I Live Vicariously Through Me

Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings

2010-04-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Lord of the Rings was shot all thoughout New Zealand and we'd been excited to see some of the places in the films. Then about three days into our tour of NZ I saw a LOTR book that detailed all the set locations and showed photos of the places while they were filming and then of the places themselves without all the crew. What disappointed me was that most of the places they filmed simply looked like an ordinary hillside or cliff face once you took the actors and digital CGI castles out of the picture.

We finally were close enough to one location that I couldn't pass it up. Its Mt. Doom from the Return of the King movie. Plus there are three volcanos located right next to each other that offers some good hiking with excellent views.

We drove two hours outside Taupo to the ski village on Mount Ruapehu which is right next to Mount Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom). We took the chair lift half way up and hiked another hour and a half up to a good lookout point.

I've never been to a ski resort in the summer time and it was hard to imagine people skiing here.

It looked more like Afghanistan than a ski resort.

Here we are near the top. We continued down the path behind us in the pic below up to a sweet lookout spot.

In this pic below you can barely see the tiny tip of another volcano hundreds of miles away peaking through the clouds. Maori legend says that it used to be next to the other three volcanos but it tried to come onto one of the nearby female volcanos and so these three male volcanos pushed him away. According to the Maori people male volcanos are ones that can get snow on them.

The cone shaped volcano is Mt. Doom.

It was nowhere near the same emotions as being at the top of the mountain we climbed in Bolivia but the views were similar. Feeling like you're above the clouds and on top of the world feels pretty cool.

Here I am pointing the wrong way to the volcano. You'd think Gemma would have told me so....

I love this pic. Thats me looking like the Christ the Redeemer statue.

In the bathrooms at the ski resort they had signs telling you what to do if the volcano errupts! Can't say I'd ever seen that before at a ski resort.

One last view of Mt. Doom in the side view mirrors.

We're headed to wine country next and can't wait to get there!

Taupo- Honey Hive, Huka Falls, Maori Carvings and Geothermal Waterfall

2010-04-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

On our way to Lake Taupo we stopped just shy of town and saw Huka Falls. Its a small but powerful waterfall at the end of a narrow river that carves through rock. Its hard for a waterfall to impress us these days but it was a beautiful day outside and this one was pretty good.

A couple minutes down the road was The Honey Hive. We stopped in and tasted about 12 different kinds of honey, ate honey ice cream and learned about the difference between bees and wasps. Did you know a wasp can sting you multiple times without dying?

They had a glass boxed honey hive which allowed you to see a hive in full swing.

Most places in New Zealand don't allow what they call "freedom camping" or parking your car and sleeping in it for free. The people at the I-site are always telling you its not allowed and directing you to holiday parks where you have to pay between $10 and $30 per person. In Taupo there is actually a really nice spot along the river just minutes away from Huka Falls where they allow it.

It was one of the nicest places we'd parked, mainly because we didn't have to worry about getting woken up and told to leave. That hasn't actually happened yet but its always in the back of your mind that it might happen. Can you imagine not feeling safe about where you're sleeping? Its an awful feeling and one thats got really old really quick. Not that its been annoying enough to justify spending $30 a night to fix. ;o)

The kind older couple who was parked next to us in their massive full size camper van brought us some treats around dinner time. These cheese and egg souffles were amazing and really made us wish we had an oven. Gemma constantly tells me about how good of a baker she is but she never baked me anything in London so I'm still waiting to find out the truth. If I don't see some cakes a few weeks into our stint in Australia I'm calling her out on it.

Here was the misty mourning river just outside our van the next day.

We woke up the next day and headed to the lake. I saw alot of people watching boats speed by and went over to check it out. I figured they were just racing boats but then I noticed something strange behind all the boats. Are those water skiers??? I couldn't believe people actually race boats with skiers towed behind! Seems kinda dangerous no?

Here's another Hiace on the road. It seems to be a popular vehicle with the youth around here. They paint them bright colors and throw some rims on them and cart all their friends around.

We hopped on a boat tour around Lake Taupo. The boats takes you out to see some Maori carvings on a cliff face.

Looks like these two could use a hair brush.

Here are the Maori carvings. We learned on the boat tour that they were carved in the 70's. We thought they were ancient Maori carvings when we signed up for the tour. Oh well, they are impressive nonetheless. They were done by students at a local art school and they used tools only available to the ancient Maori.

Here you can see some animals carved into the rocks.

The mountains you see in the background are actually three differnt volcanos, one of which is Mt. Doom from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. We plan to get a closer look at them in the coming days.

I've been growing out my hair for the hell of it. Check out the mane blowing in the wind.

Here was Rod Stewarts old house, the one in the middle.

We headed to the outskirts of Taupo to a geothermal area. This area of the North Island is full of geothermal areas due to the high concentration of volcanos. This one is just a small waterfall that leads out into the river. You can sit at the river's edge and relax in very warm water just feet away from the freezing river water.

It was pretty hot near the rivers edge but after I saw some other guys get right under the waterfall I realized it must not be THAT hot and gave it a try. It's really hot at first but the pleasure far outweighs the pain. The hot water beating down on my back was amazing and you get used to the temperature pretty quickly.

Here is Gemma trying not to get her hair wet.

What a babe.

This place was free and one of the highlights of the North Island. The guidebook barely mentions it and most travelers we spoke to about it afterwards didn't even bother going. Definitely don't miss it if you go to Taupo.

Here is where the water flows out to the rivers edge.

Fall has just started to appear and this red tree really stood out. We haven't experienced anything but summer for the last year dating back to the summer in London before I left for Central America. I'm looking forward to fall. Mom, can you bring me some of my jackets down?

More fall colors.

Here are the three volcanos again at dusk.

We are taking a two hour drive to get a closer look tomorrow.

Best Job in Ireland

2010-04-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

So if you have ever emailed me even just once in your life then you probably saw that Gemma and I applied for the "Best Job in Ireland" contest. It was a contest to find a couple to test different honeymoon destinations around the world for six months. If there was ever a couple of people made for this job it was Gemma and I.

Here is the video we put together for the application. What we didn't mention in the 120 second video is that we don't have a camera that shoots video so we had to go into a camera store and ask if we could borrow one. I thought for sure they'd look at us like they were crazy but instead the kind owner swapped my slr camera with a brand new one thats better and shoots hd video. I can't say there would be many camera shop owners in the world that would do this but we were very grateful that he did.

We hopped into our van with a couple ghetto color print outs of some pretty destinations in Ireland and tried our best to make a 120 second video about why Ireland is the perfect destination for a wedding and why we are perfect for this job. These were the guidelines and here's what we came up with:

I then sent out an email to everyone on my email address book asking people to vote for us. We were hoping to get picked to be in the top 50 where we would have then been asked to write some more essays and get more people to vote for us to make the top ten. Instead they choose some of the cheesiest videos and cheesiest couples I've ever seen. Please try not to gag as you watch this one: (and check out the head roll this guy does at the very beginning-gag)

I actually picked this video out right after they announced the top 50. I just checked the site again and see that they made the top 10! Unbelievable. I will cry if they get picked for this job.

It looks like the judges were looking more for good videos than interesting couples. Although I can hardly call the video above good. What just because they can make their waists go big to show how "well rounded they are" that makes them a better fit??? To be fair it was really hard to put forth all of Gemma's personality into a 120 second video. I probably wasted too much time talking about our qualifications and not enough time talking about how entertaining we can be.

We really appreciate those folks who took the time to vote for us!

Oh well. We are sooooo over this. On to bigger and better things!

Rotorua and the Blueberry Winery, Polynesian Spa, Redwoods and One Boring Walk

2010-04-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

After listening to enough jazz to last us both a while we left Tauranga and headed down to the geothermal wonderland of Rotorua. When you first drive into town the smell hits you. The entire town smells of rotten eggs from all the sulfer emmitted from the thermal pools all over town. This area of NZ is surrounded by active volacanos and the entire area is just waiting to explode. The good news is that its also full of geothermal hotsprings.

We made our usual first stop at the I-site to get a quick reminder of what there is to do in the town and find out about anything new that might not have been in the guidebooks. This I-site happened to have showers so we took advantage and had what was maybe our 4th shower in the last month.

We then drove just north of town to check out a blueberry winery. When we arrived they had all kinds of jams, chutneys and dips made out of blueberries that were all really good. We then tried the wine which the lady who owned the place was quick to remind us that this is not a red wine but a blueberry wine. Yes, emmm, this is quite clear when you take a sip. It just doesn't taste right. We were both pretty disappointed after getting fairly excited about combining our love for wine and blueberries.

Fortunately they also have a cafe where we ordered a blueberry smoothie and a blueberry ice cream sundae with hot blueberries poured over the top. We also got a blueberry muffin for the road. It wasn't as good as my mom's but it was pretty close.

A farmer walked in just as we were delivered our food and he stopped to chat with us about our trip. Every New Zealander wants to know where you've been and how you like their country and then tell you about where they are from and where to go next. Its a good source of information so we don't mind repeating ourselves over and over again.

Our food came and I went to take a picture of the food. This farmer says to me "Make sure you get her in the pic." So I lean back to get Gemma in the pic and he says "Get one of her sucking it down." Jesus! Then, "Yeah thats it." as I took the pic. We could hardly contain our laughter.

Here I am sucking it down.

Interesting fact about the winery: They make more money selling blueberry juice to people interested in drinking it for their health than they do from selling their wines. Here were some of the blueberry fields and requisite sheep.

Leaving the winery I noticed all these huge mounds of rocks all around. Turns out they were from the massive volcanic explosion in Taupo thousands of years ago. Taupo is nearby but a good two hour drive away. Its amazing these mini islands of rock were blasted that far away.

We found a lake just outside of town to park near.

The next day we were at an internet cafe and read an article on CNN about a job testing honeymoon destinations around the world. We spent a few hours applying for the job and running errands around town. More on that job in the next post.

The following day we decided to do the Western Okataine Walkway hike and it was probably the most boring hike of our entire trip. The only two exciting things we saw were a creepy noose made of palm leaves and a dead cow.

Creepy noose hanging in the middle of the path???

We were almost at the end of our hike when Gemma spotted this dead cow along the side of the path. It had completely rotted away but all its bones were still in place. You could see its rib cage and hip bones sticking out through its leathery dried up skin.

Here is its head.

The walk was pretty at times but the scenery didn't change once. We saw the same things five minutes into the walk as we were two and a half hours later. I think hiking the W in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile has ruined us for hikes.

Driving back to our parking spot I did finally find a vista that I'd been hoping to get all along our hike. Gemma was so exhausted from the hike she didn't even sit in the front for the short five minute drive. She laid back in the bed and snapped this shot of me not paying attention to the road.

Finally a good view of the lake from above!

We busted out one of our portable grills again and cheffed up some burgers. These really are a treat that we don't get that often. We cook great meals in the van but they are mostly of the pasta or stirfry variety. Side note to my american friends. You must try eating baked beans on toast for breakfast! When I moved to London I remember seeing baked beans in the Google breakfast line and thinking how ridiculous. Then I tried it and then I met Gemma. Now I crave baked beans on toast in the mornings. Mix in some scrambled eggs on toast and a little hot sauce or some Lea & Perrins and its just about one of my favorite snacks.

The sunsets were great and I took a ton of pics the few days we parked at this lake.

The next day we went to a Redwood forrest. I've always wanted to see the Californian Redwoods. Who knew I'd see them in New Zealand before I'd see them in California? In the 1800's they planted lots of different trees to see which would take fast and could be best used for timber. The redwoods took well and they now tower into the sky topping out around 200 feet tall.

It was only a 30 minute walk through the forest but about 100 times better than our hike the day before.

See Gemma in the pic below? She's tiny in the bottom left corner.

The bark is interesting looking.

The next day we went to the Polynesian Spa near the edge of Lake Rotorua. Its one of the top 10 spa's in the world according to Conde Nast Traveller and one of many in the area. The spa has been here since 1878 when a catholic priest bathed regularly in the thermal spring water in hand dug pools. Over several months his arthritis was greatly alleviated, initiating an international reputation for the therapeutic properties of the hot mineral spring water.

Here I am reading inbetween dips in the pools. You could only stay in one of these pools for about 15 minutes before your heart started racing and you had to get out. My heart had never raced like that in a hot tub and I'm hoping it had something to do with the alkaline water and not the condition of my heart. But it was such a nice place and a nice day we lounged around and stayed for a couple hours.

Looking out onto Lake Rotorua

Back at our lake side parking spot the next morning and another round of pics to capture the lake with a morning mist.

Next stop is lake Taupo.

Tauranga and the National Jazz Festival

2010-04-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Finally we were in the right city at the right time for a music festival. We always seem to be a week too early or late for these kinds of things but for once we were near enough the right town so we headed over to Tauranga for the National Jazz Festival.

There were four days worth of concerts to choose from plus alot of free shows during the day. We are on a budget so we couldn't see the big name performers whose tickets were around $80 but we bought tickets to see a gospel choir called Jubilation and tickets to see the Youth Jazz Competition.

We aren't particularly religious people but we thought it would be something different and entertaining to see the gospel choir. It was entertaining to a certain degree I guess. The older white haired guy in the middle in the pic below was really enthusiastic about God and had alot of soul. He was fired up and fun to watch.

It seemed just about every song they sang was about Jordan or the river Jordan which provided me with enough material to make Gemma laugh for a few days as I did my best gospel singing impression of the choir while singing songs about myself.

There was also a guy in the choir who looked exactly like Kenny Rogers which was funny. He is in the pic below on the left.

Here is the church where the performance was held. We went back to the van afterwards and turned on Gemma's Ipod while we made dinner and drank some wine. Gemma then said the funniest thing - "If they could have just sang some more songs like this it would have been better." Nas was playing. Ha. Nas is a rapper for those that don't know. She then followed that up by telling me she thought it was gonna be more like the movie Sister Act. Haha. She cracks me up.

The next morning Gemma couldn't find her sunglasses. We turned the van inside out and then went to every shop in town that we'd been in the day and night before. Finally we made it back to the church on the other side of town. Someone had just turned them in five minutes before. They had been laying in the grass outside the church all the night before and most of that day. Only outside a church would that happen!

The youth jazz competition turned out to be a bust! We just figured it would be the best jazz garage bands or kids studying jazz who put together their own groups jamming for some recognition. Boy were we wrong. We walked into the auditorium and soon realized we were watching New Zealand school jazz bands. They all were required to play the same song and then three others of their choosing. Not exactly what we were hoping for.

After about the third band Gemma turns to me and says "They all sound the same to me." This was during the song that they were all required to play. Ha. She is a riot.

We treated ourselves to some Indian food and man was it good. Ever had tandoori mushrooms? They were fantastic. The pics below are actually from our second trip there the next evening. It was so good the first night I never stopped to take a picture.

Tandoori Mushrooms

The jazz festival also had stages set up throughout town with different bands rotating throughout the day. We made a picnic lunch and mostly relaxed.

There were some absolute crackers there at the festival including this bald guy below. He was loving it and we were loving watching him dance.

Then there was this guy wearing a ladies hat that was on some kind of crazy drugs. I'd never seen anyone dance quite like him, and especially not during a jazz performance.

Then there was this crazy lady in the green dress. I really shouldn't be making fun of these people after all they were just having a good time like the rest of us. But they definitely stood out in the crowd and gave us some good laughs.

Gemma and I have a long running joke about who will be the first to need an electronic scooter. She says me because I'm older and I'd put my life on her because of her three knee surgeries.

As I was posing for the pic above these lovely ladies came up and joined the pic.

Then their husbands. You might notice the woman to my right has her hand reaching down in the pic below. She was grabbing her t-shirt to flash her boobs to the camera but Gemma missed the pic. Luckily.

We sat down at a table outside the bars along the main street. There was a huge crowd sitting around drinking and listening to the bands playing along the street. Daytime drinking and good jazz. Life is good.

Gemma snapping away.

Here we are back at the Indian restaurant. We don't eat out alot but this place was seriously good.

Day three of the jazz fest took us to an recreation of the town village as it was in the 1800's. They had it set up as a Jazz Village with a bit of a New Orleans theme. It was nothing like Mardi Gras New Orleans unfortunately. It was more a bit like Conner Prarie for my Indiana readers.

