david's trials & tribulations of life

Before your imagination starts running wild, no, I have not joined a guerilla army made up of Hutu pygmies in Burundi. I was, and still am in Ecuador - you know, that little country on....uhm........the equator! It has been great to spend time in Quito and Ecuador again, but in all honesty, I might as well have been spending my last two months on Uranus, as the jungle is nothing compared to the climes of Quito. The jungle is no place to raise a child (not that I am doing so, but in case anyone is contemplating it). And it also did not seem to be a place to film water possums. But more on that later. Well, I finally left for Ecuador after some travelling around Central America and some hard-earned restful days on the beach..... On arriving in QUito I was met by a man who I would say is the epitomy of an Englishman. Steve has the demeanour of a Hugh Grant type (bumbling fool) and the looks of a Captain Bird's Eye/Rolf Harris bearded type. Incidentally, Steve has worked on 'Indi...

Hello Kids! Oh, no. He's back, I hear you say. But this is good, as it's time for some more light entertainment from 'The Ridiculous Co. Ltd.' Due to the popularity of the 'Trials and Tribulations from Tulum' segment there may be a slight downfall in the quality. But do not fret - all will be redeemed as quantity is doubled. Bring on the diarrhea (verbal and proverbial! Yep, my guts have finally said NO and given up the ghost) and a pillow!! One thing is for sure; this will now read more like a traveler’s memoirs (you know, a bit like Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson.... hhhmmm) seeing as I have been....well,.....traveling! Remarkable. So where do I start? I think I left off at the end of my monkey business in Costa Rica with the BBC Nat. History Unit. Well, after some time in the field living amongst my fellow fuzzballs (the monkeys, not the cameraman and producer) it was nice to look forward to some home comforts and civilization fix. Not for me - no rest for...

Hello, Bon jour, hola, konichiwa, So you thought that I had slipped off the face of the Earth? Well, I thought so when I got to Paquera, Costa Rica! Tulum seems like a metropolis of grandeur proportions compared to Paquera. But don’t get me wrong - it had its little pleasures and niceties. For example, the way all the townpeople had no street sense at all, and would walk in the middle of the road, oblivious of the hurtling Mitsubishi Montero filled with camera gear, two eminent cameramen and their field assistant (yep that´s me!). If it wasn’t humans, then it was chickens, pigs, little kids (oh yes, I guess they are human!), hawks with iguanas in their talons, baby owls.... you get the picture. While having a beer after a hard day in the field, you would get chatted up by the local whores, that are in no way oil paintings. Lovely personalities though! Would go and buy mussels (for the monkeys) from an eclectic restaurant in the mangroves from a woman that had a bigger and better mous...

News flash! David is soon to be leaving Tulum to consort with monkeys. He may still live up to his nicknamesake 'Mowgli' or Aladdin´, as he will have monkey friends. And to ward off any pesky ones, he may have to resort to some martial arts, in which case he will live up to his 'Karate Kid' look-alike reputation! Hello, and how are you? I am fine thank you. In fact, couldn't be better, apart from a small pain in the back. OH well, all things considered, not bad at all. You will be wondering, is it already time for another instalment of 'Trials and Tribulations of David in Tulum?´ And the answer would be, yes of course. The time is ripe for boring the proverbial shit out of you. Talking about shit..the other day, I was walking around the Mayan Fiesta, and I stepped on dog shit (well, atleast I think it was animal shit, and not human,...). Now that happens to all of us once in a while, but alas, I was barefoot. I have learnt one thing from that - pooh is a whole l...