A bit of Jamaica in London

A bit of Jamaica in London’s Notting Hill. That’s what I experienced on my second day in the UK.

After travelling mostly on my own for a month, it was great spending two days in London with my sister Hanri and brother-in-law Steve. Our first stop was the Notting Hill carnival, a feast of colour, coconuts, rum, music and Jamaican food, celebrating Jamaica’s independence from the UK.

According to the Notting Hill carnival guide, carnival goers get through a ton of rice and peas, 16 000 coconuts, 400 goats, 10 000 litres of Jamaican stout and 25 000 bottles of rum.

Experience it yourself by watching the video:

Aren't they the cutest? This brother and sister couldn't be bothered by anything while drinking their coconut juice.

Yummy! Jamaican food at the Notting Hill carnival: Jerk chicken, bread and coleslaw.

My sister's coconut juice definitely has more rum in than mine!

This old London bus was part of the Notting Hill carnival procession.

The queen kept a watchful eye over carnival goers.

Biiiiiiig fish.

Thousands of people joined in the fun.

Explore Italy like an Italian

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it should also not be explored in a day. 

To really appreciate this city, its history and the extraordinary architecture, you have to spend at least three days here. Pretend you're as laid back as the Italians and take. your. time.

Something like the Vatican City and the Colosseum, for example, should not be left for one day (I learnt that the hard way as I ended up rushing through the Vatican Museum and being too late to go into the Colosseum). That said, I then decided to make the most of my mistake and wait around an hour or two – until the time of day when the Colosseum is at its most spectacular as the colour of the ruins changes while the sun sets.

Rome, to me, was like an overdressed lady with loads of make-up and shiny jewellery. Since one reigning pope would try to outdo the previous one by being able to say this or that fancy church or fountain was built while he was in power, every building competes to be more spectacular than the rest.

There are about 700 churches in the city. As our tour guide said,"I don't know why God needs so many houses." I must say, I don't know either.


At the Colosseum just before sunset.

That a building like the Pantheon is almost 2 000 years old, to me, is almost incomprehensible. This 19-century old Roman temple was completed around the year 125 and it's still standing to amaze people from all around the world today.

The hole in the dome-shaped roof is 9 metres in diametre.



Thousands (or no, probably millions) of tourists have made a wish at the Trevi fountain. According to our tour guide an average of 3 000 euro is thrown into the fountain every day, with tourists hoping their wishes are going to come true.

Apparently "someone" removes the money in the early hours of the morning every day. Although people are told the money goes to charity there are all sorts of rumours doing the rounds, such as that it actually goes to the Italian mafia.

I'd rather keep my money in my pocket...



Entering the spectacular Vatican City. 

I'm Carina van Wyk and I'm addicted to Italian ice cream...the one thing you cannot explore Italy without.

I found the best Italian gelato at a place called Giolitti in the street Via Uffici del Vicario.

This one had three different scoops - nutella, coffee, and vanilla with chocolate shavings - with fresh cream on top. Heaven in one's mouth! And, believe it or not, this is only their medium gelato. I would never be able to finish a large one. 



The ups and downs of travelling

With travelling often comes mixed emotions. The one moment you get it right, the next you get it sooooo wrong. Especially in Italy. The one moment you come across the friendliest person ever who helps you get onto the right bus, the next moment someone complains loudly because your backpack (in this case I only had my small one with me) is taking up too much space. The one moment you figure out the route to the Colosseum, the next you get lost on your way to the Pantheon.

When I left Milan to go to Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera I was so impressed with myself for getting onto the right train (even though the train ticket and all the signs were in Italian only). Moments later, however, our whole compartment were up in arms, talking to each other, and although I couldn't understand a word, I knew from the tone of their voices and the looks on their faces that something was wrong. And guess who was the culprit? Me, of course. Apparently I sat on a seat that was already booked by someone else.

So, the wardrobe on my back and I moved to a small fold-out chair in the narrow corridor next to the cabins. The only thing I wanted to do at that stage was shout, "It's summer and winter clothes for four months, so no, I couldn't bring a smaller backpack!"

But I just kept quiet and pretended as if nothing in the world could bother me.

When I arrived at the hostel a few hours later, the owner was sleeping on a couch at reception, not wearing a shirt, legs wide open, snoring away. Needless to say, I didn't have much hope for the time I was going to spend in Cinque Terre.

It could only get better after that, and it did. A hiking trail and railway line connect the five villages in Cinque Terre. I did the walk between Riomoggiore and Manarola, then took the train to Corniglia, did the hiking trail to Vernazza and then took a train to the last village, Monterosso.

I would, however, recommend not going to Italy in the middle of August - it's boiling hot and the streets are packed with tourists. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I went in spring or autumn.

• See for yourself what Cinque Terre looks like by watching this video. I pronounced Cinque Terre completely wrong twice. Maybe it's a case of third time lucky.

Boats lined up in Riomaggiore in the late afternoon.

Tiles in all shapes, sizes and colours in a tunnel on the way to Riomaggiore's beach.

Colourful houses in Riomaggiore.

"What are all these tourists doing in my village?"

Relaxing after a long train ride.

Yes, pasta in Italy is as good as they say it is. I had gnocchi with Gorgonzola cream sauce for lunch in Riomaggiore.

