This is my last ever entry in this blog. Very sad! I should have done this entry as soon as we got back but we have been otherwise occupied. In summary, the holiday was fantastic. I had expected highs and lows but was surprised by how very few "lows" their were. Obviously, the whole Sangay National Park/Riobamba experience will haunt me forever. Other lows include the scary boat ride from the jungle, the shocking expense of Tahiti and the excess hours spent in one attraction towns. But these experiences make up less than 5% of our holiday.
The highs for me were all the sealife that we experienced in the South Pacific (sharks, sting rays, etc.), the many varied and interesting archeological sites of Peru, the Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil, the San Rafael glacier in Chile, the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador, the bike ride down the most dangerous road in the world, the glorious beaches, sea and weather (ie,. tropical paradises) that we had on the South Pacific islands, the people that we met along the way and above all else the sheer beauty of the landscape that we experienced on the Salar de Uyuni tour in Bolivia.
It is very difficult to pick a favourite country because South America and the South Pacific are so very different and of course each country has different things to offer which makes comparison difficult. But at a pinch I would have to say that Bolivia will always have a special place in my heart.
The other surprising fact of this holiday (apart from the pregnancy souvenir!) is that Steve and I spent 99.9% of our time together and did not get fed up of each other! In fact, we are now even closer than ever before. I had expected quite a few arguments but we only had a few (shouting obscenities at each other in the street after just arriving in La Paz after a very long bus journey was the worst and also funniest of these) and so I think that we are now stuck together forever!
Finally, I have changed as a result of the trip. I am much more relaxed about things and don't feel the need to plan everything with military precision. I now know that there is always a solution to every problem even if it takes a bit of time to get to that solution so don't immediately start expecting the worst outcome possible. I am much healthier than before we left (on the smoking, drinking and exercise front). Most importantly of all I have learnt to enjoy life! posted by Linda Hedges 3:30 PM
Well, this is the last day of our adventure. We fly to London tomorrow and my family are meeting us at Heathrow.
We have tried to explore Hong Kong but the weather has been against us. Every day the temperature has been in the high thirties, with the humidity at between 60 and 70%. We can only manage a few minutes in the sunlight before we have to retreat into the safety of an airconditioned shop. The contrast between extreme heat and deep chill is giving both of us a cold. Yesterday, I had heatstroke....
Still, we have been out - visiting a buddhist temple, travelling up on the Peak Tram (sloping up to 27 degrees off the horizontal) to look out over Hong Kong island, and browsing museums and art galleries. Also, we've tried to go shopping (Kowloon has the biggest shopping mall in the world) but we seem to be completely out of practice. We spent three hours walking up and down, only to emerge with just a book and two trashy magazines.
Linda is developing a bump now. Her nausea seems to have gone completely. We are both getting used to the idea that we are going to have a baby. It will be an interesting year ahead of us.
posted by Steven Hedges 5:19 AM
(this blog should have been posted a few days ago but there were some problems with our blogger template so we were unable to do so)
So now to our time in Sydney. I am afraid that we were terribly lazy in Sydney. Perhaps this is because we have both been there before and perhaps a little because we are coming to the end of our holiday and have run out of steam.
We were hospitably put up by Angela Fowler who I met when I was contracting at FICS and was sent out to Sydney. Incidentally she is now Angela McNamara as she got married last week. She was in fact getting married to Greg and enjoying her honeymoon in Tasmania when we arrived. So we dog sat (and cat sat) for a few days until they got back on Monday. It was lovely to see her again and her dogs are just adorable. They are border collies and very people friendly and entertaining.
Shamefully we spent most of our time wandering around the mall. We both got our hair done on the first afternoon as Steve's was all shaggy and my two tone frizz needed sorting out. The next day we had our appointment at Sydney Ultrasound For Women and I spent most of Friday morning feeling very anxious and worried about the whole thing. By the time we had done the ultrasound and waited for the report to be written up for our doctor in the UK it was already mid afternoon and we spent the afternoon wandering around the shops and contemplating being parents.
We were more touristic on Saturday and ventured into town for quite a full day. We did all the usual Sydney stuff but Steve chickened out of doing the Bridgeclimb despite all my encouragement. I, of course, was exempt from this activity due to pregnancy......The excitement of a full day's activity wore us out and we just lazed around on Sunday reading and playing with the dogs. I had a look at some of Angela's pregnancy books (Angela is also pregnant - 23 weeks at the time that we were there) and the birth pictures just make me close my eyes and gulp (even Steve crossed his legs and looked a bit green after looking at the pictures). Childbirth is quite a frightening thought.
On Monday we headed back to the mall and used the internet connections in the public library. It is free which was good, and the connection was a reasonable speed. We also saw the movie "Minority Report". Very stylish and slick looking and not a bad story although the film was half an hour too long. I enjoyed it and thought it was good but Steve thinks it deserves more praise than that.
The next few days involved more wandering around and being generally lethargic. The bizarre thing being that despite exerting minimal energy during the day we seem to head off to bed fairly early absolutely tired out!
On Thursday we headed to Hong Kong. The flight was practically empty (less than a third full) which was great. Lots of space for everyone. Hong Kong itself has jumpstarted us into doing more things. It is sufficiently different to everywhere else we have been to reignite our energy but not too difficult to get about. The only thing is that it is incredibly hot and humid (34 degrees celcius today) and just walking along the street for 10 minutes wears you out. Still the HSBC Mega Hong Kong sale is on and we must soldier on with the long term goal of saving money..... posted by Linda Hedges 3:53 AM
First, we'd like to thank everyone for their kind congratulations about our impending child. We'll try to contact everyone by email, but access to the internet hasn't been great up to now. (At the moment we are in the Kowloon Hotel in Hong Kong and have internet access from our tiny hotel room.)
Fiji. I don't think we really saw much of Fiji. Certainly we just passed through fairly quickly, hardly stopping outside of the resort/hotel/airport.
We arrived in Nadi airport at about 3am. Our onward flight to Teveuni was not till 8am. Fortunately, we were picking up our ticket from a travel agency and they let us sleep on their sofa for a few hours. Well, Linda slept on the sofa and I made do with the floor. Pregnancy has its privileges ... (I think if I had made a move for the sofa, it would have been very health-threatening.)
(Interestingly - well, almost interesting - the name "Nadi" is pronounced "Nandi". This derives from the early missionaries who tried to write the Polynesian language using one letter for each sound/syllable. So "d" comes out as "nd" and "g" comes out as "ng". There are some more bizarre examples of this, so that the most inoccuous looking name has the most unlikely pronunciation.)