Walking back from the Jazz Village we passed by our two favorite stores in New Zealand; The Warehouse which is a bit like Wal-mart and the Pak'nSave which is a discount grocier where we spend most of our money on food.

We had our van parked right by the river and some nice public toilets for the entire weekend for free. Its a wonder what a difference a good parking space will make to our lives these days! The sunsets were beautiful as always.

Hamilton Gardens and the Chopper

2010-04-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

After a super exciting few hours in Paeroa we headed to Hamilton to check out the gardens. It's not a huge secret that I really like flowers. I have regularly bought flowers since sometime back in New York and I even bought a small travel vase in Buenos Aires so Gemma and I could enjoy a breath of fresh flowers every now and then while on the road.

The Hamilton gardens are enourmous and full of......you guessed it, flowers. It was a beautiful park and green space with water flowing through it in the forms of a lake and a nearby river. We arrived late in the afternoon so we decided to break it up over two days. Not being on a tight travel schedule allows us to take some time to stop and smell the roses, literally.

They had different sections showcasing gardens from around the world which was particularly interesting. There was a Chinese Scholar's Garden, a Japanese Garden of Contemplation, an Indian Char Bagh Garden, an Italian Renaissance Garden, an English Flower Garden and last but not least an American Modernist Garden.

Here are some pics of each. First the Italian Renaissance Garden.

The American Modernist Garden looked pretty much like someone's backyard in Arizona.

The Indian Char Bagh Garden was beautiful.

Here is the Japanese Garden of Contemplation.

After walking through all of those we needed to leave and find a place to park for the night. We struggled to find one of our usual sweet spots near public bathrooms and near a beach (Hamilton is landlocked and we couldn't find anywhere near the river). Unfortunately we settled for the parking lot of the Hamilton Cosmopolitan Club. It was dark already by the time we parked and we figured parking in the back of the huge parking lot near the fence would be good enough.

In the middle of the night I woke up and heard a helicopter landing on our van. Thats what it sounded like anyway. I really thought there must be a massive chopper landing in the parking lot. Then I realized that on the other side of the fence was a railroad track. Great. We listnend to trains RUMBLING and ROARING past us all night. Not the best spot we've ever parked.

The next morning we went back to the gardens and went running along the river. We took our books with us into the gardens and read in the Rose Garden. It was really relaxing and there were a ton of different roses to stop and smell. Here are some of my favorites.

These roses were taller than me!

And as you can see from this great shot, much much taller than Gemma!

This is the oddest looking duck I've ever seen.

Next we are off to the National Jazz Festival in Tauranga.

L&P Pilgramage

2010-03-31T18:16:00.000-07:00

Gemma and I are traveling very slowly through the north island and its been great. Not having to worry about bus schedules or finding hostels has been a blessing. We just hop into our van and go wherever our little hearts take us. This super exciting blog post will be about our trip to the little town of Paeroa. The tourist buses in New Zealand don't head here and there's good reason why. There isn't anything to do here except get your picture taken in front of a giant bottle of L&P.

What is L&P you ask? L&P is a delicious and refreshing beverage that is "World Famous in New Zealand". I'm pretty sure you can't find it anywhere other than here in NZ. It all started in the little town of Paeroa where someone discovered a mineral water spring and started mixing it with lemon juice and carbonating the water. Its now manufactured by Coca Cola but is still delicious.

Anyway, we have a strange obsession with it and so we decided to drive through Paeora even though its a bit out of the way just for the hell of it.

On the way we passed by a cheesery and stopped to check it out. We ended up buying some garlic and chive gouda and some Italian herb feta.

We arrived in L&P town and noticed there were some horse races going on. I pulled in hoping that this town actually might have some good craic in it but we were sorely disappointed. It was nothing like the debauchery of the Kentucky Derby. Just a bunch of old people with nothing better to do and not enough money to spare to be betting on the races.

We left quickly, after one race, and headed to the giant L&P bottle for a quick pic. You might notice all the parking lot in the foreground below and how the lady taking the pic cut off the top of the bottle....

She was like "take a look and tell me what you think" I was like, umm, maybe less parking lot and get the top of the bottle in? Some people are helpless behind a camera. She did get it right the second time.

We were disappointed that we couldn't find any good L&P t-shirts or gear for our van but we did buy some L&P ice cream that was pretty good.

Little Train and Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove

2010-03-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

We left Auckland and headed down and around into the Coromandel Peninsula towards the famous Hot Water Beach. The beach is quite a bit north up this peninsula and in order to justify the drive all the way up to it I wanted us to stop and do some of the other random tourist destinations along the way. We decided on going to Driving Creek Railway which is a tourist attraction for trainspotters and fans of pottery alike.

The scenery alone on the drive up the peninsula proved to make the trip worth it.

We noticed some odd looking black rows of something in the lake as we drove by. I correctly guessed they were mussel farms. Neither of us had seen those before.

We arrived at Driving Creek Railway in time for the 2pm train ride. The man behind this attraction was a potter by trade and bought this tract of land on the hillside for its abundance of clay. He then built a train track up the hillside to retrieve the clay and bring it down to his studio.

Below is this inside of a kiln, completely glazed over from years and years of use.

After a few years of barely making his payments to the bank for the land, the banker demanded that he start charging a small fee to take passengers on his train and turn it into a tourist attraction.

It proved to be sound advice as last year they took 40,000 passengers at roughly $20-$25 per person (around $600,000USD!!) Despite this success the owner still only draws an income from his pottery and uses the railroad profits to pay the staff and to expand it. He's been building and expanding it for the last 32 years!

The train ride was entertaining in a Disney trainride kind of way. No super thrills but a nice enjoyable ride to a nice lookout point.

Here are what the little cars looked like. This was another car passing below us.

Getting in my workout when and wherever I can.

The studio regularly has guest artists and potters stop by and stay with them and they all inevitably add their artistic touch to the area around the tracks. This was one impressive part of the track done by an American artist. I ended up buying a $40 coffee mug from an Ugandan artist who comes over to NZ every now and then to sell his goods. I can only imagine how much the money he makes in NZ makes a difference to his life in Uganda.

Mao parked down at the end of a track leading to nowhere.

We then drove over to the east coast of the Peninsula to Otama Beach and found a little field near the beach to park Mao. Down a staircase to the beach I found a swing hanging down from a tree.

This beach was absolutely stunning. White sand, sun shining and not one other person around as far as we could see.

I took about 50 pics of my favorite muse swinging into the sun. Here are a few of my favorites.

Gemma dancing and skipping about. It was so pretty there it put us in a great mood. Reading back through Gemma's journal she wrote it was "idylic" and "loving life, I'm very happy."

I couldn't decide which of the pictures I took of this tree I liked the best so here are my two favorite.

We then busted out one of our mini charcoal grills, chefed up some incredible hamburgers and watched the sunset.

Here is where Mao was parked. The beach was just behind me taking this picture.

The next morning we ran along the white sand beach before we started driving south towards Hot Water Beach. When we got there we saw the most tourists we'd seen throughout the entire trip combined. Luckily for us they had already done all the hard work of digging holes for us to relax in. The sign below says it best:

Here is what the scene looks like, a bunch of people in shallow hot water pools with the ocean waves coming right up towards you.

It wasn't quite as much like a hottub as I would have liked, but considering the fact that you were on a beach near the ocean sitting in really hot water, it was pretty dope. The water was so hot in some spots that it would burn you immediately once you stepped into it. It was kinda funny seeing people step into it despite your warning not to and immediately scream and run off.

Here is a diagram further explaining the phenomenon.

Or if you've got really good eyes you can read it as Gemma poses next to it.

About a five minute drive away is Cathedral Cove. The guidebook says a reasonably fit person could do the hike down to Cathedral Cove in 25 minutes making it sound easy although the sign says 45. Well we took a side path that was labeled as a five minute walk down to another beach along the way. What the sign didn't mention is that its five minutes straight down stairs, not much to look at once you're down there and then about 10 minutes back up the steps. We then continued on the path down to Cathedral Cove which is a naturally formed tunnel through a huge rock formation.

Inside the tunnel looking through to the other side.

Looking back on the tunnel from the other side now.

This huge slab of rock was interesting. It almost looked like a huge sculpture done by Mother Nature.

Side view

After sitting along the beach and admiring the view for a few minutes we started the hike back to the car. I don't know if it was the morning run, the relaxing on hot water beach or the unnecessary hike down to the first beach I mentioned, but the hike back to the car nearly killed me. I was winded and felt betrayed and lied to by the Lonely Planet. Here is the view from the top, I'm surprised I had enough energy by this point to lift the camera. Cathedral Cove is down in the bottom left corner.

Tomorrow we are off to L&P town. A pilgrimage to where our favorite New Zealand beverage was started! Kind of like a road trip to see the worlds largest ball of twine or something, but what the hell!

City of Sails - back in Auckland

2010-03-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

We're back in Auckland! Alot of people including Lonely Planet, give Auckland a bad rap. Everyone advised us to get out of Auckland asap and start exploring the rest of NZ. Well we're hear to say Auckland is a great city that we'd happily live in. The neighborhood of Ponsonby rocks and despite the true lack of a city center, the many neighborhoods that make up Auckland all have something to offer.

We rang up Roger who had advertised a two day/one night sailing trip on a flyer at the hostel we stayed at the first night. We got lucky to have a really cool French couple named Severine and Laurant along board with us for the trip.

Mao felt right at home parked at the Yacht Club.

Roger's sailboat was a 26ft 1984ish racing yacht. It wasn't the most luxurious but it was nice.

After getting all the gear on board we set sail. The weather was a bit foul at first but it cleared up quickly.

We wanted to learn how to sail on this trip as much as we could. I took sailing one semester in college but other than knowing which side was port and which was starboard, I have mostly forgotten everything. Roger was barking orders at us in sailor's speak from the get go and it came back to me a bit. He let me steer early on and it felt good to be sailing again.

Roger started steering again and the wind picked up a bit out of nowhere I suppose and the next thing we knew the boat was completely keeled over on its side and water was coming over the edge soaking Roger and I's pants. This was actually the least of my concerns as Gemma (who was sitting on the other side of the boat from me) was now directly above me, Roger's knees the only thing keeping her from falling overboard as she clung to them. She realized that she was simulantously pushing him backwards off the boat and into the ocean and moved her weight over to me. I saw Roger was panicked and asked which way we were supposed to be pulling or pushing the rudder. I grabbed on and pushed it with him to right the ship. Whew! Shit! Did we almost just capsize? Yes, Yes we did.

We sailed for a couple hours to a little bay and threw down the anchor all a bit relieved to be alive. I went down into the cabin and changed my shorts in the privacy of the cabin. Roger on the other hand changed his pants in the cabin but right at the door while the four of us were sitting out back. He told us he was going down to change but we didn't expect him to just drop his shorts and underwear right inside the cabin in full view. His 75 year old rear was now bent over just three feet away from our faces!

Gemma and I could not stop laughing and were crying trying to hold back our giggles fighting for every breath. Then he took a towel and started wiping his butt shimminging back and forth. Good Lord what a start to our trip.

The four of us escaped by piling into the dinghy while Roger stayed back doing God knows what. Checkout Laurant's beard! He's been growing that thing for six years and only trims it twice a year. That's beard dedication.

We were sailing in the Hauraki Gulf just outside Auckland and put the anchor down in a bay near Rangitoto Island. There were several gun shelters used by the NZ army which were interesting.

Probably the coolest thing about our two day trip was talking with Laurant and Sev. They work on a farm in the Swiss Alps. She makes cheese and he's a shepherd taking care of the cattle and goats. They work every summer for three months and take the rest of the year to travel. We shared similar outlooks on life and had some of the same travel goals.

The island was beautiful and we walked around it for a couple hours before going back to the boat.

Here Roger was showing Laurant and I some charts of the Gulf. Made me feel like a sailor looking at maps and charts.

Then Roger busted out a 3liter box of red wine and we got the party started. We all shared travel stories and had a great time. Roger had some really interesting stories about his youth including working as a driver for a mafioso guy in Monte Carlo who taught him how to cheat at roulette. He said there would be rich guys who would play several roulette tables at a time and they couldn't possibly watch every table finish its spin. He would pretend to be one of these guys moving from table to table and simply point to a stack of winning chips and say "Are these mine?" and most of the time they would push them his way!

We woke up the next morning feeling hungover. The cabin we slept in was like a coffin and I felt claustrophobic for the first time in my life. It was Gemma's turn to give steering a go. The pics below show her wide range of emotions. The wind was really strong that day and simply holding onto the rudder to go straight was quite a chore.

Old Rog and his best student.

It took us about five hours to sail around the island and back into the Auckland harbour. There were tons and tons of sailboats out that day. The second pic below is the type we'd like to sail on someday.

While we were back in Auckland we hit some of the sites we'd missed the first time around including the Auckland Museum. There was a lot of interesting exhibits on Maori tradition, volcanoes and the usual natural history dinosaur and animal exhibits. I used to be obsessed with dinosaurs when I was young but I don't remember seeing anything like the one below. Its a giant Emu I think.

Below are pics of a Maori meeting house and an old war canoe that could fit about 100 warriors.

We went to a cultural performance showcasing Maori song and dance. They also performed the Huku War dance that the All Blacks Rugby club has made famous.

The women twirling some traditional string with a poof on the end. Can't remember what its called but we went on stage and gave it a go.

Ignore the guidebooks and give Auckland a couple of days at least on your trip to New Zealand.

Giant Trees and a Gorgeous Sunset

2010-03-24T18:06:00.004-07:00

After two weeks in New Zealand we finally managed to make it all the way to Cape Regina. We explored the entire east side of the peninsula on the way to the top of the North Island and started driving back down the west side. There isn't much to see other than some REALLY big impressive trees. We stopped in the Waipoua Kauri Forest to see Tane Mahuta "Lord of the Forest".

This tree is believed to be 2000 years old - born around the same time as Jesus. According to Maori mythology (which has some pretty wild and tall tales) Tane is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. The story goes that when Tane Mahuta was born he pushed apart his mother and father, the earth and the sky, and created everything inbetween. All living creatures of the forest are considered Tane's children.

He measures 51.2meters high and is 13.77 meters around. You can't get close enough to touch it, err I mean him, as its a sacred tree to the Maori people but this picture of Gemma and I from about 30 feet away gives you a little idea of how massive it is.

In the same forest you can do short walks to the second and seventh largest Kauri trees. The pic below is Te Mahuta, the widest of the Kauri trees and the second largest overall. Its just as impressive as Tane Mahuta in my opinion. While its only 10.2 meters high, its 16.4 meters around which is just massive. Next time you go outside, try to find the biggest tree you can see. Then imagine its trunk being nearly 5 or 6 meters wide!

We did some other short walks to see the "Four Sisters" which is a group of four Kauri trees whose trunks have all grown together. We skipped the hike to the seventh largest tree. I mean after seeing the first and second largest, do people actually take the time to go visit the seventh largest?

Walking through the forest, you feel more like you're in a rainforest in Costa Rica than in New Zealand. The reason is that the long narrow peninsula at the top of the North Island has a strong maritime climate with a pronounced tropical influence (copied that from the sign). No place is more than 40km from the sea because the harbours and estuaries penetrate deeply inland. If only there were monkeys in the trees.

The blog is a bit out of order here since we actually went to the Kauri Kingdom on our way up to Cape Regina but I thought that writing about the Kauri trees in two different posts might be a bit boring. Anyway, on our way up to the Cape, we stopped into Kauri Kingdom a kitchy souvinier shop showcasing products made from Giant Kauri trees.

Its actually pretty interesting stuff as far as trees go. Around 50,000 years ago some natural disaster occured and knocked over thousands of giant kauri trees. They all fell over the same direction lending alot of support to the Tsunami theory. Others believe it could have been hurricanes or volcanic eruptions that led to them all falling.

The trees were buried just under the surface in peat swamps which perserved the trees perfectly for almost 50,000 years. They are now dug up, dried out and carved into works of art, furniture and homewares. Gemma and I spent $45nzd on a cheese board. Come visit us in Australia and we'll be sure to bust it out.