Feet firmly on the ground

Backpacking keeps your feet firmly on the ground (and it's not just the weight of your backpack pulling you down). Just when you think: this is it, I can now take over the world, you have a day like I had when going to Italy the first time about two weeks ago.

I arrived in Koper, a coastal city in Slovenia very close to the Italian border, the night before  just to find out I'm sharing a room as big as my room in my flat in Johannesburg with seven other people. The eight of us also shared one bathroom (with one shower) with eight people in the room next to ours.

Even though I woke up early the next morning to be the first one in the shower, there was no hot water. The hostel was so small that while I was drinking coffee in the kitchen, there were three girls literally brushing their teeth in a queue next to me waiting for a guy who was in the bathroom. That's when you realise you're not quite as laid back as you thought you were.

I got a taxi to Triest shortly thereafter (there were no buses to Italy because it was a Slovenian public holiday) and got on a train to Venice. Upon arrival, I asked a lady at one of the tourist information desks which hostels she would recommend. Her answer was a mere, "I only know about hotels."

"So where can I find out about hostels?" "I don't know," was her next short (and not so sweet) answer. Luckily I overheard someone next to her saying that there's an information office at the train station with a list of hostels.

I went to that office, waited in a queue for about 20 minutes, and a very friendly tourism officer printed me a list of hostels and circled four of the hostels on the list on my city map.

I walk to the first one. No luck; they're fully booked. I phone the second one; they have rooms available. I don't ask for directions, because friendly Mr Tourist Info circled it on my map.

I follow the directions he gave me and almost end up in a canal (I think he might still be laughing at the stupid tourists who follow his directions). By that time I was really feeling sorry for myself - it was hot (I'd guess at least 35 degrees celsius) and I was carrying my backpack.

Luckily it was clear I was completely lost and a guy passing me in the street came to my rescue with a, "Do you need help, my friend?" He gave me the right directions and finally, three and a half hours after my arrival, I found a place to sleep.

All this said, as soon as opened a bottle of Italian red wine with the new friends I made at the hostel, I was smiling again and as Alanis Morissette sings, "everything is (was) just fine, fine, fine." 


On the photo below you can see where I ended up after following the tourist officer's directions. It gives new meaning to the term 'dead end'.

When I finally arrived at the hostel, I walked to what I thought was the front door. This was the last thing I wanted to see at that stage. Luckily it was only a 20-metre detour.

When thinking of Venice, images like this one immediately comes to mind. There were hundreds of tourists going on boat trips in the canals.
 

 

A magnificent view. The St Mark's Basilica with its five domes and the Doge's Palace as seen from the top of the bell tower in Venice.

 

 

Keeping the faith

When backpacking on your own you have to have heaps and take leaps of faith. If I didn't, I would probably have taken a different bus to a more popular tourist destination the weekend I spent in Slovenia, and missed out on seeing one of the most magnificent places I've seen in my whole life.
 

I was very indecisive about what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to try something that was not very touristy. So I opened my map and saw that someone I came across during the course of the week (I couldn't remember who) circled Bovec (pronounced Bovitz), a town in the northwest of the country.

It was quite difficult to find accommodation on the internet,and by 02:00 on the Saturday morning I was emailing an adventure eco camp to find out whether they have a place for me to stay. The only problem was that there were no trains from Ljubljana to Bovec and the bus was either leaving at 06:30 or after 15:00 (which would be way too late). That meant I would get the early morning bus to Bovec without knowing if I had a place to stay that evening.   

I must admit I was a bit nervous when getting on the bus and seriously considered going to more of a tourist destination like Lake Bled, since I wouldn't have a way out of Bovec if I couldn't find a place to sleep. But after seeing that Bovec is at the foothills of the Alps, I thought if I take the bus there, phone the eco camp while on the bus and they tell me they don’t have a bed for me, I’ll just stay on the bus and go back to Ljubljana. The scenery would probably make it worth my while.

And it would have... I was in awe (and in luck, since they had one tent left). I don't have enough adjectives in my vocabulary to describe this part of Slovenia (and even if I had, I still don't know if I'd do it justice). From a distance it looks as if the mountain tops are covered in snow, but what you see are actually snow-white "naked rocks" as a Slovenian girl I met on the bus calls them.

It was the scariest and most beautiful bus ride I've ever been on. As we were crawling up the mountains, the bus driver (who gained my respect within minutes) had to make one 180 degree turn after the other - on a road so narrow that it sometimes looked as if two cars wouldn't be able to pass each other. I've never been that relieved that I was in a bus and not in a car on the road next to it.

The approximately 140 km-drive took almost four hours. We did, however, stop at one of the villages for 40 minutes and at some others for a minute or so.

Nothing - not even the picturesque drive there - could prepare me for the beauty of the Soča river. Although the white sand and crystal clear turquoise water reminded me of Zanzibar's beaches, it wasn't really like anything I've seen before. 

To think I almost didn’t get onto that bus and it turned out to be one of the best weekends of my entire life. I river rafted with locals, faced my fear of heights by jumping into the river from a very high rock, took long walks along the river and cycled in the mountains.   

And it all happened because I was keeping the faith (or maybe pushing my luck)!

• Watch these videos to see just how beautiful the area is. They were both taken while river rafting on the Soča. In the second one I jump from the rock. I used a GoPro HD HERO2 camera that was attached to my helmet.