Returning to our check-in, after weighing our luggage, the clerk asked us each to stand on the scales with our handluggage! This was a first for both of us. Made us a bit worried about the reason why we had to do this. Linda's theory was that the plane we would be catching was very small and they needed to make sure it had enough fuel.
When they came to collect us, we realised that she was absolutely correct. Our tripropellor plane could only accomodate twelve people, on six double seats. The cabin was not pressurised and there was no separate pilot's cockpit. In fact, it was fun to read the instruments over the crew's shoulders. Almost like playing with "Flight Simulator".
We took a boat over to the Rainbow Reef Resort and were welcomed by a dozen people, singing to us from the beach. As you can imagine, we were delighted...
There was only two other couples at the resort. So we had a very quiet time. We had been upgraded to the Hibiscus Cottage - which had a separate living room - I think because we had booked directly rather than as part of a package deal. The same thing happened at the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort, probably for the same reason.
We had a good time at the resort, though it's difficult to desvcribe it. We seemed to spend the vast majority of our time on sunbeds next to the beach, reading any books we could get our hand.
We went snorkelling one day over the reef. The boat dropped us at one end and the current pulled us through. It felt as if we were flying, with no effort at all. The fish were smaller than in Bora Bora, but much more varied. And the coral itself was a spectacular range of colours - yellow, white, brown, green, purple and blue. We saw a shark (a 2 metre white tipped reef shark) about five metres from us. Linda swam away from it so fast that her upper body came up out of the water. Once I'd got back to the boat (about eight minutes after Linda, despite swimming flat out to try to keep up with her) I chided her for her cowardice. She explained that although we'd seen closer sharks in French Polynesia, we didn't have a responsible adult here to look after us.
We also went snorkelling outside our room (no sharks, fortunately) and I went kayaking whilst Linda floated on her lilo.
The last couple of days at the resort were marred by bad weather. A deep depression south east of New Zealand was causing dangerously high swells over Fiji. There were many weather warnings about this on the radio. We never saw the predicted six metre waves, but the heavy cloud cover caused some depression in the Hibiscus cottage.
We flew back to Nadi airport at about 10 am and we didn't fly on to Australia until 8.25 am the next day. So we decide to stay in the Raffles Gateway hotel just opposite the airport. This is a nice hotel, with much bigger rooms than we expected (and worse food). A highlight for Linda was the presence of a whole load of extremely burly men - the Tongan rugby team were in town for an international against Fiji. No Jonah Lomu, but she didn't seem too disappointed ... posted by Steven Hedges 3:33 AM
I'll post up a report of Fiji soon, but first: very important news
Eight years after a doctor told us that we couldn't have children (and after we'd decided, for various reasons, not to seek infertility treatment), as we approach our tenth wedding anniversary, we are both very surprised and delighted to announce that around the 6th January 2003 we will be welcoming a third person to our family.
Linda is currently 14 weeks pregnant (out of forty). The delay in announcing our news is due to the unexpected nature of the pregnancy. All of the symptoms were attributed to travel upsetting the system.
Yesterday we had a scan in Sydney and the baby is fine - it was amazing to see this tiny (7.66 cm) baby wriggling around inside Linda - arching its back and then rolling from side to side, before falling fast asleep. The clarity of the pictures was astounding - when we get to a scanner we'll put them up on this site.
As this is a complete surprise, this pregnancy sent us into a panic - we had to rush out and buy books about having a baby to find out the most basic things (like how to change a nappy etc) also we spent a while worrying about all the things we'd done since conception in La Paz (e.g. drinking excessively on the Skorpios cruise, being thrown around on the dolphin watching trip etc). Still the nurse doing the scan assured us that the baby is developing fine. Now Linda has become "paranoid pregnant" woman and does nothing at all that might endanger the baby.
Estimated delivery date is 6th January 2003, and we have decided to cut short this holiday and return to the UK in about ten days. We'll send another five days here in Australia, go to Hong Kong to shop for six days and then fly directly back to London. We're both a bit sad about missing Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but there is so much to do and such little time to do it in.
Needless to say, we are both ecstatic about the news. posted by Steven Hedges 6:13 AM
We have fled from the Samoan Village Resort and are now in the luxury Aggie Grey's hotel in relatively civilised Apia. We had to leave SVR, not because we were the only guests there (slight exaggeration - I saw another couple one morning, but never again), and not because the whole place seemed to be stuck in a 1970's timewarp (despite being less than ten years old) but because of the food, or rather the lack of it. The Resort had a snackbar, irregularly open, which served mainly sandwiches and soup. There were self-catering facilities in the fale - but the local shop (about 15 minutes walk away) had virtually no fresh food. Carrots were the only available vegetables.
There's only so long you can live off pot noodles and beans on toast without getting seriously fed up.
So we are now in Aggie Grey's. This is by far the poshest hotel in the country - with two restaurants serving excellent, plentiful food. Last night there was an "eat all you can" buffet of Samoan and international food, costing 35 tala (about seven pounds sterling).
Tonight we are due to fly to Fiji. Unfortunately, we get in at 3 am and our onward flight is not till 8 am so we will be trashed for most of tomorrow. We're staying at the Rainbow Reef Resort and we're both looking forward to a week of snorkelling over the coral reef (and eating well, not that I've become obsessed ...). posted by Steven Hedges 10:30 PM
We are back in Apia for the morning - so we can do some blogs - before we head off to the Samoan Village Resort for a week of lazing by the beach. We spent the weekend doing an adventure tour of Savaii (the larger, but less populous island in Samoa) and we are now both of us muscle-weary and covered in insect bites.
We were picked up by Ken from Adventure Man travel on Friday morning. Ken is a Canadian who has moved to Samoa (for some unknown reason) and has been living here for several years. He is a great source of stories about what it is really like to live in Samoa. Perhaps we'll publish some of these (when we are safely off the island). We took the ferry from Upolu to Savaii, and it was cloudy, windy and rough. Of course, we both felt sick by the time we got there.
We drove for about an hour to get to the Vacations Resort. This was a collection of about twelve high-quality beach fale (oval wooden huts with thatched roofs on the beach - ours was about five metres by three. They had electricity, but no private toilet facilities.) The owner of the resort was around to chat at meals - he was an interesting character: he had been a wrestler in the WWF (called "The Flashing Lou" - which I have to say is an unfortunate nickname on so many levels) for many years, returned to Samoa and gotten into politics. He is now the Deputy Prime Minister, acting Minister of Communication and a Human Rights Protection Party MP for almost twenty years. Sort of the Samoan Jesse Ventura.
