Hey y'all,
I'm starting to get requests for more travel details so that usually means its been a while and time to churn out another edition of the Roni Chronicles...where to start...
I arrived in the States a couple of months ago (wow, it's been that long!) to my fabulous aunt and uncle in Brownsburg, Indiana. I had a great time catching up on sleep, having hot showers, and getting used to the cold again (although I kept getting told that it wasn't cold, to me, it most definitely was!). Arriving in America was a opportunity to completely restock my toilet bag with new lotions and potions with labels in English so I could actually know what I was using rather than pretending all this time. It was also a time for reacquainting myself with american menus. My poor Aunt Val and Uncle John spent many hours sitting at retaurant tables, patiently waiting for me to read through what seemed like endless pages of options, repeatedly telling the poor waitress that we needed 'just one more minute', to eventually come to the decision on what to have for lunch, and then again at dinner, and occasionally at breakfast too...there were just too many options and not seeing tortillas on the menu completely threw me, I had no idea what to order if it didn't come with a tortilla! But eventually we made it through the readjustment period, and although I still get laughed at for eating with a knife and fork, rather than just a fork, meal times are now somewhat less of a mission for us to get through.
Within a week of arriving in America, I had already stepped foot back into a hospital, itching for work that I was, Aunt Val organised for me to job-shadow in the ED of her hospital for a day. Well, that was some experience. It was great being back in the hospital environment, made me realise even more how much I was looking forward to getting back to work, although I really can't wait to get back to my babies rather than the older people in ED, they just didn't respond as well to me blowing bubbles for them! But it was a good introduction to the america health system, the user-pays deal, not my scene, but when you don't know any different then you don't realise how wrong it feels for those of us that do! It definitely had its pros - the technology was fantastic, a computer in every assessment cubicle, a computer for every nurse in the nurses station, everything electronic, and it even comes with its own scanning machine like a supermarket checkout! "Would you like a bag of saline with your order of penicillin today? Beep!". A well-oiled machine...the down-side being the little old ladies, blue in the face and unable to breathe properly that were having to 'sign their life away' as such for insurance purposes before they were even assessed, not so much fun really. But it was a good day, a great experience and a bit of an eye opener...
The next day, I saw in 25 years on the planet, it was a quiet day, no raucous parties, instead lunch out with friends, an afternoon spent holed up in a bead store picking out all new delights, and then dinner out at a Texas Steakhouse where I was completely humiliated to my Uncle's delight by being made to sit on a saddle-chair thing and having it announced to the whole restaurant it was my birthday and then getting "Yea-haa'd!"...so embarassing but all in good fun of course! That weekend, Aunt Valarie and I were off to do the Race for the Cure in downtown Indianapolis, a fundraising walk/run for breast cancer. It was great, thousands of people showed up, survivors, family, friends and everyone inbetween and all pacing out the course around Indianapolis to raise funds. The Zoo even got behind it by having one of their elephants out displaying a huge pink ribbon banner over her as we walked past. And that night we hopped a plane to Orlando, Florida for a few days of rest and relaxation in the Florida sun. I was well-ready to warm up by then and soaking up those warm rays was my number one priority for four days straight. Inbetween times we took in the Great American Pie Festival - although we skipped the All-you-can-eat pie buffet, a couple of nights wandering Downtown Disney, dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (I still love the fact that it rains inside!), and negotiating the huge 25-theatre movie complex and the Mega-Virgin record store. It was a great few days.
In the weeks after that, between organising a job in Canada and trying desperately to sort out my Canadian work permit, I managed to buy myself a new camera so I can now continue to record my journey, organise and upload the photos that I do still have from my travels and write a few emails and make a few phone calls to long lost friends! Its amazing how much organising there is to do when you've been 'in transit' for so long! I also managed to go to the races a few times, my friend Dean has long bred race horses and has been saying for years that he'd take me, so the opportunity arose and off we went to the races and his little beauty Easy-Dashing Gal took out the race, hooray! My winnings of $31.40 was the most I've ever won and probably ever will win, but all from a $2 bet! And I got a photo in the Winner's Circle! Of course the next time she was racing, I had to go again, for moral support of course ;) and she did us proud and won again, hooray! Another photo in the Winner's Circle and a trip back to the stables to congratulate the girl herself, and I have, according to Dean, officially become the good luck charm, a title that comes with a bit of pressure, but I'm willing to bear it of course (thanks Dean!).
The next day it was off to King's Island amusement park in Ohio with my new cousin Matt where we spent an entire day getting thrown around on rollercoaster after rollercoaster, each one faster and scarier than the next, and each line longer and hotter than the next, until we completed our day with a ride on the longest wooden rollercoaster in the world, The Beast. It really was a beast, it was, I think, 4 minutes in duration and fast and scary and very very cool. Our headaches (read brain damage) at the end of the day proved just how cool the rollercoasters were, although I think that I've had my fill for at least the next year!
Only a couple of days after that, I hit the road again, heading for Washington D.C.. I bought my ticket for the Greyhound bus, 'the only way to see America', and thinking that I'd experienced some pretty rough bus trips in the last 15 months, really, how bad could 16 hours on a Greyhound be? Well, I now understand all the laughing at my expense that coincided with that. The Greyhound bus was, hands down, the worst bus ride I have ever had in my life. I was harassed by hideous men from the second I stepped on board til the moment I got off in Washington \nD.C., I got no sleep all night after waking to find someone's hand in my lap(!), and so as you can imagine the trip crawled by. Thankfully I arrived in Washington eventually at 6am and I have never been more grateful to get off a bus in my life! I spent 4 days in Washington seeing all the sights, the monuments dedicated to all the past presidents and the fabulous Smithsonian museums - Museum of Natural History, Memorial Museum of the Holocaust, and the Museum of the Native Americans. I loved Washington, it was so clean and spacious and not at all the grey concrete office-type city that I had imagined, with trees and parks everywhere, and a great coffee shop on every corner! From Washington, I caught an express chinatown bus (never again the Greyhound!) to New York City where I spent a week living the city life. It is such a crazy city, it was everything I imagined it to be really, but better I think. It wasn't as dirty as I had imagined (although it was no Washington), and it was easy to get around and I always felt safe there. I saw all the usual sights - the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square and of course Ground Zero at the World Trade Centre site which is now a huge construction zone for the Freedom Tower. I was lucky enough to be staying right on the edge of Central Park so enjoyed the greenery there, although I did go to relax in the park over the weekend and was scared away by the THOUSANDS of people there on the grass, we're talking not even 30cm between each different group of people, agh! Not nice. I trawled through the Guggenheim and Met museums on cheap night, and had to go to the Natural History museum just to compare it to the movie of course (Night at the Museum, very funny!). So I had a great few days seeing New York before meeting up with a friend Alex from home that I hadn't seen in years we worked out later. We caught up in Times Square, saw the new Shrek 3 - anyone that hasn't seen it yet has got to, its fabulous! We had a fabulous time enjoying Times Square at night, the lights are just overwhelming, so bright that I was actually wondering why the sun hadn't set yet at 11pm but when I looked up it was just the power of the billboards all lit up, crazy! The very next day my friend Lisette from nursing arrived in New York and we had a great couple of days together, wandering all the villages of New York - Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Soho, and then treating ourselves to two(I know!) Broadway shows over two nights. We were in heaven. Lisette's last night in the city we celebrated with New York cheesecake after the show, and the next morning was a wander through Central Park again to the Central Park Zoo where if you have seen Madagascar, you, like myself, will be disappointed to hear that Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman are not actually residents of the Zoo! No, there are no lions, hippos, giraffes or zebras at the Central Park Zoo. There are however, lots of cute penguins, some sealions and 2 poor bored polar bears. It was a sad farewell to Lisette after that as she carried on her way to camp for the summer, and I headed downtown on my last afternoon to check out the New York Stock Exchange. Now, naive as I am, I thought I could go in and check it out in person...well no, after 9/11 everything has changed and visitors are no longer allowed in to see so it was a little disappointing but I got the photo of the front just like everyone else, and I can at least say that I saw the building...hmph...I did see the Trinity Church which is close to Ground Zero but somehow managed to stay completely untouched in 9/11, talk about saving grace... So that was really it for my time in New York. The next morning I caught another Chinatown bus to Boston but by the time I got to Boston I was sick as a dog with a flu that had been trying to get me down in New York for a couple of days but only succeeded on the bus to Boston. I was in Boston for only 3 days and truthfully didn't really see a lot of the city coz I was just too sick. I found the original Cheers bar, walked part of the historic Freedom Trail and then did a city Trolley tour which takes you around all the important sights - slack I know but it was the only way I was going to see anything in the state I was in! The next day I found the beach right at the end of the subway line, and, still feeling miserable, dipped my toes into the icy Atlantic ocean, and then lay on the sand and tried to absorb a few sun rays. After only a few hours I headed back to the hostel for an early night and then the next day flew back to Indy.
Now I'm back in Indy, again working on my Canadian work permit, and planning a trip for next week up to Chicago for my immigration medical - fun, fun, fun! There are more adventures in the works but you'll have to hear about them all in the next installment. Til then, take care, feel free to check out all my photos I've finally uploaded at www.flickr.com/photos/ronimcgill - you can see all the different sets on the side and just click on them to open, everything from NZ onwards is up there! Enjoy!
Ronald McDonald
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
Spanglish Lessons in Central America: When you don't speak spanish, always find another traveller who does and your problems will be solved!
Hola!
Central America, the true challenge, on my own, just me and my backpack for 5 weeks...it was fabulous! Yes, I did survive, thanks to everyone who emailed their concerns, they were noted...and then disregarded and I was off on my adventure!
I started in Mexico City where I only had a mild meltdown when I realised I was completely on my own again(!). I spent 3 days there seeing the sights, the Cathedral (largest in the Americas), trawling through the Museum of Anthropology for hours and hours (that was one heck of a history lesson!), the Museum of Medicine (took notes on some very cool bizaare natural remedies), and the largest market in Mexico. Spent a day at Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, climbing the tallest pyramid in the Americas at 70 metres, the view from the top was pretty good.
I left Mexico City, negotiating the metro system, backpack and all, and headed south to Oaxaca, lovely colonial town famous for markets, weaving, and special Oaxacan mole sauce made with chilli and chocolate - yum! With a few other travellers from the hostel, we went to see the Monte Alban ruins set on top of a huge flat mountain outside of Monte Alban with a view over the whole valley, then weaved our way through the famous Oaxacan markets before jumping on the overnight bus to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The bus ride was something else completely, screaming round corners at breakneck speed all night long, there was no sleep for any of us that night. Arrived in Puerto Escondido, we wandered down to the beach to watch the sunrise before figuring out where we were going. Two of the others moved on to a beach further down the coast but Eileen from Canada and I decided to stay and that was the beginning of more than two weeks travelling together through Mexico.
Puerto Escondido was a beautiful, relaxed beach town, where we spent 3 days lounging on the beach, going out on boats with locals to spot turtles, and drinking margaritas while lying in hammocks, a really hard life. We took the overnight bus to the town of San Cristobal, up in the mountains and freezing cold(!), and did a trip to Canon del Sumidero where we saw caimans, pelicans, herons, and a petrified waterfall cascading down the side of the canyon which was very very cool, shaped like a Christmas tree. After a 2 days there it was back on the late bus to Palenque, a town famous for the ruins in the jungle, and that was exactly where we were headed that next morning. The Palenque ruins were exquisite, beautifully set in thick green jungle with monkeys and birds chirping, we spent a few hours there, looking around and then just lying in the shade of a tree staring up at the ruins. Then it was off to see Misol-Ha, a single waterfall set down the in jungle that you could climb in behind and into the cave, and then onto Agua Azul, a long series of crystal clear blue waterfalls cascading down over sandy coloured stone. We passed the afternoon away just lounging in the waterfalls, enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest around us, it was perfect. Back in Palenque, Eileen and I grabbed our packs and it was back to the bus station, to another overnight bus (saves time AND money on accommodation), this time on our way to Merida. There never seems to be an easy overnight bus ride, but this one wasn't disturbed by the crazy roads or driving, it was disturbed by the military coming aboard at 1am and ordering us all off for a baggage search. Everyone with a pack had to empty the entire thing for it to be searched and then repack it all before we were allowed back on board and the trip could continue...not so much fun in the middle of the night, and in the middle of nowhere, but its just part of the adventure.
Merida was a big town, the centre point for most of the ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula, and after breakfast we headed straight out to Uxmal, where it poured with rain as soon as we got there! The iguanas there seemed to love the rain, they were all out and about which was fun to see, although we definitely fans of the rain that much. We ended up having to do a running tour of the ruins, from building to building coz its not that much fun having to sit soaking wet on a bus back to town for a couple of hours! That night we were invited out to a Salsa club by some locals which was fun enough, except of course, I can't salsa to save myself! They all tried to teach me, but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lost cause when it comes to having to shake your hips like those south/central American girls can! I was having more fun getting up and playing the maracas with the band! After a few hours sleep, we were up and off to visit Chitchen Itza, the most famous ruins in Mexico. They were pretty impressive but over-crowded with hundreds of tourists so after a couple of hours we grabbed the next bus to Tulum out on the coast - to the beach!
Tulum was a beautiful white sand beach with turquoise water and swaying palm trees where we ended up staying for almost a week, sleeping in our hammocks in a 'dormitory' cabana-style - a large open shack where backpackers could come and hang their own hammock...it was great except for the lack of doors and windows that meant every night you got covered in sand when the wind came up and blew it all over you! But we easily managed to pass a week with lounging on the beach each day, and we even managed to wander the 200 metres down the road to the Tulum ruins after 5 days on the beach! The Tulum ruins were spectacular, set against the amazing backdrop of the turquoise ocean and cliffs, and surrounded by green grass and palm trees, you could imagine why the Mayans chose to build a city there!
Leaving Tulum meant saying goodbye to Eileen as she headed back up north in Mexico and I continued south into Belize where I spent 6 days chilling on Caye Caulker, a very small island off the coast of Belize, famous for the Belizean Barrier Reef. I passed my time there snorkling with nurse sharks and sting rays, soaking up the sun on the dock at the backpackers, hanging with the local Carribbeans, learning how to understand them, getting harrassed by Australian backpackers and meeting my next travelling buddies, all good fun. After almost a week it was time to move on to Guatemala along with new travel buddy Brian from Florida. The bus trip into Guatemala was uneventful until we crossed the border and our bus didn't follow us! We managed to find out after a couple of hours that another bus had broken down and ours had gone back to help out, but hadn't told us about it, so we just had to sit and wait for it to come back, Guatemalan time though! Eventually it returned and we arrived in Flores, Guatemala, a little island on a lake which was just beautiful. There wasn't any room left at the backpackers by the time we got there but they let us sleep in hammocks in the garden so that was fine, we were getting up at 3am for the sunrise tour to the Tikal ruins anyway, it wasn't like we needed to be in the hammocks for long!
Tikal was amazing, again set in the jungle, we arrived in the dark and hiked through the jungle by torchlight til we reached one of the tallest temples where we climbed up to the top and sat to watch sunrise. Sunrise didn't really happen as it was clouded over but we had the most amazing views of tucans flying from tree to tree, talking to each other as they went, and gradually the mist rose and we could see more and more of the ruins poking out from the jungle. We then had a few hours of exploring the ruins, climbing up all the temples, scaling some of the steepest staircases I've ever seen - worse than Angkor Wat in Cambodia that's for sure! We just chilled at the backpackers for the afternoon, then it was time for Bri and I to catch the night bus down to Antigua via Guatemala City. It was a long uncomfortable ride, but I was used to it by then and eventually morning arrived and so did we to Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful town, all cobbled streets and cute buildings. We had a couple of days there, staying at a funky backpackers where I met two kiwi girls which was very exciting, they hadn't met any other kiwis since they'd been travelling and they were the first kiwis I'd met since saying goodbye to Mary back in Brasil so it was fabulous, we didn't stop talking for ages coz it was just so nice to hear someone that sounded the same as I did and who could understand everything I was saying and vice versa! Brian just sat dumbfounded listening to us talking in our kiwi slang about everything, he said later he could only understand half of what we were saying, especially because we were talking so fast too! Of course, we had no problem understanding ourselves! I also met up with a guy Phil at the hostel, who I'd met on my trip to Palenque the few weeks beforehand, it took us a while to figure out where we knew each other from, but we got there in the end, funny what a small world it is when you're backpacking... That afternoon Brian, Phil and I climbed Volcan Pacaya, the active volcano on the outskirts of Antigua. It was a steep climb up but within an hour and a half we were climbing on real lava, feeling the heat coming out of the rocks and daring each other to get as close as possible to the real red hot lava within reach, lot of fun. We stayed there to watch the sun drop down below the clouds and then climbed/slid back down the volcano with torches. It was great, dirty, but good fun.