Here we are standing in a staircase made out of the trunk of a giant Kauri tree.

This bench below cost something crazy like $50000NZD.

If I had a huge wad of cash to blow I might consider putting this sculpture below in my backyard. Actually maybe I'd buy it as a gift for my friend Keyon. Its a bit Lord of the Ringish and he'd probably appreciate it more.

Just down the road from Kauri Kingdom is another can't miss tourist destination, the Gumdiggers Park.

Gumdiggers Park is a slightly educational tourist attraction that tells you about the life of men working the fields in New Zealand in the 1700's. Its midly entertaining and informational. Well actually mildly boring and informational is probably more accurate. The highlights were the minature ponies that have no relevance to the park whatsoever and the fact that one of the biggest buyers of the gum was a company based out of Birmingham, England, where Gemma is from.

Oh and the old truck outside the park. I'd still say it was worth the $10 entry and hour it took to walk around. If you do these kind of quirky things along the way it helps keep it interesting and breaks up the long car rides.

The pics below are of one of the more memorable sunsets we've had on our trip so far. Just a couple days before we drove up to Cape Regina we were on the Kerikeri Peninsula at Doubtless Bay. The beach we decided to park at for the night was Rangiputa Beach. Mao was parked right up against the water and right after dinner the sun went down. The 15 pictures below show how the sky changed over the next 45 minutes. It was beautiful.

Gemma laying in the back of the van looking out the back.

And finally the Moon was there and set over the ocean later that night.

The next morning we woke up and I was looking out onto the ocean as Gemma was preparing breakfast and saw a stringray gliding through the water just a few feet into the ocean! I ran to the car to grab my camera and yelled for Gemma to go check it out. She was able to see it but it swam away before I could get back to take a picture. I was glad she was able to see one though after I saw a few diving a few days earlier. Here we are eating breakfast near the sea.

Gemma never drives. I think maybe she has driven a total of 3.4km's of our nearly 1500kms so far but here she is pretending.

The beach below is Matai Bay which is one of the beaches at the very top of Doubtless Bay (which got its name when Captain Cook scribbled down in his journal "no doubt a bay" as he passed by). Its a massive bay and makes his observation look a bit silly. But Captian Cook had just finished naming most of the South Pacific so we'll give him a break.

Its really fantastic to be able to travel slowly across NZ and be able to stop and enjoy the day when the sun comes out and we happen to be at an amazing beach. Life is pretty good.

The day after I went diving we stopped in a little fishing village named Mangonui and went to the "Best Fish n Chip Shop in NZ". We were sorely disappointed. We weren't that hungry so we ordered just a small order of chips as a snack. They had a few different dips that looked good and we asked if ketchup was free. Nope. I said "Well vinegar is free at least right?" "Nope thats a dollar extra for a small." We don't have many chippies in the states but I went to a fair share while I was in England and Gemma agreed that charging for ketchup and vinegar is a bit ridiculous. Obviously their award went to their heads and they now are just a tourist trap. Miss.

Well one positive thing about the place.... Never saw a sign like this in South America but believe me it didn't matter.

Here we are posing for our own personal L&P commercial. We tried the local soda for the first time and loved it! Its similar to sprite but less fizzy. More on L&P to come when we make our pilgrimage to the town where it all started.

When we first arrived in Auckland we spent our first few days a nervous wreck as we searched for and bought our van. After we finally bought Mao and had her worked on we were so ready to get out of Auckland that we left without doing alot of what the town has to offer. Its called the City of Sails and as we were going over the bridge leaving the city I got my first good look at the harbour and all the sailboats. I love being on the water and sailing and I immediately regretted not going on a boat trip. We have to drive right by Auckland anyway on our way down south so we decided to call back in and go on a two day sailing trip. The next post will tell our adventures at sea.

We are getting a bit wiser about picking our parking spots at night. We returned back to one of our favorite spots from the first week, Leigh and Matheson Bay to sleep the night before we go into Auckland for our sailing trip.

The Far North - Cape Regina and the giant sand dunes

2010-03-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

We have been driving north from Auckland for about a week now. Our final northern destination is Cape Regina. Its as far north as you can go (almost-technically there is another point 3km further north but not as exciting) before we'll need to head back down towards Auckland again.

Cape Regina is important/exciting for a couple reasons. Maori consider Cape Regina the jumping-off point for souls as they depart on the journey to their spiritual homeland. Its also the meeting point for the Tasman Sea (sea between NZ and Australia) and the Pacific Ocean. And to top it all off there is a lighthouse which makes for pretty pictures.

Where the two oceans collide:

If you look on the left you can see a line of waves coming towards the center and then the same thing on the right side.

The colors in the ocean always amaze me.

In New Zealand most everyone is a long way from home but Gemma was the furthest at 18,429kms.

Here is a closer look at the pohutukawa tree where the Maori believe their loved ones slide down and into the afterlife. Its the one on the right side of this rock jutting out towards the sea.

From the top you can also look out onto the beautiful Cape Maria van Diemen which is just to the left of Cape Regina when looking to the sea.

When we left we went to park at a DOC (Department of Conservation) campsite nearby. We had mostly been avoiding these campsites for the first week because we didn't want to pay to park our car somewhere when we've been finding super sweet spots all week for free. But all the areas around this sacred site are protected by the DOC and they want a little money.

We didn't use the cold showers they provide and so we thought we might try to sneak by for one night. The next morning we left and thought we were getting away with a free nights stay when the DOC officer appeared out of nowhere in his truck and followed us all the way up the hill (our van goes really slow uphill) before passing us and waiting for us at the top. It was the first and only time we've had to pay to park the van somewhere in our first three weeks. Hopefully this trend continues.

Our next adventure was only ten minutes away at the giant sand dunes. We arrived about 10am and I expected to see someone renting sand boards or to find a shack renting them. There was no one around so we decided to improvise.

We thought we'd try to go down the dunes on the plastic lids to our under the bed storage bins. The next place to rent them would be at least fifteen minutes away.

Here is me not moving an inch on the lid.

We got back in Mao (did I mention we named the van Mao? as in Maori) and drove to the nearest gas station/ice cream shop/sand dune board rental shop and were back to the dunes in a half hour. Of course now the van renting boards has pulled up. Sweet timing. We were in time to beat the crowd however and were the first two up the biggest dune we could see.

By the time I got to the top I was a mere ant on top of this giant dune. It was about the closest I've ever felt to being in the desert.

For my first run I went down sitting on the board.

By the time I neared the bottom I was really going pretty damn fast.

I didn't bite it despite the fact it appears I was heading that way. I was able to stand up and remain relatively free of sand. Now Gemma on the other hand.....

This is her at the very top.

She's coming down really fast and then starts to panic!! She digs her feet in to slow her down...

And unfortunately I didn't get picks of her falling forward and face down into the sand. She got mad at me for missing this colossal crash but as soon as I saw her starting to bite it I started worrying about her potential injuries and stopped taking pics. Next time I'll be sure to put my worries aside and capture her going down in all her glory. She was covered head to toe in sand.

The climb up the dune was exhausting. My quads were sore for about three days after. I climbed back up a couple more times and went down face first.

I thought this would be twice as exciting but for some reason it seemed I was only going at about half the speed I did when I went down on my bum.

Gemma gave it one last go down before we called it a day.

Headed back to the local ice cream/board rental place and got a double dipper. Isn't it funny when people use the name of something when trying to describe it? Like when we asked the guy working there what Hokie Pokie ice cream was he answers "Its Hokie Pokie flavored ice cream with chunks of Hokie Pokie in it." Ahhh, its all clear now!

We took a little 15 minute ferry to get to our next destination, the giant Kauri trees. Mao led the way sitting in pole position.

That night we parked by the sea and enjoyed a ridiculous sunset.

Diving the Poor Knights - Tutukaka, NZ

2010-03-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

I learned how to scuba dive at the very beginning of my trip back in August in Utila, Honduras. I then missed or skipped all the good opportunities I had to use my new skills in South America. I regret not diving in Colombia and Venezuela and so I decided I wasn't going to miss the next great opportunity to came my way.

The Poor Knights Islands, just off the coast of Tutukaka on the North Island of New Zealand is one of the worlds top spots. It's made several top ten diving lists and consistently ranks amoungst the worlds top twenty dive sites. Part of the reason for this is the tropical and temperate currents that make their way down to these islands and allow for tons of tropical fish and rare species.

Here are the Poor Knights Islands from afar.

I was pretty nervous since I hadn't been diving in seven months and I wasn't the most confident diver after getting my certification in the first place. I sucked down the air in my tank so fast in my first dive without my instructor back in Utila that I had to surface about five minutes before everyone else. Then they told me that I was wearing a 7mm wetsuit that would compress down to 1mm underwater making me more buoyant and that we were using aluminum tanks that would be really bouyant by the end of our dive. I understood what they were saying but had no idea how I should change what I'm used to doing under water to make up for this!

I requested to dive with a dive instructor as my dive buddy in the hope this would ease my nerves. Instead the instructor spent alot of time away from me helping the others in our group when they had troubles. I was left by myself a few times but was able to keep my cool. I did however suddenly pop up to the surface on more than one occassion. Turns out I didn't have enough weight on me the first time. Suddenly popping up to the surface for those that don't know is not good.

I also rented a camera for this dive. Probably not the safest thing to do when diving for the first time in seven months, but I didn't want to miss capturing the moment if it turned out to be as good as it was supposed to be. Within the first five minutes in the water I saw my first short tailed Stingray which made it all worth it!

Swimming alongside this guy was the coolest diving moment I'd ever had!

School of Koheru fish.

We were able to swim through some tunnels which was scary at first and then fun.

Scuba Steve/Jordan

The snapper were pretty big and all around us.

Underwater photography proved to be pretty tricky. Most of the time there isn't a ton of light down there especially when you are close to 20meters under. Also the fish don't exactly stop and say cheese for you. Add to that the fact that the current is moving you in some direction that isn't always towards the fish and the fact that I was less than in perfect control of my buonacy and it makes it pretty difficult to get a good pic. But I took about 150 and so I was able to get a few good ones. I'll write the name of the fish when I know what it was.

Sand daggers wrasse

Later in my first dive I saw my first ever long tailed sting ray! I swam right up to it and then accidently above it. The only thing Gemma told me before I went was not to swim over any sting rays so I don't die like Steve Irwin. Well I didn't mean to but my control and excitement got the best of me. It was pretty awesome.

I then saw a short tailed sting ray sitting in the sand at the bottom. This was all so exciting and I was definitely glad I got back in the water and brought the camera.

About the ugliest thing I imagine you could ever see down below is an Eel. This one was the only brightly colored Eel I'd ever seen. It was a Yellow Moray Eel and opened its mouth and tried to scare us away. But our guide stuck her finger right next to its mouth and it just backed up into its hole. They are ugly and scary looking but apparently really shy.

Below is a jellyfish looking thing that had a really sweet blue electrical current looking lightshow running through it.

After our first dive the boat took us inside a huge cave. The dive boat was the biggest dive boat I'd ever seen. It had two levels and could fit about 20 to 30 divers on board. It also had a little kitchen area where they served us coffee and soup. Dive Tutukaka is the name of the dive shop I went with. They are definitely doing well and I recommend them highly! The pic below is from the inside of the cave. Apparently a Japanese submarine hid in here during the war.

I jumped in the water early before our second dive of the afternoon. The captain told us there are often a huge number of fish right under the boat and he wasn't kidding! I used my snorkel and went under the boat and was surrounded by fish!

I love the two bright shiny spots on the Demoiselle fish below.

It was a huge school of blue Mao Mao and Demoiselle mixing. The blue Mao Mao have the line running down the side and the Demoiselle have the two bright shiny silverish blue spots on them.

Finally the others were ready and we started our second dive.

This fish is a leatherjacket. I'm not sure the fish fits the name but I think both are cool.

I got to see my favorite fish from my dives in Honduras again. Its called a Black Angel fish. This one swam around with me for a while.

The black and yellow fish below is a Mado fish. It was eating the jelly thing in the first pic.

My dive buddy Jenny and I on the boat ride back.

It was great getting back into diving. On the boat ride back to the harbour I remembered how good it is to get even just a glimpse of the enourmous underwater world thats out there. Being able to breathe underwater and swim with these creatures is really special. Now I just have to tell Gemma it was an awful experience so she isn't too jealous she missed out on it.

We bought a home in New Zealand! But still feel homeless!

2010-03-11T16:42:00.000-08:00

We bought a home! Well actually we bought a van, but it's our transportation and our home for the next couple of months while we tour around New Zealand!

We finally made it out of South America! Woohoo! It was an amazing SEVEN months but we are definitely ready and looking forward to being able to speak to locals in English. Our original plan was to spend four months in South America but our original plan went out the window after the second month. In the original plan we'd allowed ourselves one month for New Zealand. As of right now we've been here for two and a half weeks and have only covered north of Auckland and back so its looking like we'll be here closer to two or three months. But so far is been great.

We arrived in Auckland at 4am and the hostel desk staff doesn't start working until 8am so we spent our first few hours in a Starbucks waiting. This Starbucks had an amazing view of the city from its lounge. That is the Sky Tower lit up in green and purple.

We checked into our hostel in the suburb of Ponsonby and immediately went on the hunt to find the perfect van for us to drive around New Zealand. We found this cool park on the way that had sculptures of old buildings built into the ground. It was something interesting I hadn't seen before.

I nor Gemma have ever bought a car before. I was given my dads old car when I was 16 and then didn't need a car in college, NYC or London. I was starting to think I might be able to avoid buying a car long enough that when I finally do need to buy one, I'd be at a point in my life where I could make my first car purchase a Porche. Well sadly this dream did not come true.

I'm going to recount the whole story below but figured most people would just skip down to see the picture so here she is! Not a Porsche but I love her anyway.

After sitting in the middle seat of the middle row on the plane in economy for thirteen hours (oh how I miss first class flights on Virgin courtesy of Uncle Goog) we finally arrived in Auckland. We found a hostel and immediately started our search for a van to buy to drive around the country. New Zealand is small enough (roughly the size of Colorado) that you can drive around and see most of the country in roughly six weeks. To rent a car or camper van for this long would be just as expensive as buying one, only you don't have the option to sell it back at the end. As long as it doesn't break down on the side of the road we expect to get close to 70% of what we spent on it back (fingers crossed).

We went to the Backpackers Car Market and looked at various 1980's vans that other backpackers had just finished using on their tours. We both were pretty nervous about the whole thing since neither of us know anything about cars. And its not like we were browsing a new car lot here.

We decided to take a huge black van (a Toyota Hiace) with blacked out windows for a spin. The owner asked if I was comfortable driving over here. I nervously spewed out "Oh yeah, I've driven in London and Ireland and the States all with no trouble. What side of the road do they drive on over here?" The answer is on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right.

I pulled out of the car lot and on the first left curve proceed to run the left tires up onto the sidewalk! Shit! The van didn't have power steering, and the shifter thing, (gear stick?) was near the steering wheel (not in the middle of the two seats like I'm used to). I was lucky to get the thing back to the lot in one piece.

We then test drove a Nissan Vanette that was much smaller. Gemma was squeezed into the back sitting between the bed and the floor. All these backpacker vans come with a bed build into the back where the seats would have been. The Vanette however was much much smaller than the Hiace and while it was easier to drive, left us feeling that we might go crazy if we didn't have any room in the back to sit or cook in.

We asked a guy working at the market what he thought of both cars and he told us that the Hiace van is one of the most popular backpacker vans because its so big, it resells well because its highly popular as a workers van, and that more money went into the development of its engine than the Nissan.

Really tired from arriving at 4am this same day we went to lunch and talked it over. We decided to go back and make an offer on the Hiace Black van despite my less than overwhelming confidence in being able to drive it. It was bought while we were gone. We were exhausted and decided to call it a day.

The next morning we went back to the market and there was another Toyota Hiace that we immediately said we'd like to test drive. There clearly was another couple interested and I wanted to get in it before they did. We were out on our test drive and today I was feeling much more comfortable behind the wheel. This one was just as big but a bit easier to drive and came with everything we needed (two stove tops, queen size bed in the back, plates, cutlery, solar shower, curtains). At every stop light I looked back at Gemma who was telling me she wanted to buy it and I was trying to ignore her so the French guy who was sitting in the passenger seat wouldn't see her excitement.