That afternoon we went to the Dwarf Cave. (Linda felt ill and so stayed at the resort.) This was real Indiana Jones stuff - we entered the caves through a small metre high entrance and walked and stumbled our way for about two kilometres underground in the pitch dark with two fairly weak torches. There were also five freshwater pools that had to be crossed, and a fair amount of clambering down steep rock faces. We finally arrived at a mud cave that was entered by crawling through a very narrow entry (only about 30 centimetres high) which was very muddy indeed. By the time we'd got into the cave, we were all completely covered in mud. And then we had to walk back ... Well, at least we could wash some of the mud off in the pools.
The next morning we set of to see some turtles. This is a small, unfunded, family-run conservation project. They buy turtles, mostly green turtles and hawksbills, off fishermen (who would otherwise eat them) and keep them in a large fresshwater pool. They are currently trying to build a sandy beach to allow them to lay eggs. Not perfect, from an ecological point of view, but certainly the best of its kind we've seen in Samoa. It is possible to swim with the turtles which was great fun.
We then drove to the far east of the island to a place called Faleloupu. This has a magnificent white sand beach. We spent several hours lazing around here and swimming in the sea (and also getting too far out on a boogie board and having great difficulty getting back to the shore against the tide.) The area around Faleloupu had been devastated by a hurricane in 1990. We spent a while exploring the ruined churches and tombs, which were the only buildings left standing.
The next day we set off early to the blowholes at Taga. These are tunnels eroded in some lava fields, when the waves strike the lave, water is forced through the holes and up into the air. Unfortunately, we had a cross wind which was reducing the size of the spray to about ten metres or so (apparently it can get up to 30 metres if conditions are ideal). It was still good fun to throw coconuts into the holes - if you timed it correctly they would get thrown up with the spray. I managed this twice (although they didn't go very high.)
Next we went to a beautiful waterfall which fell into a volcanic crater. This was covered in vegetation and had a real "Lost Worlds" feel to it. This feeling was enhanced by the fact we had to climb down a twenty metre home-made wooden ladder to get down into the crater. After an hour or so, jumping into the pool and swimming around in the cool, refreshing water, it was back up the ladder, into the van and off to the ferry.
Sunday night is very quiet in Apia, so we had an early meal and an early night. Now we're off for some rest and rehabilitation!
posted by Steven Hedges 10:26 PM
I lied in the last blog and we are (obviously) posting another one before heading off for remoteness. Steve is posting a blog about the three day trip that we have just done and I am going to post a few impressions about Samoa.
Everyone here speaks English and so one assumes that the society here has similar values to ours and that people think in pretty much the same way. Wrong, wrong, wrong. If the earth was flat I reckon two steps from here and you would step off the edge. It is very, very different. Not unlike how I imagine medieval times to be.
Firstly the family comes first and without a village you are nothing. The chief of the village has absolute power and there are two laws - village law and then the whole police style law. The village law is still pretty much the main one of the two. The worst punishment is banishment from your village as then you really are at rock bottom. Loyalty is very important. Here is an example (true story). A guy went abroad and made a bit of money. He came back and bought a bus and from his village operated a bus service to Apia (the capital) charging about US$1 which is quite fair as it is about an hour's drive. Anyway, the chief of the village approached him and said that he should take all the villagers from his village for free. He explained that he couldn't do this and that he was operating a business and he needed to make money to cover his costs. So the villagers burnt down his bus (you don't get vehicle insurance here). He was obviously not too pleased about this and moved to the next village in protest. At the next inter village cricket match the original village saw him playing for the other side and weren't too happy. So they summoned him and his family to see the chief. Then they executed him.
Women here are very badly treated. They are kept in their place by a bit of bashing from the menfolk. Consequently the aim of a lot of girls is to bag a foreign man. Their family encourage this as then he can support the family too (remember, family first and foremost). If they go to live abroad even better as they can then send remittances (the biggest income here). Families are large as the more kids you can send abroad the more income you get. As lots of girls go abroad homosexuality is quite tolerated and not uncommon. So middle aged men can come here and get a young wife who will be more than happy to marry him. There are practically no western women living here although there are western men living here.
Corruption is high and very in your face. In most corrupt countries people seem to acknowledge that it goes on and also know that is wrong but hey what can you do about it. Here there doesn't seem to be that concept that there is anything wrong with it. People will just ask one another for money on the off chance that you will give it to them.
Headline news a few months back : "Smoking is bad for your health". Yes that's right - up until then nobody thought that it could be unhealthy to smoke.
The church is very important. In every village people live in fairly basic accomodation but the church is always an elaborate and well constructed structure. People also give all their money to the church even though most of the churches are also corrupt. It is no coincidence that the shamed American evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Benny Hine have ended up here.
There is no long term planning. It seems that only the goal of today is thought about. An example is at the Millenium celebrations it was widely viewed that people would want to come here because it would be the last sunset of the twentieth century here. So they put up lots and lots of ugly fale and chopped down lots of palm trees so that people could see the sunset. However, nobody had thought about the problem of people getting here. There are no charter flights here and very few flights a week operated by Polynesian Airlines. Of course this is expensive but the government here won't allow any competition to the airline (presumably they have interests there) and turn down the companies that want to fly people here and guarantee x number of visitors. So now there is lots of accomodation and no one to use it.
For local news you should take a look at the Samoa Observer. The archives haven't been updated for a a few days but the cover article on Saturday 15th (once the archive is updated) is a good example of life here.
Despite all this Samoa has been my favourite bit of the Pacific because it has been so different and stimulating. I highly recommed it if you are passing by.
posted by Linda Hedges 10:20 PM
This will probably be a our last blog for a little while as we are heading out of Apia and communication facilities here are quite sparse. There are a few prepaid card phones and you have to consult a map to find them. When you do find a phone there is a bit queue and no privacy. To cap it all we bought a phonecard and have lots of units left on it but when we tried to make an international call with it the phone would not allow it!
Yesterday we went on a tour around "Upolu" with a rather amateur but quite fun outfit. There isn't really any tourist infrastructure here so organising things is quite difficult. Our van was completely clapped out (door gaffa taped shut, need of oil, etc.) and the driving here is quite bad but we are still in one piece. We visited several waterfalls and did some jumping off one of them. Or rather, I just swam around in the freshwater pool at the bottom of the waterfall and the action man Steve did the jumping. Well someone had to take the photos of the jumpers.....The water was glorious, really refreshing.
We had lunch (they actually served vegetables so Steve and both leapt on the vegetable curry option - veggies are a real luxury) and then had a look at some beach fales as a few of the people on the tour wanted to stay in the fales. I have to say that I wouldn't last more than two nights in one of those. No privacy, no space and really nothing to do. I don't even want to think about what the communal hygiene facilities are like as this is quite an underdeveloped country.