Another day of wandering the town, exploring markets and drinking fabulous Guatemalan coffee, and then it was another farewell, this time to Brian heading in to El Salvador, and Phil staying in Guatemala, as I carried onto Honduras on the 4am bus - gotta love these early starts! After a very long day, I finally arrived in La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras around 7pm and found somewhere to stay for the night, because the next morning I was off to Utila in the Bay Islands to learn to dive!
The ferry across was rough as anything and there were people dropping like flies everywhere and I was so incredibly thankful I don't get seasick, but after only an hour we had arrived on the island and I was booked into Underwater Vision dive school before I knew it! It helped that the dive instructor from Underwater, Alfred, was on the ferry over too and had me hooked while still onboard! Utila is a great little island, very laidback, with the main reason for visiting being to dive or learn to dive. The dive course started the next day and it was 4 days of sometimes 12hours or longer, hard work but very enjoyable. I loved learning to dive, took to it like a fish to water and am now stuck with the problem of desperately wanting to go back and do my Advanced Diving! I had another few days on the island, enjoying Semana Santa (Easter) and the festivities that go along with it - a huge rave on the beach on the night we finished our course with fire dancers and all sorts was a great way to celebrate getting our Open Water Certificate! After a few fun dives it was time to leave Utila, head back to the mainland and make my way back up to Mexico City.
I was at the airport at 4am the next morning, on board the plane waiting for take off when they decided there was some technical problem and they cancelled the entire flight! It took 8 hours to get everything rebooked, a long day wasted at the airport, but the airline took us back into town for the night at least. The next day went without a hitch and managed to get up to Mexico City smoothly, it was just a long trip with flights from La Ceiba to San Pedro, to San Salvador, to Guatemala Ctiy, to Mexico City! Talk about the long way round! But I got there, and had been planning on sleeping in the airport overnight but a couple that had been delayed with me from Honduras were on the same flight and they lived in Mexico City and took me back to their apartment with them - that was a different experience of Mexico City! They live in a nice neighbourhood and we wandered cafes and enjoyed dinner at a Mexican Japanese fusion restaurant! It was totally different to the few days I had spent in Mexico City those weeks before, that's for sure! The next morning I was back at the airport at 5am, boarding my flight up to the States and after a few hours flying and a nervous customs experience, they finally let me into the country and onto Indianapolis where I was picked up by my Uncle and Aunt - hooray! It was so nice to get picked up from the airport instead of having to find my way somewhere in another strange city to another strange backpackers, what a treat! And I've been nothing but spoiled since I arrived, hot showers every day, my own room with a double bed, not sharing it with 10 other people, and a flushing toilet that really flushes! Its all a little overwhelming, but I'm loving every second, except the weather - in two days we've had tornado warnings one day and snow today! Hard to believe that only 3 days ago I was on a tropical island in the Carribbean...! So I'll be here, hanging out, recuperating for a while, will hopefully travel round a bit, see a few places in the States and then who knows where? But I'm sure there'll be more adventures just around the corner...they never seem to be far away when I'm around!
I hope everyone is well, thanks for all your emails, I promise the individual replies are coming now that I'm back in civilisation!
Take care, and signing off,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Central America, the true challenge, on my own, just me and my backpack for 5 weeks...it was fabulous! Yes, I did survive, thanks to everyone who emailed their concerns, they were noted...and then disregarded and I was off on my adventure!
I started in Mexico City where I only had a mild meltdown when I realised I was completely on my own again(!). I spent 3 days there seeing the sights, the Cathedral (largest in the Americas), trawling through the Museum of Anthropology for hours and hours (that was one heck of a history lesson!), the Museum of Medicine (took notes on some very cool bizaare natural remedies), and the largest market in Mexico. Spent a day at Teotihuacan, the Temple of the Sun and the Moon, climbing the tallest pyramid in the Americas at 70 metres, the view from the top was pretty good.
I left Mexico City, negotiating the metro system, backpack and all, and headed south to Oaxaca, lovely colonial town famous for markets, weaving, and special Oaxacan mole sauce made with chilli and chocolate - yum! With a few other travellers from the hostel, we went to see the Monte Alban ruins set on top of a huge flat mountain outside of Monte Alban with a view over the whole valley, then weaved our way through the famous Oaxacan markets before jumping on the overnight bus to Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The bus ride was something else completely, screaming round corners at breakneck speed all night long, there was no sleep for any of us that night. Arrived in Puerto Escondido, we wandered down to the beach to watch the sunrise before figuring out where we were going. Two of the others moved on to a beach further down the coast but Eileen from Canada and I decided to stay and that was the beginning of more than two weeks travelling together through Mexico.
Puerto Escondido was a beautiful, relaxed beach town, where we spent 3 days lounging on the beach, going out on boats with locals to spot turtles, and drinking margaritas while lying in hammocks, a really hard life. We took the overnight bus to the town of San Cristobal, up in the mountains and freezing cold(!), and did a trip to Canon del Sumidero where we saw caimans, pelicans, herons, and a petrified waterfall cascading down the side of the canyon which was very very cool, shaped like a Christmas tree. After a 2 days there it was back on the late bus to Palenque, a town famous for the ruins in the jungle, and that was exactly where we were headed that next morning. The Palenque ruins were exquisite, beautifully set in thick green jungle with monkeys and birds chirping, we spent a few hours there, looking around and then just lying in the shade of a tree staring up at the ruins. Then it was off to see Misol-Ha, a single waterfall set down the in jungle that you could climb in behind and into the cave, and then onto Agua Azul, a long series of crystal clear blue waterfalls cascading down over sandy coloured stone. We passed the afternoon away just lounging in the waterfalls, enjoying the peace and quiet of the forest around us, it was perfect. Back in Palenque, Eileen and I grabbed our packs and it was back to the bus station, to another overnight bus (saves time AND money on accommodation), this time on our way to Merida. There never seems to be an easy overnight bus ride, but this one wasn't disturbed by the crazy roads or driving, it was disturbed by the military coming aboard at 1am and ordering us all off for a baggage search. Everyone with a pack had to empty the entire thing for it to be searched and then repack it all before we were allowed back on board and the trip could continue...not so much fun in the middle of the night, and in the middle of nowhere, but its just part of the adventure.
Merida was a big town, the centre point for most of the ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula, and after breakfast we headed straight out to Uxmal, where it poured with rain as soon as we got there! The iguanas there seemed to love the rain, they were all out and about which was fun to see, although we definitely fans of the rain that much. We ended up having to do a running tour of the ruins, from building to building coz its not that much fun having to sit soaking wet on a bus back to town for a couple of hours! That night we were invited out to a Salsa club by some locals which was fun enough, except of course, I can't salsa to save myself! They all tried to teach me, but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lost cause when it comes to having to shake your hips like those south/central American girls can! I was having more fun getting up and playing the maracas with the band! After a few hours sleep, we were up and off to visit Chitchen Itza, the most famous ruins in Mexico. They were pretty impressive but over-crowded with hundreds of tourists so after a couple of hours we grabbed the next bus to Tulum out on the coast - to the beach!
Tulum was a beautiful white sand beach with turquoise water and swaying palm trees where we ended up staying for almost a week, sleeping in our hammocks in a 'dormitory' cabana-style - a large open shack where backpackers could come and hang their own hammock...it was great except for the lack of doors and windows that meant every night you got covered in sand when the wind came up and blew it all over you! But we easily managed to pass a week with lounging on the beach each day, and we even managed to wander the 200 metres down the road to the Tulum ruins after 5 days on the beach! The Tulum ruins were spectacular, set against the amazing backdrop of the turquoise ocean and cliffs, and surrounded by green grass and palm trees, you could imagine why the Mayans chose to build a city there!
Leaving Tulum meant saying goodbye to Eileen as she headed back up north in Mexico and I continued south into Belize where I spent 6 days chilling on Caye Caulker, a very small island off the coast of Belize, famous for the Belizean Barrier Reef. I passed my time there snorkling with nurse sharks and sting rays, soaking up the sun on the dock at the backpackers, hanging with the local Carribbeans, learning how to understand them, getting harrassed by Australian backpackers and meeting my next travelling buddies, all good fun. After almost a week it was time to move on to Guatemala along with new travel buddy Brian from Florida. The bus trip into Guatemala was uneventful until we crossed the border and our bus didn't follow us! We managed to find out after a couple of hours that another bus had broken down and ours had gone back to help out, but hadn't told us about it, so we just had to sit and wait for it to come back, Guatemalan time though! Eventually it returned and we arrived in Flores, Guatemala, a little island on a lake which was just beautiful. There wasn't any room left at the backpackers by the time we got there but they let us sleep in hammocks in the garden so that was fine, we were getting up at 3am for the sunrise tour to the Tikal ruins anyway, it wasn't like we needed to be in the hammocks for long!
Tikal was amazing, again set in the jungle, we arrived in the dark and hiked through the jungle by torchlight til we reached one of the tallest temples where we climbed up to the top and sat to watch sunrise. Sunrise didn't really happen as it was clouded over but we had the most amazing views of tucans flying from tree to tree, talking to each other as they went, and gradually the mist rose and we could see more and more of the ruins poking out from the jungle. We then had a few hours of exploring the ruins, climbing up all the temples, scaling some of the steepest staircases I've ever seen - worse than Angkor Wat in Cambodia that's for sure! We just chilled at the backpackers for the afternoon, then it was time for Bri and I to catch the night bus down to Antigua via Guatemala City. It was a long uncomfortable ride, but I was used to it by then and eventually morning arrived and so did we to Antigua. Antigua is a beautiful town, all cobbled streets and cute buildings. We had a couple of days there, staying at a funky backpackers where I met two kiwi girls which was very exciting, they hadn't met any other kiwis since they'd been travelling and they were the first kiwis I'd met since saying goodbye to Mary back in Brasil so it was fabulous, we didn't stop talking for ages coz it was just so nice to hear someone that sounded the same as I did and who could understand everything I was saying and vice versa! Brian just sat dumbfounded listening to us talking in our kiwi slang about everything, he said later he could only understand half of what we were saying, especially because we were talking so fast too! Of course, we had no problem understanding ourselves! I also met up with a guy Phil at the hostel, who I'd met on my trip to Palenque the few weeks beforehand, it took us a while to figure out where we knew each other from, but we got there in the end, funny what a small world it is when you're backpacking... That afternoon Brian, Phil and I climbed Volcan Pacaya, the active volcano on the outskirts of Antigua. It was a steep climb up but within an hour and a half we were climbing on real lava, feeling the heat coming out of the rocks and daring each other to get as close as possible to the real red hot lava within reach, lot of fun. We stayed there to watch the sun drop down below the clouds and then climbed/slid back down the volcano with torches. It was great, dirty, but good fun.
Another day of wandering the town, exploring markets and drinking fabulous Guatemalan coffee, and then it was another farewell, this time to Brian heading in to El Salvador, and Phil staying in Guatemala, as I carried onto Honduras on the 4am bus - gotta love these early starts! After a very long day, I finally arrived in La Ceiba on the coast of Honduras around 7pm and found somewhere to stay for the night, because the next morning I was off to Utila in the Bay Islands to learn to dive!
The ferry across was rough as anything and there were people dropping like flies everywhere and I was so incredibly thankful I don't get seasick, but after only an hour we had arrived on the island and I was booked into Underwater Vision dive school before I knew it! It helped that the dive instructor from Underwater, Alfred, was on the ferry over too and had me hooked while still onboard! Utila is a great little island, very laidback, with the main reason for visiting being to dive or learn to dive. The dive course started the next day and it was 4 days of sometimes 12hours or longer, hard work but very enjoyable. I loved learning to dive, took to it like a fish to water and am now stuck with the problem of desperately wanting to go back and do my Advanced Diving! I had another few days on the island, enjoying Semana Santa (Easter) and the festivities that go along with it - a huge rave on the beach on the night we finished our course with fire dancers and all sorts was a great way to celebrate getting our Open Water Certificate! After a few fun dives it was time to leave Utila, head back to the mainland and make my way back up to Mexico City.
I was at the airport at 4am the next morning, on board the plane waiting for take off when they decided there was some technical problem and they cancelled the entire flight! It took 8 hours to get everything rebooked, a long day wasted at the airport, but the airline took us back into town for the night at least. The next day went without a hitch and managed to get up to Mexico City smoothly, it was just a long trip with flights from La Ceiba to San Pedro, to San Salvador, to Guatemala Ctiy, to Mexico City! Talk about the long way round! But I got there, and had been planning on sleeping in the airport overnight but a couple that had been delayed with me from Honduras were on the same flight and they lived in Mexico City and took me back to their apartment with them - that was a different experience of Mexico City! They live in a nice neighbourhood and we wandered cafes and enjoyed dinner at a Mexican Japanese fusion restaurant! It was totally different to the few days I had spent in Mexico City those weeks before, that's for sure! The next morning I was back at the airport at 5am, boarding my flight up to the States and after a few hours flying and a nervous customs experience, they finally let me into the country and onto Indianapolis where I was picked up by my Uncle and Aunt - hooray! It was so nice to get picked up from the airport instead of having to find my way somewhere in another strange city to another strange backpackers, what a treat! And I've been nothing but spoiled since I arrived, hot showers every day, my own room with a double bed, not sharing it with 10 other people, and a flushing toilet that really flushes! Its all a little overwhelming, but I'm loving every second, except the weather - in two days we've had tornado warnings one day and snow today! Hard to believe that only 3 days ago I was on a tropical island in the Carribbean...! So I'll be here, hanging out, recuperating for a while, will hopefully travel round a bit, see a few places in the States and then who knows where? But I'm sure there'll be more adventures just around the corner...they never seem to be far away when I'm around!
I hope everyone is well, thanks for all your emails, I promise the individual replies are coming now that I'm back in civilisation!
Take care, and signing off,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish Lessons from Brasil: Disaster, it all went to custard when I had to start speaking Portuguese...
Oi! (yes, I picked up how to say hello in Portuguese at least!)
Time has again passed in a mad whirlwind here in South America, in the lush and tropical land of Brasil (yes, note the spelling, the rest of the world seems to get it wrong for some reason). Brasil has been an amazing country full of fabulous experiences, taking me a little by surprise. I didn´t have a lot of expectations, you never know what you´re going to get when you arrive somewhere, but I have truly loved Brasil and almost everything it has to offer.
We crossed over the border from Argentina into Foz do Iguacu where we had a couple of days to enjoy the incredible beauty of the Iguacu falls, all 250 of them, stretching across two countries and covering anyone within a kilometre radius with water spray from the force of them! From there it was straight into the Pantanal, a mere 230,000 square kilometres of tropical wetland, mosquito haven, and animal and bird paradise. We spent two nights at the jungle farm, sleeping in hammocks, enjoying horse-riding, jungle-trekking, toucan-spotting, croc-catching and piranha fishing, and one night in the jungle lodge getting cosy with the millions of mozzies that we got to know quite intimately. It was a first for many things, learning to recognise yet another species from the croc family - the caiman, spotting toucans and macaws flying free in the open, learning what a Capybara looks like (the worlds largest rodent) and how to say its name, and finding out what piranha tastes like (fishy, if you were wondering)! It was wicked, and definitely one of the highlights of my whole trip.
After the Pantanal, we went looking for some refuge from the mosquitos in Bonito, a small town known for its crystal clear water and amazing snorkling. Well, the water was clear and the snorkling was ok (not the ´best in the world´ i´d been told), but we definitely didn´t find any refuge from the mozzies so we high-tailed it out of there after a couple of days, in favour of heading north towards Parati, giving time for our bites to heal. We stopped along the way at a nice little beach town where it poured with rain so we all voted for an upgrade and ditched the tents for a night and found a couple of nice little cabanas to shelter from the rain in. It was all going well, sitting inside, playing cards, a fridge to cool the drinks, until bed time when we discovered that the roof had been leaking downstairs right onto the beds! So 6 of us were all upstairs, squished together like peas in a pod, sharing 3 mattresses on the floor, but at least we were dry, and had the bonus of not having to pull our tent down the next morning! Hooray!
Parati was a bit crazy, the last stop before Rio meant that all the overland trucks that had been travelling through South America for the last 4 months were all congregating together at two little campsites for the few days beforehand, and it all equaled madness. It was a pre-Rio buildup of partying 24/7, as well as throwing an all day boat-cruise in there too! A lethal combination of sun, salt, sea and drinking, ending in everyone needing a Nana-nap by dinner time!