We'd been told that it would be nearly impossible to find a Hiace for $2500NZ which was our budget. These vans go for around $5000 at the beginning of the summer. The French guy who was trying to sell it paid $4000 for it in January and was now selling it for $2500 because he needed to leave the country that evening. I offered him $150 less than he was asking and he said he'd take it. (Damn should have gone lower!)

We stupidily hadn't came to the market with enough cash to buy it and asked him if we could go to my bank to get the money. He wanted to return back to the car market and told us we could just go to the atm from there. This was no good. If I let him go back, the other couple would be there waiting to take it for a test drive, hear that we wanted to buy it and we'd be in a bidding war. So we essentially held him hostage for the next hour while I was in HSBC getting them to do an emergency cash withdrawl because the amount we needed was more than I could get out of the ATM. The car market called him three times to check to make sure we hadn't kidnapped him and to let him know the other couple was there waiting to see it again.

We got the cash went back to the market and started the paperwork. The other couple was still there and luckily they accepted that we were going to buy it. We didn't have enough time to get it checked before we bought it because he needed to catch his plane. But he had it checked in January and had fixed the things that were listed as major issues. What the hell, he'd only put 4,000 kms on it, not alot could have gone wrong by then right?

In my classic "negotiate and accept offer then renegotiate it anyway" move, I asked him if he'd take less than what we agreed on because there might be a few hundred dollars of repairs to be made that we couldn't be sure of since he didn't have enough time to allow us to get it checked. He said he would have had time if we hadn't taken so long at the bank and that we'd denied other couples the chance to buy it by doing so. Then proceeded to take another $150 off the price. NICE! So we bought it for $2200!

We had to pay another $200 for insurance, $105 to fill it up, $30 for registration and we were on our way! We drove her back to the hostel and loaded all our stuff into the van. We then decided we'd go to the grocery store to stock up on food, but .......................................it wouldn't start.

Oh great. She starts beautifully everytime we start her during the test drive (which was probably four times) and then the second or third time we start her after we buy her she won't start.

She eventually did start but we took her to get checked out the next morning. Turns out she needs new brakes, brake hoses, and a new ball and pivot on her front. We get all the repairs made (Thanks Mr Nicholas!) and the mechanic tells me I just need to pump the gas twice everytime I start her up. This trick works but I am not sure how understanding the next potential buyer might feel about it.

But really this is a sweet ride. The living space in the back is way bigger than my first bedroom in NYC! After mostly sleeping in four to ten person dorm rooms for most of the last seven months it is pretty awesome having our own queen size bed and all the privacy we need whenever and wherever we want it.

In between the back of the driver and passenger seats is about four feet where we keep our two stove tops, food, chilly bin (greatest and funniest kiwi word we've fully embraced so far aka cooler). Our bags and most of the rest of our food stores underneath the bed. The pic below shows it in a bit of a mess but you can see how much room it gives us. I mean its still just a van, but its a pretty spacious one. (I'm starting to feel a bit like my brother Jason when he was showing me his new minivan and trying to explain to me how pimpin a ride it was as I was trying desperately to hold back my laughter).

Even though it affords us to travel around the country in style and have our own double bed everynight, we feel homeless. I mean it doesn't have a bathroom which is the biggest downside to having to sleep in it. When you have to pee in the middle of the night and in the morning, there isn't anywhere to go. So we find ourselves peeing here:

Thats the county library if you couldn't tell.

We also found ourselves cooking dinner in the shopping mall parking lot. This was right after we saw Alice and Wonderland in IMAX 3D in Auckland. So its a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes and makes us feel a bit homeless not being able to shower everyday, but as far as living in a van goes, its "Sweet As" (second favorite kiwi saying).

After spending the greater part of our first three days in Auckland trying to sort out our ride, we finally were able to start seeing the sites. It happened to be the weekend of the Pasifika Festival which celebrates Aucklands Pacific Islander community. Its the largest in the world which makes sense as its the closest big city to all these tiny little islands. Ever hear of Kiribati? Me neither. There were exhibits and food from all these little island nations like Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Kiribati.

I saw my first ever cricket match played by some Mauri men wearing traditional skirts.

Then we stuck around for a concert by a band from Samoa named Fiji. They were really good and the crowd was going crazy for them. They must be a big deal amougnst the Islanders.

We also saw some performances of men doing tradional dances.

After a few hours we decided we'd been in Auckland long enough and we headed north. Auckland sits pretty far north on the North Island but there is still a good bit to see all the way to the tip top. Our plan is to head all the way to the top to Cape Regina and then back down to Auckland before continuing on to do the rest of the North Island and then taking the ferry to the South Island.

Our first stop was at Matheson Bay. We were able to park our van right along the water and it was everything I had hoped driving around New Zealand would be.

The next morning we woke up and drove to Goats Island Marine Reserve. They declared this section of water a marine reserve about thirty years ago and its been a huge success. There are an incredible number of fish there due to fishing now being illegal in the area and its a really popular place to go snorkeling.

Here is the view from the car park looking down on the reserve. The water was freezing but we went snorkeling anyway and saw alot of cool fish.

Our next stop was further up the coast to Pakiri Beach were we stopped for lunch and laid out on a beach that stretched on for miles. There was maybe five other people on this huge stretch of sand. I had no idea we'd see beaches like this in New Zealand! I'd seen alot of pictures of NZ from my friends and the guidebooks, but I was picturing a really mountainous land and for some reason never considered that we'd find amazing beach after amazing beach here.

We then drove north to Mangawhai Heads. Our trip up the coast was going nicely until we hit a stretch of unpaved roads. It was so bumpy the van was shaking violently even when I was going slowly. Well it must have shook our battery loose or something because when I came to a fork in the road and stopped to ask these cows for directions, the van stopped running.

Driving around NZ you see tons and tons of sheep. There are something like 41 million sheep and 4 million people in NZ. At this point in time it happened to be cows. After about ten minutes she finally started up and we were on our way.

We arrived at Mangawhai Heads there was a three hour walk along the top of these cliffs and then back along the beach.

Once we reached the beach we realized that there was a sign advising against walking this way during high tide. Well when is high tide? How am I, from Indiana, supposed to know if its high tide or not? The ocean was definitely coming up and over the first part of the path but I was sure I'd see a clear path back most of the way when we were on the top looking down. I convinced Gemma that it would be ok and we waded through the water through a hole in the rocks and to a beach on the other side.

Luckily I was right and we were find walking along the beach the rest of the way. Gemma started her shell collection which is displayed on our dash board. The sand and rocks along the beach were pretty dramatic so we decided we should be too.

The next stop was to visit the Abbey Caves in the town of Whangarei. These are small caves that you are free to explore on your own. We took in a flashlight and spent a couple hours climbing and crawling through them. There were two really funny German girls in front of us at first. They all the sudden stopped and turned to me and said there was a puddle of water in front of them and they didn't know what to do. I just stepped in front of them and straight into the puddle and showed them how to do it. Did they really think they could go exploring in caves without getting wet?

The coolest part of these caves are the Glow Worms that live on the cave ceiling. Its difficult to see in the pic below, but if you click on the pic to blow it up or just look closely you'll see lots of blue dots. When you turn off your flashlights in the cave and look up, there are hundreds of these little glow worms lighting up the cave. It looked like you were standing amounst the stars as they were really close to you.

Gemma found a tree to climb inbetween caves. She didn't make it much higher. ;o)

Sheep Sheep everywhere!

After the caves we went to an "I-site" which is an information site and tourist office that most every town in New Zealand has to help tourists find their way. Its pretty incredible how well New Zealand is set up for tourism. Even if a town has next to nothing to offer the average backpacker, there is an i-site to tell you about the minimal historic significance of its town hall.

We slept at the i-site and got our first shower of the week. We visited the marina in town and bought the most incredible fudge at the New Zealand Fudge Farm. It was really really good and this highly embarrassing pic of me below should prove it.

We then hiked to Whangerei Falls which was set alongside a scenic little lake.

We drove up the coast to Matapouri Bay which is on the coast near Tutukaka. It was another amazing beach. We ran along the beach in the morning and swam in the ocean. Life here has been pretty good so far.

At the end of the bay there is a path that leads to the "Mermaid Pool" The path leads to a massive wall of rock that has a tiny sliver running through it. You kind of shimmy your way sideways through the sliver and emerge on the other side. Below is a pic of the sliver, its the dark hold in the middle of the pic.

And on the other side is this amazing scenery.

After you then walk along the rocks to the right for ten minutes you come to a pool of water that forms on the rocks after high tide. They call it the mermaid pool but there were no mermaids and it wasn't really deep enough to swim in which in my mind doesn't make it a pool. Pretty nevertheless.

We started walking back and I turned around to see Gemma almost get swallowed up by a huge wave that had crashed over the site of the rocks.

We then drove into Tutukaka where I was to go diving the next morning. Below are a few pics to show you the kind of scenery we park next to most nights.

Here is the view from our bed. You can see the top of our trunk in the top of the pic.

Its been a great first week so far! We are traveling super slowly but we are time rich so why not.

Valparaìso, Chile - 5.3 AFTERSHOCK!

2010-03-06T15:12:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Santiago five days after a 8.8 magnitude earthquake (terremoto in espanol) caused massive destruction in Concepcion, a town about 500km SW of Santiago. This is 800 times more powerful than the quake that rocked Haiti. The town of Concepcion suffered the most damage but because of Chile´s long history of earthquakes, the infrastructure is much better and the loss of life was considerably lower than in Haiti.

In Santiago the amount of damage was much less but it still caused enough damage to the airport terminal for them to declare it unsafe for occupancy. Flights were going in and out by the time we arrived but they had set up a makeshift terminal outside. We never even went in the terminal after getting off the plane and collected our bags off the runway!

Here is their makeshift arrivals and departures board.

We immediately went to the bus station and got on a bus to the port town of Valparaiso (Valpo for short) which is two hours to the east. There are some good pictures below of the colorful, artsy port town but first the most exciting part of our time here.

We stayed there for three nights and on the last night we were bed when at 1:46am we were woken up by an earthquake! I woke up and realized our bed was rocking back and forth, then realized it wasn´t just the bed but our entire building! I´m not sure how long it was going before I woke up but it lasted for about ten seconds once we did. We were both so excited at first. Then I started freaking out a bit that our building was gonna collapse. I mean I didn´t get out of bed, but I was a bit worried. The fact that so many building arround us hadn´t collapsed during the 8.8 terremoto reassured me that we´d hopefully be ok.

Our first earthquake! Just another amazing experience to add to our long list on this trip!
Heres the link that shows the details of what we felt: http://ssn.dgf.uchile.cl/cgi-bin/sismo_cab.pl

Heres some pictures of earthquake damage from the 8.8 quake before we arrived.

So back to Valpo. The town is made up of 16 hill side that drop dramatically down to the coast. To get up to each of the hills they have little elevators that for less than a dollar take you to the top.

View from the top of the hill looking out on the port.

We went to the top of a couple of the artsier neighborhoods. One was an outdoor museum with 16 murals painted throughout the neighborhood. Very similar to a little town in Sardinia Gemma and I visitied last year.

Here are a few of the murals.

We really liked this fountain when we first saw it. Then I had to laugh when I noticed the ladder up on top. So South America.

Valpo is a busy port town and we took a little half hour boat tour of the harbour. It wasn´t all that exciting until we saw a little group of seals swimming along side out boat. Gemma had been wanting to see some seals so I was glad she finally got a chance to see them.

Then our boat got WAY to close for comfort to a buoy that had a family of seals on it. The big poppa was not happy we were so close and started yelling out letting us know about it. Our boat was literally touching the buoy where these huge beasts could have easily jumped in and crushed us. Not gonna lie I was a little concerned.

Gemma spontaneously dancing as she´s known to do.

More street graffiti/art.

The Color Cafe. A nice little cafe run by a nice French guy.

We´re heading back to Santiago now for two days before we bid farewell to South America and start the next leg of our adventure in New Zealand.

Hiking Mount Fitz Roy- Patagonia Argentina

2010-03-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, well I wasn't that excited to start writing this blog post as it was just about another day of hiking. I have to admit I have gotten a little jaded after doing all of these amazing hikes in South America. At the time of the hike,I knew my surroundings were beautiful, but now looking back at the pics I now can fully appreciate just how ridiculously beautiful it was. If you thought the pics from the W were good wait till you see the ones below!

First here is a pic of the biggest Dulce de Leche cookie we've had the pleasure of eating. Dulce de Leche is huge in Venezuela and Argentina. They put it on everything and these cookies are super super soft with a Dulce de Leche middle layer sprinkled with coconut. I'm not a huge fan of DdL but these cookies are good.

I mentioned in the W hike post that the Patagonian sky is amazing at dusk. Here are some more pictures to prove it. I took these out the window of the bus on the way to El Chalten, home of Mount Fitz Roy.

Our first glance of Mount Fitz Roy through the bus was pretty stunning.

The first day in El Chalten we were still exhausted from the five days of hiking the W and the crazy travel day thereafter were we were in three cities and two different countries in one day while we visited the glaciers.

The next day we set out for a six hour hike to see some lakes near the top of Fitzroy. The start of the hike was easy enough. We stopped along the way to clown around and take some funny pictures in the trees.

I wish I had paid closer attention to this map. And this picture isn't appearing in the order it was taken. This pic below was taken on our way back. If I'd taken it when we saw it the first time it might have saved us about three hours. Notice the arrows going back to the path to the RIGHT side of the lake?

Notice this picture taken from the left side of the lake? Yeah I thought I remembered the guy at our hostel telling me to make sure you go left of the lake. What I think he said was to make sure you go left at the lake to get back onto the path. That mistake cost us about three hours! Oops.

But then again we wouldn't have seen these two wookpeckers. There is a blackheaded one below and a redheaded one in the pic below that.

Also wouldn't have seen these super sweet rocks and lake.

I kind of knew we were lost right away when all the sudden we didn't see anyone else on the path we were following. But it was a path we were on and I figured we'd finally find a sign that would lead us the right way or maybe I had even found us another shortcut!

Once I finally admitted we were lost we luckily ran into a couple guys with a map! This time I was wise enough to take a picture just in case. Of course this time we didn't need it and found our way to the start of the uphill climb.

Back on the right track.

This is Mount Fitz Roy. Its really majestic.

If we had realized these Laguna's we were hiking towards were right underneath the huge spires it also would have saved us alot of time. But that's what happens when you travel by the seat of your pants and do little to zero planning along the way!

After a very very steep uphill climb to the top, we were rewarded with these stunning lagunas which are formed at the top of the mountain from the glacier water runoff.

We brought our lunch up to the top. Isn' t this just about the best picture of a ham sandwich you've ever seen?

The water is a milky blueish green that we've been seeing all around Patagonia from all the glacier water. Its such a unique color and texture of water that I've never seen anywhere else.

Its also drinkable and crystal clear.

Here is the view from the top. We were at the bottom and it took us about an hour and a half to get to the top. It was practically straight up most of the time. Why is it that everything worth seeing is an uphill climb to get to?

This poor guy finally made it to the top huffing and puffing. I gave him about 30 seconds to recover before asking him to take a pic of us. Ha.

The hike down was a killer on Gemma's knees. You know you think its gonna be the hike to the top that is the worst, but its always the way back down that kills you. The hike took ten hours by the time we were done. I had to practically carry her down the last part of the hill. She really is a trooper though. Sorry I got us lost babe. I'm glad you made it and lived to hike another day.

We are busing it back down to Punta Arenas in Chile to fly to Santiago which was just hit with a 8.8 magnitude earthquake. Hopefully we don't get rocked by an aftershock.

Perito Moreno Glacier - El Calafate, Argentina

2010-02-27T07:55:00.000-08:00

Exhausted from five days of hiking but feeling fresher than ever after hot showers and sleeping in a comfy bed we woke up early the next day and left for the Perito Moreno Glacier. Its located 7 hours north of Torres Del Paine in El Calafate, Argentina. I was a little afraid that we were going to be disappointed after already seeing a big glacier in Torres Del Paine, but this one is a little more exciting.

