June, 2005:

The journey through the continent continues. Since getting to Belgium, I’ve managed to hang out quite a bit with Raf, my ol’ crewmate and his friends as well as his cousin Mietsie. It was a dizzying fun-filled week filled with lots of eating, drinking and other mayhem. Raf and his cadre of henchmen took me out a couple of nights and caused me to consume far more than I ever thought possible, and gave me a lot of laughs to boot. Thank god one of his mates, his cousin Wim, is a cop, otherwise it could have gotten really bad, that’s all I’ll say about that.So far, the funniest thing (or, the most bizarre, however way you want to categorize it) that happened during my time in Belgium, was when we were at a bar/club called “Cafe Latino” in Hasselt. Which was cool because they were playing some of the music that I had grown quite used to over the past several months in Central America. The dance floor was crowded, but oddly with people who weren’t quite dancing. Belgians are funny that way.

Anyway, after a good couple hours’ worth of dancing, I got a bit hot, and opted to head out to the patio to cool off a bit. The patio was rather crowded, and I couldn’t find a place to sit, so I opted to walk over to a large wooden post “thing” that appeared to be good enough to lean against. Wrong.

I proceed to put my hand on it to lean. And without even putting my full weight against it, the thing tipped over. It appears that the base that was holding it was completely rotted out, it didn’t need much to send it down. I immediately tried to stop it from going on down, down, down. Alas, it was really heavy and ended up pulling me down with it. It was horrible. It tipped right down onto a neighboring table, and barely missed one guy sitting there. There was a bull skull or a replica of one mounted on the top of the post thing, and it flew off and also barely missed everybody.

So, I’m planted on the ground by the fallen structure, on my ass, and quite dazed. Everyone is freaking out, this one waitress comes over and starts screaming at me as if I planned the whole thing. I asked the guy who the thing barely missed if he was ok, which he was. After that, we just basically skulked our way out of the joint, laughing about it after the initial shock had passed (way after!).

Yesterday morning, Raf and I grabbed a train and headed up to Utrecht, where we met up with Frederik, the Dutch friend of ours who’s back home now trying to make some money back after his horrendous hurricane Ivan boat debacle, from which he and his boat “Jeri” have since recovered, but not yet financially. We met up with Freddy at the station as planned. Lucky for us, Freddy had a plan.

We went right from the train station and rented a couple of bikes for us, and then off we went to a hostel Freddy had found. We had a nice ride through Utrecht to get to the place, while Freddy gave us a narrated tour, which was actually quite interesting. No really, it was.

After getting to the hostel, we got situated, had a couple of beers, and off we went to grab some lunch. We ended up hanging out at a nice part of town for the afternoon. Then we did some more bike riding, out of Utrecht, passing the “floating” red light district of the city (it consists of a long row of houseboats moored along a major canal, on which dozens of “working girls” sell their wares on them). Which I had to say was almost as interesting as the red light district in Amsterdam. Ok, ok, a little bit more maybe.

He took us to this really neat place that had a bunch of canals and former quarries now full of water. Apparently, this was a place he really liked to go. Once we got to his favorite swim spot at this quarry “lake”, Freddy stripped down to his nature boy costume and dove in. Raf and I decided that there was just a bit too much “nip” in the air for us. So we opted to stay dressed, thank you very much.

After Freddy got his swimming ya-yas out of his system, he dried, re-robed, and off we went back to the hostel to catch some naptime for the rest of the afternoon.

After a much needed afternoon nap, we headed over to a pannekoeken (these are really sophisticated dutch pancakes that you have for dinner) restaurant right next door to the hostel. Now, I’ve had vast experience with this stuff, so it was a treat for me. Raf, oddly, had never had it before! Geez, are the Belgians and Dutch people so polarized? I mean, their two countries are meters apart for crying out loud. Shocking, I tell you.

After dinner, we headed back into the city on our bikes for some additional beer-consuming and people watching. Unfortunately, not long after we were there, the weather took an nasty turn, and there was lightning, thunder and all kinds of other ugliness rolling in. It was time for us to find a place indoors, and fast.

So with Freddy at the lead (hey, it’s HIS town), we proceeded to another part of Utrecht, where we found a nice basement cafe, that had a band. The band basically played Steely Dan covers. Which is cool, except that the people singing couldn’t hold a tune to save their lives. But the crowd seemed to love it nonetheless. Well that was fun for awhile, so after a couple of Hoegaardens (yes, we’re drinking Belgian beer in Holland, even the Dutch seem to admit that Belgian beer is better), we walked around trying to find another place of interest. Being that it was Wednesday and it was pouring buckets of rain with lightning, most places started to shutter their doors. We did manage to find a sleepy little corner pub that was still open and opted to hang out there to dry a little and let the rain subside before making the trek back to the hostel, which promised to be at least 20 minutes worth of wetness.

After it looked like the rain was easing up, and we got thrown out of the pub because it was closing, we decided to make a wet run for the hostel. We managed to make it fairly intact, though quite damp. This morning, we bid goodbye to Raf who had to head back to Hasselt. I hung out with Freddy a bit more before grabbing a train to Amsterdam in the afternoon. I’ll probably hang out here for a day or so before going on to visit some more friends in Holland, and maybe, just maybe, grab a bus to Copenhagen for a couple of days. All before heading back to Belgium for a short break before heading on to Paris and Barcelona.