Saying farewell to Parati meant we were on our way to Rio de Janiero, and it was the last leg of our journey. It was a fairly short drive to Rio, only 4 hours, and the time passed quickly with many repeats of Peter Allan´s `I go to Rio´ and lots of maraca shaking, all in preparation for the Carnaval of course! The Carnaval was an incredible 5 days of street parties, parades, balls at the Scala Club (including the Red & Black Ball, and the Gay Ball), staying up all night and getting back to the hotel in time for breakfast before we crashed, and of course, lots of Samba-ing. The night of the Sambadrome parade was incredible, 9 hours of solid samba, 6 different samba schools, each with more than 5000 members, all competing to be named the best school, it was crazy. We were in the cheap seats (of course, being Budget!) right down the end of the Sambadrome which is 1.6km long, in with all the locals, it was such a crazy atmosphere, lasting all the way til 6am.
The end of Carnaval on the 21st of Feb meant the end of my `Budget Expedition´ and it was a sad farewell to many friends, heading off to all over the world, and it was also time for some serious recovery and relaxation! If only...
The day after Carnaval, Lindsey, Becs and I thought we´d try and do a little sightseeing, and for the first time since arriving in Rio took our cameras out of the hotel and walked the 5 minutes up the road to see the famous Rio Arches and take a photo. Unfortunately while taking the photo, two street kids decided to make the most of the opportunity and one jumped Lindz and took off with her camera, and the other got me from behind and tried to steal mine. Unfortuantely my camera was still around my neck and under my arm so in the process I got pulled to the ground and dragged across the concrete until eventually my camera strap broke and the kid got away with it. So it was a very sad farewell to all my photos from Argentina, Chile and Brasil, damn these big memory cards! It ended up as not as relaxing a day as planned coz we had to then spend the rest of the day and what felt like all night, at the police station making a report and filling in paperwork. Not fun. But at least we were ok, no major injuries, just a few bruises and grazes, and at least we didn´t have anything else on us or that would´ve gone too I would imagine!
So after that, Lindz and I were happy to move out of our hotel in the semi-dodgy area of Lapa, and into our accommodation for the next week and a half, only a couple of blocks back off Copacabana Beach! We´ve had a lovely semi-relaxing 10 days of lying on the beach, swimming, wandering all the different beaches including Ipanema and Leblon, sightseeing up Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer and generally laying about inbetween organising flights, camera shopping, and insurance reports!
So now it comes time to farewell South America, and funny enough, on the anniversary of my leaving New Zealand last year to head to the Outback. South America has been an incredible journey through so many different landscapes - mountains, beaches, deserts and jungle, and so many different countries. I have experienced all sorts of emotions, incredible highs, with a few lows, and all things in between, and I have a million memories to draw on. I think I can say without a doubt, it has been everything I hoped it would be. Now it is time to move onto the next adventure, I fly out tonight to Mexico City where I have 5 weeks to travel through Central America as I please, on my own, me and my backpack and wherever the wind takes us...hopefully somewhere along the lines of Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala...a new direction, a new adventure and another million memories to make. Can it get better than this...?
Til next time, take care,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Time has again passed in a mad whirlwind here in South America, in the lush and tropical land of Brasil (yes, note the spelling, the rest of the world seems to get it wrong for some reason). Brasil has been an amazing country full of fabulous experiences, taking me a little by surprise. I didn´t have a lot of expectations, you never know what you´re going to get when you arrive somewhere, but I have truly loved Brasil and almost everything it has to offer.
We crossed over the border from Argentina into Foz do Iguacu where we had a couple of days to enjoy the incredible beauty of the Iguacu falls, all 250 of them, stretching across two countries and covering anyone within a kilometre radius with water spray from the force of them! From there it was straight into the Pantanal, a mere 230,000 square kilometres of tropical wetland, mosquito haven, and animal and bird paradise. We spent two nights at the jungle farm, sleeping in hammocks, enjoying horse-riding, jungle-trekking, toucan-spotting, croc-catching and piranha fishing, and one night in the jungle lodge getting cosy with the millions of mozzies that we got to know quite intimately. It was a first for many things, learning to recognise yet another species from the croc family - the caiman, spotting toucans and macaws flying free in the open, learning what a Capybara looks like (the worlds largest rodent) and how to say its name, and finding out what piranha tastes like (fishy, if you were wondering)! It was wicked, and definitely one of the highlights of my whole trip.
After the Pantanal, we went looking for some refuge from the mosquitos in Bonito, a small town known for its crystal clear water and amazing snorkling. Well, the water was clear and the snorkling was ok (not the ´best in the world´ i´d been told), but we definitely didn´t find any refuge from the mozzies so we high-tailed it out of there after a couple of days, in favour of heading north towards Parati, giving time for our bites to heal. We stopped along the way at a nice little beach town where it poured with rain so we all voted for an upgrade and ditched the tents for a night and found a couple of nice little cabanas to shelter from the rain in. It was all going well, sitting inside, playing cards, a fridge to cool the drinks, until bed time when we discovered that the roof had been leaking downstairs right onto the beds! So 6 of us were all upstairs, squished together like peas in a pod, sharing 3 mattresses on the floor, but at least we were dry, and had the bonus of not having to pull our tent down the next morning! Hooray!
Parati was a bit crazy, the last stop before Rio meant that all the overland trucks that had been travelling through South America for the last 4 months were all congregating together at two little campsites for the few days beforehand, and it all equaled madness. It was a pre-Rio buildup of partying 24/7, as well as throwing an all day boat-cruise in there too! A lethal combination of sun, salt, sea and drinking, ending in everyone needing a Nana-nap by dinner time!
Saying farewell to Parati meant we were on our way to Rio de Janiero, and it was the last leg of our journey. It was a fairly short drive to Rio, only 4 hours, and the time passed quickly with many repeats of Peter Allan´s `I go to Rio´ and lots of maraca shaking, all in preparation for the Carnaval of course! The Carnaval was an incredible 5 days of street parties, parades, balls at the Scala Club (including the Red & Black Ball, and the Gay Ball), staying up all night and getting back to the hotel in time for breakfast before we crashed, and of course, lots of Samba-ing. The night of the Sambadrome parade was incredible, 9 hours of solid samba, 6 different samba schools, each with more than 5000 members, all competing to be named the best school, it was crazy. We were in the cheap seats (of course, being Budget!) right down the end of the Sambadrome which is 1.6km long, in with all the locals, it was such a crazy atmosphere, lasting all the way til 6am.
The end of Carnaval on the 21st of Feb meant the end of my `Budget Expedition´ and it was a sad farewell to many friends, heading off to all over the world, and it was also time for some serious recovery and relaxation! If only...
The day after Carnaval, Lindsey, Becs and I thought we´d try and do a little sightseeing, and for the first time since arriving in Rio took our cameras out of the hotel and walked the 5 minutes up the road to see the famous Rio Arches and take a photo. Unfortunately while taking the photo, two street kids decided to make the most of the opportunity and one jumped Lindz and took off with her camera, and the other got me from behind and tried to steal mine. Unfortuantely my camera was still around my neck and under my arm so in the process I got pulled to the ground and dragged across the concrete until eventually my camera strap broke and the kid got away with it. So it was a very sad farewell to all my photos from Argentina, Chile and Brasil, damn these big memory cards! It ended up as not as relaxing a day as planned coz we had to then spend the rest of the day and what felt like all night, at the police station making a report and filling in paperwork. Not fun. But at least we were ok, no major injuries, just a few bruises and grazes, and at least we didn´t have anything else on us or that would´ve gone too I would imagine!
So after that, Lindz and I were happy to move out of our hotel in the semi-dodgy area of Lapa, and into our accommodation for the next week and a half, only a couple of blocks back off Copacabana Beach! We´ve had a lovely semi-relaxing 10 days of lying on the beach, swimming, wandering all the different beaches including Ipanema and Leblon, sightseeing up Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer and generally laying about inbetween organising flights, camera shopping, and insurance reports!
So now it comes time to farewell South America, and funny enough, on the anniversary of my leaving New Zealand last year to head to the Outback. South America has been an incredible journey through so many different landscapes - mountains, beaches, deserts and jungle, and so many different countries. I have experienced all sorts of emotions, incredible highs, with a few lows, and all things in between, and I have a million memories to draw on. I think I can say without a doubt, it has been everything I hoped it would be. Now it is time to move onto the next adventure, I fly out tonight to Mexico City where I have 5 weeks to travel through Central America as I please, on my own, me and my backpack and wherever the wind takes us...hopefully somewhere along the lines of Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala...a new direction, a new adventure and another million memories to make. Can it get better than this...?
Til next time, take care,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish Lessons in Patagonia: Frio = cold, Muy frio = very cold!!!
Hola! Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a fabulous one!
Now as per usual, I know its been a while since the last update and I've packed so much into that time that there is no way that i can put it all down in an email, or you'll all be bored to tears by half way through. So I'm going to do what I promise to do each time (and never actually do it) and try and make it quick, i'll skip parts and just give a general outline of the crazy stunts i've been up to this episode...
Christmas was spent on the beach in Bahia Inglesia, Chile, and it was a fabulous celebration which spanned 2 days and 5 countries, where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed for us and all those at home, and there followed many crazy antics as you can imagine including the Budget Expeditions Christmas Olympics where the prize was a bottle of rum, just incase we didn't have enough! So it was a Xmas like no other before and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate really! After Xmas was more beach time at La Serena and a couple of days in Santiago before heading into the mountains to Pucon where we spent New Years camped beside a lake underneath beautiful snow-capped peaks. I even managed to climb a live volcano on new years eve, in the ice and snow to get to the top, to not be able to see any lava that day coz there was too much wind and too much thick gas blocking our view, bugger. It was terrifying, but at least I can say that I've done it right? Although I think i'm quickly working out that i'm more of a beach girl that a snow girl... So New Year's was a repeat of Xmas really, another 2 day affair with much silliness, practical jokes, and laughter. It poured with rain at midnight and everyone got saoked but it didn't ruin the party, just made me feel at home really!
Since NY's, we've been travelling through Patagonia by way of Argentina, from Bariloche (chocolate capital of Argentina - heaven!) through El Chalten, and El Calafate, all the way down to Ushuaia, 'the end of the world', the world's southern-most city. In that time as well as getting steadily colder and colder and colder, I've trekked my butt off, completing an insane 40km trek to Torre Glacier and back, in one day! It was pure madness and I loved every second of it, I trekked to the glacier, had to pull myself across the river on a rope and then continue the trek to reach the front of the glacier where we spent a couple of hours walking over the glacier before repeating everything just in a backwards order! I don't think my feet have quite recovered still weeks down the track...and I was wondering why there were only 2 of us that wanted to do the trek, hmmm.... We saw the Merino glacier, one of the most active glaciers, watched the huge chunks of ice come crashing down into the water in front of us, very cool, and in Ushuaia trekked for a day in Tierre del Fuego National park where I saw heaps of beaver dams and real woodpeckers that looked just like Woody Woodpecker!
Leaving Ushuaia, I was more than happy to be heading back up north, thinking that at least I'd be starting to get some heat back in my bones after a consistant 4-10 degrees, but I was mistaken. We went back into Chile to Torres del Paine National Park where we spent 4 days camping and walking. The first day it poured with rain and we spent the day all crowded into the one shelter in our camping area playing cards and drinking rum to stay warm and thankfully for the days after that the weather cleared up. So it was off to trek the Grey Glacier, another beautiful walk and beautiful glacier, although there were moments where the wind was so strong we were getting blown off the track! I spent the next day horse-riding, weaving in and around trees through the forest, crossing 6 water-crossings where the water was up to the horses saddle and taking in the beautiful scenery around me of Torres del Paine, one of the most beautiful parks I've seen here.
After Torres, we did start to warm up a bit, staying in Puerto Madryn for a couple of days, lying on the beach, soaking up the rays, I was the only one not complaining about the heat for the first bit! Now that I'd got the chill out of my bones i was happy as Larry and ready to take on Buenos Aires which was next on the agenda and wow, what a fabulous city it is! We danced all night long at club 69 to the crazy transvestite show they put on, took in a Tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni, enjoyed a bike tour around the city - definitely recommended why to see the sites, as well as shopping til we dropped! The Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried was incredible, like a city all of its own with proper cobbled streets and mausoleums instead of houses, and scraggly cats running around everywhere, and the Pink Presidential Palace was looking fabulous for us, underneath a layer of scaffolding and netting! Not a good time for renovations when I want a photo! But I loved Buenos Aires, it would have to be my favourite city here in South America easily and was most upset to leave...until we got to our next stop on way to Puerto Iguazu which had a swimming pool in the campground! Most exciting when its over 30 degrees and humidity is around 80%! We're now in Puerto Iguazu where this campground has a pool too, so really, you're lucky i'm writing an email at all! We're off to see the Iguaza falls tomorrow which should be fab and then its a sad farewell to Argentina, I have loved it, and into Brazil for the final countdown to Rio Carnaval in little over 2 weeks, hooray! I can't believe it'll all be coming to an end so soon, but its been a blast so far and the last few weeks are only going to get crazier, bring it on!
Hope everyone is well, love to all, keep the emails coming!
Senorita Ronita xxx
Now as per usual, I know its been a while since the last update and I've packed so much into that time that there is no way that i can put it all down in an email, or you'll all be bored to tears by half way through. So I'm going to do what I promise to do each time (and never actually do it) and try and make it quick, i'll skip parts and just give a general outline of the crazy stunts i've been up to this episode...
Christmas was spent on the beach in Bahia Inglesia, Chile, and it was a fabulous celebration which spanned 2 days and 5 countries, where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed for us and all those at home, and there followed many crazy antics as you can imagine including the Budget Expeditions Christmas Olympics where the prize was a bottle of rum, just incase we didn't have enough! So it was a Xmas like no other before and I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate really! After Xmas was more beach time at La Serena and a couple of days in Santiago before heading into the mountains to Pucon where we spent New Years camped beside a lake underneath beautiful snow-capped peaks. I even managed to climb a live volcano on new years eve, in the ice and snow to get to the top, to not be able to see any lava that day coz there was too much wind and too much thick gas blocking our view, bugger. It was terrifying, but at least I can say that I've done it right? Although I think i'm quickly working out that i'm more of a beach girl that a snow girl... So New Year's was a repeat of Xmas really, another 2 day affair with much silliness, practical jokes, and laughter. It poured with rain at midnight and everyone got saoked but it didn't ruin the party, just made me feel at home really!
Since NY's, we've been travelling through Patagonia by way of Argentina, from Bariloche (chocolate capital of Argentina - heaven!) through El Chalten, and El Calafate, all the way down to Ushuaia, 'the end of the world', the world's southern-most city. In that time as well as getting steadily colder and colder and colder, I've trekked my butt off, completing an insane 40km trek to Torre Glacier and back, in one day! It was pure madness and I loved every second of it, I trekked to the glacier, had to pull myself across the river on a rope and then continue the trek to reach the front of the glacier where we spent a couple of hours walking over the glacier before repeating everything just in a backwards order! I don't think my feet have quite recovered still weeks down the track...and I was wondering why there were only 2 of us that wanted to do the trek, hmmm.... We saw the Merino glacier, one of the most active glaciers, watched the huge chunks of ice come crashing down into the water in front of us, very cool, and in Ushuaia trekked for a day in Tierre del Fuego National park where I saw heaps of beaver dams and real woodpeckers that looked just like Woody Woodpecker!
Leaving Ushuaia, I was more than happy to be heading back up north, thinking that at least I'd be starting to get some heat back in my bones after a consistant 4-10 degrees, but I was mistaken. We went back into Chile to Torres del Paine National Park where we spent 4 days camping and walking. The first day it poured with rain and we spent the day all crowded into the one shelter in our camping area playing cards and drinking rum to stay warm and thankfully for the days after that the weather cleared up. So it was off to trek the Grey Glacier, another beautiful walk and beautiful glacier, although there were moments where the wind was so strong we were getting blown off the track! I spent the next day horse-riding, weaving in and around trees through the forest, crossing 6 water-crossings where the water was up to the horses saddle and taking in the beautiful scenery around me of Torres del Paine, one of the most beautiful parks I've seen here.
After Torres, we did start to warm up a bit, staying in Puerto Madryn for a couple of days, lying on the beach, soaking up the rays, I was the only one not complaining about the heat for the first bit! Now that I'd got the chill out of my bones i was happy as Larry and ready to take on Buenos Aires which was next on the agenda and wow, what a fabulous city it is! We danced all night long at club 69 to the crazy transvestite show they put on, took in a Tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni, enjoyed a bike tour around the city - definitely recommended why to see the sites, as well as shopping til we dropped! The Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried was incredible, like a city all of its own with proper cobbled streets and mausoleums instead of houses, and scraggly cats running around everywhere, and the Pink Presidential Palace was looking fabulous for us, underneath a layer of scaffolding and netting! Not a good time for renovations when I want a photo! But I loved Buenos Aires, it would have to be my favourite city here in South America easily and was most upset to leave...until we got to our next stop on way to Puerto Iguazu which had a swimming pool in the campground! Most exciting when its over 30 degrees and humidity is around 80%! We're now in Puerto Iguazu where this campground has a pool too, so really, you're lucky i'm writing an email at all! We're off to see the Iguaza falls tomorrow which should be fab and then its a sad farewell to Argentina, I have loved it, and into Brazil for the final countdown to Rio Carnaval in little over 2 weeks, hooray! I can't believe it'll all be coming to an end so soon, but its been a blast so far and the last few weeks are only going to get crazier, bring it on!