Its one of the only constantly advancing glaciers in the world. It advances or grows by two meters a day! Most other glaciers are doing the exact opposite and retreating due to global warming. Our guide informed us that in the past visitors had to be lucky to witness a big chunk of the glacier falling into the water to create an iceberg. But now because of global warming it happens about every twenty minutes! Yet the iceberg remains stable.

The first picture I took of the iceberg made me laugh when I took it. I call this the "First and Worst" pic. It happens quite frequently. You are approaching something amazing and you see it for the first time. You immediately grab your camera and take a pic. You then realize you are really far away from whatever it is and start walking closer to get a better view (and most likely a better pic).

Ahh, there it is. A closer view and better pic.

I busted out the zoom lens it get a closer look at the nooks and crannies of the glacier.

On the left side of the picture is land and the big glacier is on the right. As I mentioned this glacier advances two meters a day. It eventually reaches land at this point and creates a dam. The water level raises and the pressure builds and builds until finally it breaks through. This happens about every two years and produces a ridiculous explosion of water. Unfortunately we weren't there at this time but I've included a link to a youtube video of it for you to see because its really amazing.

Fast forward to the 2:13 mark to see the massive chunk of ice fall in 2003.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbQjukRmLSg&feature=related

Below is the only little chunk I managed to capture on film. Not quite as impressive!

We were really happy we made the effort to come and see the glacier. Its much more active than the one at Torres Del Paine and we were able to get much closer to it.

We hiked a bit further up the hill and were able to see the top of the ice field better. It extends as far as you can see and up the mountain.

If you're not bored of looking at the glacier yet, check out the pic below. Notice the bright blue tips of the glacier right at its edge? The are the brightest blue color! It caused by snow accumulating and being compressed layer after layer by subsequent snowfalls before it becomes blue ice.

We were at the glacier for about three hours. Our next stop is to head further north to El Chalten were the Fitz Roy Mountain range is! Our time in South America is coming to an end soon!

Patagonia -Torres del Paine, Chile - The W Domination

2010-02-26T11:27:00.000-08:00

Our last big adventure in South America was a pretty good one. Patagonia. Patagonia isn´t just one town, its a huge area in southern Argentina and Chile. We wanted to have a month to see everything but because Gemma´s passport took so long to arrive we only had about two and a half weeks to get from Trelew down to southern Chile and back up to Santiago where we fly out on March 8th to New Zealand.

Our first stop was the incredible Torres Del Paine National Park in Puerto Natales, Chile. There are several different routes you can do to see the park but because we were short on time we choose the five day W route. The call it the W because you more or less walk in a W when you look at the route on a map. We would have loved to do the 9 day circuit but considering neither one of us have ever put up our own tent we thought its probably best to stick with the five day route.

This was the chance I´d been waiting for all trip. The time to work on my man skills. Hunting, building shelters, killing dangerous animals. We got to town late at night at checked into a hostel in Puerto Natales. The next day we didn´t get going till around 1 and realized that all the grocery and camping stores were shut until 3pm. We went to a talk at another hostel on the park and hike that was super helpful. It discussed the different routes, what to pack, what to wear and what to expect.

They basically told us that we´re going to be wet, cold and miserable and there is no amount of waterproof gear we can wear to keep us dry. The weather is completely unpredictable and changes every 10 minutes. Ponchos will fly and flap wildly in the wind. The rain cover for you backpack will fly off in the wind. The wind will knock you on your ass at least a few times. It definitely scared us a bit but provided some really really helpful tips. Like packing two sets of clothes, one wet and one dry and to double bag our dry clothes and sleeping bags inside our bag. The wet clothes you´d hike in and wear every single day. Even if they were still wet from the day before.

The talk ended at 5pm and we needed to get all our gear and food and pack and eat dinner. But then they recommened a travel agent near by and we realized since we´re short on time we probably need to fly up to Santiago instead of spending two and a half days on a bus getting there. Chile is ridiculously long (like the length of the US and Canada combined!) We got out of the travel agents' office at 6ish and went to rent our gear.

We rented a tent, sleeping bags, mats, stove, plates and cutlery and rain pants for Gemma. We went and dropped it off at our hotel and had to go back to the travel agent to see what she came up with for us. By this time it was around 9 and she informed us that the shopping market was closed or closing soon. Gemma took off running to the market while I finalized our bus tickets and flight.

Did I mention Gemma still didn´t have a waterproof coat at this point either? I met her on the street just before 10pm and she tells me the store was closed when she got there. All she had managed to find at local shops was toilet paper, chocolate and bottled water. Sweet, we are so screwed.

Luckily the travel agent told us about a little local shop a few blocks away were we were able to buy cup o´soups, stuff for sandwiches, pasta and bread and jam. We were saved. We ate dinner at a great little microbrewery with an amazing summer ale. We started packing around 12:30 and didn´t finish until about 3am. As soon as I was done, I zipped up my bag and got the tent seriously stuck in the zipper. I struggled for another half hour before I got it unstuck and passed out.

Day One

7am the next morning the bus picked us up for the two hour drive to the park. The bus dropped us off and we had one hour before we took a catamaran to the starting point of our hike. This was just enough time to hike up and see a waterfall called Salto Grande. After being at Iguazu Falls it wasn´t that exciting but it was still beautiful.

The weather was just fine when we got on the boat. Twenty minutes later when we got off it was pissing down rain, grey and the wind was whipping in our face. I couldn´t help but have a huge smile on my face as I was thinking, ¨HAHA Son of a Bitch, this is gonna be WILD!¨

We immediately went into a shelter where as planned we had our first lunch. Luckily by the time we were done the rain had stopped and it was beautiful outside!

We headed off towards our first campsite, near the largest ice field outside the Antartic, called Glacier Grey. We didn´t weigh our backpacks before we left but on the first day with all our food, camping equipment and clothes it probably weighed close to 30lbs or 14kg. They felt pretty light on our shoulders when we first put them on. After hiking up and down the mountain for six hours they were killing us.

As you´ll notice we were constantly surrounded by stunning mountains and lakes.

After hiking for a few hours we arrived at a lake where Gemma and I saw our first iceberg! Which she named Flora. They fall off this ice field you will see below and float down the lake. Seeing our first iceberg was pretty exciting even if it didnt look like it could bring down the Titanic.

A few hours later we finally saw our first glimpse of the ice field. Its the three white sections that come to meet the lake but below the mountains.

It was right after this that I got us lost for the first time. Well not really lost, we just took an alternative route. There was a worn path so we weren´t the first 1000 people to go this way but it definitately took us down into a ravine and probably added 30 minutes to an already exhausting 6 hour hike.

Finally we arrived at the ice field. We werent able to get much closer than this but it was still pretty amazing to see.

These were the rocks we climbed to get a closer view of the ice field. There was this little tree and puddle/lake on top. The scenery never ceased to amaze us throughout the trip.

We finally made it to the campsite after six hours of hiking on only three and a half hours sleep carrying our bags at their heaviest. Day one was exhausting.

This iceberg looks like a yacht.

So Im not the most outdoorsy person. I might have set up a tent before but I think I mainly would just let my friends do it if possible. I eventually figured it out and the view from our tent was pretty stunning.

Day Two - Six hours of hiking

There were a few times throughout the first couple of days where I just had to stop, put my bag down and be in pure awe of the beauty. Id never seen a landscape so wild and rugged and untouched like this.

We were incredibly lucky with the weather. It was sunny almost the entire time and it barely rained at all. The wind did kick up every now and then but not too bad until the last day.

I am not sure if you can tell by looking at the picture below, but the color of the water was just unreal. It was a milky teal color that I'd also never seen before. Its caused by a milky powder that comes off the glaciers.

Hard not to have cheesy smiles on your face in this place.

The mountain below has these crazy sheer cliff faces that are grey and then little mini mountains on top in black.

Our second campsite was right along a babbling brook. I put the poles in the tent and then stuck the stakes through the holes where the poles where supposed to go. Gemma had to fix it. My tent skills were digressing.

We walked downstream to where the bathrooms were and decided to peak our heads out of the forest and walked down onto the rocks near the stream. This is when we saw one of the most incredible views in the park. To the left of the river was the snowy mountain you see directly behind us below. And to the right of the river (almost in the same frame-you can see the start of the other mountain in the right side of the pic) was the sheer faced mountain.

A better picture of the mountain that was to the right of the stream.

It really just isnt fair that these two mountains are so close and that you could see both of them from the same spot. It was like being in Alaska and Arizona at the same time. Add in the stream, simply stunning.

Day Three - Four hours hiking

I did pick up some camping skills/knowledge along the way. I thought about how to put up the tent for some of the hike and nailed it on the first try this time. Also, the only water we had to wash our pot and dishes was the freezing cold stream water which doesn't cut through dirt and grease. But if you fill the pan with dirt, and break off a tree branch with some leaves on it you can use the leaves as a scrub brush and the dirt breaks through the grease and then the cold water washes the dirt away easily.

After packing up we hiked up to get a closer look at the snowy mountain. It was near noon and the sun was causing mini avalanches. We ate lunch and watched and listened to avalanches falling about every fifteen minutes. The pic below shows an avalanche but its hard to spot. You might notice some movement in the middle of the pic.

Below is Gemma attempting to move a tree branch out of the way for me for a panoramic pic. Pesky tree branch was in the way. Every decent photographer needs a good assistant. Or as Gemma likes to say every strong man has a stronger woman behind him.

Day three was a light hiking day because day four was supposed to be an eight hour hike!

One of the best parts of hiking the W was that the scenery and landscape was constantly changing. It never got old and there were surprises around most every corner. Like when we came upon this rocky beach.

Gemmas poles were the cause of much frustration on her part and much hilarity to me. She was constantly getting them stuck in the mud, tree branches or in between rocks. She cursed them almost constantly yet I did see them practically save her life a few times.

Our campsite on night four was near a lake. We had dinner at the refugio that night but it wasnt much better than we had been cooking all along. We cooked all our other meals on a little gas burner. After dinner I took advantage of the dusk sky and snapped these pics below.

The sky in Patagonia at dusk was stunning. Often I was just in the wrong place, on a bus or without my camera when we saw the most stunning purples and reds unfortunately. But this night wasnt bad.

Who brings a red lacy bra on a hiking trip?

Day Four - February 25th - My (and my dads) Birthday! - 16km hike took six hours

First picture of me 28 years young. I´m aging like a fine wine I´d say. Id rather have not woken up on the hard ground on my birthday, but all things considered, it was a pretty great place to be.

My dad was definitely hiking along with us today. There was a shortcut we were told about that if we missed would have added another hour or so onto an already ambitous 16km hike. We were supposed to look out of a left turn when we saw the lake. Wed been hiking all week with a couple of asian american med school students and an aussie couple. We constantly passed each other as we all stopped in different spots along the way for breaks.

We all spoke of the upcoming shortcut and how to spot it. Gemma and I fell into third place (not that we were racing but I was keeping track) and were left to find the shortcut without their help.

Well there are lakes all over the place here and wed been walking alongside a giant one for a few hours. I lost track if wed made it all the way past it when we came upon a worn path off to the left. There was a lake there in front of us, but was it the big one or the small one we were looking for? Well I knew we needed to go left eventually so this left couldnt lead us too far out of the way could it? With my dad guiding us along, we found a shortcut to the shortcut!

Sure enough after wading through some bogs we came upon the small lake and saw the other four on the other side of the lake ten minutes or so behind us!

With the shortcut to the shortcut and our packs feeling a bit lighter with three days less food in them, we arrived to the first checkpoint way ahead of time. The supposed eight hour hike ended up only taking us six hours.

The stream water was so clear and blue and luckily drinkable. Its so nice getting amazingly fresh water straight out of the stream with water from glaciers.

Filling up our water bottles in the stream.

My birthday dinner, mashed potatoes and four cheese sauce.

Day Five

We had to wake up at 5am on day five to start the roughly our hour accent to the top of a very steep mountain to where wed get the best glimpse of the famous Torres del Paine, the namesake towers of the park.

The climb was Machu Picchu-esqe especially as we needed our headlamps for the first twenty minutes to see the path. When we arrived at the top the towers were grey and dreadful. Dark clouds surrounded them and they looked a bit evil.

Then the sun broke over the mountain behind us and cast a pinkish hue over them and the sky broke blue at the same time completely changing the scene.

We carried our sleeping bags and stove up to the top so we could be warm and have a cup of soup for breakfast up at the top. It was freezing up there and we werent about to climb all the way up there and then run back down because we were cold or hungry.

One last pic before we head down to camp and back up for our last hike to the exit of the park.

People on horses kept passing us with big smiles on their faces. Rich people who were too lazy to do the trek themselves. I almost said too old, but we saw a couple in their 70s hiking the trail without packs so it really just must be that they are too lazy.

Just after passing this smug group of gallopers we encountered some of the strongest wind wed had the entire hike. It was so powerful you had to stop and brace yourself and grab onto something or risk being swept over the cliff. It was when we were walking back on the path below when it hit us. You can see how steep it drops down to the stream. This is where we were when it blasted into us knocking Gemma down. Luckily shes a tough chick and got back up and kept on trekking.

Well that wraps it up. It was about four hours back to the exit where we changed clothes in a super expensive hotel where all the horse riders stay. We splurged on $16 cheeseburgers at the bar before the bus picked us up and took us back into town. It was five days of stunning scenery. We were incredibly lucky that we didnt get rained on the entire time. Its practically unheard of to have five days of weather in a row like we did.

Our next stop is to head up to El Calafate to see another ice field that is supposed to be a little more spectacular than the one we saw here. Post soon to come!

Trelew and Gaiman - Penguins and Tea Time

2010-02-18T10:43:00.000-08:00

After spending six weeks in Buenos Aires we set off on our trip to Patagonia. Our first stop was a city twenty hours south of BA called Trelew. We went there for two reasons. One is the largest colony of Magellanic Penguins outside Antartica. The second was that just outside Trelew there is a little Welsh town named Gaiman that serves English tea and Gemma was craving a little taste of home.

We booked a tour with a lady at the bus station and were supposed to get picked up at 8am the next day to go see the penguins first, and then on to have afternoon tea. The next morning the bus arrived late and the driver came to our door and asked what time we needed to be back to the bus station for our onward journey. We told him we needed to be back from Gaiman by 5. He then proceeded to tell us this was impossible. Great.

We argued with him for a few minutes before realizing the lady had made promises that weren´t meant to be kept. We told the bus to go on without us and marched furiously back to this lady at the bus station. I thought Gemma was gonna grab her jacket and pull her across the counter but we kept our cool and in the end after a good twenty minutes of arguing with her we managed to get her to hire a taxi for us for the day at no extra cost. Private tour for two accomplished.

Neither of us had ever seen penguins outside a zoo before and once we saw the first one it was worth the trouble.

What up Pingu!

Everywhere you looked there were penguins. They use the bushes as houses and for protection from the wind. They dig little tunnels underneath the bushes and lay their eggs in them.

We were there in late February after the eggs had hatched and when the penguins are feeding and fledging. You can tell which penguins are the babies because they have furry feathers all over them. But alot of them were starting to lose these baby feathers and therefore feathers were all over the place.

Penguins swimming at sea.

And coming out of their nests.

Their can be up to a half million penguins here at the highest point in the year and only Antartica has more. The bad part about having a half million penguins around you is that you have a half million penguins pooping around you. The place smelled pretty bad if the sea breaze stopped for even a few seconds.

The other bad thing about seeing so many penguins was that it was inevitable that we´d see nature at work. Sure enough there was a seagull eating a dead penguin whose head was almost severed off. Poor little guy.

We were able to get pretty close to them without them running off. By the way, watching penguins walk never stops being funny.

This was one of the little guys looking lost.

I forget what this animal is called but its in the rabbit family.

After we had our fix of penguins it was time to move onto the Welsh town of Gaiman. Who knows why there is a little Welsh town in southern Argentina. Probably the same reason why there was a little German village in Venezuela. They migrate over, set up shop and never move.

The place we went to was set on immaculately groomed grounds.

Inside Gemma showed me how its done. We were served unlimited tea and cakes by sweet old ladies.

