For more information about the Texas Branch: please contact texas@globetrotters.co.uk or register for email updates at our website (click here) or call Christina at 830-620-5482

If anybody would like to enquire about meetings or help Christina, please contact her on: texas@globetrotters.co.uk

Back in January 2004 Martin Wright, one the club’s most sociable regulars at the London Meetings, royally entertained a packed Crown Court with tales of his marathon cycle ride to Australia ! Many in that audience will remember his great photos, distinctive narrative style and his thirst for adventure. Well Martin is at it again – this time he’s go back to the land down under to ‘pick up his bike and have a look round’. I think too many cold winter nights provided the motivation to get back on the road ! Anyway this is the first in an occasional series, based on Martin’s emails, and charts his offbeat approach to the road ahead.

6 May 2004 : “Since arriving in Sydney a few weeks ago I have caught up with a few friends and been forced against my will to drink obscene amounts of alcohol. The cycling has been great apart from arriving and leaving any of the big cities. One time a passenger in a car leaned out of the window and pushed me off the road and of course swore at me. Luckily I was travelling slowly so came to no harm. After Canberra I cycled through the snowy mountains passing through Cooma, Jindabyne, Thredbo, over dead horse gap at 1590 metres above sea level, Geehi and Cooryong where I stayed much longer than intended due to there being a festival dedicated to one of Australia’s greatest poets, Banjo Patterson, and particularly his greatest poem, the man from snowy river. Lots of bush poetry was recited, lots of yarns were told, lots of music played. It was a great 3 days rest for me. I cycled on to Melbourne, which took me another 5 days where I caught up with Mark Attwood, another Pom who has left the mother country for better weather. Whilst here we watched Aussie Rules Football at the Telstra dome – Essendon v West Coast Eagles. Great game for a first timer !

Went to the theatre to see a play called, ‘ridiculousness’, which is summed up by its title. Found a pub which sold Guinness then found another pub which did not sell Guinness but had a very lovely barmaid from New Zealand who gave me a few free drinks… Leaving Melbourne I soon got lost only to find my way again, eventually made it to Manangatang where I caught up with the glass jar himself, Phil Matthews. Phil’s cooking has improved and his ability to drink is about the same. Mark Attwood came up for a few days and we visited Chinkapook, a place where I have a history concerning an aboriginal lady in 1984 ! Watched country football at Manangatang after which we drank beer, had a bbq, drank more beer then watched lucky Liverpool beat Man Utd ! What a bloody awful game. From Manangatang to Koorlong where I stayed with Phil’s brother Rob for a few days I spent a few days out at the farm trying to help put up a half kilometre of fencing – the fence looked good and my contribution was to hand out a few tools where needed and collect our lunch boxes ! From Koorlong to Kulwin to Paringa in South Australia to Morgan and on to Burra from where I am having yet another day of rest.”

24 May : “Hello from Ceduna. My bike is starting to get tired so I will have to stay in this god-forsaken town until it has been given a little T.L.C. Shouldn’t take too long ! If you all look at your maps of Australia which you obviously have open in front of you so you can follow my every move you will see Ceduna situated to the west of the Eyre Peninsula. From here over to Perth I will be crossing the Nullabor – I will also be cycling on the longest straight section of road in the world. I think it is about 140kms without even the slightest kink… take a photo to prove it.

The wind was a bastard most of the way around the Eyre Peninsula- it is harder than cycling uphill, as you never get a moments rest ! I met a couple of interesting-eccentric characters on the way round. The first was a travelling vacuum cleaner salesman and the second a Professor from the Sorbonne in Paris – he seemed to have a brilliant mind for most things but when I mentioned the F.A. CUP FINAL taking place in Cardiff on may 22nd he was totally bemused !”

14 June : “Hi all – Rex Hunt here or is it Greg Norman ? Still in sunny, windy & rainy Esperance and loving the rest. Went fishing the other day with the hostel owner and a Japanese chap. It was sunny windy and rainy but it did not stop us catching a few tiddlers. I myself caught three fish; my first ever, and a few were caught by the other two amateurs ! Back at the hostel I learned the art of scaling, gutting and filleting fish. It was then down to cooking and eating everything between us… I left the cooking to Katsuo (the Japanese fellow) I did the washing up but the fish was bloody brilliant.

Yesterday I joined a group of five others for a round of golf in the ‘ESPERANCE BACKPACKERS INVITATIONAL’ at the Pink Lake Golf Club. The criteria for being invited – you had to be bloody useless at golf ! We bought two crates of beer, hired two golf buggies then headed for hole number one. We managed five holes and ten beers each in three hours. For holes one to five my scoring was as follows : hole one par five – 17, hole two par five – 12, hole three par three – 5, hole four par four – 8 and hole five par four – 6. My favourite clubs were a five wood and a putter, with which I hardly ever got the ball off the ground as I zigzagged my way to every hole. The rain and the light put paid to completing the eighteen holes..