Hope everyone is well, love to all, keep the emails coming!
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish lessons in Bolivia: This one´s easy - Feliz Navidad!
Hola!
Well, another country checked off the list as such, Bolivia went by far too quickly with only a week and half to try to experience it...although we did manage to fit a heck of a lot in in that short time - as per usual!
La Paz was big and dirty and manic 24 hours a day and it probably wasn´t a favourite. We were staying in the dodgiest place yet with live wires hanging down through the ceiling, the hot water heater sparking above our heads in the shower and open light switches in the bathroom next to the shower with no curtain to stop the splashes! Not to mention the 10 flights of stairs to get up to the room...an experience that´s for sure... But from La Paz we got to go up to Death Road and mountain bike down it at breakneck speed on a gravel road with a sheer cliff on one side, now you can´t have more fun than that really. We started at 4640m above sea level and cycled down 64km and 3364m of gravel road, defying death the whole way and managed to reach the bottom with no loss of skin, teeth or broken bones, and with enough energy to keep hold of a cold beer - well earned I think! Seriously good fun and much recommended if you´re ever in Bolivia!
After that adrenaline pumping ride, we left La Paz on our way to Uyuni where we spent 2 days on the largest salt flat in the world, driving around in 4wd jeeps taking crazy photos of each other standing on other peoples heads and falling out of salt shakers. It was a great couple of days, climbing over Fish Island covered in the largest cacti you´ve ever seen, and then the next day climbing a volcano on the edge of the salt flat to get a fabulous view of miles around. The most exciting part of our adventure was when our fabulous driver spent the whole of the first day falling asleep at the wheel! Now that was something that none of us had learnt to say in spanish yet - wake up! But with continued loud coughing, sneezing, laughing, and even a couple of songs thrown in there for good measure, we made it to safety at the end of the day....good thing that there´s not a lot that can go wrong on a large flat piece of salt right? We did miss one stop that our driver slept through when everyone else pulled off but not to worry, when we caught up with everyone at the end of the day, they said it was kinda boring anyway! We were pretty grateful we didn´t have to send the recordings of our ´final words´ home though...yes we did make them - watching them now is pretty funny actually! So a great couple of days, Sleepy Sam the driver was on his best behaviour the next day, bit of a bummer really coz I was ready to jump into the drivers seat if he feel asleep again! But made it back to Uyuni no probs, and Sleepy Sam only got half a tip!
Sucre was the next stop, the official capital Bolivia. It was a lovely town with fabulous chocolate shops that we all made use of for the day we were there. And then it was on to Potosi, the highest town of its size in the world. We had just a day there also, but it was enough. A few of us had a tour of the Silver mine there, climbing 2kms into the side of a mountain at 4500m with no ventilation and miners working all around you in horrendous conditions, it wasn´t a fabulous time, but it was a very worthwhile experience to see how hard life is for people still. You should have seen my jaw drop as 3 men pushed a trolley past me carrying 2 tonnes of rock, it was incredible. After a couple of hours underground as such, and after inhaling about 2kg of dust and dirt, we emerged into the daylight and got to go blow up some dynamite! That was wicked, it was so loud and the whole ground shook, but it was good fun.
And that was Bolivia really, it was too short to really get into the culture, but from what I saw of it I liked it. The people were friendly, the landscape quite harsh and dry in most parts, but it was wicked.
After Bolivia we crossed the border into Salta, Argentina for just a few days, enough time to lie beside the pool at the campground and soak up the sun, and then go white water rafting and zip-lining, both of which were wicked. The rafting wasn´t too tough, it was more of an opportunity to attack each other in the different rafts with water, great fun for a couple of hours. After a wicked Argentinian bbq for lunch - the best steak ever!, it was off to zip-lining where they shove you in a haress, clip you onto a wire and then send you soaring across rivers, between mountains, and over canopies. It was wicked! The longest wire was 500m long and we were hundreds of metres up above the ground, definitely got the adrenaline pumping!
Now we´ve crossed over the border again, out of Argentina for now and into San Pedro, Chile. Got up at 3.45am this morning to see the Tatio geyser which was worth every minute of lost sleep, it was so cool. It was minus 5 degrees, in the Atacama desert, the dryest place in the world and we could´ve been on another planet with all the geysers and thermal vents. It was awesome. We´re off to see the Valley of the Moon in about 10 minutes so I´m going to have to leave you now and run back to camp. But I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I´ll be thinking of you, those at home in Kiwiland and everyelse all over the world, while I´m lying on the beach enjoying my South American christmas. Take care all, be safe over the holidays.
Senorita Ronita xxx
Well, another country checked off the list as such, Bolivia went by far too quickly with only a week and half to try to experience it...although we did manage to fit a heck of a lot in in that short time - as per usual!
La Paz was big and dirty and manic 24 hours a day and it probably wasn´t a favourite. We were staying in the dodgiest place yet with live wires hanging down through the ceiling, the hot water heater sparking above our heads in the shower and open light switches in the bathroom next to the shower with no curtain to stop the splashes! Not to mention the 10 flights of stairs to get up to the room...an experience that´s for sure... But from La Paz we got to go up to Death Road and mountain bike down it at breakneck speed on a gravel road with a sheer cliff on one side, now you can´t have more fun than that really. We started at 4640m above sea level and cycled down 64km and 3364m of gravel road, defying death the whole way and managed to reach the bottom with no loss of skin, teeth or broken bones, and with enough energy to keep hold of a cold beer - well earned I think! Seriously good fun and much recommended if you´re ever in Bolivia!
After that adrenaline pumping ride, we left La Paz on our way to Uyuni where we spent 2 days on the largest salt flat in the world, driving around in 4wd jeeps taking crazy photos of each other standing on other peoples heads and falling out of salt shakers. It was a great couple of days, climbing over Fish Island covered in the largest cacti you´ve ever seen, and then the next day climbing a volcano on the edge of the salt flat to get a fabulous view of miles around. The most exciting part of our adventure was when our fabulous driver spent the whole of the first day falling asleep at the wheel! Now that was something that none of us had learnt to say in spanish yet - wake up! But with continued loud coughing, sneezing, laughing, and even a couple of songs thrown in there for good measure, we made it to safety at the end of the day....good thing that there´s not a lot that can go wrong on a large flat piece of salt right? We did miss one stop that our driver slept through when everyone else pulled off but not to worry, when we caught up with everyone at the end of the day, they said it was kinda boring anyway! We were pretty grateful we didn´t have to send the recordings of our ´final words´ home though...yes we did make them - watching them now is pretty funny actually! So a great couple of days, Sleepy Sam the driver was on his best behaviour the next day, bit of a bummer really coz I was ready to jump into the drivers seat if he feel asleep again! But made it back to Uyuni no probs, and Sleepy Sam only got half a tip!
Sucre was the next stop, the official capital Bolivia. It was a lovely town with fabulous chocolate shops that we all made use of for the day we were there. And then it was on to Potosi, the highest town of its size in the world. We had just a day there also, but it was enough. A few of us had a tour of the Silver mine there, climbing 2kms into the side of a mountain at 4500m with no ventilation and miners working all around you in horrendous conditions, it wasn´t a fabulous time, but it was a very worthwhile experience to see how hard life is for people still. You should have seen my jaw drop as 3 men pushed a trolley past me carrying 2 tonnes of rock, it was incredible. After a couple of hours underground as such, and after inhaling about 2kg of dust and dirt, we emerged into the daylight and got to go blow up some dynamite! That was wicked, it was so loud and the whole ground shook, but it was good fun.
And that was Bolivia really, it was too short to really get into the culture, but from what I saw of it I liked it. The people were friendly, the landscape quite harsh and dry in most parts, but it was wicked.
After Bolivia we crossed the border into Salta, Argentina for just a few days, enough time to lie beside the pool at the campground and soak up the sun, and then go white water rafting and zip-lining, both of which were wicked. The rafting wasn´t too tough, it was more of an opportunity to attack each other in the different rafts with water, great fun for a couple of hours. After a wicked Argentinian bbq for lunch - the best steak ever!, it was off to zip-lining where they shove you in a haress, clip you onto a wire and then send you soaring across rivers, between mountains, and over canopies. It was wicked! The longest wire was 500m long and we were hundreds of metres up above the ground, definitely got the adrenaline pumping!
Now we´ve crossed over the border again, out of Argentina for now and into San Pedro, Chile. Got up at 3.45am this morning to see the Tatio geyser which was worth every minute of lost sleep, it was so cool. It was minus 5 degrees, in the Atacama desert, the dryest place in the world and we could´ve been on another planet with all the geysers and thermal vents. It was awesome. We´re off to see the Valley of the Moon in about 10 minutes so I´m going to have to leave you now and run back to camp. But I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I´ll be thinking of you, those at home in Kiwiland and everyelse all over the world, while I´m lying on the beach enjoying my South American christmas. Take care all, be safe over the holidays.
Senorita Ronita xxx
Spanglish lessons in Peru: Ruins, ruins and more ruins and yet I still don´t know how to say it in Spanish...
Hola amigos,
I don´t know where to start really...Peru has been fabulous, love it. It has certainly been a busy few weeks, travelling from the north of Peru, down the coast, into the desert, the mountains and more and it has been some ride...but I´ll try to go quickly so I don´t bore you all...
Mancora was our first stop and where I last emailed from, it was a sleepy little seaside town where we managed to all get successfully sunburnt enough to remind us for the next week that we´d been at the beach. Then it was down the coast to Huanchaco where we camped for a couple of nights inbetween visiting Chan Chan, the ruins of the largest mud city in the world which they´re trying to restore, and then the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon which were pretty cool to look at, all the painting inside that is still original, just a shame that the guide was so intensely boring it put us all to sleep. A couple of nights around the campfire toasting marshmallows and drinking out of tin cups and we were ready to head back to a hostal so it was off to Huaraz, up in the mountains via some more ruins of course...can´t remember their name but they were really old, around 800BC and crumbled when we walked on them...and yet they still let us...made for an interesting tour quote - ¨its ok, they´re old¨...
Got to Huaraz, and half of our truck seemed to come down with a nasty gastro, a combination of altitude sickness and a bug that was going around meant that there were many unhappy people, thank goodness I wasn´t among them, but it did mean I was on nurse duty for a while... Huaraz is famous in Peru for having the highest peak, Huascaran, ice-climbing and mountain climbing. Didn´t partake in any of that while we were there, but while everyone else was sick in bed I did a trip up to Lake Chinancocha which was beautiful and saw the buried city of Yungay where about 25,000 people were killed when the city was buried in an avalanche in 1970, very sad.
Leaving Huaraz with a truck of recovering sickies we wound our way down out of the mountains and into the desert smog of Lima where we occupied ourselves for a few days by taking in the San Francisco Monastery, the Catacombes - very wrong to have that many bones in one place, and the Museum of the Inquistion where we learned all sorts of torture techniques that the Spanish used when they arrived into South America, lovely...
Heading out of Lima, first stop was Paracas where we had a trip out to the Ballestas Islands and saw lots of the usual...pelicans, penguins and boobies - yes, that would be the bird...plus hundreds of stinky sea lions. Back on shore I had an unexpected reunion with Guy who had started his South America trip that day with another company, but had spotted our big yellow truck on his return from the islands. It was a very quick hello and goodbye as his truck was leaving but as it turned out, the good bye wasn´t for very long. After the Ballestas Islands we took off into the desert where we went dune-buggying and sandboarding for an overnight trip. It was seriously the most fun I´ve had in a long time, it was crazy driving up and down and sideways and vertically and horizontally on these huge sandunes, like a giant rollercoaster that never stopped. That night was a Pisco sour party in the desert and then we all fell asleep in the sand eventually, waking up when the sun came up over the dunes, only a couple of hours later! A great night had by all...
Next stop was Nazca where you could have a flight over the famous Nazca lines - the pre-Inca lines in the desert formed into different shapes. I passed on the flight after talking to a few people who´d already done it, and boy was I glad of my decision when everyone else came back either green, gray or vomiting...those planes were pretty small and it was not the calmest of days...I spent the day instead lying beside the pool at the campground, and that was where Guy and I next ran into each other, when he came back from his flight looking a pretty green shade of gray too! So after talking to the tour leader, it turns out that our trucks are going to be travelling parallel for a lot of the trip around to Rio which probably isn´t quite what either of us were expecting!
After a night at Nazca, we packed up the tents again, and headed to Puerto Inca, the holiday destination for the Incas back in the day, where we had a great sangria party that night camping right on the beach with a big bonfire and pig on a spit, good fun. I was one of the few that braved the water, it was a little chilly but not really by New Zealand standards! Then it was onto Arequipa for a couple of nights, doing exciting things like laundry, but also checking out the beautiful Santa Catalina Convent, and the Museo Santuarios Andinas where Juanita the Ice Princess is kept. She is a mummy who was an Incan sacrifice 500 years ago on top of Ampato Volcano, and was dicovered in 1995 when an avalanche revealed her. She is perfectly preserved and quite amazing to see. After having a dinner of Cuy - guinea pig, no they´re not pets over here they eat them, we saw a movie and then headed out of Arequipa at 2am wrapped up in our sleeping bags on board Moose on our way to the Colca Canyon to try to get there early morning so we could see the Condors flying. It was a long rough night but we survived and we made it in plenty of time to see the magnificent Condors soaring on the thermal currents of the canyon. The surprising thing was the fact that they were selling slingshots at the markets there and the local school kids were actually buying them and using them to try to hit the Condors - horrific. Then it was back along the bumpy road to Chivay for a night where most of us crashed in a big way...
On our way to Cusco the next day we passed over the highest pass of the trip, at 4900m, we were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous but it was cool to be able to see it and experience the freezing cold! But arriving in Cusco was fabulous at the end of the day, coz we knew it was time for the Inca trail, what we´d been building up to for so long. Our first day in Cusco was pretty relaxed, just preparing ourselves for what was to come, and then we headed off to the Scared Valley of the Incas for a day, taking in more ruins at Saqsayhuaman - pronounced Sexy Woman, you can imagine what fun we had with that one... and ruins at Pisac as well as a visit to the Chicheria where we all got to try Chicha the local corn alcohol, and then more ruins at Ollantaytambo where we got a practise run for the inca trail, climbing up and up and up hundreds of steps. We stayed out there overnight and the next morning it was an early rise, all set for Day 1 of the Inca Trail.
Day 1 was fine, a couple of patches where it gave you an introduction of what was to come the next day but mostly just nice scenery to enjoy and you guessed it, some more ruins, Llactapata. We also spent the day getting used to seeing porters running past us with 25kg on their backs, gas bottles, ovens, stacks of chairs, they are incredible. Getting to camp that afternoon meant an excuse for a celebratory beer, before an amazing dinner and then early to bed for a 5.30am wake-up for Day 2. Day 2 was the hardest day, we climbed steadily for hours straight up, eventually reaching Dead Womans Pass at 4200m and what an achievement! Your legs burn, your lungs burn but when you get to the top its all worth it...that is till you go over the other side and then have to climb straight down for 700m to reach camp. There was much cheering from camp everytime someone arrived in which was such a good moral booster after a killer day, and I´m proud to say that I totally outdid my own expectations. The average time to complete day 2 is 7hrs and I got into camp in under 5hrs, so I was pretty stoked - all that running training I did in the Outback certainly paid off! That night was passed with a game of Uno with the guides and us all keeping warm by drinking tea with rum - not something I´d tried before but its definitely recommended! Another amazing dinner and it was into bed to spend the whole night freezing and listening to the thunder roll and the lightning crash outside. We were lucky in our tent that there wasn´t a lot of leakage, but others weren´t so lucky and got a bit wet.
Day 3 started at 5am and was a really nice day with 2 passes but neither as high as Dead Womans, and a few more ruins to look at, made more interesting by the fog and clouds that kept rolling in and surrounding us as we walked. Day 3 was the longest one at 15km, but an enjoyable end when we got to camp and there was cold beer waiting for us! We all flagged the offer of a warm shower for 5 soles in exchange for another beer for 5 soles, figuring that we only had dirty clothes to put back on afterwards so what was the point! It was a very early night however as we were getting up at 3.50am to head to the Sun Gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas. Day 4 dawned clear for us and after a short hours walk we reached the 100 steps leading to the Sun Gate and as we came over the top Machu Picchu was bathed in sunshine, no cloud cover, just perfect. It was an incredible view and one that we treasured as we knew that only 1 in every 10 days are you able to see Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. We took a while to absorb the scene and the feeling and then slowly trundled down the mountain side to the Watchmans Hut where we took the usual photos and got our first up close encounter with the lost city. We wandered the ruins for a couple of hours with our guide and then 7 of us brave ones headed up Wayna Picchu, the mountain towering over the city. We climbed steadily up the mountain with the aid of a rope as the steps are so steep, and got to the top in half an hour - not bad after 4 days of walking! There we stayed perched on the boulders on top for more than an hour just taking in the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Machu Picchu below us, and the butterflies swarming around us. We all agreed that the experience of the Inca trail would not have been the same without climbing to the top and experiencing the true tranquility and peacefulness of the mountain sanctuary.
Climbing back down, we wandered the ruins for a little longer but ended up leaving before our impressions were ruined by the hundreds of hideous loud tourists that were arriving on buses by then. We prefer to remember our Machu Picchu free of other people with clear views of everything rather than getting pushed off the side of the ruins by an over-eager tour guide and his group...
The train ride back to Cusco was torture, 4 very noisy smelly uncomfortable hours where sleep was unavoidable. But it all worked out in the end coz arriving back in Cusco, after fabulous showers, we were all pumped and headed into town to the pub where a small group of us successfully completed the 24hr challenge of staying up from 3.50am Day 4 of the Inca trail to 4am the next day. It was lots of fun, and have now gained ourselves the title of ´hardcore´! The next two days were recovery time, saw the Inca Museum, had a massage and did a bit of shopping but not much else!
Last stop in Peru was Puno, Lake Titicaca where we visited one of the floating reed islands, and stayed with a family on the island of Amantani where we watched the locals play football, climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset and then went to the fiesta that the locals put on for us, dressed by our families in their traditional clothing, very funny to look at, but a great night dancing away to local musicians.
After spending our last night in Peru partying in Puno, it was across the border into Bolivia yesterday. We’re now in La Paz, enjoying the sights, and currently preparing to cycle Death Road tomorrow, should be great!
Sorry its so long again guys, but I’m sure you will have skipped the bits that don’t interest you too much! I hope all is well with everyone, am loving getting your emails, keep it up, its so good to hear everyone’s news.
Love to all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
I don´t know where to start really...Peru has been fabulous, love it. It has certainly been a busy few weeks, travelling from the north of Peru, down the coast, into the desert, the mountains and more and it has been some ride...but I´ll try to go quickly so I don´t bore you all...
Mancora was our first stop and where I last emailed from, it was a sleepy little seaside town where we managed to all get successfully sunburnt enough to remind us for the next week that we´d been at the beach. Then it was down the coast to Huanchaco where we camped for a couple of nights inbetween visiting Chan Chan, the ruins of the largest mud city in the world which they´re trying to restore, and then the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon which were pretty cool to look at, all the painting inside that is still original, just a shame that the guide was so intensely boring it put us all to sleep. A couple of nights around the campfire toasting marshmallows and drinking out of tin cups and we were ready to head back to a hostal so it was off to Huaraz, up in the mountains via some more ruins of course...can´t remember their name but they were really old, around 800BC and crumbled when we walked on them...and yet they still let us...made for an interesting tour quote - ¨its ok, they´re old¨...
Got to Huaraz, and half of our truck seemed to come down with a nasty gastro, a combination of altitude sickness and a bug that was going around meant that there were many unhappy people, thank goodness I wasn´t among them, but it did mean I was on nurse duty for a while... Huaraz is famous in Peru for having the highest peak, Huascaran, ice-climbing and mountain climbing. Didn´t partake in any of that while we were there, but while everyone else was sick in bed I did a trip up to Lake Chinancocha which was beautiful and saw the buried city of Yungay where about 25,000 people were killed when the city was buried in an avalanche in 1970, very sad.
Leaving Huaraz with a truck of recovering sickies we wound our way down out of the mountains and into the desert smog of Lima where we occupied ourselves for a few days by taking in the San Francisco Monastery, the Catacombes - very wrong to have that many bones in one place, and the Museum of the Inquistion where we learned all sorts of torture techniques that the Spanish used when they arrived into South America, lovely...
Heading out of Lima, first stop was Paracas where we had a trip out to the Ballestas Islands and saw lots of the usual...pelicans, penguins and boobies - yes, that would be the bird...plus hundreds of stinky sea lions. Back on shore I had an unexpected reunion with Guy who had started his South America trip that day with another company, but had spotted our big yellow truck on his return from the islands. It was a very quick hello and goodbye as his truck was leaving but as it turned out, the good bye wasn´t for very long. After the Ballestas Islands we took off into the desert where we went dune-buggying and sandboarding for an overnight trip. It was seriously the most fun I´ve had in a long time, it was crazy driving up and down and sideways and vertically and horizontally on these huge sandunes, like a giant rollercoaster that never stopped. That night was a Pisco sour party in the desert and then we all fell asleep in the sand eventually, waking up when the sun came up over the dunes, only a couple of hours later! A great night had by all...
Next stop was Nazca where you could have a flight over the famous Nazca lines - the pre-Inca lines in the desert formed into different shapes. I passed on the flight after talking to a few people who´d already done it, and boy was I glad of my decision when everyone else came back either green, gray or vomiting...those planes were pretty small and it was not the calmest of days...I spent the day instead lying beside the pool at the campground, and that was where Guy and I next ran into each other, when he came back from his flight looking a pretty green shade of gray too! So after talking to the tour leader, it turns out that our trucks are going to be travelling parallel for a lot of the trip around to Rio which probably isn´t quite what either of us were expecting!
After a night at Nazca, we packed up the tents again, and headed to Puerto Inca, the holiday destination for the Incas back in the day, where we had a great sangria party that night camping right on the beach with a big bonfire and pig on a spit, good fun. I was one of the few that braved the water, it was a little chilly but not really by New Zealand standards! Then it was onto Arequipa for a couple of nights, doing exciting things like laundry, but also checking out the beautiful Santa Catalina Convent, and the Museo Santuarios Andinas where Juanita the Ice Princess is kept. She is a mummy who was an Incan sacrifice 500 years ago on top of Ampato Volcano, and was dicovered in 1995 when an avalanche revealed her. She is perfectly preserved and quite amazing to see. After having a dinner of Cuy - guinea pig, no they´re not pets over here they eat them, we saw a movie and then headed out of Arequipa at 2am wrapped up in our sleeping bags on board Moose on our way to the Colca Canyon to try to get there early morning so we could see the Condors flying. It was a long rough night but we survived and we made it in plenty of time to see the magnificent Condors soaring on the thermal currents of the canyon. The surprising thing was the fact that they were selling slingshots at the markets there and the local school kids were actually buying them and using them to try to hit the Condors - horrific. Then it was back along the bumpy road to Chivay for a night where most of us crashed in a big way...
On our way to Cusco the next day we passed over the highest pass of the trip, at 4900m, we were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous but it was cool to be able to see it and experience the freezing cold! But arriving in Cusco was fabulous at the end of the day, coz we knew it was time for the Inca trail, what we´d been building up to for so long. Our first day in Cusco was pretty relaxed, just preparing ourselves for what was to come, and then we headed off to the Scared Valley of the Incas for a day, taking in more ruins at Saqsayhuaman - pronounced Sexy Woman, you can imagine what fun we had with that one... and ruins at Pisac as well as a visit to the Chicheria where we all got to try Chicha the local corn alcohol, and then more ruins at Ollantaytambo where we got a practise run for the inca trail, climbing up and up and up hundreds of steps. We stayed out there overnight and the next morning it was an early rise, all set for Day 1 of the Inca Trail.
Day 1 was fine, a couple of patches where it gave you an introduction of what was to come the next day but mostly just nice scenery to enjoy and you guessed it, some more ruins, Llactapata. We also spent the day getting used to seeing porters running past us with 25kg on their backs, gas bottles, ovens, stacks of chairs, they are incredible. Getting to camp that afternoon meant an excuse for a celebratory beer, before an amazing dinner and then early to bed for a 5.30am wake-up for Day 2. Day 2 was the hardest day, we climbed steadily for hours straight up, eventually reaching Dead Womans Pass at 4200m and what an achievement! Your legs burn, your lungs burn but when you get to the top its all worth it...that is till you go over the other side and then have to climb straight down for 700m to reach camp. There was much cheering from camp everytime someone arrived in which was such a good moral booster after a killer day, and I´m proud to say that I totally outdid my own expectations. The average time to complete day 2 is 7hrs and I got into camp in under 5hrs, so I was pretty stoked - all that running training I did in the Outback certainly paid off! That night was passed with a game of Uno with the guides and us all keeping warm by drinking tea with rum - not something I´d tried before but its definitely recommended! Another amazing dinner and it was into bed to spend the whole night freezing and listening to the thunder roll and the lightning crash outside. We were lucky in our tent that there wasn´t a lot of leakage, but others weren´t so lucky and got a bit wet.
Day 3 started at 5am and was a really nice day with 2 passes but neither as high as Dead Womans, and a few more ruins to look at, made more interesting by the fog and clouds that kept rolling in and surrounding us as we walked. Day 3 was the longest one at 15km, but an enjoyable end when we got to camp and there was cold beer waiting for us! We all flagged the offer of a warm shower for 5 soles in exchange for another beer for 5 soles, figuring that we only had dirty clothes to put back on afterwards so what was the point! It was a very early night however as we were getting up at 3.50am to head to the Sun Gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas. Day 4 dawned clear for us and after a short hours walk we reached the 100 steps leading to the Sun Gate and as we came over the top Machu Picchu was bathed in sunshine, no cloud cover, just perfect. It was an incredible view and one that we treasured as we knew that only 1 in every 10 days are you able to see Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. We took a while to absorb the scene and the feeling and then slowly trundled down the mountain side to the Watchmans Hut where we took the usual photos and got our first up close encounter with the lost city. We wandered the ruins for a couple of hours with our guide and then 7 of us brave ones headed up Wayna Picchu, the mountain towering over the city. We climbed steadily up the mountain with the aid of a rope as the steps are so steep, and got to the top in half an hour - not bad after 4 days of walking! There we stayed perched on the boulders on top for more than an hour just taking in the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Machu Picchu below us, and the butterflies swarming around us. We all agreed that the experience of the Inca trail would not have been the same without climbing to the top and experiencing the true tranquility and peacefulness of the mountain sanctuary.
Climbing back down, we wandered the ruins for a little longer but ended up leaving before our impressions were ruined by the hundreds of hideous loud tourists that were arriving on buses by then. We prefer to remember our Machu Picchu free of other people with clear views of everything rather than getting pushed off the side of the ruins by an over-eager tour guide and his group...
The train ride back to Cusco was torture, 4 very noisy smelly uncomfortable hours where sleep was unavoidable. But it all worked out in the end coz arriving back in Cusco, after fabulous showers, we were all pumped and headed into town to the pub where a small group of us successfully completed the 24hr challenge of staying up from 3.50am Day 4 of the Inca trail to 4am the next day. It was lots of fun, and have now gained ourselves the title of ´hardcore´! The next two days were recovery time, saw the Inca Museum, had a massage and did a bit of shopping but not much else!
Last stop in Peru was Puno, Lake Titicaca where we visited one of the floating reed islands, and stayed with a family on the island of Amantani where we watched the locals play football, climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset and then went to the fiesta that the locals put on for us, dressed by our families in their traditional clothing, very funny to look at, but a great night dancing away to local musicians.
After spending our last night in Peru partying in Puno, it was across the border into Bolivia yesterday. We’re now in La Paz, enjoying the sights, and currently preparing to cycle Death Road tomorrow, should be great!
Sorry its so long again guys, but I’m sure you will have skipped the bits that don’t interest you too much! I hope all is well with everyone, am loving getting your emails, keep it up, its so good to hear everyone’s news.
Love to all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Spanglish lessons in Ecuador: Always learn food and drink items!
Buenos dias!
I hope everyone is well - I am fabulous!
I´ve spent the last couple of weeks in Ecuador and am having a ball. Mary and I arrived in Quito exhausted after an extremely long haul but luckily had no dramas along the way and settled into our hotel for some much needed horizontal time! We had a few days in Quito to see the sights and along the way managed to pick up a couple of our tour members who had also arrived a few days early and they certainly came in handy as they both spoke more Spanish than either Mary or I!
The most distressing thing is being starving and having no idea what the menu says and then just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when the food arrives! But we survived our first meal out quite well, we all got what we thought we´d ordered and remembered to leave the lovely waiter a tip since he´d kindly been trying to practise his English to help us understand it all! We took the next couple of days to see the Old Town, La Virgen de Quito (big statue on a hill), and the New Town. Then we met up with the rest of our Budget Expeditions group....
There are 22 people in our group, 10 aussies, 8 brits, 2 canadians and 3 kiwis, plus our leader Julie, and driver Cam, and the most important member of the ensemble - Moose, our big yellow truck! So we all met up in Quito and then the next day headed up north to Otavalo, stopping on route at the Equator where we got to do all the water and egg tricks to prove we were actually on the equator, and also learnt a bit about Ecuadorian culture e.g. how to shrink a head! Very cool, nothing like how it is in the movie Beetlejuice, actually saw a real one which was even more freaky tho!
So it was on to Otavalo where we were supposed to go to the famous markets and supposed to be camping but got there in the dark because of bad traffic and it was raining really hard too so we ended up missing the markets and invading the local supermarket for beer and snacks instead (yep, learnt how to ask for beer quickly!) and then all wound up in together in a house that was under construction, in the dust, sleeping on the floor, but it was a great bonding experience for all.
After that it was onto Banos where we again got there in the dark after being stuck in two different political road blocks, and arrived to one of the local volcanoes erupting and showering the town in ash! Mixed together with the rain meant the ash was turning to concrete so there was no camping there either as concrete and canvas don´t mix, so we were into a hostal and comfy as anything, watching the ash fall outside. We had a couple of days in Banos where we saw the sights and went canyoning. For those who don´t know, canyoning is where you climb down into a canyon by jumping off waterfalls, and abseiling down the side of them when they´re too high to jump off. It was terrifying for the first jump and the first abseil but after that it was just good fun!
After Banos was Mishuali, where we ventured into the Amazon jungle for a couple of days trekking, was great, very muddy trekking but not too exhuasting, saw lots of very big creepy bugs and spiders, including a tarantula! It was hot and humid and I can´t understand it, but I was the only one actually enjoying the heat and stickyness! We did a bit of inner-tubing down the rapids in the river the next day and all got a bit sunburnt but a great time was had by all - well, we´re still debating whether the ones that tried the ´jungle juice´ still had a good time after they spent the whole night losing their insides one way or the other!
From the jungle it was back to Banos, after a stop on the side of the road due to a large car engine part on the road puncturing one of our tyres(!), for a night to do some much needed laundry and hot showers, and then onto Cuenca where we enjoyed the delights of cruising actual shops rather than markets, drinking ourselves silly on cheap cocktails (yes, learning how to order cocktails quickly too!) and visited a Panama hat factory! Now did anyone know that the Panama hat did not originate from Panama??? It actually originated from Cuenca in Ecuador and when the foreigners came in, they saw people wearing these hats and just assumed that they were from Panama (who knows why) and that´s how they got the name....just a little piece of pub quiz trivia for you...
We headed south again after Cuenca to the border of Ecuador and Peru and made it through eventually after a record quick time of 3 hours! But again, it was all pretty straight forward, as long as you just fill in whatever papers they hand to you - and its ok to guess what they want you to write when you can´t read spanish!
Now we´re in Mancora, camping on the northern coast of Peru, lapping up the sunshine and making the most of the beach, the sand and surf. I´m gradually getting there with my Spanish, I can now say whether I want chicken, fish, or meat (that would be anything that´s red, you never actually know what it is, I like to live dangerously!), and can order multiples of drinks, hooray!
So for now I´m going to sign off, I hope everyone is well, take care all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
I hope everyone is well - I am fabulous!
I´ve spent the last couple of weeks in Ecuador and am having a ball. Mary and I arrived in Quito exhausted after an extremely long haul but luckily had no dramas along the way and settled into our hotel for some much needed horizontal time! We had a few days in Quito to see the sights and along the way managed to pick up a couple of our tour members who had also arrived a few days early and they certainly came in handy as they both spoke more Spanish than either Mary or I!
The most distressing thing is being starving and having no idea what the menu says and then just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when the food arrives! But we survived our first meal out quite well, we all got what we thought we´d ordered and remembered to leave the lovely waiter a tip since he´d kindly been trying to practise his English to help us understand it all! We took the next couple of days to see the Old Town, La Virgen de Quito (big statue on a hill), and the New Town. Then we met up with the rest of our Budget Expeditions group....
There are 22 people in our group, 10 aussies, 8 brits, 2 canadians and 3 kiwis, plus our leader Julie, and driver Cam, and the most important member of the ensemble - Moose, our big yellow truck! So we all met up in Quito and then the next day headed up north to Otavalo, stopping on route at the Equator where we got to do all the water and egg tricks to prove we were actually on the equator, and also learnt a bit about Ecuadorian culture e.g. how to shrink a head! Very cool, nothing like how it is in the movie Beetlejuice, actually saw a real one which was even more freaky tho!
So it was on to Otavalo where we were supposed to go to the famous markets and supposed to be camping but got there in the dark because of bad traffic and it was raining really hard too so we ended up missing the markets and invading the local supermarket for beer and snacks instead (yep, learnt how to ask for beer quickly!) and then all wound up in together in a house that was under construction, in the dust, sleeping on the floor, but it was a great bonding experience for all.
After that it was onto Banos where we again got there in the dark after being stuck in two different political road blocks, and arrived to one of the local volcanoes erupting and showering the town in ash! Mixed together with the rain meant the ash was turning to concrete so there was no camping there either as concrete and canvas don´t mix, so we were into a hostal and comfy as anything, watching the ash fall outside. We had a couple of days in Banos where we saw the sights and went canyoning. For those who don´t know, canyoning is where you climb down into a canyon by jumping off waterfalls, and abseiling down the side of them when they´re too high to jump off. It was terrifying for the first jump and the first abseil but after that it was just good fun!
After Banos was Mishuali, where we ventured into the Amazon jungle for a couple of days trekking, was great, very muddy trekking but not too exhuasting, saw lots of very big creepy bugs and spiders, including a tarantula! It was hot and humid and I can´t understand it, but I was the only one actually enjoying the heat and stickyness! We did a bit of inner-tubing down the rapids in the river the next day and all got a bit sunburnt but a great time was had by all - well, we´re still debating whether the ones that tried the ´jungle juice´ still had a good time after they spent the whole night losing their insides one way or the other!
From the jungle it was back to Banos, after a stop on the side of the road due to a large car engine part on the road puncturing one of our tyres(!), for a night to do some much needed laundry and hot showers, and then onto Cuenca where we enjoyed the delights of cruising actual shops rather than markets, drinking ourselves silly on cheap cocktails (yes, learning how to order cocktails quickly too!) and visited a Panama hat factory! Now did anyone know that the Panama hat did not originate from Panama??? It actually originated from Cuenca in Ecuador and when the foreigners came in, they saw people wearing these hats and just assumed that they were from Panama (who knows why) and that´s how they got the name....just a little piece of pub quiz trivia for you...
We headed south again after Cuenca to the border of Ecuador and Peru and made it through eventually after a record quick time of 3 hours! But again, it was all pretty straight forward, as long as you just fill in whatever papers they hand to you - and its ok to guess what they want you to write when you can´t read spanish!
Now we´re in Mancora, camping on the northern coast of Peru, lapping up the sunshine and making the most of the beach, the sand and surf. I´m gradually getting there with my Spanish, I can now say whether I want chicken, fish, or meat (that would be anything that´s red, you never actually know what it is, I like to live dangerously!), and can order multiples of drinks, hooray!
So for now I´m going to sign off, I hope everyone is well, take care all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
Lessons from the Outback: #7 Outback girls don't cry...
Hello!
It been a busy few weeks since the last lesson, in fact, I have barely had time to breathe! In between working my butt off trying to earn lots of money to spend, a group of us nurses managed a fabulous trip up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque for a few days which was bliss.
Rosanne, Sarah, Emma, Naomi and I all scored days off together after much begging, pleading, and bribing, and headed off to Broome for a night of glitz and glamour, well, cocktails and a fancy dinner! We wined and dined at the Mangrove Resort in Broome while we watched the last Staircase to the Moon for the year (unfortunately it was a bit of a fizzer really), and lived it up as we were all suffering from a bit of Derby-itis. Early the next morning we were picked up by Rodger, our guide/driver/cook/general slave, and got loaded into the back of the old Land Cruiser, balanced precariously on the bench seats lining the sides. Once we were all buckled in, it was north up the Dampier Peninsula with our first stop being Beagle Bay. Beagle Bay is an Aboriginal community made famous because of the settlement of French Pallotine monks there back in 1890, and it was the monks that made the beautiful work of art that people come for hundreds of miles to see - the church, and more importantly, the altar inside which is decorated from top to toe in pearl shell. It really is quite a sight to behold and a magical experience for me, seeing something I read about years ago and have been dying to see since.
After Beagle Bay we headed straight for Cape Leveque and the beach! Yes, the afternoon was spent relaxing on the pure white tropical sand, sunbathing, swimming, croc spotting, and a fun game of spear and throw the jellyfish which I avoided as much as possible. We visited Hunters Creek but the crocs didn't want to come out and play (something i was personally quite pleased about!), and then it was back to Kooljamon at Cape Leveque where we set up camp for the night. We managed to climb over and around and under the rocks from the Cape round to West Beach to watch the sunset which threw the most amazing colours onto the red rocks there. Almost all of us made it through intact, only Sarah and Emma both managed to fall over, only Sarah did the most damage really. Being cocktail hours we were all carrying our beers with us and Sarah was carrying hers in her back pocket as we climbed. It was almost a very sorry state of affairs when she fell and landed straight on her butt and therefore the beer bottle, but somehow the bottle didn't break, she just scratched the label and got a hole in her shorts! A miracle beer bottle, and an excellent advertisement for Pure Blonde Beer - try it, you'll love it! The rest of the sunset came and went with no major incidents, was another west coast stunner.
After a very comfortable night sleeping in our tents with all the sides open and breathing in the fresh sea air, we were up early and down to the beach swimming before breakfast, then it was off to see Eric, our Aboriginal guide who took us around Swan Point where we saw turtles, mullet, dancing fish and a lot of sharks. We went fishing - very unsuccessfully, and got all our lines snagged on the rocks, so Eric and his grandson had to jump in and try to unsnag them for us, which they did! It wasn't soon after though that we had to abandon and make a run for it as we were getting caught in the tide, and I ain't swimming back to shore when there's crocs and sharks around thanks!
After another swim, it was morning tea time - fresh damper and billy tea plus two fish Eric caught (us girls were all a bit useless), and some fresh shell fish, yum, yum, yum. I have to say, I think I could get used to the whole bush tucker thing! And then back to Cape Leveque for lunch, another swim and off to Lombadina further back down the Peninsula. Lombadina was fabulous, a beautifully looked after Aboriginal community, loved the art centre there, and the beach was another hit with us. After hanging out there for a while it was back in the truck, onto the bench seats and on our way back to Broome where we went into recovery mode for the evening! It was such a great couple of days, we came back exhausted but feeling like we'd been gone for a week!
The next morning, the girls all had to head back to Derby for work in the afternoon but I wasn't starting til the day after so bought myself a bus ticket for that night and stayed on in Broome for the day - shopping! It was a long morning trawling through the pearl shops, but eventually found the one that was to be mine, and what a beauty it is! A stunning Australian South Sea gold pearl from the gold-lipped oyster, it was made for me. After only a slight hesitation it really was mine, and what do you do when you've just bought a gorgeous pearl and are carrying it around in your bag??? You head straight to the beach for some necessary sun time! The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging on Cable beach, taking in my last Cable beach sunset over a lovely cold Pure Blonde, and then a cocktail at the Sunset Bar before jumping on the bus back to Derby, ahh, a perfect day.
My surprise when I got back to Derby was that I had a visitor! Practically the whole town was out looking for me coz my friend Matty from Hedland was up in Derby but had arrived while i was away, and had visited I think every hospital employee looking for me - which of course in a small town means that everyone was now looking for me! So i arrived off the bus back in the nurses quarters to a very agitated bunch, waiting for me to arrive, and then it was off to find the said radiographer in Derby somewhere at 11pm. Proved pretty easy to find and there followed a long night of catching up and gossiping!
My last week in Derby was a rush of 7 shifts at work and much socialising and not much organising of leaving - a recipe for disaster some might say. Naomi and I were both finishing at the same time, so the night before we were due to hope on the bus we had a great night out with half the town showing up! It started with drinks and nibbles at the jetty to take in our last Derby sunset which was beautiful and then it was down to our local watering hole, the Spini, for dinner and drinking and dancing, and more drinking, and more dancing. There was a live band playing, and after they finished, Damian (one of our nurses) got up and did a few numbers for us which was a great send off. Steve, the owner of the Spini kept it open late for us and we eventually closed it down at about 1am by which time we were all dying of heat exhaustion and the only cure was going to be a swim in the hospital pool! So in we piled there, and what a fabulous way to cool down. We made it home just before 3am, did a very hasty throw-everything-in-together pack and was up again at 5 to get on the bus. Now that was painful. The bus was chocka-block and behind Nomes and I were 4 screaming, smelly, dirty, revolting kids that just wouldn't keep to themselves, and that's never enjoyable at anytime, but its sooo much worse after only 2 hours sleep and with an overhang! But we hung in there, got to Broome, grabbed a coffee, and things started to look brighter after that.
Matt arrived in Broome at lunchtime (yes, radiographers get flown, nurses get bussed), and we flew down to Perth together and Emma picked me up and we had an excellent night of catching up over cocktails! Saturday morning was a very exciting occasion - a haircut! Such a luxury that you're not aware of til you can't get one! And then it was back on the plane, across to Sydney and a reunion with mum - every girl nomad needs a courier! Mum and I have now had a few days in Sydney to do last minute shopping, organising, sorting, stressing - just the usual, but we did manage a great trip to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the stageshow and it was worth every one of mum's pennies to see it - thanks mum!
So now we're at the end, Red Ron of the Outback will be no longer and I have to say, its quite an emotional experience saying goodbye and closing that chapter. I have had an amazing experience so far this year, I have met fabulous people, I have seen (and done) crazy things, and I have grown in so many ways. It has been overwhelming at times, lonely too, but it has also been some of the best times of my life so far and I don't regret a second of it. It has been sad saying goodbye, or see you later, to so many new friends,but now I farewell Outback Ron, I also get to look forward to the next adventure that starts tomorrow. Tomorrow I fly out of Sydney and across to South America where I'll be for the next few months. I get to meet up with Mary, and together we travel through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, wow. And I thought the Outback was an adventure...I wonder what on earth is to come???
So here's Red Ron of the Outback signing off,
Love to all and talk to you soon!
It been a busy few weeks since the last lesson, in fact, I have barely had time to breathe! In between working my butt off trying to earn lots of money to spend, a group of us nurses managed a fabulous trip up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque for a few days which was bliss.
Rosanne, Sarah, Emma, Naomi and I all scored days off together after much begging, pleading, and bribing, and headed off to Broome for a night of glitz and glamour, well, cocktails and a fancy dinner! We wined and dined at the Mangrove Resort in Broome while we watched the last Staircase to the Moon for the year (unfortunately it was a bit of a fizzer really), and lived it up as we were all suffering from a bit of Derby-itis. Early the next morning we were picked up by Rodger, our guide/driver/cook/general slave, and got loaded into the back of the old Land Cruiser, balanced precariously on the bench seats lining the sides. Once we were all buckled in, it was north up the Dampier Peninsula with our first stop being Beagle Bay. Beagle Bay is an Aboriginal community made famous because of the settlement of French Pallotine monks there back in 1890, and it was the monks that made the beautiful work of art that people come for hundreds of miles to see - the church, and more importantly, the altar inside which is decorated from top to toe in pearl shell. It really is quite a sight to behold and a magical experience for me, seeing something I read about years ago and have been dying to see since.
After Beagle Bay we headed straight for Cape Leveque and the beach! Yes, the afternoon was spent relaxing on the pure white tropical sand, sunbathing, swimming, croc spotting, and a fun game of spear and throw the jellyfish which I avoided as much as possible. We visited Hunters Creek but the crocs didn't want to come out and play (something i was personally quite pleased about!), and then it was back to Kooljamon at Cape Leveque where we set up camp for the night. We managed to climb over and around and under the rocks from the Cape round to West Beach to watch the sunset which threw the most amazing colours onto the red rocks there. Almost all of us made it through intact, only Sarah and Emma both managed to fall over, only Sarah did the most damage really. Being cocktail hours we were all carrying our beers with us and Sarah was carrying hers in her back pocket as we climbed. It was almost a very sorry state of affairs when she fell and landed straight on her butt and therefore the beer bottle, but somehow the bottle didn't break, she just scratched the label and got a hole in her shorts! A miracle beer bottle, and an excellent advertisement for Pure Blonde Beer - try it, you'll love it! The rest of the sunset came and went with no major incidents, was another west coast stunner.
After a very comfortable night sleeping in our tents with all the sides open and breathing in the fresh sea air, we were up early and down to the beach swimming before breakfast, then it was off to see Eric, our Aboriginal guide who took us around Swan Point where we saw turtles, mullet, dancing fish and a lot of sharks. We went fishing - very unsuccessfully, and got all our lines snagged on the rocks, so Eric and his grandson had to jump in and try to unsnag them for us, which they did! It wasn't soon after though that we had to abandon and make a run for it as we were getting caught in the tide, and I ain't swimming back to shore when there's crocs and sharks around thanks!
After another swim, it was morning tea time - fresh damper and billy tea plus two fish Eric caught (us girls were all a bit useless), and some fresh shell fish, yum, yum, yum. I have to say, I think I could get used to the whole bush tucker thing! And then back to Cape Leveque for lunch, another swim and off to Lombadina further back down the Peninsula. Lombadina was fabulous, a beautifully looked after Aboriginal community, loved the art centre there, and the beach was another hit with us. After hanging out there for a while it was back in the truck, onto the bench seats and on our way back to Broome where we went into recovery mode for the evening! It was such a great couple of days, we came back exhausted but feeling like we'd been gone for a week!
The next morning, the girls all had to head back to Derby for work in the afternoon but I wasn't starting til the day after so bought myself a bus ticket for that night and stayed on in Broome for the day - shopping! It was a long morning trawling through the pearl shops, but eventually found the one that was to be mine, and what a beauty it is! A stunning Australian South Sea gold pearl from the gold-lipped oyster, it was made for me. After only a slight hesitation it really was mine, and what do you do when you've just bought a gorgeous pearl and are carrying it around in your bag??? You head straight to the beach for some necessary sun time! The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging on Cable beach, taking in my last Cable beach sunset over a lovely cold Pure Blonde, and then a cocktail at the Sunset Bar before jumping on the bus back to Derby, ahh, a perfect day.
My surprise when I got back to Derby was that I had a visitor! Practically the whole town was out looking for me coz my friend Matty from Hedland was up in Derby but had arrived while i was away, and had visited I think every hospital employee looking for me - which of course in a small town means that everyone was now looking for me! So i arrived off the bus back in the nurses quarters to a very agitated bunch, waiting for me to arrive, and then it was off to find the said radiographer in Derby somewhere at 11pm. Proved pretty easy to find and there followed a long night of catching up and gossiping!
My last week in Derby was a rush of 7 shifts at work and much socialising and not much organising of leaving - a recipe for disaster some might say. Naomi and I were both finishing at the same time, so the night before we were due to hope on the bus we had a great night out with half the town showing up! It started with drinks and nibbles at the jetty to take in our last Derby sunset which was beautiful and then it was down to our local watering hole, the Spini, for dinner and drinking and dancing, and more drinking, and more dancing. There was a live band playing, and after they finished, Damian (one of our nurses) got up and did a few numbers for us which was a great send off. Steve, the owner of the Spini kept it open late for us and we eventually closed it down at about 1am by which time we were all dying of heat exhaustion and the only cure was going to be a swim in the hospital pool! So in we piled there, and what a fabulous way to cool down. We made it home just before 3am, did a very hasty throw-everything-in-together pack and was up again at 5 to get on the bus. Now that was painful. The bus was chocka-block and behind Nomes and I were 4 screaming, smelly, dirty, revolting kids that just wouldn't keep to themselves, and that's never enjoyable at anytime, but its sooo much worse after only 2 hours sleep and with an overhang! But we hung in there, got to Broome, grabbed a coffee, and things started to look brighter after that.
Matt arrived in Broome at lunchtime (yes, radiographers get flown, nurses get bussed), and we flew down to Perth together and Emma picked me up and we had an excellent night of catching up over cocktails! Saturday morning was a very exciting occasion - a haircut! Such a luxury that you're not aware of til you can't get one! And then it was back on the plane, across to Sydney and a reunion with mum - every girl nomad needs a courier! Mum and I have now had a few days in Sydney to do last minute shopping, organising, sorting, stressing - just the usual, but we did manage a great trip to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the stageshow and it was worth every one of mum's pennies to see it - thanks mum!