Keeping the pinky out seemed the right thing to do.

The spread.

Gemma took a moment to remember Princess Di before we got back in the taxi and headed back to the bus station. Our next move is to bus over to the west coast and into Chile where we´ll be hiking and camping for five days in Torres Del Paine National Park near Puerto Natales. I´ll also finally get a chance to work on my Bear Grylls survival skills.

Iguazu Falls - An Unbelievable display of nature

2010-02-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

We are back on the road ¨traveling¨again. We have been in Buenos Aires for nearly three weeks now and while its been great enjoying the big city convienences we were ready to hit the road and see something amazing. Iguazu falls is a finalist in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition and I hope it makes the final cut. It is by far one of the highlights of our trip and one of the most stunning displays of nature I´ve ever seen.

As soon as we got to the park we started seeing these little racoon-like creatures called Coatis. We entered our first trail and immediately were welcomed by a mother and her two cute little ones.

The little bitches lure you into a false sense of security with how cute they are because while I was taking this picture they were narrowing in our our bagged lunch. About one second later the mom had ripped open our plastic bag and started making off with our lunch! Luckily all they got was an apple before we could shew them away. We later saw this sign in the park. It should say run for your life if you see these aggressive little beasts coming towards you.

We started the day by walking the lower trail which offered ridiculous views of the falls such as the ones below. It was incredible being so close to the falls. It was impossible not to get wet but given that its was a hot sunny day we didn´t mind. Little did we know how soaked we´d get later.

From the lower trail you can take a twenty minute boat ride which takes you up to both sides of the falls. Here we are still dry as we head towards the falls.

Immediately after this the driver takes the bow of the boat dangerously close to the waterfall. I´m not gonna lie. I was scared we were gonna get sucked under. I have experience driving boats and pulling up to docks or other boats without hitting them but this driver was either really confident or got really lucky because he zoomed right up to the edge before slamming on reverse. The falls were pounding down on us so hard you couldn´t even look up. Check out the video of how hard this water is falling. The tip of the boat went right up to the section where the water is falling the hardest!

Once I realized we weren´t going to die it was incredible to be so close to the falls. The boat took us back and forth to both sides of the falls a couple times and luckily the tiny little plastic bag I had around Gemma´s camera was enough to protect it from the buckets that got dumped on us.

We then headed to the upper trail that runs along the top of the falls. The walking paths are so close to the edge of the falls that you are almost standing over the edge of them. Behind you the river is as calm and peaceful as can be before it plunges violently over the edge.

We even saw a double rainbow which I didn´t even know existed. Here is a video where you can see the second rainbow faintly above the obvious one. Gemma kinda points it out at the end.

These pictures and video are of the section of the falls called the Devils Throat. It blows your mind away how powerful it is and the sheer force which the water moves is incredible. It reminded us of a scene from the movie 2012 when all the water is crashing down and destroying the world. At first you come up on the Devils Throat and see a huge body of water just disappearing into the earth.

Then another 100 feet or so and you see water tumbling over the edge. It is nearly impossible for the pictures to tell the story but the video tries its best. The sound was almost deafening. You really must go see this place with your own eyes!

The white haze at the bottom is the mist rising up. Unfortunately the mist is so thick that you can´t really see the bottom half to two thirds of the falls in these pics. But in person every so often the wind blows the mist away and reveals the falls in full.

The land you see above the falls in this pic is Brazil. You can go to there for the day to get a different view but Brazil charges Americans a $134 visa fee so we didn´t go.

On our second day at the park we hiked a trail off the beaten path to a waterfall with a natural swimming pool. I don´t think most people do this trail as we hardly saw anyone else while hiking and there were only a handful of people at the waterfall once we arrived. The picture after the sign is a gigantic spider. You really had to watch your head because these massive spiders had spun their webs over nearly the entire length of the 3km path. Gemma was not a fan of this and had the most terrified look on her face for a solid thirty minutes.

At the very beginning of the path there was a warning sign advising you to watch out for snakes. I hate snakes and the sound of rattlers surrounded us the entire time. At first I doubted they were actually rattlesnakes but the sound coming from all around us sounded exactly like a rattle. I later learned that the sound was made by crickets. So I guess I can see why not many people venture down this trail.

Once you got to the waterfall it was amazing. I´ve had the chance to swim in a waterfall on one other occasion that I can remember in Costa Rica and its something you should always take the opportunity to do if you have the chance. This fall was about three times higher than the one in Costa Rica and about three times more painful to be under. The water was freezing but the scenery and sound of the water crashing down around you is exhilerating.

I could have sat here all day.

Its hard to be in a waterfall with your girlfriend and not be loving life.

After our swim we walked over to the Sheraton Hotel in the park. While we couldn´t afford to stay there, we could afford to go to the bar and get a few drinks before our Full Moon tour of the Devils Throat that evening. Below is the view from the bar. In the distance (but more visible in person than in this photo) was part of the falls. It was a great way to unwind and kill a couple of hours.

At about 9pm we went back to the park entrance to start our Full Moon tour. Once a month for the five nights around the full moon they let in a small number of visitors to walk the path leading to the Devils Throat. I didn´t have my wide angle lens to let in all the moon light and despite my best efforts it was pretty impossible to get a good shot with Gemma´s point and shoot. But the scene was just as impressive as it was during the day only a tad bit more magical. The sky and clouds were lit up and the water glistened under the moon light.

It was definitely a highlight of our trip and one of the most amazing places I´ve ever been. Any trip to Argentina or Brazil must include a trip to Iguazu Falls.

For the bus ride back to Buenos Aires we decided to upgrade our seats to the bigger more comfortable seats in the bottom level of the bus. We had done this maybe once before but this was the first time we were served champagne! It was a great way to end an unbelievable trip up to Iguazu.

Buenos Aires - A tale of two cities

2010-02-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

Buenos Aires really is a tale of two cities. One minute you´ll see parks, avenues and architecture to rival Paris. The next you´ll get robbed and step in shit. I´ve never been anywhere like it. Its like the city suffers from Schizophrenia and/or has multiple personalities. This city will take you out for an amazing night on the town and then rob you at gunpoint before kissing you goodnight. After being here for six weeks I have to say I still love the city but you have to really keep an eye out at all times. All the good stuff about the city can lure you into a false sense of security.

Day one aside, we loved Buenos Aires. I´m a big city kid and absolutely loved being back in a big city with modern day convienences such as Starbucks, decent internet, wifi in our hostel, an Expat Sports bars to watch the NFL playoffs complete with buffalo chicken wings, and good restaurants with international cuisine! I had sushi for the first time in seven months, we had Thai, Indian, Mexican and found restaurants who understand how to cook a delicious AND healthy meal. Its no wonder we threw our budget out the door when we got here.

But I have to say we needed it, deserved it even. It was a rough five weeks after getting robbed by the Venezuelan police and then having my camera gear and new watch nabbed. So screw it, we threw caution to the wind and balled out of control (or spent money like we were rich for my less ghetto followers). We justified every expense by converting our bill to Pounds which made it incredibly cheap at 6 Argentine Pesos to one Pound. Three weeks later we realized we´d spent More than DOUBLE our monthly budget. Ouch.

We also had lots to celebrate in BA. I welcomed Gemma into her mid twenties on February 11th by taking her out to dinner at Green Bamboo(thanks for the rec Caitlin). We´d eaten at alot of restaurants in BA in the four weeks we were there before Gemma´s birthday but she wanted to go back to Green Bamboo for the pork balls (pic below). I still crack up when she says she´s a vegetarian.

We also celebrated Valentines Day with a night of jazz at Thelonious Club. The cocktails there were by far the best we´d had in South America. My Manhattan actually tasted like a Manhattan. I once had a bartender make it with orange juice in Colombia. Gemma´s frozen Mojito was also quite good.

Further celebrations were called for when we met up with a couple of our traveling friends. I met Geoff (a fellow Brummie (or person from Birmingham where G´s from) in Guatamala and Gemma and I met the crazy Scot, Grant Dick in Ecuador. They were both heading the opposite direction as us in their travels but we all happened to be in BA at the same time so we went out for what turned into way too many drinks.

We also went out with a former coworker of mine who now works in BA for a crazy club night at Crobar. Thanks again for the hospitality David. (I wonder if anyone ever notices that I wear the same shirt everytime we go out or are going someplace nice? I think I´ll frame this shirt someday after the trip is over and hang it amoungst my favorite pics).

One of my favorite things about BA was how easy it was to get around the city. Lots of places were an easy walk from our hostel and if not the subway or buses were cheap and easy. The best part though is that some of the buses look like traveling strip clubs. You see a bus coming towards you glowing with blue lights, full of disco balls and polished silver poles.

Sidewalks look like bombs went off here. Don´t walk around town without watching your step. You´ll either trip on a completely busted up sidewalk or on a pile of dog crap that most owners simply don´t pick up. Its a quick reminder that you are not in NYC or Paris and are in BA.

But to be fair, there are many times and places in BA that would try their hardest to fool you.

The parks in Palermo are absolutely amazing. I dare say they are nicer than Central Park(I don´t mean it CP) and on par with the gardens in Paris. Gemma and I went there a few times to run around the ponds and walk about the rose gardens and over the greek style bridges.

There was also a nice little Japanese Garden that was decent. Not quite as good as the ones I remember in San Francisco and definitely not as good as the Japan exhibit at EPCOT but not bad. I tried like five times to get the little red bridge in the pic below inbetween us but the best I could do was to have it coming out of my ear. Not my finest photographic moment.

We got into a bit of a health kick in BA. We actually joined a gym! It was great to finally have a chance to work out and be able to eat some healthy food. In just three weeks I got pretty buff. We went to a little place in Recoleta called Pura Vida which had healthy wraps, sandwiches, salads and fruit smoothies just about everyday after our workout.

The architecture is also great. I think one of my favorite buildings in the world must be the Edificios Aguas Argentinas. This building was two blocks from our hostel and we had the pleasure of walking past it nearly everyday. It helped that Starbucks was just another two blocks further. Its simply stunning and if I ever got to pick any building to live in based on its outside beauty, this would be the one. My pics will never do it justice but please give it a visit when you come.

Speaking of favorites, BA also has one of my favorite sculptures I´ve ever seen. I told Gemma it was in my top 5 but then had a hard time compiling a top five list. All I could come up with is Michaelangelo´s Pieta and David and anything by Alexander Calder (who technically does mostly mobiles so not sure if that counts or not?). Anyway here it is:

And here it is again with Gemma jumping into the picture (which helps give you an idea of how big it is). It´s called the Floralis Generica and was created by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano. It opens each day and closes at night. Its really big and very impressive.

And while I´m rambling about the wonderful architecture and art in the city I should mention the Museo de Arte Latinamerico de Buenos Aires or MALBA for short. While there was a great Andy Warhol exhibit which further confirmed what a complete weirdo that guy was, the art wasn´t particularily outstanding.

But the architecture of the building was fun and we loved these benches that were on each floor and connected to each other by vine like extenstions off their ends up and down through the atrium which was Guggenheim NYCesqe.

One painting that for some reason didn´t make its way into MALBA is this one below. It was hanging in the staircase of our hostel. Notice whats under the man or woman´s butt???? Odd. When our hostel got robbed by two men with guns one night they left this beauty behind. Luckily for us it was the night of Gemma´s birthday and we were out celebrating at the time.

This was also the same day my new camera arrived from the States. My mom was kind enough to ship a new one to me from my favorite camera store in Indy - Roberts. It scares me thinking what would have happend had I been sitting in the lobby of our hostel playing with my new camera when these two guys with guns came in and tried to take it from me. I wouldn´t have given it up easily.

These mini police cars made us laugh.

Buenos Aires, like Paris, has a very big cafe culture. The people from BA call themselves Portenos and you´ll find them at cafes drinking coffee and eating little croissants they call media lunas at all hours of the day. One night we went to Cafe Tortoni for a tango show. Its one of the older and more famous cafes in the city. BA´s famous for tango and there is no shortage of tango shows on offer. You have everything from street performances to big broadway like productions.

The show at Tortoni was much better than the first one we went to at Classica y Moderna, another well known cafe. The one at Tortoni actually had dancers performing. The one at Classica y Moderna was just an older lady singing what could best be described as ¨music to commit suicide to¨.

We didn´t bother taking lessons this time around. Tango is alot more difficult and serious looking than salsa and we weren´t sure we´d be able to reach the same level of domination that we did with salsa.

Speaking of domination. How about them Colts? I mean they didn´t win the big one, but we still had a good run. It was Gemma´s first year as a Colts fan and it just wouldn´t have been fair for her team to win a Super Bowl straight off the bat. We´ll make her wait one more year. I must give a huge recommendation to Casa Bar as the best place to watch sports in BA. The owner is great and the food and drinks were cheap. We were in BA for the entiretiy of the playoffs and it was a nice escape from traveling and a little taste of home.

Our favorite neighborhood in BA is unsurprisingly Palermo. Its trendy, full of nice restaruants and bars and has lots of shopping. Its like Soho in NYC and part of it is even called Palermo Soho. We spent alot of time and alot of money kicking it here. Our budget was crushed here. Our need and idea to get a job in Australia was born here. (Side note, we´ve both applied for and recieved our work and holiday visa for Australia which allows us to live and work there for a year which we´ll be doing after our time in New Zealand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The car below had wicker seats. I´d never seen that before. And after that a corner store in Palermo.

Our hostel was located in Barrio Norte which is right next to the famous Recoleta neighborhood which is home to the famous Recoleta Cemetary. It is here that Argentina´s political and military leaders, wealthy families and Evita are buried. Its a big tourist attraction in BA and for good reason. The tombs here are like works of art. Most of them anyway. This is the way to go out, being buried in a tomb with magnificent statues over you. I had a good time explaining to Gemma just how I´d like mine to look upon my departure. She did not enjoy this so much.

Evita´s less glamourous grave is pictured below followed by one of my favorite shabby chic tombs covered in vines that seem to be growing there to make the pile of rocks seem decorated.

Just outside the cemetary is an art fair on the weekends complete with street performers and tango shows. There are also these huge old trees with the craziest looking trunks. I never did find out what kind of tree it is but there were pretty impressive.

In San Telmo there is an antiques fair on Sundays where we saw one of our favorite performers. It was this puppeteer whose puppet was a drunk old man who stumbled around the outside of his pub and fell off the box before climbing back on.

Another nice neighborhood to stoll through is Puerto Madero. The area was a bustling port in 1887 but when a new port was built in 1925 it fell from grace. The area was a bunch of old abandoned factories before developers turned them into trendy lofts and expensive hotels with nice restaurants. Thats where the pic below was taken. In it you can see our future boat. The small one of the left first, then maybe the one next to it someday.

There is also a nice boardwalk that runs behind the neighborhood next to the ecological reserve that we never made it to. Thats where we found a stand selling sausage sandwiches, or choripan as they call it, with a toppings bar that really kicked it up a notch.
Random picture of a cool old painted bus.

And last but certainly not least, an ode to Steak. I´d been dreaming about eating steak in Argentina since we first decided we were going to South America. In our South America on a Shoestring guidebook there is occsionally a ¨splurge¨ section which lists an expensive restaurant or hotel worth checking out. In the previous five countries we´d been in I don´t think I even read the box. It wasn´t in the budget.

In the BA section they mention a steakhouse called La Cabrera. We went twice. We ordered twice as much food as we needed both times despite getting advice on how to order. If we hadn´t been given these instructions we surely would have ordered enough for six. I think our problem was that we did as we were told in ordering the half portions, but then ordered twice as many portions. Don´t miss it when you come.

This is how happy I was to finally be there.

And this is why.

They give you about twenty of these little side dishes with your steak. Everything from mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, to quails eggs, beans, apple sauce, sauteed mushrooms and onions and I can´t even recall all of them. The waiters had to bring extension tables to the side of our table to fit all the food on. Its ridiculous and amazing.

This cow on the wall was like a cow shaped plasma screen that highlighted different parts of the cow and showed its respective name. Pretty cool.

There are two different locations for La Cabera, both on the same street. There is the orignial which is small and full of old time atmosphere and then there is the newer bigger location, still full of atmosphere but not as 1930´s feeling. Each time we went we asked our hostel to make a reservation for us. When the guy called, he said ¨I´m calling from Hostel Milonga¨ before making the reservation. Not sure why but it inevitably doomed us to the newer location where they stick all the gringos. Couldn´t he have said I´m calling from the Four Seasons?

The bill for our first trip was 250 Argentine Pesos which is roughly $65USD or $42GBP. We had an appetizer, grilled veggies, extra side of mash, half a chorizo, half portion of ribeye, tiramisu, and a bottle of wine and water. This same meal at Dylan Prime in Tribeca would easily have been $175USD. So it was well worth the splurge. The second time we went we tried to tone it down a bit, and our bill went down to 200.

We were in BA for a total of six weeks (We broke it up with a trip to Iguazu Falls which we´ll write about next). We´d always wanted to stay in BA for about a month but the huge snow storm in Washington DC actually kept us there a couple weeks longer. Great Britian now outsources their passport services for South America to Washington DC for some reason. And since the federal employees in DC didn´t go into work for a good week during and after the storm, we were stuck there waiting for her new passport to arrive. There are worse places to be stuck. I hope you go there someday soon and tell me about your trip. Be sure to look for our Iguazu Falls post next, it was an incredible place and experience.

Christmas and New Years on Isla de Margarita

2009-12-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

See it is possible to smile in Venezuela. Gemma and I took a ferry to Isla de Margarita for Christmas and New Years. Its the one place in Venezuela that has the very slightest form of tourism infrastructure.

Luckily we had prebooked an apartment in a four bedroom house for Christmas. It was so nice to finally have our own little hideaway with a fully equipped kitchen, running water at all times of the day, a pool, A/C, and cable TV!

We even managed to turn a potted plant into something of a Christmas tree and put all our presents around it. Gemma and I shared our respective Christmas traditions with each other. My family always puts a clue on our gifts and you have to guess what it is before you open it. In England they have these little wrapped tubes called Christmas crackers. Two people pull each end (kind of like a wishbone on Thanksgiving) and whoever gets the bigger half gets the present inside. I won a beautiful Burger King like crown and neon green eraser on my first pull. Whoo!

The longest white sand beach we´d seen so far on our trip was only a five minute walk from the house. We spent Christmas week either on the beach or at the pool. It was the first time either of us had been in a hot weather location for Christmas and it was really odd. No one had up Christmas decorations and it was pretty hard to tell it was even that time of the year. Not alot of Christmas cheer being spread around Venezuela if you know what I mean.

After our time in the house was up we still had a week left before we flew to Buenos Aires. We had originally planned to venture back to the main land and explore some new towns but had really had enough of that by this point and moved to a less expensive area on the island where we stayed for the remainder of our Venezuelan prision sentence.

We were greated by a really friendly Irish man named Michael. He told us his hostel was different than all the rest because it was more like he had just opened up his family´s home to travelers. We didn´t realize that meant we´d be awoken at 2am to him and his brother in-law in an all out fist fight! I woke up and opened the door of our room to see Michael just getting the crap kicked out of him literally by this other guy. There was a third friend hovering but not intervening so I didn´t bother breaking it up either. Michael picked up a chair and I thought it might get real interesting but instead it was broken up by the friend. Ghetto.

All week we kept hearing about the great Christmas dinner they had prepared the previous week and Michael had invited us to dinner at around 8pm on NYE. We are traveling on a budget so we ate lunch around 2ish and then were waiting patiently for this feast to begin around 8.

We didn´t eat until midnight and this is what was served.

I was looking back through our pictures and saw this one and was like ¨what in the hell is that???!!¨ Then I remembered that was my last meal of 2009. Sweet. The worst part is when we went to check out they tried to charge us 160B´s (thats $32 dollars at 5:1 or $80 at the official exchange rate)! For slop! Either way its pretty expensive for food that you can´t even tell what it was looking at it.

But it was funny watching a little kid whiff about 20 times as he tried to hit this pinata and also seeing how aukward their family dinner was with the brother in-law, wife and Michael all eating at the same table the day after the fight.

Our last day in Venezuela proved to be exciting and terrifying. My mom had sent me my Christmas presents via FedEx because she´s the best and wanted me to have something to open on Christmas day. Well Venezuela being the well oiled machine that it is, my package with a guaranteed delivery date of December 23rd still hadn´t reached me by January 6th. After both my mother and I spent countless hours on the phone with FedEx, and then the Venezuelan courrier they had given my package to for its delivery to Isla de Margarita, we finally got them to ship it back to the FedEx depot in Caracas.

Our bus got into Caracas about three hours before our flight took off. Luckily the depot was close to the bus terminal and I finally had my Christmas presents two weeks later. It was the first time I´d ever opened my Christmas presents in the back of a taxi! Thank you again for everything Mom!

We got to the airport and checked our backpacks and then were told to go pay the exit tax. We didn´t have enough Boliviars left but planned to get out more at the dreadful 2:1 exchange rate out of the ATMs. But the ATMs weren´t working. None of the maybe 10 in the airport would give me any cash. Now its about thirty minutes till takeoff and we aren´t through security. We´re trying to tell the airline our problem and they are telling us if we can´t pay it then we won´t be allowed on the plane.

Gemma was near tears at this point and I was legitamitly freaking out when I found a money exchange office that would give us cash by charging my credit card. They took forever and charged me an additional 8% but honestly it was the best $140 I have ever spent.

We made it through security and onto the plane. I´ve often clapped or cheered when my plane lands but this was the first time I´ve celebrated when the plane took off.

I mentioned this in another post but I´ll write it again because I don´t want to think about it when I write the Buenos Aires post. On our first day in BA we were celebrating the fact that we were out of Venezuela at a bar and I got my small daypack with all my camera gear and passports in it stolen. It sucked but really I always had prepared myself for the eventuality that my bag and/or camera might get stolen. Stuff is replacable, people are not. We´re OK and stronger for having survived our time there.

Ahh Venezuela, How I hope to not think of you again for a very long time. And I´m proud to say that I received one email from a friend telling me they will never go there. Ever. So if I only reached even just one person, I did my job.

Venezuela- a slightly less depressing retrospective

2009-12-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

Now that I have told you about all the horrible things that happened to us in Venezuela I can show you some pictures and discuss the good times we had there. We could no longer afford to travel to the south and climb the table top mountains we´d planned on climbing, but we could afford to sit on a beach all day and thats largely what we did for the next four weeks.

Sante Fe is a small crappy little fishing town that doesn´t feel safe to walk around during the day and it is highly advisable not to walk around outside your hostel at night, but it does have beautiful beaches. During the week there were maybe a handful of other locals and tourists on its long stretch of golden sand. During the weekend maybe there was 20 people. It was relaxing and a good place to try and forget about being robbed.

You might see these pictures and think Venezuela can´t be so bad afterall. We often laughed at ourselves when we´d be sitting on these amazing beaches talking about how much we hated being there and wanted to leave. Similar to the times I´d complain about my steak being overcooked at Google.

The thing you have to realize is that when you get up off the beach and turn away from the crystal clear water is that you´re in Venezuela and not some modern first world country. Everytime we wanted to brush our teeth or flush the toilet in Santa Fe we had to ask the hostel owner to turn the water on. Every hotel room we stayed in had cockroaches, even the ¨nicer¨ ones. Buying a ticket for the ferry took us four and a half hours because the computer system went down. The food is bland and the men are disgusting. I´ve gotten used to South American men oggling Gemma. She´s beautiful and fair skinned and much different then the women they see everyday. But in Venezuela they are the worst. And here I thought I wasn´t going to make this a negative post. Ha, moving on.

Venezuela´s sport of choice is baseball. Some Venezuelan students returned from universities in America with baseball bats and gloves in the 1890´s and its been popular ever since. They have a professional league there with ten or so teams. We were in Puerto La Cruz home of the fighting Caribes and decided to go to a game. We bought the cheapest seats in the house (maybe 2 dollars) out in the outfield but when we walked through the gate a nice employee told us our seats were terrible and gave us house tickets behind home plate.

It was alot like attending a minor league game back home. The ballpark was roughly equal in size to Victory Field in Indiana although far less nice. It was Gemma´s first baseball game. They played the same reggaetron music the entire game and the teams mascot got down and dirty with some female fans. In the pic below he´s grabbing this girls head and pushing it down to his thusting pelvis.

Here he is behind another gal gettin low. Pretty comical stuff. They played Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh inning stretch but it was a reggaetron version and no one sang the words except us. They would have to change the words from ¨buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks¨to buy me some arepas and fried doughy things filled with cheese.¨

Here´s the arepa stand.

One really random place we went to in Venezuela was a small German town of 6,000 people called Colonial Tavar. It was settle by Germans in 1843 and remained isolated from the rest of Venezuela until they built a road there in 1960. It was really charming and crazily expensive. There was black forrest architecture everywhere. It was entirely possible to forget that you were in Venezuela because it was so isolated from the other towns and looked exactly like a wealthy little town in Germany. Unfortunately most of our pictures from our time there were on my camera which got stolen in Buenos Aires before I could upload them.

Venezuela - Commited to new social values (and aggrevating me). Yes with Chavez! (side note- I really meant for this to be a more positive post)

Venezuela - Where dreams go to Die

2009-12-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

Venezuela. Just typing the word is still a bit difficult. There is a reason I am nearly two months behind on updating the blog about our time in Venezuela, and it has little to do with the crap computers we had available to us there. Although that didn´t help. I wanted so badly to be able to report back about the wonderful times and beautiful places we saw in Venezuela. To be able to say that everyone else just wasn´t as savvy traveler as I and that there was no place that could keep me away. Unfortunately I can not do that. Although I will say at the same time that I most certainly will go back someday.

Venezuela is so corrupt it caused us to got robbed even after we left the country. Not only did we get bribed by the border control officer at the border($20USD), and then robbed by the POLICE on our second day($400USD), we also got robbed on our first day in Buenos Aires, Argentina($2,000USD) because we were at a bar celebrating the fact that we finally escaped Venezuela! Someone stole my daypack right from under our feet which contained my camera with its $600 wide angle lens attached, normal lens, my ipod, my brand new Mr. Jones watch I´d just gotten from my mom for Christmas, and both mine and Gemma´s passport. Because the computers and/or Picasa wouldn´t upload my pics the numerous times I tried in that miserable country, I lost every picture I´d taken in Venezuela. Deep breaths. We didn´t get hurt and stuff is replacable.

Oh and I got pick pocketed for about another $40 on the subway in Caracas. That one just wasn´t that good of a story so I almost forgot about it.

The worst experience was getting robbed by the Police. Everyone told us to stay away from them and even cross over to the other side of the street if you are walking towards them becuase they are so corrupt. Gemma, Keyon and I had just crossed over the border from Colombia into Venezuela and needed to take a long bus ride to get to our first destination. The bus ride was supposed to be about 1o hours but ended up taking closer to 16 because it stopped five times for police checks along the way. They made every single passenger (about 40) take their bags out from under the bus, stand in line and have them inspected. This happened five times mostly along the same stretch of highway. They even ran them through an x-ray machine that was alongside the highway. This delayed our bus so badly that instead of getting into Maracay at 8pm we arrived at 2:30 in the morning.

We walked two blocks to the nearest hotel and as soon as we arrived at the door (which was gated so we couldn´t walk in) a police car pulled around the corner, stopped, and two officers got out and walked straight toward us. Short of running away from them there was nothing we could have done. They motioned us away from the hotel I was trying to get us let into. They started asking us if we smoked, if we had any drugs on us, essentially trying to find a way to extort money from us. Unfortunately for them we had no drugs and were not going to be easy to get money from. I tried my best to stand strong and watch over Gemma to make sure she wasn´t getting frisked unneccesarily or that Keyon wasn´t getting harrassed.

After a good fifteen minutes went by with them finding nothing in our bags the 6´3¨ officer starts waving his gun around and saying alot of stuff in spanish that I didn´t understand. He then pointed at my wallet. I have lost alot of sleep over what I did next but have come to the conclusion that things wouldn´t have turned out any differently had I not handed him my wallet. All our childhood we are taught to respect authority and do what Police officers ask. I wish I hadn´t handed him my wallet but he asked for it and I did. He then took $400 US dollars out of it and handed it back to me. He typed something into his phone and showed it to the other cop (probably ¨I just stole $400 dollars from this punk American, lets go to the Chavez store and buy the biggest¨....my editor won´t let me finish that thought) and then they let us go.

I´m actually lucky he didn´t steal all $1100 dollars in my wallet. Why did I have so much money on me you ask? Because Venezuela has a black market exchange rate. Duh. If you take money out of the ATM you get 2 to 1. If you bring dollars into the country and exchange them in the back of chinese owned electronic stores (not kidding) then you get somewhere around 5.5 to 1. And the prices in Venezuela only make sense at 5.5 to 1. If you had to pay for everything at 2 to 1 then it would be as expensive as London. So by stealing $400 dollars from me he actually stole $2200 dollars buying power from us.

This set back pretty much ended our hopes of being able to climb Roraima and see Angel Falls. We had really been looking forward to a six day hike up to the top of the table top mountains that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle´s book The Lost World. Google Image search Roraima and you´ll see why we were upset.

All this aside, there were some good times. After all Venezuela does have some ridiculously beautiful beaches. Its just when you turn around and realize that Venezuela is behind you when the sun goes down that makes it all a bit depressing. And I´d have even more amazing pictures to show you had Venezuela not gotten my camera stolen. Maybe its a good thing. If you saw some of the beach pictures you might be tempted to go there. Check out this sunset and this cheeseburger:

That cheeseburger was Gemma´s first meat purchase. I´d pushed cheeseburgers and sausage on her in the past but this was the first time she said ¨I´d like a cheeseburger for dinner and I´m gonna buy one.¨ Other people might be sick of reading about this but I´m quite proud of what might be my best sale ever. Convincing a vegetarian of 23 years to crave cheeseburgers! Here´s her first bite.

Below is a meat cart. You get to choose small, medium or gigantic and then the lady just piles the plate with an assortment of heart clogging sausages, meat and intestines. Her customers were not skinny. Nor were most Venezuelans.

Another example of a beautiful beach surrounded my mountains and palm trees. This pic was taken in Puerto Colombia from Gemma´s camera on our first day when it was kinda cloudy, but you can imagine how nice it was with the blue skies we had the next four days.

Keyon got a massage on the beach and continued to try as many local foods and liquors as he could get his hands on. I´m not sure what it is he had in the picture below but I remember it looked awful and tasted worse. But you´ve got to try the mystery wraps at least once to see whats in there.

Every night we had this exact conversation - ¨What do you guys want to do tonight? How about go sit on the wall?¨ That was the only thing to do in this tiny little fishing town once the sun went down. We met a friendly fisherman down by said wall one night and listened to him tell us about his fishing boat and showed him our white boy salsa moves.

Everyday there was a baseball game going on. Baseball, not soccer, is the sport of choice for Venezuelans.

Here is a funny pic of Keyon realizing what kind of alcohol we can afford on our backpacker budget. If you are planning on coming and meeting up with us you´ll have moments like this too when you realize the type of sacrifices we make in order to travel for months on end.

I´m not sure why Gemma put this picture into the blog but in a way it summarizes my thoughts on Venezuela. We´re walking away but smiling about it all and yeah, we´ll be back someday.

Keyon, God Bless him

2009-12-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

If you read the last post you saw a couple pictures of our dear friend Keyon and got a small insight into what he added to our adventure. But it just wouldn´t be right for us to leave it at that. Keyon was the only friend out of many that kept his word and actually came out to meet Gemma and I on this trip so far. And for that we shall roast him. ;o) That and he also sent me an email calling me a Loser after the Colts lost the Super Bowl. Way to hit a man when he´s already down.

It is really difficult to coordinate schedules with us as we are constantly moving and changing our plans every few days but Keyon made it work. He flew into Bogota and then took a twenty hour bus up to Cartegena to meet us. What he didn´t do was call or email us when he landed as planned to let us know if he made it from the airport to the bus station in time. He also failed to call us even once during the twenty hour bus ride which stops at least five times along the way. So Gemma and I, like worried parents were starting to freak out when we hadn´t heard from him in 24 hours and especially after his bus was supposed to have gotten into Cartagena four hours earlier. But he finally called us near midnight, met up with us and we celebrated rather than ground him.

