subjected to an horrific nuclear family. The older child is a severe, outdoorsy boy, embarrassed by his parents. The younger is 14, and flagrantly homosexual, something which will devastate his parents when they figure it out. Mum is not quite vegetarian, but used to be, and still eats little or no meat. Or carbs. Or dairy. She is a walking advertisement for everything wrong with extreme dieting. Devoid of energy, she is sallow, sunken and stooped. She is forty-seven years old but doesn't look a day under 80. Dad, when he wears pants - which is about 50% of the time - fastens them just below the nipples. He speaks in paragraphs, usually beginning with "studies have shown that…", and ending with "but what we've done right in California is…".

'No' is the curt response form the taxi driver in Northern El Salvador when i ask if there are many Americans living here. The jeep/truck in front of us has a number plate holder that reads "US Air Force Dad". 'None' he adds, somewhat definitively, just as we drive past a joint El Salvadorian-US air force base. While there are more tourists than troops these days, they are on the whole unwelcome, likely as a result of a century of political and military meddling (usually on the wrong side). At best they are ignored - itself a noteworthy skill.  The woman who hawked us into her hostel in Nicaragua at the turtle nesting beach is delighted we are Irish. "Anything but Israelis" she says, "they are the worst". I ask: " what about the Americans?" She smiles but says nothing. They may be more welcomed if they had some humility. Or a mute button.

Even Rocky had a montage

(although his didn't involve a 3 metre jump into black water in full scuba gear...

... but then I never had to fight Dolph Lundgren for the future of the free world)

F'hippies.

A mobile hippy is a happy hippy. See one sitting down and they look miserable. Presumably this is because in motion they can't smell themselves. By extension, it would be an interesting - if hazardous - study into the links between hippy walking patterns and local climactic conditions. I hypothesise that they almost always walk into the wind, and will, if required, detour significantly out of their way to avoid self-contamination. Benefits of this strategy include getting noticed more, and seeing more stuff to potentially rob. 

There are many things hippies love: robbing stuff; not wearing shoes; staring at anyone cleaner than themselves, which is most people; pontificating about the evils of the modern world to other hippies. Most of all though, hippies love to be noticed. For this they need a gimmick, something that sets them apart. Seemingly the smell is not enough. Time was a relaxed attitude towards personal hygiene and a fearlessly inventive streak when it comes to wearing pyjamas in public were enough to get you properly noticed. Nowadays that probably just means you're French. Similarly, it used to be that deadlocks worked, but there are now too many iPhone and multi-thousand-dollar camera toting be-deadlocked tweeting Facebook addicts, who are definitely not real hippies (although we should not lose sight of the potential devastation to be wreaked on global flea populations by fire-bombing some of the cheaper Mexican Internet cafes). A mate flask and cup used to be more than enough, but now every middle-class European backpacker can be seeing walking the streets of Latin America with the offending (and frankly offensive) implements. These people might as well wear a t-shirt with the Mayan glyph for "tool". And let's not mention bandannas.

These fashionable faux-hippies have driven the real hippies beyond the pale in order to highlight their hippy credentials. Among the more ridiculous things I've seen proudly lugged through the streets have been: ten-pin bowling skittles (for juggling don't you know); a hoola-hoop (for pretending to be 8 years old again); an offensive musical instrument like a banjo (for the aural rape of anyone within a 1km radius); a child (for ignoring as part of your "life education" policy); fire-sticks (for giving me images of taking the things - lit or not - and impaling the bearer); and my favourite - seen on more than one occasion, but never in use - a unicycle (for fuck knows what). It can be fun spotting the more bizarre and stupid things they cart around, as long as you do your observing from upwind.