So now we're at the end, Red Ron of the Outback will be no longer and I have to say, its quite an emotional experience saying goodbye and closing that chapter. I have had an amazing experience so far this year, I have met fabulous people, I have seen (and done) crazy things, and I have grown in so many ways. It has been overwhelming at times, lonely too, but it has also been some of the best times of my life so far and I don't regret a second of it. It has been sad saying goodbye, or see you later, to so many new friends,but now I farewell Outback Ron, I also get to look forward to the next adventure that starts tomorrow. Tomorrow I fly out of Sydney and across to South America where I'll be for the next few months. I get to meet up with Mary, and together we travel through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, wow. And I thought the Outback was an adventure...I wonder what on earth is to come???
So here's Red Ron of the Outback signing off,
Love to all and talk to you soon!
Lessons from the Outback: #6 Always take an shade umbrella when at risk of being stranded on an airstrip...
Hey guys,
This year is just going so fast, I've been back in Derby for 6 weeks and only have 3 more left before the next adventure! Now in this edition of the 'Red Ron Chronicles', I'm going to have to do a little backtracking and catching up again, so bear with me, it might get a little confusing...
In the last email I neglected to include my trip through the Kimberley on my return from Asia, before starting back at work, so let me backtrack...
After my asia adventure, I returned to Perth to the wonderful hospitality of lovely Emma (thanks for the room babe!), and to meet up with Mum and Peter who, bless them, missed me so much they had to visit...well that, and the fact that they wanted to see one of the most fascinating and spectacular regions of Australia for themselves.
It was a very happy reunion at the airport with mum handing out the best compliment I've ever received - that I, of all people, looked 'so tanned'! Hooray! I guess that's what happens when you spend the best part of a year in solid sunshine... We had a couple of days in Perth to see the sights and recover from jetlag, before flying up to Broome, back to the warm weather, sunshine, tropical breeze and red dust! The four days we had in Broome were filled up easily with experiencing everything on offer - trawling through many many pearl shops, relaxing on Cable Beach, seeing Gantheaume Point, taking in a sunset camel ride (very amusing), a movie at Sun Pictures - the oldest Outdoor cinema in the southern hemisphere, Staircase to the Moon and the flying boat wrecks in Roebuck Bay (only able to be seen a few times a year)...whew, I feel exhausted after just writing all of them! And of course there were the markets, galleries, and many cafe breakfasts, I could've stayed forever...
But there was more fun and adventure to be had when after our few days in Broome we picked up our...Campervan! Yes, we braved the campervan experience through the Kimberley, infact, after resolving the few teething issues brought on by three of us in a very small confined space, we embraced the idea of taking your home with you, and the many experiences of 'old farts in caravan parks' and we came out the other side willing to do it all again one day! Maybe with a bigger one next time though...
So after Broome, it was through to Derby, a welcome home as such for me and a chance for Mum and Peter to see where I'd been living and 'the local' that we frequented, it was a bit of an eye-opener I think... I relished the opportunity to be tour guide, and took the drivers seat in ol' Britzy (our van) and whisked around the few sites that Derby has offer, including taking in a beautiful sunset on the Jetty (complete with wine and nibbles - added bonus of having Britzy) and a dinner at Derby's one and only decent restaurant, overlooking the jetty and the King Sound. We also managed to get a flight over the Buccaneer Archepelago and the Horizontal Waterfalls (literally what the name says, a waterfall flowing between two sets of rocks which is horizontal rather than vertical) which was stunning.
After a 'see you soon' to Derby, we let Britzy loose on the Great Northern Highway all the way to Fitzroy Crossing where we enjoyed a cruise up Geikie Gorge, checking out the 'freshies', hoping not to run into a 'salty', and then set up camp along side quite a few 'old farts in caravan parks', but it was an enjoyable night listening to the bats squealing, the dingos howling and the owls hooting...
Yiyili Community was the next stop after Fitzroy before hitting Halls Creek. They have a beautiful art centre there with lots of fabulous artists and both mum and I were tempted quite easily really into buying a painting each. The community is set up really well where all the parents are encouraged to come to the art centre everyday and because the parents come, they bring their kids who are quickly whisked away next door to the school! A win-win situation for everyone. Halls Creek we passed through pretty quickly on the way north and it was onto Warmun (or Turkey Creek) where we stayed at the roadhouse which was an adventure on its own! This roadhouse ended up being the home to numerous heavy rigs, cars, campervans, tents, you name it, it was all piled in together. It was a pretty grotty place really but I like to think it added to the character of it all...
From Warmun it was up to Wyndham to have a look at the Five Rivers lookout where, you guessed it, five rivers meet. It was quite a view to take in, and then after a aquick squiz around the rest of Wyndham (took about 5 mins) it was on to Kununurra where there was much ogling at beautiful Argyle pink diamonds (a girl can dream!), more galleries and food trails to follow, a sunset cruise up the Ord River to the diversion dam (necessary to keep Kununurra as lush and fertile as it
is!) and a fantastic flight over Purnululu National Park which is more commonly referred to as the Bungle Bungles. The Bungle Bungles are beehive-like rock formations coloured in black and orange stripes by algae on their surface, which are unique to the Kimberley and spectacular to look at from the air. We ended up staying and relaxing in Kununurra for aobut 3 days before heading back south down the Great Northern. We checked out the Old China Wall in Halls Creek which is a strip of naturally occurring old marble in the middle of red rock which, funny enough, looks just like the Great Wall of China. We trucked on through to Fitzroy for the night and back to Derby the next day where it was my turn to move out of Britzy and take up my place in the Nurses Quarters again. The next morning it was a sad farewell (only a few tears this time) to mum and Peter as they headed back to Broome and then onto the rest of their holiday down south, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of once again being on my own in the the middle of nowhere...I find it fascinating how once you're used to being on your own, it takes a while to get used to having people who are close to you around again, and yet it only takes them being there for a short while til you're back to normal and then it leaves a bit of a hole where they were when they go...
But never fear, I didn't have time to dwell too much, I was busy getting thrown back into Derby life, getting acquainted with my new housemates, catching up with old friends, and finding out who was sitll in town and who had moved on already...and now I think we're caught up to where I left off last time! So onwards and upwards...
My time so far in Derbytown has been reasonably uneventful, lots of working, working, working, trying hard to save my money for my next adventure. There have been a few animal adventures, like seeing my first live snake and plenty more dead ones, getting to know Blue-tongue lizards personally (they live under our house, look like snakes but with legs), battling with swooping bats every night on the way to work, and having many close and personal encounters with frogs of all shapes and sizes in the toilet, the shower, the sink and even the fridge (that one wasn't moving much though...)! There have been a few great nights out at the pub, including the Kimberley region Country and Western Music Festival - yes very popular up here in the Outback! There was a great marsh party the other week (yes a party on the Marsh that surrounds Derby, otherwise known as the tidal mudflats that never get wet...) where the bonfire could be seen clearly from the quarters and infact, almost every road in Derby that had a view of the marsh. Unfortunately I was on night shift so had to leave reasonably early on in the piece, incredibly early it ended up in fact, because when I was getting home from work at 7.30am, they were all only just coming in off the marsh!
I've also been housesitting for 3 weeks for my friend Di here, she's got a little hospital one-bedroom unit and puppy dog that needed looking after while she was on holiday and I was the lucky recipient!
I also got to babysit her very spunky red scooter which was a lot of fun to zip around town on, and as I found out, highly conspicuous!
Everyone was able to track my moves around town as there's only one red scooter around and you can't miss it, especially as it sounds like a ride-on lawn-mower! Lots of fun though, cruising down the highway at its top speed of 66km/hr, being overtaken by roadtrains!
I had to opportunity last week after talking to one of the Royal Flying Doctors Service nurses to go out with them to a clinic. We went to a community called Tablelands which is home to between 20 and 60 people at any one time. Its in the middle of nowhere, extremely isolated and experiences pretty harsh conditions, so I automatically thought - adventure! And it was... We left Derby base at 7am and flew towards Tablelands, circling over the community about 8.30 to let them know we were arriving and to send someone to pick us up. We landed on the 'airstrip' which is more like a dirt track with halved oil drums lining each side that can have fires lit in them to act as torches when landing at night. It was a pretty sharp and short landing, and a we bit bumpy as you'd imagine but all part of the adventure I thought...well, it was only just beginning... After parking up on the side of the airstrip and unloading all the clinic gear, we stood and waited for the sound of a vehicle on its way...it was a sound that never seemed to arrive. After sitting under the wing of the plane - the only shade available, for a good hour and a half, we eventually decided that perhaps they hadn't heard the plane overhead and didn't know we were there. Unfortunately there was no reception to be able to ring the community nor was the plane able to make radio contact with anyone while grounded, so the decision was made to send the plane up again, to circle the community once more and to try to make radio contact with the community somehow... The plane took off, showering us in a whirlwind of dust and dirt and we were left in the open blazing heat of the desert, on the airstrip with no shade and means of moving anywhere...we were stranded. After another 20 minutes, the plane landed again and informed us that after circling the community, he saw only one vehicle and it was up on blocks with the bonnet open, didn't look promising, but he had managed to make radio contact with Brisbane of all places and Brisbane were going to ring the community until they got hold of someone to come and pick us up. We had a laugh about it, and then quickly moved back in under the wing of the plane for some shelter. Only another half hour after that did a vehicle come rumbling down the track to get us, hooray! Until we saw it...it was the shell of an old toyota van, with not many windows left, a boot that didn't close properly and nothing at all on the front dash - not even a normal ignition, it was started with a screwdriver! We loaded up the van with our trailerload of things, crossed our fingers that we'd arrive in one piece and piled in on top of one another, onto the floor - no, no seats either, and just clung on as we rattled back down the track, bumping and swerving, with dust pouring in on us...
When we arrived at the community, everyone seemed to be sitting waiting for us, word travels quickly I guess. We set up a table on the veranda of a house (that was as good a clinic as we could get) and proceeded to check blood pressures, blood sugars, fill up medicine boxes, give injections, and weigh babies until at last we'd seen everyone. We'd worked hard and were tired so packed everything up and began the search to find someone to take us back to the airstrip...alas, everyone after being seen by us took off mustering
and there was no one left - we were stranded again! We went house to
house, calling out for anyone, we tooted the horn of the stripped out van, and then we sat, and we waited... Eventually someone emerged from one of the houses most upset that we'd disturbed her afternoon nap, but reluctantly agreed to take us back to the airstrip in the beat-up van. So in we went again, piled on top of gear, and other people, and covered in dust. Arriving back at the plane was a relief with the promise of air-conditioning once we finally got in the air, until we saw a grader coming down the strip - now where would you ever see one of them in the Outback??? Who knows how it got out there, but it meant that it was all hands on deck to pack her up and get outta there quick before the dust got even worse. We eventually got everything in and ourselves and it turned out to be a reasonably uneventful trip back to Derby after the unpredictable day we'd had until then! It definitely an adventure...
Since then its been another week of hideous night shifts with nothing much happening except watching the weather. Now this may seem ridiculous, but in these parts its not. See the few weeks have been getting noticeably hotter and more humid with the buildup to the wet season. And the wet season would usually not start till around late October/November. But the last couple of days have been incredibly windy with a lot of cloud building up which is something that is quite unusual. Now in the beginning we didn't really realise it was cloud on the horizon becuase there have been so many bushfires recently that the sky is almost always coloured purple and smoky somewhere (very cool to watch in itself) but then tonight as I was walking back from the jetty, I just about fell over as I saw a huge black raincloud come towards me. Within 5 mins it was spitting, and within 10 mins it was raining properly, and it was magical.
You would think that growning up in NZ, I would have seen enough rain for a lifetime, but there's something so intriguing about rain in a place that never gets any, and it was exciting! Everyone was out on the streets, standing looking up at it, dancing in it, taking everyone by surprise. What an experience! It may sound ridiculous but its something pretty amazing that'll bring a whole town outdoors at the same time. Within an hour though, it was all over and the cloud had passed, but it gave just a little hint of things to come. The locals have been hoping for a decent wet season for a few years, and the Aboriginal elders have predicted that this years wet season will come early, so it looks like maybe everyone will be happy. That shower was nice, but I hope the real wet season holds off a few more weeks so I can get all the sunshine possible out of the Kimberley!
So if you've made it to the end of this marathon read, you deserve a prize, and that prize will be that the next one will be shorter I'm sure! Hope everyone is well, keep up the emails, I love getting everyone's news.
Take care,
Red Ron
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Kimberley photos
Windjana Gorge
Stunning Kimberley boab
Getting up close and personal with the crocs at Windjana
Derby sunset at the Jetty
Me, Tash & Pauline at the Boab Ball
My mudcrab! Look at the size of that beauty!
Monday, September 11, 2006
Southeast Asia: by plane, train and automobile...
Ok everyone stop panicking! I realise that perhaps I have been offline for a little longer than usual (what's two months...?) and for that I apologise - but its all ok, I am still alive, very much alive, and having a ball...sorry for worrying you all, I have received the emails and have taken note, and will not be silent for so long next time... :)
So...what have I been up to...I really don't know where to start...I shall try to collect my thoughts and abbreviate them so you don't all have to read another 'novel'...
I left Australia two months ago for Southeast Asia, and what an experience it was. It was overwhelming, inspiring, mind-blowing, depressing, dirty, beautiful, smelly, serene, infact I really think I experienced every possible emotion during the time I was there, and I'm still struggling to find the right words to describe it...but I'll give it a go, bear with me...
Flying into Bangkok was an assalt on the senses in every sense, I went into immediate shellshock, due to the insaneness, the chaos, and the sheer number of people around...it probably wouldn't have been so bad if i'd arrived after living in a normal city, however coming from a town with a population of less than 5000, to a city of millions, i'm sure anyone would've had to take a moment... I spent my first day just wandering, trying to take it all in without feeling too overwhelmed, but I did experience a great wash of relief when Bernie finally arrived on her flight from Melbourne that night - and what a happy reunion it was! There was much excited chattering and gossiping until the wee hours of the morning when after lovely hot showers (our last for many weeks) we finally crashed into our most comfortable hotel beds (also our last for many weeks)... After checking out of our hotel we headed across town to find the first of many grotty backpackers for our final night in Bangkok and then we were off to explore what we could in the time we had...we also organised our ticket out of there. The next morning, bright and early at 7am we boarded a bus that was going to take us to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and settled in for what we thought was going to be a 10-hour bus trip through to Siem Reap in Cambodia...well, weren't we ever wrong about that?!? The ride to the Thai border was quite managable but at the border was where the fun started. We were to get used to the various forms of transport across borders - cattle trucks, motorbikes, and walking and this particular border was a combination of the cattle truck and walking...and standing...for a very long long time...while 10 people all examine your passport, first on the Thai side then on the Cambodian side of the border...all in 40 degree heat, fun...but the fun doesn't stop there...then we bordered our 'air-conditioned bus' that was going to take us the other 150km to Siem Reap...shame that it was actually a 12-seater van with broken windows packed full of 20 backpackers with all our packs inside as well, with us lucky ones sitting in the aisle, for the next 9 hours! Yes, it took 9 hours to drive 150km...we were thrown from one side of the 'bus' to the other, up and down, we all ended up with head injuries and covered in orange dust - good thing i was already used to that part! So our 10-hour bus trip turned into a mammoth 15-hour nightmare trip, but we survived and ended up bonding with ALL our fellow travellers - as you do when you're all sitting on top of each other (!) but especially with 2 Danish sisters who we ended up travelling with through a lot of our trip...what an introduction to Cambodia eh???
So there we were in Siem Reap for a few days, the home of the great Angkor Wat (one of the Wonders of the World). We spent a day recovering, and then a fabulous day cycling around the Angkor ruins. The Angkor Wat itself was amazing, huge, but totally overrun with hideous tourists which kinda took away from the whole experience, but the smaller temples and ruins were just spectacular. We found a little village kid at one of the ruins hiding in the long grass and he ended up taking us around the ruins, pointing out interesting things, telling us all about the history - and kept ducking and hiding in the grass whenever a policeman went past - he apparently wasn't a registered tour guide at the grand age of 8 and therefore wasn't allowed to be showing us anything! It was a great day, Bernie and I even had our 'Lara Croft' moment in Ta Prohm - the temple where the film Tomb Raider was made. The rest of our time in Siem Reap was taken up with visiting the Landmine Musuem - horrific but inspiring that someone is actually trying to make a difference, and just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Cambodia. The number of amputees from landmines that are begging on the streets is heartbreaking, and the drugged babies that are carried around by their 4 or 5 year old sibling, begging for money for the supposed 'sick' baby was so shocking, but at the same time, there were children that were so delightful and still grinning even after you turned them down for the 20th time saying that you really weren't going to buy anything off them!
Onto Phnom Penh where we stayed in probably the worst guest house of the trip - a squat toilet with not even a bucket to flush(!), holes in the walls, gaps between the walls and the doorways, no windows, you name it, it was that bad...but it was also only 50cents a night! In the few days in Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, and the S21 prison/concentration camp/museum - mindblowing. It was an incredibly depressing experience, very moving, and upsetting, and shocking. We came out of a daze at the end of our time in Phnom Penh with an almost hatred for human beings, it amazes me that we still continue to massacre each other for pathetic reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the most grotesque ways, and still end up exactly where we started from each time...so on that note we decided we had to get out of Cambodia, everything in Cambodia is centred around the war, the genocide, and the ongoing problems with landmines, and it was quite an experience to be there, but it all got too much and when we realised that we hadn't laughed or smiled all day it was time to move on...so we headed to Vietnam.
Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was another loooong bus journey, another long hot walk across another border, through no man's land, and into Vietnam - after having to fork out even more money to the Vietnamese officials just coz they asked for it...not very nice...and then into another van with 20 people for 12 seats for another long ride to HCMC with - a singing guide(!) - talk about torture! It was pretty obvious right from the border of Vietnam that it was a much richer country than Cambodia, there is still poverty but no where near the same extent of what we'd already seen. It wasn't a bad city but one night was enough for us and we decided to head to the coast for some serious beach time. But before we left we got an email from our friend Neil who was supposed to be joining us to say he'd lost all his money and cards one night and had to head back to Australia early - silly boy! So we weren't going to see Neil which was a shame but unfortunately, them's the breaks! So onto Mui Ne!
Mui Ne is a quiet little fishing village on the coast famous for making fish sauce - and yes you can smell the village a long time before you actually get there! But it was nice for a few days, just to chill out, enjoy the fresh ocean air and explore the Red and White sand dunes, go sand boarding and cycle around the coast enjoying the amazing scenery, hills, and lush rice paddies, with a backdrop of sparkling blue water. We did have a little incident when walking along the beach one day, obviously walked a little too far and out of our area, because we came across three dead dogs within about 20m of each other! They were in various stages of decomposing and as you can imagine we turned and hightailed it out of there very quickly! It also managed to keep us out of the water in Mui Ne quite successfully! After a few days in Mui Ne we headed up the coast to Nha Trang which is a much bigger town, more like a city and a bit resorty too. It was nice enough, and we went on a crazy boat trip where we got to enjoy a floating bar with free wine for most of the afternoon - can't go wrong! Only tragedy was that this was where my camera decided to pack a sad and didn't want to work anymore! So Bernie became official photographer. We caught the overnight bus to Hoi An from there, and that was another experience. As many people know, I'm a hopeless sleeper, I seem to lack the ability to just sleep anywhere and that was definitely true on this bus trip, but i didn't mind so much in the end. The road wound around the coast of Vietnam in the carved-out side of the mountains and all I could see was a sea of twinkling lights from the fishing boats on the water and the moonlight reflecting off the buddhist monks head that was sitting in front of me! Quite a magical experience at the time..
Hoi An was a lovely town, had a great beach that we frequented often for the 6 days we spent there! We got to know all the locals on the beach who after a couple of days were spending their time hanging out with us instead of wandering the beach, selling their pineapples and mangoes like they usually do...fabulous fun. We also met a man named My Phong at a restaurant we ate at one night who told us he did trips out to his village to show people around and teach them about Vietnamese culture. We weren't sure whether we were getting ripped off or not, but thought we'd give it a go and the next day headed out on motorbikes (the only form of transport in Asia) to his village. What a day. We learnt so much about Vietnamese history, culture, religion, the war, and just general life. It was one of the best days of our trip. He took us into his home, around his village, we were introduced to every family in the village, drank tea in every house and shared a meal with his family, it was such an amazing show of hospitality and generosity. While we were in Hoi An we also went out to the My Son ruins which were cool but nowhere near as amazing as the Angkor ruins, and the Marble Mountains which were beautiful. When we decided it was time to move on from Hoi An, we tried booking the bus to Hanoi, but that was full, and then the train, but that was full, and so we had to fly...except there was only 'business class' seats available...we thought that we had may as well spend the extra money otherwise we'd just be spending it staying on in Hoi An, so imagine our surpirse when our ticket ended up with us at the very back of the plane, with no more leg room than anyone else and only a glass of water to drink the whole flight...hmmm...another asian scam experience...!
Hanoi was a very busy, big, smelly city that I didn't enjoy particularly but you get that...we went out to Halong Bay for 3 days for a boat trip and to stay on Cat Ba Island National Park, which was ok, but not great - coming from NZ I expected a national park to BE a national park, but rather it was a resort town for local vietnamese with hotels, restaurants, and lots and lots of rubbish and pollution...i couldn't even go in the water coz it was too polluted! But after that disaster of a trip and another day in Hanoi visiting all the different museums, we got the overnight train to Sapa up in the highland where we were signed up for a 4 day trek. Now Sapa was fabulous! It was probably my favourite place of the whole trip. Its a small town nestled halfway up the side of a mountain, in the middle of a huge valley, surrounded by cloud, with mountain peaks towering overhead, it was magical. The landscape was so green and lush, and the the crops and rice paddies terraced down the mountains just created the most beautiful picture. We trekked through all the villages down in the valleys for 4 days, homestaying with families in the villages, it was hard work, but it was such an incredible experience to be able to live with and talk to and get to know these beautiful village people. We were very sad to leave after 4 days, but we had to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi before flying out the next day back to Bangkok..!
Ok everyone stop panicking! I realise that perhaps I have been offline for a little longer than usual (what's two months...?) and for that I apologise - but its all ok, I am still alive, very much alive, and having a ball...sorry for worrying you all, I have received the emails and have taken note, and will not be silent for so long next time... :)
So...what have I been up to...I really don't know where to start...I shall try to collect my thoughts and abbreviate them so you don't all have to read another 'novel'...
I left Australia two months ago for Southeast Asia, and what an experience it was. It was overwhelming, inspiring, mind-blowing, depressing, dirty, beautiful, smelly, serene, infact I really think I experienced every possible emotion during the time I was there, and I'm still struggling to find the right words to describe it...but I'll give it a go, bear with me...
Flying into Bangkok was an assalt on the senses in every sense, I went into immediate shellshock, due to the insaneness, the chaos, and the sheer number of people around...it probably wouldn't have been so bad if i'd arrived after living in a normal city, however coming from a town with a population of less than 5000, to a city of millions, i'm sure anyone would've had to take a moment... I spent my first day just wandering, trying to take it all in without feeling too overwhelmed, but I did experience a great wash of relief when Bernie finally arrived on her flight from Melbourne that night - and what a happy reunion it was! There was much excited chattering and gossiping until the wee hours of the morning when after lovely hot showers (our last for many weeks) we finally crashed into our most comfortable hotel beds (also our last for many weeks)... After checking out of our hotel we headed across town to find the first of many grotty backpackers for our final night in Bangkok and then we were off to explore what we could in the time we had...we also organised our ticket out of there. The next morning, bright and early at 7am we boarded a bus that was going to take us to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and settled in for what we thought was going to be a 10-hour bus trip through to Siem Reap in Cambodia...well, weren't we ever wrong about that?!? The ride to the Thai border was quite managable but at the border was where the fun started. We were to get used to the various forms of transport across borders - cattle trucks, motorbikes, and walking and this particular border was a combination of the cattle truck and walking...and standing...for a very long long time...while 10 people all examine your passport, first on the Thai side then on the Cambodian side of the border...all in 40 degree heat, fun...but the fun doesn't stop there...then we bordered our 'air-conditioned bus' that was going to take us the other 150km to Siem Reap...shame that it was actually a 12-seater van with broken windows packed full of 20 backpackers with all our packs inside as well, with us lucky ones sitting in the aisle, for the next 9 hours! Yes, it took 9 hours to drive 150km...we were thrown from one side of the 'bus' to the other, up and down, we all ended up with head injuries and covered in orange dust - good thing i was already used to that part! So our 10-hour bus trip turned into a mammoth 15-hour nightmare trip, but we survived and ended up bonding with ALL our fellow travellers - as you do when you're all sitting on top of each other (!) but especially with 2 Danish sisters who we ended up travelling with through a lot of our trip...what an introduction to Cambodia eh???
So there we were in Siem Reap for a few days, the home of the great Angkor Wat (one of the Wonders of the World). We spent a day recovering, and then a fabulous day cycling around the Angkor ruins. The Angkor Wat itself was amazing, huge, but totally overrun with hideous tourists which kinda took away from the whole experience, but the smaller temples and ruins were just spectacular. We found a little village kid at one of the ruins hiding in the long grass and he ended up taking us around the ruins, pointing out interesting things, telling us all about the history - and kept ducking and hiding in the grass whenever a policeman went past - he apparently wasn't a registered tour guide at the grand age of 8 and therefore wasn't allowed to be showing us anything! It was a great day, Bernie and I even had our 'Lara Croft' moment in Ta Prohm - the temple where the film Tomb Raider was made. The rest of our time in Siem Reap was taken up with visiting the Landmine Musuem - horrific but inspiring that someone is actually trying to make a difference, and just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of Cambodia. The number of amputees from landmines that are begging on the streets is heartbreaking, and the drugged babies that are carried around by their 4 or 5 year old sibling, begging for money for the supposed 'sick' baby was so shocking, but at the same time, there were children that were so delightful and still grinning even after you turned them down for the 20th time saying that you really weren't going to buy anything off them!
Onto Phnom Penh where we stayed in probably the worst guest house of the trip - a squat toilet with not even a bucket to flush(!), holes in the walls, gaps between the walls and the doorways, no windows, you name it, it was that bad...but it was also only 50cents a night! In the few days in Phnom Penh we visited the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek, and the S21 prison/concentration camp/museum - mindblowing. It was an incredibly depressing experience, very moving, and upsetting, and shocking. We came out of a daze at the end of our time in Phnom Penh with an almost hatred for human beings, it amazes me that we still continue to massacre each other for pathetic reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the most grotesque ways, and still end up exactly where we started from each time...so on that note we decided we had to get out of Cambodia, everything in Cambodia is centred around the war, the genocide, and the ongoing problems with landmines, and it was quite an experience to be there, but it all got too much and when we realised that we hadn't laughed or smiled all day it was time to move on...so we headed to Vietnam.
Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam was another loooong bus journey, another long hot walk across another border, through no man's land, and into Vietnam - after having to fork out even more money to the Vietnamese officials just coz they asked for it...not very nice...and then into another van with 20 people for 12 seats for another long ride to HCMC with - a singing guide(!) - talk about torture! It was pretty obvious right from the border of Vietnam that it was a much richer country than Cambodia, there is still poverty but no where near the same extent of what we'd already seen. It wasn't a bad city but one night was enough for us and we decided to head to the coast for some serious beach time. But before we left we got an email from our friend Neil who was supposed to be joining us to say he'd lost all his money and cards one night and had to head back to Australia early - silly boy! So we weren't going to see Neil which was a shame but unfortunately, them's the breaks! So onto Mui Ne!
Mui Ne is a quiet little fishing village on the coast famous for making fish sauce - and yes you can smell the village a long time before you actually get there! But it was nice for a few days, just to chill out, enjoy the fresh ocean air and explore the Red and White sand dunes, go sand boarding and cycle around the coast enjoying the amazing scenery, hills, and lush rice paddies, with a backdrop of sparkling blue water. We did have a little incident when walking along the beach one day, obviously walked a little too far and out of our area, because we came across three dead dogs within about 20m of each other! They were in various stages of decomposing and as you can imagine we turned and hightailed it out of there very quickly! It also managed to keep us out of the water in Mui Ne quite successfully! After a few days in Mui Ne we headed up the coast to Nha Trang which is a much bigger town, more like a city and a bit resorty too. It was nice enough, and we went on a crazy boat trip where we got to enjoy a floating bar with free wine for most of the afternoon - can't go wrong! Only tragedy was that this was where my camera decided to pack a sad and didn't want to work anymore! So Bernie became official photographer. We caught the overnight bus to Hoi An from there, and that was another experience. As many people know, I'm a hopeless sleeper, I seem to lack the ability to just sleep anywhere and that was definitely true on this bus trip, but i didn't mind so much in the end. The road wound around the coast of Vietnam in the carved-out side of the mountains and all I could see was a sea of twinkling lights from the fishing boats on the water and the moonlight reflecting off the buddhist monks head that was sitting in front of me! Quite a magical experience at the time..
Hoi An was a lovely town, had a great beach that we frequented often for the 6 days we spent there! We got to know all the locals on the beach who after a couple of days were spending their time hanging out with us instead of wandering the beach, selling their pineapples and mangoes like they usually do...fabulous fun. We also met a man named My Phong at a restaurant we ate at one night who told us he did trips out to his village to show people around and teach them about Vietnamese culture. We weren't sure whether we were getting ripped off or not, but thought we'd give it a go and the next day headed out on motorbikes (the only form of transport in Asia) to his village. What a day. We learnt so much about Vietnamese history, culture, religion, the war, and just general life. It was one of the best days of our trip. He took us into his home, around his village, we were introduced to every family in the village, drank tea in every house and shared a meal with his family, it was such an amazing show of hospitality and generosity. While we were in Hoi An we also went out to the My Son ruins which were cool but nowhere near as amazing as the Angkor ruins, and the Marble Mountains which were beautiful. When we decided it was time to move on from Hoi An, we tried booking the bus to Hanoi, but that was full, and then the train, but that was full, and so we had to fly...except there was only 'business class' seats available...we thought that we had may as well spend the extra money otherwise we'd just be spending it staying on in Hoi An, so imagine our surpirse when our ticket ended up with us at the very back of the plane, with no more leg room than anyone else and only a glass of water to drink the whole flight...hmmm...another asian scam experience...!
Hanoi was a very busy, big, smelly city that I didn't enjoy particularly but you get that...we went out to Halong Bay for 3 days for a boat trip and to stay on Cat Ba Island National Park, which was ok, but not great - coming from NZ I expected a national park to BE a national park, but rather it was a resort town for local vietnamese with hotels, restaurants, and lots and lots of rubbish and pollution...i couldn't even go in the water coz it was too polluted! But after that disaster of a trip and another day in Hanoi visiting all the different museums, we got the overnight train to Sapa up in the highland where we were signed up for a 4 day trek. Now Sapa was fabulous! It was probably my favourite place of the whole trip. Its a small town nestled halfway up the side of a mountain, in the middle of a huge valley, surrounded by cloud, with mountain peaks towering overhead, it was magical. The landscape was so green and lush, and the the crops and rice paddies terraced down the mountains just created the most beautiful picture. We trekked through all the villages down in the valleys for 4 days, homestaying with families in the villages, it was hard work, but it was such an incredible experience to be able to live with and talk to and get to know these beautiful village people. We were very sad to leave after 4 days, but we had to catch the overnight train back to Hanoi before flying out the next day back to Bangkok..!
In Bangkok it was a sad farewell to Bernie who was heading home to Ireland after being gone 10 months, although she was so excited to be going home it was hard to stay sad. And I caught a flight up to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand where for a week I went hiking, elephant trekking, river rafting and even managed a Thai cooking course! All too soon it was over though and I was on my way back to Australia, and back to work.
Final thoughts on Asia: for an area that appears to be such a contradiction in humanity, with the history of war so recent and so intricately wound into everyday life, I am amazed that people have such strength and resilience and are able to continue smiling throughout. My trip affected me in ways i wasn't really expecting and it moved me immensly. I am in total admiration of the hundreds of children that I met and played with through Cambodia and Vietnam. They have such fighting spirits and it seems that each generation thats born comes out ready to battle on, grinning the whole time...its inspiring, and it makes you appreciate being brought up in a country of peace more than you can ever fully comprehend.
So here I am, back in Derby, in the Outback, getting used to working again...its a hard life...so I'm here for 2 more months before heading to South America! Hooray! Time to knuckle down and earn some money and try not to spend it! There was another tragedy while I was away in Asia though - my cellphone went walkies somewhere...it was left in Australia but obviously missed me, went to find me, and is now missing in action...so anyone who has be calling or texting in the last couple of months - terribly sorry but I won't have got the message! I've just picked up a new number now i'm back in Derby though - onto my third phone number since i've been here - ridiculous!
Well, sorry, it did turn into a bit of an essay, didn't mean it to, but there was just too much to say as per usual. I hope everyone is well, and happy. I can't wait to hear news from home or abroad...
Love always
Red Ron of the Outback
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