The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (50 page)

Who put this on the list?! I saw a fella riding an elephant when I was in India and I didn’t see the advantage. I imagine having one of those is like having a big 4x4. They cost a lot to
run and it’s difficult to find a place to park it.

I spent four days in the Peruvian jungle and it was the longest week of my life. If you get bad news from your doctor, like you’ve only got a week left to live, I’d
recommend that you go into the Peruvian jungle as it’ll feel that you’ve lived a lot longer. I only slept about two hours a night due to the heat and the noise from the wildlife.
I’m not surprised there are a lot of nocturnal animals and creatures in the jungle; they have no choice but to be awake at night due to all the bloody noise. I remember waking up around 11
p.m. with stomach cramps. I was advised earlier in the day not to get out of my tent if I needed the loo as I could end up getting bitten by something like a snake or spider, so I ended up having
to shit into a carrier bag. I’d say that was an all-time low in my life. There’s no such thing as a ‘bag for life’ when camping in the jungle.

I wouldn’t canoe anywhere. They flip really easily. Could you imagine if Noah would have built a giant canoe to save all the animals? One slight ripple caused by a beaver and the whole
planet’s species would have been wiped out.

It always surprises me how whenever the TV news covers a story about some flooding in a village, you always see some footage of a local bloke with shaved head and tattoos going down the local
shops for a packet of fags in a canoe. I can only presume they won them on Bullseye.

What do I remember about the Inca Trail? Honestly? Being hot, ill and knackered.

I remember that the hotel we stayed in was so high up it had oxygen tanks in the room that you get charged for if you use them. I normally avoid taking anything from hotel rooms/fridges due to
the mark-up on the price, but they really have you with the oxygen tank. I had to break the seal and have a go to make sure I knew how to use it just in case I woke up out of breath in the night. I
know the wonder of Machu Picchu is supposed to take my breath away but not like this.

The day of the climb up the trail was hard work. I’d only been walking for thirty minutes and I felt shattered. They say there is thirty per cent less oxygen up there. No wonder. I think
it’s due to all the tourists climbing this hill to the wonder: more people out of breath=more breathing=less oxygen. Simple.

It’s hard to know what all the fuss is about with the Great Wall of China. The thing that surprised me the most when I visited in 2010 was how new a lot of it looks. According to the
guidebooks, the wall was heavily restored in both the 1950s and 1980s. If that’s the case, then surely it can’t count as one of the Wonders of the World can it? If when I went to see
the Taj Mahal in India, I’d got there to find a new house with a double garage and a gravel driveway, they couldn’t still sell it as the Taj Mahal, so why is the Wall getting away with
it? I said at the time that ‘the Alright Wall of China’ is probably a fairer description.

The Dead Sea was very muddy looking and not very sea-like. It was more like a lake. I was up for getting in it though as I had a little bit of eczema on my leg and the mud and
salt is supposed to be good for the skin. I’ve seen that hippos roll about in mud all the time and you never see them with eczema so there must be some truth in it. I got in the muddy murky
sea. It was hard to stand up in it as the dark green sludgey mud sucked you in. Straight away the salty water started to sting all the cuts on my wrists and knees that I’d got during my trip.
I didn’t realise I had so many cuts. It’s like when you only find out that you have a paper cut when you start to eat a bag of salt and vinegar crisps.

I seemed to be the youngest person in the sea. Everyone else looked to be in their 70s, Maybe this is why they call it the Dead Sea – all the visitors are close to death.

I went hunting with a tribe in Peru a couple of years ago as part of the first series of
An Idiot Abroad
and, let’s be honest, it wasn’t a great success. I remember the
tribeswomen took off my shirt, painted me with red spots like a panther and put me in a grass skirt. The tribesmen then took me to the woods and taught me how to use a bow and arrow.

That evening, I politely turned down the tribe’s offer to share the chopped crocodile they’d caught on the hunt, and settled for a bit of Spotted Dick that the film crew had
brought.

I’d say the problem with hunting for food is you have to do it before you’re hungry, otherwise you don’t have the energy, but then to hunt when you’re full can’t be
easy as you feel bloated. I’m rubbish at shopping for food on a full stomach. If Suzanne asks me what I want for tea when I’ve just eaten a full breakfast I can’t think and have
to leave it to her to decide.

Which just leaves one more thing on the Bucket List.