In the afternoon we went to the Ocean Trench for a bit of Indian Jones style activities. I have to confess that I had enough of slipping and sliding around and bunked off to sit in the sea whilst the others seriously drained their energy. They even did a swim from the ocean into a cave where you have to swim completely underwater for a few minutes. It doesn't sound a lot but when the current is strong and the tunnel is quite far under the water it is hard work. At least that's Steve's excuse for the massive puffing and panting that he was doing when he got back! Two of the people chickened out and joined me sitting in the sea. I have to say that an accident was not an unforeseeable event and there would be "emergency procedures" available as things here just don't work like that.
We are going to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum this afternoon and also trying to get in touch with some hotels in Fiji. Tomorrow we are going on a three day two night tour around Savai'i (the bigger Samoan island) where we are visiting various snorkelling sites and swimming with turtles. I was a bit concerned that the guide said you can hold onto them as they are an endangered species. I did give him an earful about it and sensible eco tourism.
We get back into Apia late on Sunday night and then head off to the Samoan Village Resort for six days and seven days of blissing out on the beach. We are staying in a beach fale but I think it is a luxury one. At least I hope it is for that price....On the tour yesterday we saw how life outside Apia is and the word is basic. It really is a strange place. People here are extremely polite and try to be helpful. I'm sure we were driving the person in Polynesian Airlines crazy when trying to rearrange our flights (we are not even flying with Polynesian Airlines but there aren't many airline offices here) but the man/woman (it was a man masquerading as a woman) was very patient and helpful. I think if we had been in New Zealand or the UK the person would have told us to make up our minds and then come back.
Everyone is also very softly spoken and it is quite difficult to restrain yourself from saying "Speak up boy, you're mumbling! Enunciate properly!".
Anyway, as the internet cafes and telephones seem to be in Apia and we will not be in Apia this might be our last blog until Fiji (we arrive at some very early in the morning time on 26th June). posted by Linda Hedges 12:08 AM
We are now in Samoa - and enjoying it a lot. The place is an unspoiled paradise - the landscape is lush and green and the people are friendly and very polite. (A minibus from the hotel picked us up from the airport. On the way back, the driver asked us if it would be okay for him to stop and buy something at a shop. And thanked us when he got back in the minibus.) After a very thundery start, the weather has been fantastic - sunny and hot the whole day long.
We arrived late on a Saturday night. As this is a very God-fearing country, nothing was open on the Sunday, so we had to spend it sitting by the pool (it's a hard life). The next day we went into Apia - the capital of Samoa. (Out hotel was about a mile or so from town). This is a working town - with very few tourists about. The place is dominated by the many churches (I counted eight along the waterfront) and by the harbour. There's a lot of people bustling about - men and women wearing "skirts" called lavalava and schoolkids in smart shorts and shirts outfits. Also quite a few cars - although nowhere near enough to justify having the policeman direct traffic.
We've moved to a hotel in Apia and tomorrow we are on a trip around Upolu (the island we're on at the moment). At the weekend we are doing a long tour of Sava'ai, which is the other main island of Samoa. We've decided that we are trying to fit in too much travel - so we are not now going to visit Tonga. Rather we will spend a week on a beach in the south of Upolu (where "Return to Paradise" was filmed).
This is a serious informational desert - there are about one and a half television channels, which seem to show religious programmes most of the time, no satellite TV, the only available radio stations are also evangelical Christians and the newspapers are full of very local news. If you didn't know that there was a World Cup on at the moment, then it would be very difficult to find that out. posted by Steven Hedges 12:01 AM
We are at the end of our stay in New Zealand and will depart for Samoa tomorrow. Our stay here has been very pleasant and enjoyable although not very challenging. Everything is so easy to organise and as everyone speaks English it is very simple to organise everything. It is a pity that we were not able to enjoy the best bits of the South Island due to the cold weather but you can't get it right all the time. I don't think that I would come on a holiday just to visit New Zealand on its own but if you are passing through I would recommend stopping off. We are thinking that we will come back to sample Queenstown and perhaps combine it with a visit to the Cook Islands.
So what have we been up to the for the last week? Well we went on our dolphin exploring trip with a company called Dolphin Explorer. It was a really good day out (despite the sea sickness that I got) and we saw about 100 dolpins and 2 whales. The dolphins came right up to the boat to get a free ride (not to play with humans as is commonly thought) which was great. The whales (a mother and calf) were not so close and about 100 - 150 metres away from the boat.
Unfortunately we were not able to get in the water with the dolphins as there were baby dolphins in the pod and also the water was too rough. It didn't matter though as they were so highly visible. Whilst we were standing at the front of the boat watching the whales we hit some really choppy water and got completely soaked. It was too rough to let go of the railing to move to a drier spot so we just had to crouch down and get hit by wave after wave after wave....There was a moment when I thought that we were going to go overboard. Our legs were really sore the next day from trying to stay upright and on board during this choppy bit.
The next day we set off on our mini New Zealand tour. We caught a flight down to Christchurch which is quite small and reminded us both of the town of Newmarket in East Anglia. Quite a pretty place but very cold. The next morning we had to leave our hotel at 7:10 am to catch the Tranz Coastal train to Kaikoura and the temperature was -2 degrees celcius! The train journey was quite pleasant but if you do catch this train do not have the bacon and egg roll for breakfast. I don't know how those eggs were cooked but they tasted very odd and distinctly iffy.
Our reason for visiting Kaikoura was for watching male sperm whales. Kaikoura is an old whaling town and it doesn't really seem to have left its past behind. It is very small and there isn't much going on there. We were quite shocked by the hotel that we were put in. Luckily we still had some duty free vodka left which helped us cope with that night's accomodation. I wouldn't mind (and we have stayed in worse on this trip) but if you are going to stay in a dump you do expect to pay very little money for it. To pay a reasonable price one would expect a reasonable room. We didn't have much choice in the matter though and so had to grin and bear it.
It was worth stopping in Kaikoura as the whale watching was excellent. The sea was very choppy again but this time I was prepared and had some travel sickness pills and sat at the back of the boat. We were told that usually a trip will see one or two whales. We were extremely fortunate and saw seven. Plus another three that were just going down. They ranged in size from 15 - 17 metres in length. Sperm whales dive for 40 - 50 minutes and then come to the surface for about 10 minutes so the trick is to find one that has just surfaced. They are amazing animals and it was a great experience to see them. It was slightly surreal as you watch them and then they tip their tail up and dive and you would never know that they had been there. It was difficult to get perspective on just how enormous they are because there was nothing that we could contrast their size against. They are just there in the water.
The next morning we caught the Tranz Coastal train again to Picton where we would connect with the Inter Islander ferry to Wellington. The train journey was very pleasant with varying landscape and the weather clearly getting warmer. The ferry journey was also very enjoyable and we even saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water. Again nice scenery and warming temperatures.
