Three Lost Monkeys Blog

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Donkey Kong Hong

Don't Go to Hong Kong

If it's one thing we've learn't this year, it's that we don't like big city's. What with pollution, loud noises, beeping, sewerage smells and excessive people. Quite simply, the standards of living arn't as good. They can all keep there filthy rat race to them selves. And another thing. Don't bother with the peak tram, it's just a view of a bunch of stupid buildings. Who cares.

Space is not taken for granted in this town. People live in Capsule tubes.

Safari

In between climbing we went to Krugar national park to do a 3 day Safari. Krugar is only 2 hours from waterval boven and features Mustafa, Rahfiki, Pumba and Malaria. We did a guided safari in an open top jeep. This was an amazing experience, one of the high lights of the year for me (Beric) actually. It was all very much just like the Lion King and Jungle Book.

Africa, Waterval Boven, Monkey's and Pumba!

The journey to Africa began with a series of highly unnecessary and time consuming flights. You see the original plan involved us stopping in Egypt and Kenya but these had to be cut because of all the chaos there. So we still flew through Cairo, where a series of dodgy passport recordings and constant shuffling from one arbitrary room to another left us highly deranged and confused. Eventually we escaped though and even managed to see one of the pyramids from the plane. Yep Egypt and the pyramids ticked and we didn´t even have to leave the airport.

Cyprus - Land of The Ioannou

A.K.A Land of the Steven

Well actually it should be land of the Stavro as Beric discovered back in Kaly. "Theres this crazy mafia guy, s.... st..., I don't know his name
Is it Stavro?
What how did you know?
Thats my name.
I've known you for 24 years and never heard that..."

Yep I was named after my Papou (grandfather) Stavro who moved to Australia over 60 years ago from the small mediterranian country of Cyprus. As is the case with many immigrants he was seeking prosperity and ultimately a better life than what was available at home during the time. He eventually moved Ayr where he met my grandmother and had a cane farm, then later moved to Townsville. Its interesting to think that I wouldn't even be here if he hadn't made that enourmous journey to the other side of the world all those years ago.

Kalymnos Island! Goats, Kaly King and Tufas!

After a quick flight from Athens we landed at the tiny airport of Kalymnos!

It's built precariously on the top of a mountain and the runway seemed to drop away straight over a cliff... not much flat ground over here, just the way the monkeys like it! Kalymnos is one of the biggest and best climbing destinations in the world at the moment.

2 Monkeys, 1 Italy!

With just six days to go until our flight to Kalymnos the two remaining monkeys (yep Nomad disappeared again) set out to explore Italy. First stop was Arco in the northern provence of Trentino. This place is the European equivalent of Moab in the USA, full of outdoor nutbags involved in activities like hiking, windsurfing, cycling and climbing. We were slightly dissapointed with the lack of rednecks in jeeps though...

Croatia and Bosnia! Land of the Beric's

Our Peugeot was fairly hootin along the German highway, the roads were the best we had seen and you gotta move quick to keep up with the other lunatics. Even when you're going 170km per hour the Audi's are doing high 200's and literally fly past you in a blink.

We weren't stopping for nothing, well maybe fuel, but our mission was clear. We were heading to my (Chris Beric) most anticipated location in the whole world for this year and in fact for my entire life. For my very time I was going to the place where it all started for the Beric family. Croatia and Bosnia, The Land of the Beric's!

Belgium, Holland, Belgium, Holland, Belgium, Holland, Germany..

After overdosing on cheese in France, we drove north to Belgium. We climbed for a few hours at Freyr in Belgium..

All Hail the French Chicken Lord!

A quick re-cap. Steve was in Australia for his sister's wedding. And Nomad was stuck with me (Beric) for another week.

After Nomad and I ran with the bulls in Pamplona we drove about 8 hours to Verdon. This cost us about 100 Euro in tolls which really hurt after we lived like kings on this much money in Mexico for a whopping 16 days.

Monkeys Run with the Bulls in Spain!

Lets just start by saying Spaniards are completely insane. Even more wacko than Bloomy...

Now I know Steve and I put up a blog last night but I (Beric) had nothing better to do than right another blog and make a movie on the 9 hour road trip from Croatia to Arco in Italy. So here it is.

An update on the Nomad status, he has completely disappeared again. Steve and I saw him in Croatia a few weeks ago. Rumor has it he was in Morocco and may now in Portugal? But we really have no idea.

Anyways. After Nomad and I dropped Steve off at Barcelona airport, we made our way to San Sebastian. Basque Country!

Riglos Fiesta De Los Monkeys

After Rodlellar, our next stop was Riglos. One can never be sure if we were actually ever in Rodellar though??! You may notice that the text in this blog is a bizzare combination of Nomad facts and Beric insanity, some sort of absurd hybrid.

Rodellar is NOT Rodellar!

After a total absence from any input to the blog whatsoever, Nomad has decided to contribute to the absolute nonsense with a few paragraphs. We still haven't managed to get him to help with the making of the movies, editing of the photos and blog upload process yet. Which we must say is an extremely tedious and painful process that drives us to the point of insanity sometimes. We are done with computers and ready to go outside and live our lives.

Mallorca Island Deep Water Soling!

After England we all met up again on Mallorca Island Spain. This place is the deep water soloing (DWS) capital of the world. It's where DWS was first invented! In the photo above is the famous Es Pontas Arch. It features the worlds hardest DWS climb which was put up by Chris Sharma and goes at grade 9b.

Monkeyyyyyyys of London! ARRRGHOOOO

We escaped the Crazy Train, we reached the end of the line you see, we missed our stop and had to go forward in reverse..

Now we are waiting in line to see lots of dead people in the Paris Catacoumbs..

We don't know where Nomad is, again. We know that we gave a crumb to you all with the Canadian blog a few days ago and that you don't deserve another crumb just yet, but the blog is weeks behind and we need to catch up.

Finallly! Three Young Monkey's in Canada

So I haven´t released a blog for a while, what with the all climbing, women, fast cars, poker games and travelling.. but Nomad and I are driving 800km from Spain to France in one hit and I have had a little spare time to write the Canada blog.

Lachlan's of Walmart

Lurking Fear - Monkeys Conquer El Capitan

Desert Monkeys of Utah

After our ridiculous fireworks mission the 3 Monkeys venture onwards to glorious Zion in Utah. We arrived very late at night at our new couch surfing place. Our new host was the radical and awesome Keith. It was very dark when we arrived so when we walked out the front door in the morning we were blown away when we saw the view. Keith's house is planted right in the middle of some sort of desert heaven: