Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tiene hielo por favor?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
A prior engagement
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Not another volcano!
Villarrica Volcano above Pucon
Originally uploaded by mark&june
Hi everyone. We're having a very relaxing time in Pucon in the Chilean lake district. Its a nice town nestling on the shores of a lake, and dominated by the Villarrica volcano sitting above it.
You can do a hike up the volcano, but in the end we decided against it - there are only so many volcanoes you can climb on a holiday! Plus my ankle still isn't right, so we've decided just to take it easy instead. There are lots of cafes and restaurants in town, so we've been kicking back and relaxing. The town has a bit of a European alpine feel about it - it's certainly very different to both Santiago and San Pedro.
Tomorrow we say au revoir to Chile and take a bus across the Andes to Bariloche in Argentina. Again its supposed to be a nice lakeside town, and maybe we'll be up for a bit more exertion there.
On Saturday we're flying down to El Calafate in Patagonia, to start exploring the glaciers and national parks down there. Hopefully the weather will be ok - we're heading into Autumn here, and the further south we go the colder it will get. So far so good though - the weather has been gorgeous, although its been a bit cloudy for the last couple of days.
Better go now as the letters have all been rubbed off this keyboard, which makes typing a bit of a struggle! Hope all is well with you all.
200 days gone, 47 to go.........
Friday, March 21, 2008
Last night I dreamt of San Pedro.....
We've had a really good three days up here, although we're finding the conditions a bit tough. San Pedro de Atacama is about 2200m above sea level, and for the last two days we've been on trips above 4000m, and have been suffering from altitude sickness a bit. It hasn't amounted to much more than headaches and tiredness, and has probably been accentuated by the fact that we had to get up at 3.30 this morning so that we could see some geysers before the sun came up. Apparently the geysers are at their gushiest just before sunrise - which is a shame, as at 4000m in a desert at 6am it's bloody cold! So much so that the water running away from the geysers was freezing on the ground...
San Pedro itself is a gorgeous little town. Its just as you´d imagine South America - dusty streets, mud-brick buildings, locals lying in the shade. Its a world away from Santiago and a great place to relax.
The Atacama desert is stunning. Its a mixture of lava fields and salt-lakes, surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It seems that everywhere you look there are volcanoes - some smoking, some dormant, some extinct. I expected the Andes to be more jungle-clad than volcanic - no doubt they are in other places. We met a Chilean girl yesterday who was going for an interview to work on the new James Bond movie which is going to be filmed here, so it will be interesting to see if we spot anywhere!
We've taken lots of gorgeous photos, but the internet is really slow here so hopefully we'll be able to upload them when we head south.
Hope you all have a great Easter weekend, and speak to you again soon!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Heading to the desert
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Like a Thief in the Night
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Chilling in Chile
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sweet as
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Ships that pass in the night
Meeting up with Marina, Mark, Caroline and John
Originally uploaded by mark&june
Hello from Auckland!
Those of you from NU/L&E may remember Marina James, who used to work (and ski!) with us. She and her husband Mark, and his brother John and (very soon to be) wife Caroline arrived in NZ yesterday to celebrate John's birthday, watch the cricket, and attend John and Caroline's wedding in Wellington!
Luckily we had a couple of hours overlap with them in Auckland, and we met up for some drinks underneath the Sky Tower. It was great to see them and they did very well to keep their eyes open considering they were severely jet-lagged! Actually Marina was her usual bubbly self, but John and Mark were clearly struggling!
We had a good last couple of days up north. The sun continued to shine and our visit to Waitingi was really interesting. Although there continue to be issues to this day with how the Treaty has been interpreted (especially around land rights), it seems to have been written with the right intentions, and its aim of "one land, one people" was a noble one.
Quick update re the backpacker room we had in the Bay of Islands - unfortunately we didn't have it to ourselves, as three Brazilian girls turned up to share with us at 10.30pm. As you can imagine I was most put out!
We've got a few days in Auckland before we head off to South America on Thursday. We'd better head out now and explore the big city. Bye for now!
PS We've uploaded the photos for the last few days, starting here.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Always Take The Weather With You...
We were both feeling a bit glum after 3 or 4 cloudy days, but our mood has brightened along with the sunshine now that we've headed up to Northland.
Yesterday we had a nice time snorkelling amongst the marine life at Goat Island, although the sea was a bit on the chilly side! Luckily we were persuaded to hire wet-suits, which made it a lot more pleasant.
Today we drove up to the Bay of Islands, which, as the name suggests, is a bay of.....islands! There are about 150 islands, and we went on a lovely cruise round some of them this afternoon. It was a hot sunny day and the sea had lots of gorgeous colours. We ended the day watching the sun go down while having a nice meal in Russell, before catching a ferry back to our backpackers.
We've been pretty impressed with the standard of the backpackers out here - they are generally a lot less "youth" oriented than the ones we stayed in in Oz. Tonight we've hit the jackpot and found a 2 bedroom place with kitchen, bathroom & TV etc for £34. There was a chance that
some other people could be staying in the other bedroom, but its 9pm now so I think we're safe! We've probably split our nights 50 /50 between backpackers and motels/hotels, which has kept us (more or less) sane!
Tomorrow we're visiting Waitangi, which is where the original Treaty between the British and the Maoris was signed, and then pn Sunday we head down to Auckland.
Haven't been able to upload any photos for a while but hopefully will soon. Bye!