I'm afraid that we didn't spend too much time in Wellington but there didn't really seem to be that much there. It was a surprise that this was the capital city. We pushed onto Napier which was again a small town. It seems that New Zealand is full of isolated towns. I don't how many times on this trip (and not just in New Zealand) we have uttered the phrase "Imagine being born in a place like this....".
We stayed in a lovely hotel in Napier. In fact the hotel was only one of two significant buildings that withstood the earthquake of 1931. It was the old county hall and only had 12 guest rooms. It had a lovely library with complementary port in the evenings. No prizes for guessing where we spent our after dinner time. The first night we were the only guests in the hotel which was strange. A bit spooky. The mad manager there took a shine to us and kept yakking on at us in the bar that evening. I was very impressed that in the time it took me and Steve to consume two gin and tonics he was halfway through his second bottle of red wine! The next day there were more people in the hotel and we were able to keep a low profile.
Napier is famous for its Art Deco architecture and there were some fine specimens around. However we were here to sample the Hawkes Bay wines. We were booked onto a tour that would take in two wineries and also lunch at one of these. There was only one other couple on the tour (also English, from Yorkshire) and our guide/driver was really nice and very knowledgeable about wine growing. She was so nice that she let us come on the whole day tour that the other couple was on for no extra charge. So in the end we had a whole day out and sample the wines of five wineries. It was a lovely day and the weather (amazingly) was superb. One of the best days out of this trip.
Unfortunately, none of the wineries would ship to the UK so we could only buy a few bottles. We have posted three bottles of excellent dessert wine back to the UK though. I look forward to enjoying these some time next year on a trip down memory lane. As luck would have one of the wineries does have a supplier in the UK and it is located in Norwich! Unfortunately they don't sell the dessert wine that I loved so much (only sold in New Zealand) but they do stock most of the other wines of the winery.
We were due to be driven to the bus station by the same company that organised the wine tour and our driver turned out to be the guide/driver from the day before. As she knew it was us she was picking up she brought her stretch limo! It was quite funny turning up to the bus station in a stretch limo.
From Napier we travelled to Rotorua famous for its thermal springs (and smell). Most of the day had been spent travelling there and we booked a tour for the next morning. At 7:35am a coach turned up and we handed in our ticket and got on board. The driver seemed to tick us off on a list. At the entrance to the "Whakarewarewa Reserve" there was a tap on the coach door and another coach driver got on and asked if there were any passengers by the name of Hedges on the coach. It turned out that we had got on the wrong coach! The first driver wasn't too pleased as it meant that he had to go back to our hotel to get the people that he should have picked us instead of us. He should have checked properly though!
The thermal reserve had some geysers and bubbling mud as well as a Maori village and cultural centre. We also visited "Paradise Valley". However, the unexpected highlight of the morning was the visit to the Agrodome. Here you watch a one hour stage show with the 19 different breeds of sheep in New Zealand, sheep shearing demonstrations and sheepdog shows. The sheep dogs were really good and even walked across the backs of the sheep and sat on the back of the sheep when doing their final party trick. We enjoyed the morning our much more than we had anticipated.
We spent the afternoon in the geothermal pools at the hotel which were very relaxing and extremely hot. Steve also had a massage. The next morning we travelled to see the Waitamo Caves. The caves were quite beautiful and the glow worms were really pretty. Worth a visit if you are ever on the North Island of New Zealand. The rest of the day was spent travelling back to Auckland.
I should mention that we did stop at an Angorra shop where they did a live Angorra rabbit shearing demonstration. The rabbit was very pretty and extremely soft and I did feel sorry for it having its legs and arms tethered (rather like being on a rack) for shearing, especially as the woman doing the shearing didn't look too confident.
Today we have done the shopping for the rest of our holiday supplies. Steve has been wrecklessly throwing underpants away and was dangerously low on supplies, which we have now corrected. We also got more camera film and bits and bobs. Best of all we have stocked up on books for our planned lazy days on the beach. We haven't really had a blissing out on the beach bit of the holiday yet. So here's hoping that is what we do in the next few weeks.
A last note is for those of you that know us from IF. Just before we embarked on our mini tour of New Zealand we did meet up with Jason and Gillian Swain who took us out for dinner in their part of town. It was really nice to see them and they haven't changed a bit! Jason's company url is here.
posted by Linda Hedges 3:09 AM
We haven't much to report at the moment as we haven't really been doing much for the last few days other than pottering about and reading. What we have managed to do is sort out our plans for the next week or so. Unfortunately the weather here is appalling as New Zealand is just coming into winter. We are not really prepared for this and so will be leaving on 9th June for the sunnier climate of Samoa. We even had to buy some new shoes to keep our feet warm and dry.
Before we leave we are going to do a mini tour of New Zealand (avoiding all really cold areas which unfortunately is most of the South Island). We set off on Friday for Christchurch and will work our way back up to Auckland taking in the highlights. The plan is :
* a day in Christchurch
* move onto Kaikoura for whale watching and lobster eating
* cross over wine country on the Tranz Coastal train to Picton
* take the Interislander across the Cook Strait cruising through the Marlborough Sounds
* spend some time in Wellington
* traverse the Wairarapa Basin (viewing New Zealand's largest windmill farm en route)
* travel north through the farmlands of the eastern provinces
* take a tour of Napier and visit some wineries (sampling the goods)
* travel through the world's largest manmade forest
* do a sightseeing tour of Rotorua
* visit the Waitomo Caves
* travel through the farming districts of Waikato
Tomorrow we are going Dolphin watching (fingers crossed that it is not cancelled due to bad weather which has been a bit of a theme of the last few weeks). Getting in the water with the dolphins is optional and a wetsuit is provided. I had a look at the water yesterday and it looks absolutely freezing. I shall take my swimsuit and towel but I do think that at this point it is highly unlikely that I shall actually venture into the water. But you never know, the sun might shine......
I am a bit concerned about visiting Samoa. Here are a few quotes from the guidebook that make me feel a bit worried :
"You'll sight some really striking physical types and meet a few unforgettable characters. Some visitors find it too intense, but almost everyone will leave with a story to tell about Samoa"
"The Samoan approach to life is almost the opposite of European - property and wealth are all thought of in communal or family rather than individual terms"
"The greatest burden of adjustment is on the young; between 1982 and 1992 Samoa experienced 230 suicides plus an equal number of unsuccessful attempts, 70% of them involving males aged 15-24, the highest suicide rate in the world"
"Because Samoan culture is a group culture, people can be overfriendly and unwilling to leave you alone"
"Samoan culture is extremely manipulative and there's a saying that you can buy anything with a fa'amolemole(please)....If you're staying in a village for long, somebody from another household may eventually come and ask you for money or something else you're carrying. It's important that you be firm with them.......If you "loan" money, consider it a gift, for if you insist on being repaid you will only make an enemy without collecting anything".
"Nobody means any harm, and violent crime is almost unknown, but be careful: the concept of individual ownership is not entirely accepted by the Samoans. Don't leave valuables unattended. Someone might even steal your laundry off the line, so it is better to hang it up in your room. Theft from hotel rooms and even beach fales in remote areas is also not unusual."
"If confronted by a belligerent drunk (quite possible in the evening), humble yourself. apologise even if you did nothing wrong, and ease yourself out of the confrontation. If it ends in violence you will always lose because the culture pressures relatives and friends to join in the attack even if their side is clearly wrong. Loyalty is priority number one, and proving that is a lifelong obligation."
"At times village children can be a bit of a nuisance, calling to you and crowding around in an almost mocking way. You can forestall much of this by smiling and saying hello as soon as you see them. Just keep smiling, keep going, and you'll soon leave them behind. It's important not to show any anger or irritation at their behaviour, as this will only delight them and make them all the more unmannered with the next visitor who happens by"
"Women receive more respect when dressed in a puletasi (long dress) or lavalava, and not slacks or shorts"
On the encouraging side we have :
"This said, don't be intimidated by by Samoan customs. Do your best to respect tradition, but rest assured that Samoans are indulgent with foreigners who make an innocent blunder. Samoans are fiercely proud of the fa'a Samoa and will be honoured to explain it to you. It's all part of the Samoan experience, not an inconvenience at all"
"Travellers inbound from a dreary industrial world may be forgiven if they imagine they've arrived in the garden of Eden....."
You may ask why we are going to Samoa if I am so worried about it and the honest answer is that as I chose South America and we did all that I wanted, Steve has chosen the South Pacific and this is one of the places that he wants to visit. It does have a reputation for being very beautiful and he says that it will be culturally interesting for us (I think he is right about that one!).
posted by Linda Hedges 2:15 AM
Well here we are in Auckland, New Zealand. I haven't done a blog since Santiago de Chile so this is one is probably going to be quite long.
After Santiago we went to Easter Island which was great. Steve has already put details up about this so I shan't go into too much detail. It was a very small place and quite rugged. The statues were really interesting and I am very glad that we stopped there en route. Four days is plenty enough time to enjoy Easter Island though as it is very small and there is not much to do. A week would be too long. I put this advice up because there are only two flights a week and you get the choice of staying for three days or a week. Most people opt for the three days wishing that they had an extra day but glad that they are not there for a week.
Then we landed in Papeete, Tahiti. What a shock. French Polynesia consists of many, many islands and I have always pictured the island of Tahiti as being a South Pacific paradise. Not so! All the pictures that you see are in fact other islands. Papeete itself is a complete dump and you really need to get off Tahiti straight away and out to the other islands. This was a bit of challenge for us as we arrived on a public holiday and we had to wait around for a whole day to get a ferry to Moorea (where most of the accommodation was already booked up, but we found somewhere in the end). Of course staying the day in Papeete just sucked money out of our pockets. Everything in French Polynesia is very, very expensive (unjustifiably so in most cases).
Moorea has a much better reputation than Tahiti and we were really looking forward to it. It is a beautiful island but getting around the place is a bit of a nightmare as the public transport is quite expensive and just seems to turn up at random intervals and we spent many hours just waiting for a bus to turn up. We started a diving course but neither of us finished it due to the awkwardness of the company. This is unfortunate as it was something that we had both wanted to do.
We stayed at the Motel Albert in a self catering apartment to try to save some money and also because we fancied doing some cooking for a change. Relative to everything else on Moorea it was reasonable value for money but relative to everywhere else in the world it was expensive for what it was. I was not at all impressed.
In summary of the whole Moorea episode I have to say that it was ridiculously overpriced and the people were very rude, arrogant and smug. The island is pretty but not as pretty as it thinks it is and is grossly overrated in my opinion. Whenever we asked anyone why it was so expensive they simply shrugged their shoulders and said "well it is beautiful and people will pay". Every opportunity to make money out of you was fully utilised. It is a shame because it gives a very bad impression of the whole of French Polynesia (ie. makes them look extremely grasping and greedy). My advice to anyone visiting French Polynesia is to skip the Society Islands (except pop into Bora Bora just for two nights just to see it) and move onto the other island groups which are much nicer with much friendlier people. However, you will still need plenty of money as nowhere in the region is cheap.
We made the decision to leave French Polynesia early as the whole money thing was just spoiling everything. Before we left we went onto Bora Bora and Rangiroa.
Bora Bora is beautiful - absolutely stunning. It looks exactly like the pictures. The different colours of the water don't look natural and we really loved it. We were able to go snorkelling off our overwater bungalow and spent many hours out in the water. Bora Bora is built up and quite developed but you can avoid that and just get on with enjoying the water and the amazing sealife there (which is why you are there anyway).
Steve has already reported on the hotel and the sting rays and sharks. The sting rays were fantastic. We got off the boat and the water was about one metre deep so you could either float or walk. There must have been about 30 sting rays swimming about our legs. Each ray was about a metre to a metre and a half in width and about two metres in length. They were brushing up against our legs (very velvety feeling) and not at all shy of us. There were so many of them that if you had been floating and wanted to stand up in the water you had to wait for a gap in them so that you could put your feet down (although I am sure that they would have moved out of the way if there was even the remote danger that you might stand on them). There was also a shark there but it was quite shy and just kept swimming around us about three meters away.
After the sting ray episode we went to feed the sharks. There were four of us on the tour and the boat was anchored and an additional anchored rope was put out for us to hold onto. This is so that we wouldn't all be swimming around and scaring the sharks. Of course we were all nervous before we got in. Try and get in the water with a ton of dead fish and blood to attract sharks and not feel nervous.....Plus the crew had been working us up by telling us all to kiss each other goodbye, etc., etc.
The "feeding man" put the fish blood into the water and made lots of splashing noises on the surface of the water. This was to make it seem as though a kill had occurred. Slowly, one by one the sharks turned up. The feeding man would wave the dead fish about to lure them closer to us. We were about three metres behind the feeding man. For some absolutely mad reason this made me feel safe! I think it was the thought that he was first in line if anything went wrong and we would probably have time to get onto the boat! Sharks are actually very cautious animals, contrary to popular belief and would circle the fish for ages before plucking up the courage to take it. It made me feel sad that they are hunted so much. When swimming around they would sometimes come around the back of us which was a bit nerve wracking. We were so close to them it was like looking at them in Sea World or something. They were very beautiful although had very unexpressive eyes.
After the shark feeding we went to a superb snorkelling site where we had a close up with a moray eel (ugly animal) and tons and tons of fish. I have taken loads of underwater pictures but I am not sure how they will turn out as I haven't used one of those underwater cameras before. The whole excursion is one of the holiday highlights.
We spent the next day lounging around our bungalow and feeding and snorkelling with the fish. Steve, aka Dr Doolittle, spent hours in the water feeding the fish (over several days) and by the end of our second week in Polynesia every time he got in the water a posse of fish would turn up and follow him around even if he had no food for them!
Rangiroa was nice and relaxing but our planned excursions were cancelled due to rain (it being a tropical paradise and all that....) which was a shame. Regardless, we had a nice time there.
That pretty much brings things up to date. Auckland is strange. So civilised, organised and English speaking! A nice change. You can't be an intrepid adventurer all the time! posted by Linda Hedges 11:12 PM
Just a quick blog from New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland a few hours ago and we're still in shock - people speak English here! And they drive on the left! And there are bookshops! I think it's all gone to our heads a bit. Anyway, we are checked into an apartment where we can cook and wash our clothes (which are getting fairly stinky now). We'll catch up on our sleep tonight and produce a full entry about French Polynesia in the next few days.
Here are the selected highlights: Polynesia is an amazingly beautiful place - especially Bora Bora. It really does look like the pictures with the most amazing coloured lagoon water, greens, blues, turquoise and cyan. We were upgraded at the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort, for some reason, so that we had an overwater bungalow (complete with a glass floor for observing the fish). Linda thought it was the most romantic place she had ever seen - she was quite moist-eyed looking around the suite. I enjoyed feeding the fish (by hand) off our platform over the water. We went on a good excursion around the lagoon seeing lots of stingrays and some worryingly close sharks.
We had a beach bungalow at the Kia Ora on Rangiroa, which was a bit amateurish but nice. Rangiroa is a very strange place - it's a coral atoll which is about 60kms in diameter, yet the maximum width is only 300 metres. It's possible to see from the lagoon-side to the ocean-side, yet it is impossible to see the land on the other side of the lagoon. The weather was not kind to us in Rangiroa - being blustery, overcast and rainy.
In summary, getting away from Tahiti and Moorea was a good idea. The people were much friendlier away from those two islands. If we ever go back, I'd go straight out to the Tuamotu archipeligo and carry on to the Marquesas. posted by Steven Hedges 5:31 AM
Greetings from Moorea - land of beautiful seas, densely forested mountains and extortionate prices. We have been haemorhaging money since we got here and it's beginning to impact our enjoyment. So we've decided to bite the bullet and abbreviate and intensify the Polynesia trip. We've lopped about twenty days off the allocated time and we're going to some swanky hotels - the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort and Kia Ora on Rangiroa.
This might cost more than we were planning, but we will at least enjoy the money we're spending. Instead of dying from a thousand cuts, we'll open an artery for a controlled period of time. We'll use the spare time to visit Tonga for a few weeks.
Anyway, now I've gotten that off my chest ... what have we been doing? Mostly it includes the water. We've both had some scuba lessons - though Linda didn't enjoy the experience, she has no faith in the technology, so she's stopped. I really enjoyed it, especially a dive I did outside the lagoon. I saw about twenty-five blacktipped reef sharks. These are fairly small sharks (less than two metres long) but still, a shark's a shark - especially when it is only about five metres away. Also spotted were a couple of Moray eels (both more than two metres long), parrotfish, tuna etc etc
Other than that, we've had lazy days at the beach and exploring the island. The lagoon is a beautiful turquoise colour and the temperature is pleasantly cooling. Especially nice when the sun comes out and the temperature soars into the thirties. A problem is the dearth of public transport. There are a few buses going around the island, but they seem to go whenever the driver feels like it. This means it's not uncommon to have to wait at least an hour for one to turn up if you want to go from one side of the island to the other.
posted by Steven Hedges 11:32 PM
Just a quick diary entry as we are in a cybercafe with enormous charges and fairly poor speeds (it is about $12 per hour - we're used to paying about $2/hour). We are currently in Moorea, part of French Polynesia, and since the last blog we've been in Easter Island and Tahiti.
We both enjoyed Easter Island. It's a very small place - only 3000 people live there - and perhaps 20,000 people visit each year. The main, if not only, reason for visiting the island are the statues. There are a thousand of these sombre statues (called moai) around the island in various states of repair. They represent clan elders and founders and provide protection to the village they look over. Some have been completely restored and re-erected on their platforms (or ahu). They are impressive (from 4 to 10 metres high), with very expressive faces - sad and wise - and some had red "top knots" like bulky hats. One even had eyes made out of coral and obsidian (which gave it a doll-like appearance and reduced the dignity of the statue). Most of them are fallen and lying broken-backed besides their ahu. There was something quite haunting about these huge statues lying damaged on the ground. It wasn't clear whether the statues had fallen because of natural causes or as a result of inter-tribal wars. By far the best, however, was the quarry where the statues were carved before being transported to their sites. About 600 moai are at the quarry. Some of them were standing upright but buried in the soil. So that they looked like some strange plant growing out of the fertile ground. Some were still attached to the mountain. Some were lying broken on the ground, where a transport accident had rendered moot a year's work.
We also visited the site of the BirdMan ritual - an annual competition to find the paramount ruler, which involves climbing down a sheer cliff, swimming across 4 kilometres of water, climbing another cliff to collect a tern's egg and then returning with the egg still intact. Pretty hard work it looked.
Can't say much about French Polynesia at the moment as we've only been here a short time. What I can say is that it is monstrously expensive. Papeete on Tahiti is probably more expensive than Buenos Aires was in the days of dollar-peso parity. Just one example: two beers, a fruit juice and a cocktail was over $30! posted by Steven Hedges 12:18 AM
Well, we are leaving South America tomorrow to start the adventure across the Pacific. It has been absolutely fantastic - much better than I was expecting. We have managed to travel from the Equator (where we almost suffered from heatstroke) down to Patagonia (where we saw icebergs) with absolutely minimal Spanish abilities and going most of the way on rickety public transport.
One thing that has amazed me is how easy this travelling lark is! I think this has partly been because we are inherently cautious and paranoid (so that we do not wander the streets drunk, we keep an eye out all the time for bag snatchers etc) and partly it's because it really is not so hard - especially as people in South America have been very welcoming and friendly.