We alluded to the funniest ongoing conversation with Keyon in our last post. It had to do with all the things his ex-wife wouldn´t do for him/with him in their marriage. I hope he doesn´t kill me for posting this but its pretty funny stuff and I want to remember it when I´m old.

1) She wouldn´t wash his back for him.

2) He always read her book suggestions (which he claims were horrible) but she´d never read one of his.

3) She wouldn´t cook for him and on the five occasions when she did, she would ask what he wanted and then completely ignore his request and cook what she wanted.

I wish I could go on but Keyon had to cut his trip short to fly back home for a family emergency. Luckily all turned out well. He was with us for a brief period of time in Venezuela and you´ll see him in the next post.

A couple more parting thoughts/shots:

Keyon is a fantastic chef. Be sure to ask him for his three hour salsa recipe. Here is the abbreviated version - buy what you need for salsa then take three hours making it as you normally would. The only thing slower than his salsa recipe is his walking speed. If you need to get somewhere fast, its probably best just to leave Keyon behind.

And last but not least, his Survivor audition video. Enjoy

Coke, Weed & Speed, Volcanic Mud Baths, Super Mario and Keyon...Whew! Cartagena

2009-12-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello Party People,

Its been a long time since our last update but Gemma and I have put in alot of internet cafe time this week and we are getting caught up!

Ahhhh Cartagena. What a wonderful place. When people ask us how long we´ve been traveling (nearly seven months now for me and six months together!) they often want to know where our favorite places were and Cartagena will always be on that list. We absolutely loved it here. It was the first time we stayed anywhere longer than 4 nights (which is crazy but speaks to how much we loved it). We stayed here nearly two weeks.

The first week we were waiting on my good friend Keyon to arrive from California (More on him later). Keyon and I met while working together in London.

Cartagena is on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia and has a very old colonial section of town that is really charming and pleasant to stroll about. We mostly wandered through the beautiful streets soaking up the ambiance and enjoying the sunshine. We also found a statue by our favorite Colombian artist Botero.

We took a boat trip one day through some nearby mangroves which Gemma had never seen before and I´d only been through maybe once before in Costa Rica. Its really wild seeing the roots of trees rise up out of the water before converging on the trunk a few feet above.

In addition to being quite charming, Cartagena also has to be by far the easiest place to buy drugs in the world. I don´t consider myself an expert on the matter but I just can´t imagine it being easier anywhere else. You literally can not go anywhere in this city without being offered you name it and no matter how many times you turn them down they relentlessly follow you and push them on you. One day I was walking to the store to buy some last minute veggies for lunch and had a man following me while yelling at me all the various types of drugs he had for sale. ¨What do you need? What do you need? I´ve got Coke, Weed, Speed, What you need?¨ After trying to ignore his persistant sales pitch I finally turned around to the guy and yelled I need tomatoes, you got any tomatoes?!¨ Its a crazy place full of crazy characters.

Speaking of....Introducing Super Mario:

Super Mario became our friend one night as we were heading out and into the old colonial part of town where most of the nightlife is. Super Mario was another ¨What you need¨kind of character but after we assured him we didn´t need any drugs he offered to show us around to some of the better bars/clubs in town. He was a really funny guy and when I asked him where he learned to speak English so well he told me ¨Around the tree.¨ So if you need a good guide upon your next visit look for Super Mario around the tree outside the gate to the old town.

We had some of the best nights out of our entire trip in Cartagena and having Keyon along with us definitely helped. The kid is hilarious. One of our favorite ongoing conversations with Keyon was all the various things his ex-wife wouldn´t do (see next post). One night when we couldn´t look at any more alcohol we went to see the Twilight movie. Despite Keyon´s warning that the first one was terrible, the trailers showing the wolf and vampire fights roped me in. My God it was the worst movie I´ve ever seen! Are you kidding me with some of those lines? And why are they sooo depressed the entire movie? Biggest regret of the trip so far.

Keyon and I are both big carnivores and were drooling over these huge slabs of meat at the first steakhouse we went to. It should also be noted Gemma is slowly becoming a fellow carnivore who actually suggests we buy sausage at the store for dinner. I´m so proud.

One night we ended up in a bar that had their urinials right in the middle of the bar. I thought about only putting the pic of Keyon up but had to play fair.

Just to give you an idea of how good Cartagena is, the pic below on the beach was taken right outside the hospital. Unfortunately Gemma´s food poisoning from Bolivia came back and we had to visit our second hospital in South America. Keyon and I waited with her for nearly four hours in the hospital but did sneak out a couple times to sit on the beach. The pic below is the sun setting in the ¨hospital waiting room.¨

About an hour and a half outside Cartagena is the 15 meter high Volcan de Lodo El Totumo. It really is a volcano despite it looking a bit more like a large mound of mud. But instead of spewing lava and ash, it spews mud caused by the pressure of gases emited by decaying organic matter underground.

It was a really unique experience. I can´t say I´ve ever had a mud bath in a volcano until now. The mud is really thick and creamy. You can´t stand or walk in it so a worker pushes your feet to glide you on your back to another worker who, for a small tip, gives you a massage. Life is tough sometimes.

Getting out of the mudbath isn´t so easy when you´re dripping wet in mud, and considering I´ve lost all of my beer weight on this trip my swimsuit is a bit loose these days. When I started climbing up the ladder to get out, my swimsuit stayed stuck in the mud and the rest of the bathers were given a clear shot of my backside.

After you climb down the volcano there is a short walk to a lake where for a small tip, Colombian women help you get the mud off. It was a bit of a shock when they started shouting ¨Naked, Naked¨and telling us to take off our swimsuits so they could wash them. Gemma´s lady literally ripped her bikini off without warning and as she was less than five feet away from Keyon and I, it gave her quite a surprise.

Pic below is someone getting a quick rubdown in the shade.

After Keyon had seen most of Cartagena we took him to Taganga for a little rest and relaxation on the beach. He quickly found a spot in the water to listen to his ipod and worry Gemma and I that he´d somehow electricute himself when a wave splashed over his ipod.

The scenery and sunsets there are top notch.

For the next two days we lived off these cheese arepas and Aguila beer.

We got alot of reading done on the beach and rested up before heading off to start our Venezuelan adventure. Did I say adventure, because I meant Nightmare. More to come in the next post.

One of the most beautiful places I´ve ever seen

2009-11-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

As we spent the first few months of our trip wearing Alpaca sweaters, climbing cold mountain tops and generally not getting the chance to bust out our flip flops we started really looking forward to the day when we´d reach the Caribbean coast. Well we finally made it and its just as sweet as we´d hoped.

Taganga is a sunny backpackers paradise with great nightlife. Its cheap and sits right on a beautiful fishing boat filled bay which reminded me a bit of the bay in Acapulco. We laid on the beach all day and then ate tasty arepas by night. (Side note- one of my favorite restaurants in NYC is Caracas, a small venezuelan arepa joint which has made me look forward to Venezuela since our trip began. I was thrilled to find out I wouldn´t have to wait that long.)

After spending a few nights in Taganga we headed for Parque Nacional Tayrona. It is just hour and a half away and is located on the jungle covered coast. The parks beaches emerge out of the jungle and are mostly filled with coconut palm trees. Its one of the most beautiful places I´ve ever been.

Once we arrived in the park we had a two and half hour hike through the jungle before we arrived at Cabo San Juan de la Guia. Some pics of the hike below.

If you saw the pics of the terrible place we had to stay in our last post, then this place was just about as heavenly as we could imagine on our backpacker budget. For $10 a night we got to stay in hammocks in the hut you see on the top of this hill below.

The two hammocks below were Gemma and I´s and looked right out onto one of the bays. There also was a massive deck providing 360 degree views of the ocean, bays, and jungle behind.

There were two bays which were split by the little hill which our hut rested on top of. We stayed here for four nights and it was like heaven.

There were lots of little creatures running about including red squirrels, iguanas and tons and tons of these little crabs that scuirred away in waves as you approached.

I was really impressed with some of the rock formations around the park. And with Gemma on top of them it made it hard not to snap away.

This donkey with two gas tanks strapped to him reminded me of a Wile E Coyote cartoon where he has rockets strapped to him.

A turtle shaped piece of driftwood.

We kicked back, read alot and relaxed. The palm trees provided a nice background to my book as I laid on my back on the beach.

Gemma started working on a tan and we have hope that one might develop someday.

Our next stop is Cartagena.

Mompos - A Taste of Life on the Mississippi

2009-11-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

Its easy to find towns in every country full of old churches and off beat museums but Mompos offers something entirely different. Its a small town located in between Bogota and Cartagena on the banks of the Rio Magdalena. Its really hot and humid. Probably even more so than NYC in July. You couldn´t even stand still outside without sweating. So we turned to drinking lots of ice cold Aguilla, the local light beer.

Before we could start our journey to Mompos we had to spend one night in Bucaramanga. We arrived late at night and were catching a 5am bus the next morning. We found this gem of a hotel to sleep in. They led us into a windowless room off the garage of the hotel. The lock was a 2x4 you jammed into the doorway. The shower (which we didn´t use) was a pipe sticking out of the wall with a trickle of water that didn´t even clear the sink below it. Add it to the list of rank hotel rooms we´ve subjected ourselves to for quick transit town stops.

One of the charms of Mompos is that its pretty difficult to get to but rewards you with a nice relaxing time once you´re there. They told us it would take six hours to get to but as usual this was a severe underestimate. We traveled slowly on one of the worst roads we´d been on since Bolivia for ELEVEN hours! One of the reasons for the extra five hours is below.

The humidity drove us to drinking. We hid from the sun in little cafes and bodegas around town drinking 60 cent Aguilla and Poker cerveza, and a cider called Redds. The pictures in this post aren´t the best and don´t really do the town justice. Gemma says its because I was drunk most of the time which is probably true.

Here is a view of the river which the town sits on. Most of the shops, bars and markets as well as our hotel are all situated along the river. Not alot goes on in Mompos but it has a quaint charm to it like you´ve stepped back in time and are hanging out with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Walking through the streets at night you see everyone outside their houses rocking in their rocking chairs talking and watching life slowly go by. We finally found some to rock in at a nice hotel.

Gemma´s midday jam session over looking the river.

While neither Gemma or I can hardly claim to be a Chef extraordinaire, we have come to perfect the pasta with chorizo, onions and peppers dish. Below was a particularly inspired effort.

We spent three nights there before taking a taxi to Taganga on the Caribbean Coast. After three months on the road looking forward to the white sand beaches of the Caribbean we´re finally on our way!

Life on the bus - plus pics from Barichara

2009-11-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

When Gemma and I started our trip three months ago in Lima, Peru I asked the owner of the first hostel we stayed at how we should travel about South America. What I meant by that question was given that we started in Lima and wanted to see Bolivia which was to the south and Colombia which is to the north, which way should we head first? A smartass hostel owner from Panama was in the room and answered ¨By Bus¨. Yeah thanks buddy, we got that.

But traveling by bus is pretty much a twice weekly occassion for us. There is basically no rail system in South America and my sense of direction is too awful for us to try and drive. We spend ALOT of time on buses. The person in the seat in front of me ALWAYS extends their seat back as far as possible immediately when they sit down, even if its not time to sleep. Gemmas seat never reclines. The air conditioning is always on full blast making it freezing cold. The people selling the bus tickets lie about how long the journey is, usually subtracting at least an hour or two. The roads are usually terribly bumpy and Gemma gets motion sick.

One positive of life on the road is that we get to see alot of stunning scenery along the way. I usually don´t take pictures through the glass because they rarely turn out well but the one below was taken from the bus. Its not the best example of the scenery we see, but its decent.

Onto Barichara, a stunningly beautiful quiet little Colombian town just north of Bogota. We only spent the afternoon there because there isn´t much to do. Its just a really beautiful town that the guidebook described as a picture perfect setting for a Hollywood movie.

The little theatre below looks out onto the vista you see in the picture right below it. We didn´t get to see a performance but it must make for a good venue.

All the buildings had red tile roofs and colored windows. There were lots of flowers everywhere and some cool looking trees. Not much else to say about this little town, but thought you might like to see some pics.

BIG Bogota Post

2009-11-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

We´re going big with this blog post. Big pics that is. Accidently forgot to switch back to small after the last post but since Google so generously just upped the amount of photo storage I have for free I figured we´d see how it goes.

While I´m talking about big lets start off with the BIG win the Colts pulled off over the Pats. Gemma and I had a sweet flat screen in a fancy hotel all to ourselves to watch the game. And beers only cost us about 60cents. I definitely did not see us pulling that off but I´m so glad we did!

We stayed in a hostel in the La Candeleria district. Its an artsy district with lots of students, bars and restaurants. There were many walls covered in cool graffiti and most of the buildings are painted in bright colors which I loved.

The Freak Family - Just like Yours

We visited the Police Museum to see an exhibit on the 499 day manhunt to catch Pablo Escobar. The building itself was really beautiful and they were playing 1930´s music throughout so it felt very elegent inside. It reminded me of a really nice Disney Hotel.

It was pretty interesting seeing some of Pablo´s personal artifacts including the Harley Davidson he had made for himself. We also saw the beeper he used (apparently the first in Colombia) and some old school car phones he used in his last days. Most of the technology the Colombian government used to catch him was donated by the CIA.

Here is a wanted poster with Pablo´s picture and some of his associates.

This picture below is a cocaine press they used to package bricks of coke. The horses would be imprinted into the bricks so buyers could identify who was making it. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you´re into that kind of stuff, the cops spent all their time and money on capturing Pablo and while they had him in jail for a brief period (he escaped) and on the run, other cartels simply took over a majority of the trafficing.

Our favorite museum in Bogota had to be the Fernando Botero Museum. I´d never heard of this painter before but he´s from Colombia and really famous here. He paints mostly ¨fat figures¨as he once called them and they are delightfully hilarious. He makes everything fat, women, horses, presidents, even Jesus on the cross.

The museum also had some Monet´s, a Dali sculputre and a few Picasso´s including my favorite of the group below.

This is the courtyard of the museum and one of my favorite photos I´ve taken recently. This museum is a must see in my opinion.

Ah Bogota, city of museums apparently. We also went to the Museo de Oro or Gold Museum. It has ALOT of the shiny stuff and some really cool pieces found in ancient tombs.

This photo is taken from the top of Bogota´s tallest building. The weather was terrible that afternoon but we got to see the bull ring from the top and although I´m still waiting to see my first bull fight, I thought it was still cool just seeing the arena.

So do we like the big pics or should I go back to the small to fit more text on the screen??? Let me know!

Wax Palms - Zona de Cafe in Colombia

2009-11-11T18:12:00.000-08:00

After turning the salsa world on its head in Cali we danced up to the Zona Cafetera to get buzzed up on some fine Colombian coffee. Unfortunately the coffee plantation we stayed at for the evening ran out of coffee and the owner needed to leave town the next day so wasn´t able to provide us wth a tour of his farm! I mean are you serious? Geeze. But we were able to get him to give us a quick tutorial on coffee and learned about the different types of beans and the process they use to harvest them.

The highlight of our time in the region is when we went to visit the Valle de Cocora. The guidebook describes it like a lush version of Switzerland and I´d add it has a bit of the airy mysteriousness of Machu Picchu mixed in as well (see below).

One of the main reasons to visit this area is to see the Palma de Cera, these really tall palm trees which don´t grow outside the area.

We went on a four hour hike which led us into a cloud forest with rolling clouds touching the mountain tops. We stopped at a hummingbird reserve along the way where seven different types of hummingbirds buzzed about. We were served hot chocolate with a block of cheese to dip into it. A bit strange and oddly kinda nice.

After about 3 hours we reached this view:

After another thirty minutes or so we reached the bottom of the valley and were rewarded again with stunning views of the wax palm trees.

Everyone else took the easy way and hired horses while Gemma and I walked. We are enjoying hiking these days and seem to be pretty good at it. We actually kept up with the horses the entire way despite some serious uphill climbs and river crossings.

Next stop Bogota.