We’ll see what happens.

Comment from: mietsie [Visitor]

hopefully the drinking and eating won’t be the only thing you’ll remember about being in Belgium, there are more good times to come, 🙂


mietsie

2005-07-03 @ 15:22

Comment from: Mick [Visitor]

Hi Tony. Folowing your travels with interest. Been to a lot of places you mention in your blog and they bring back fond memories. If the weather is OK in Cancun, I’m off to Rio Dulce a week today crewing on a 48ft cat. Where is Andiamo? I’ll take a photo and email it to you.
Cheers
Mick

2005-07-11 @ 21:25

So, once I got to Hasselt from London, several Belgian Andiamo alumni and I were able to get together for some good times. With the exception of Queen Roz, and Miet’s friends Steven and Saartje (who were still traveling in South America), everyone else was present. Raf, Mietsie, Miet, Cil, all met up for dinner and drinks at a local Hasselt cafe on a nice summer evening.

Comment from: mietsie [Visitor]

that was such a fun-evening,
still killing time in Brussels… 😉

mietsie

2005-09-19 @ 04:10

These are pics of our last sail through Lago Izabal before tying up Andiamo in Rio Dulce for the rest of the summer (and hurricane season). Mahia stayed on as crew, and a day later, Miet and her friends Steven and Saartje joined us from Frontreras. It was to be a wonderful three day sail, where we saw awesome breezes, amazing sunsets, fierce thunderstorms and other wonders. And despite one big and stupid foible on my part, the experience continued unfettered. Here’s to good sailing, good friends, old and new, and everything else that Andiamo stands for.Without further adieu….

Our first night, anchored off Finca Paraiso, brought in a fierce thunderstorm that convected off the mountains. It was thunder and lightning on steroids, and rain that fell in absolute horizontal sheets for much of the time:

The next day, we made it out to the Agua Caliente (hot waterfalls), so Mahia can get a chance to enjoy it…

Then, back to Frontreras to pick up Miet, Saartje and Steven…

Then, it was off back to the Lake…

The next few shots are of the sensational sunset we saw in El Refugio:

So with a first-ever crew of born Americans, we set off for Rio Dulce on May 19th, we set sail for Rio Dulce, Guatemala. The trip took 17 hours, and all fared well. We even had some splendid onboard entertainment thanks to Katherine, who broke out her guitar and sang her whole repertoire of original songs for us as we mostly steamed for Guatemala. Everyone handled their watches well, and the trip went flawlessly. Heck even during our entry into the river’s shallow bar at peak high tide, Andiamo didn’t touch the bottom once (Another first!).

Without further adieu…

The time had come, and it was time for Andiamo to leave Utila. But not before we had one last big sail day. About 10 people from around the island came. Monica and Claire pretty much threw it together, and off we went at noon on the sunday before Andiamo was to leave Utila. Karen, the dive instructor who so diligently took care of the cats while Andiamo was in the yard, also came along. And, she brought along Mahia, who ended up becoming one of the infamous “Sea Cadets”, and crewed with Andiamo back to Rio Dulce.

It was a great day, lots of food and beer, and unfortunately, games initiated by Monica! Despite the games, it was a fine ol’ time. It was also Claire’s big sendoff, since she was due to leave Utila the very next day. By the way, all the GOOD pics here were taken by Rob, who so graciously copied his photos to CD for me before leaving Utila. Great job Rob!

Comment from: Curtis [Visitor]

Isn’t it obvious? Chopping oregano for the marvelous dinner to follow.
Fair winds, Andiamo.

Andate! Tristemente, sono qui… un certo giorno che seguirò.

2005-06-24 @ 03:31

So in early May, Andiamo had to go into the boatyard to get some work done on her bottom and rudder. She was set to stay in the yard for about a week (actually ended up being 10 days). So with the cats comfortably being taken care of in Utila, I was free to go exploring around Honduras for awhile. There wasn’t much to stay around La Ceiba for, so a trip out to Copan was in order. I found out that Lotte and Pauline were there, so we coordinated to meet up while I was there. Then we went over to San Pedro Sula for another while, before we’d part ways again.

Copan was interesting, though not quite as “Tikal” interesting. The buildings were more elaborate, but the temples were more ruined, and not in as good preserved condition as Tikal’s. But it was interesting to see the differences in building techniques and architecture between these two cities that in the Mayan world were relatively close to each other.

The next few shots are of Andiamo, waiting to go back into the water after doing its time in the La Ceiba shipyard. She’s got a nice new bottom coat of paint, repaired rudder, and a gleaming topside, that had been spot painted, waxed and buffed to a spit shine. Hope I can keep her looking like that for awhile!

Well, not really. It was to be Miet’s 2nd visit aboard Andiamo, her first time being when she and her then traveling mate, Miriam came up the Rio Dulce with us from Livingston. Shortly after Lotte and Pauline left Andiamo for Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and so on, Miet and her fellow school volunteer, Linda (from Holland), came aboard for a week. They were in Utila to get PADI-certified, among other things.

Andiamo was dealing with a bit of downtime during this period because I was waiting on my new main (which took another month to show up), and there were various projects taking place on the boat at the time, so there was unfortunately no sailing while they were aboard. But that didn’t stop us from having a great time, particularly at dinner time. In fact, it seemed like all we did while they were onboard was eat (and drink, a little).