This morning I woke up with a headache so decided another rest day was needed… have been the bloody pizza I ate. Will move on from here tomorrow I think and should take about two weeks to reach Perth. I will expect to receive many e-mails – those of you who have not written I think it is about time you did… Enjoy ! PS – Bloody lucky French”

… map of Martin’s progress…

To contact Martin for a chat, a question or to discuss anything he’s talked about on his journey email him on eggodyssey@yahoo.co.uk. After all Martin & his travel adventures are what the club is about and it feels worth supporting him…

Report by:Matt Doughty

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I arrived in the Guatemalan mountain town of Todosantos Chuchumantan hoping to improve my Spanish. Some hours after my first lesson, my teacher’s brother was shot dead by a local police officer. The dead man turned out to have been the head of a local gang – the next morning the entire town police force fled in fear of lynching. As the town began the preparations for its annual horse racing fiesta, preparations mainly involving getting fantastically drunk, the infamous Guatemalan army rolled in to keep the order. That weekend, six other people would die, and the host family I was living with would fall into crisis when the father punched his wife in the face. Todosantos was a town of welcoming, curious people, with great pride in their Indigenous Mayan traditions, surrounded by stunning mountains, and full of happy children who would shout, “Hola, Daniel!” whenever I passed their house. Despite the sometimes-terrifying events that took place, it remains my favourite place in Guatemala.

Friday, 31st October 2003: I wake to find my language teacher’s brother dead and my host family distraught at the news. The family are pure indigenous Guatemalans – the rather diminutive mother and four daughters have fantastically long blue-black hair. Everyone in Todosantos wears the same clothes – the traditional blue woven dress for the women; red trousers and white shirt with a huge red, purple or green collar for the men. They speak Spanish to me, and the Mayan alien-sounding “Mam” language to each other. The two youngest daughters, the sweet Juana (age ten) and the bubbly Melissa (age nine) are my main Spanish conversation partners. Without much apparent direction or scolding, the daughters cook meals, tend the log fired stove, wash vast amounts of clothes and blankets, sweep, wash the floors, and weave in their spare time. One magical evening, with everyone else out in the family shop, I watch Juana sit singing to herself while Melissa cooks a simple meal for about seven people.

By Friday afternoon, the three-man marimba bands have begun in earnest, as has the drinking. One of my neighbours is taking part in tomorrow’s fiesta, decked in sashes and a tall hat, he dances as much as his whisky brain will allow. He and his friends drink all night.

That night, an old man drinks himself to death and a young man dies from a knife wound – why, no one knows.

Saturday, 1st November 2003: I wake up at six am – my horse-racing neighbour is unconscious lying face down in the mud. By eight am, his friends have revived him and seated him on a horse – he is led across town to the racetrack.

The Todosantos horse race fiesta is not actually a race at all. There are no winners, the aim is to ride one’s horse all day back and forth along the two hundred-metre track, taking a drink at each end. At lunchtime there is a break for more drinking, then the race begins afresh in the afternoon. Already by eight am, the riders are already very drunk and many have not slept at all – as the day goes on, their eyes become mirrors and many ride swaying back in their saddle, arms outstretched at their sides. During the race, one man falls from his horse and is trampled to death – many riders finish the day proudly wounded.

That night, my friends and I go to the town’s annual fiesta disco: tourists and locals dance in a huge cold hall while a semi circle of twelve assault rifled soldiers watch impassively. Early the next morning, a man lying in the street is killed when the arriving bus runs over his sleeping head.

The remaining deaths discovered that weekend were less well documented – rumour and counter rumour were so widespread it was hard for me to know what was real. Many attendees of the fiesta were making their annual return to the town from their jobs in the United States – stories spread of old scores and inexplicably pregnant wives dealt with violently.

Monday, 3rd November: I wake to find my host family’s house turned black. The husband Augusto has drunkenly punched his wife Dominga, her face is swollen and left eye turned red.

I try to decide what to do. After taking advice from the long-term foreign residents of the town, I decide to move out, to send a message to Augusto and to avoid getting involved in any violence from him. I move out to a “Ladino” (as opposing to Indigenous) family, who drink Pepsi and power their stove with gas instead of logs. The sense of rejoining the cold West is jarring.

I had, and still have, little idea what the correct moral decision would have been in a situation like this. But I was missing the girls too much, the new family I was assigned to weren’t that keen on me – so after a few days I moved back in with Dominga and her daughters. As before, Augusto spent most nights sleeping in the family’s shop further up the hill, so I rarely saw him, but suspect it didn’t even occur to him why I’d left the house for a while.

My last week in Todosantos, I worked in the language school, doing the job of the day manager while he took a break to Lake Atitlan. I shopped among the Todosanteros for bread and light bulbs, organised a big meal for all the foreign residents, and arranged teachers and host families for any new students. It was great to interact with the ever-friendly people of the town on a deeper, less-touristy level. I would have come back to the town to do the language school job full time – the current school co-ordinator was leaving in February – but a month later discovered that they had given it to someone else, and so my travels around the world continued.

Daniel’s travels continue at http://blogs.bootsnall.com/dw