So tomorrow we are flying to Easter Island - also known as Rapa Nui. (Interestingly, this means "navel of the earth" and is the second "navel" we are visiting as Cusco means the same thing.) Most of the island is a World Heritage Site due to the many statues. (We've been "collecting" WHSs - I think we are up to about 15 so far. Linda did not mention that the cruise to San Rafael took us to another such site Although neither of us were impressed with this.)
We have a few days on Rapa Nui before we fly on to Tahiti in French Polynesia. We are planning on learning to dive here (and also, perhaps, how to surf) before we take off on a tour of the different islands covering Moorea, Huahine, Tahaa, Bora Bora and Rangiroa. I've got a feeling that FP might be quite expensive - so one possibility is that we will zoom around the archipeligo very quickly and then catch a flight to the Cook Islands. These seem to be cheaper than FP and therefore better for hanging out in.
Another diversion we might make is later on. We have ten days scheduled in New Zealand before we fly to Independent Samoa. We might cut that short and use the time to go on to Tonga. (Linda is looking forward to seeing the men of Tonga, convinced as she is that they all look like Jonah Lomu.) posted by Steven Hedges 10:03 PM
We are back from our glacier cruise and must report that we had a really nice time. We arrived on the evening of Friday 26th April and began what turned out to be a rather alcohol and food full week. All alcohol and food was included in the price and they were very generous. We had a welcome cocktail evening on the Friday evening and an excellent meal. We were allocated our table in the dining room for the rest of the week and were seated with an Australian couple who were 78 and 75 and doing a six week trip across South America. They do a big trip every year and told us that every time they think that they are doing their last trip! They were very nice and quite good fun although the woman could yak for Australia and you couldn't get a word in edgeways sometimes which could be a bit tiring at meal times. I often wondered if she would notice if I put my headphones on and listened to my walkman instead......
The boat had a 160 passenger capacity but there were only 47 of us on board in total, which was nice. There were 34 crew members so we were well attended to. We set sail on Saturday morning (as not everyone boarded the boat on Friday) and headed for the San Rafael glacier.
We had splashed out on a bit of luxury and had a top deck cabin. The downside of this was that it was a bit cold, especially as we went further south. We had an electric blanket on our bed but only one side was working properly and the crew were unable to resolve this. So Steve (feeling the cold more than me) slept on the warm side and I had the cold side. The plus side of the cabin was that we had good views and it was very spacious. Also some of the downstairs cabins had rather small bunk beds whilst we had a queen sized double bed. So the old adage that you get what you pay for is true. I have to award the "best shower in South America" prize to the shower that we had. Powerful with tons of hot water. It was so hot that you had to turn lots of cold water on too. A real treat for us (hygiene having been a bit of a problem on this trip).
We were due to reach the glacier on Monday and frankly spent most of Saturday and Sunday lazing around on deck (with gloves and scarves on), in the bar, in the restaurant or sleeping off the excess consumption. It is very difficult to not drink alcohol when they make up a whole load of cocktails and line them up on the bar for you to just help yourself. We had a no alcohol before early afternoon rule but some of the party did start rather early......Of course, being older people and pretty much everyone in couples it was quite civilised. The food was excellent, especially the last night's dinner. We don't need to eat for another week.......It feels like since we went to Argentina we just haven't stopped eating.
We reached the glacier on Monday about 9am. As we approached you could see icebergs starting to appear in the water. I thought that icebergs were white but they aren't - or rather these ones aren't. They are a stunning range of colours (from dark green to sky blue) and some are more solid in colour whilst others are more translucent, like crystals. To get really close to the glacier and icebergs we got off the ship and into small boats. The icebergs were really stunning and the glacier was fantastic. We took tons and tons of pictures but of course we know it won't do the whole thing any justice. The day at the glacier is a highlight of our holiday and has made it onto the top ten highlights list.
The glacier itself was beautiful. Very jagged and cracked and all different shades of blue. Bits kept breaking off and falling into the water and when that happened it make a sound like very loud cracks of thunder. We were in the small boat for a good two hours and chipped some ice (30000 years old) of one of the icebergs to have in with our "glacier toast whisky". Yes, even on the small boat they brought a plentiful supply of alcohol! Once again it is the natural things that are so memorable and enjoyable on this holiday and once again I can't find the words to describe just how stunning the whole scene was.
We returned to the ship for lunch and then went closer to the glacier in the ship in the afternoon. We were extremely fortunate that we saw an amazingly huge piece of ice break off the glacier. The bit that stuck out of the water (and only 10% of an iceberg sticks out of the water) was about 15 metres high and 50 metres wide. It was the most beautiful colour. From green to blue all in one iceberg. Watching it fall was like watching in slow motion. The waves that it gave off were enormous and shook our ship. Wonderful.
It was extremely cold and most of us spent the rest of the day warming up and chatting about what we had seen. There was a surprising mix of nationalities on the cruise. Indian, English, French, Uraguayan, Mexican, Brazilian, Spanish, Australian and quite a lot of Chilean people. Not much English was spoken so it was a good chance to practice our Spanish.
The next day we went to some thermal pools that were 34 degrees celcius in temperature. We enjoyed splashing around in them so much that we decided that we wouldn't go on a boat ride that everyone else was doing and so had them to ourselves for a about an hour and a half. We did some swimming and then played rather violent water polo. It was more like combat fighting for the ball and we both sustained injuries. Me in the face and Steve in his nether regions. Again, as with the Ecuadorian thermal pools, they fade a bit in comparison to the spas in Baden Baden but were nevertheless nice and we just have to accept that the Baden Baden ones were exceptional.
On Wednesday and Thursday we cruised back north towards Puerto Montt stopping off to see local towns and panoramic view points along the way. We didn't really do much other than eat, drink and sleep. On Thursday night we had the farewell dinner which was also the last one of the season as there are no more cruises until September because of the weather. I can confirm that it was very cold, windy and wet most of the time. Insanely, we had actually packed some shorts and sandals for the cruise!!! Luckily we had also packed our woolly hats, gloves, waterproofs, etc.
Yesterday (the final day) we had breakfast and then were taken to the airport to catch our lunchtime flight back to Santiago. The rest of yesterday was a bit rotten but we are back on form today.
We leave for Easter Island tomorrow afternoon and have absolutely no idea what the internet situation (or for that matter phone situation) is like there. We leave on Wedneday night for Tahiti where we are optimistic about finding an internet cafe. We will be visiting some remote islands in the upcoming part of our trip and probably won't be able to keep this website as upto date as frequently as we have been doing. Also I don't have high hopes for the connection speed of any internet cafe that we find which is always very frustrating.
There are some random points that I would like to mention about South America because I will forget otherwise.
1) In both Argentina and Chile when you collect your luggage at arrivals you have to have it x-rayed before you leave the secure area! This is the first time that I have seen that.
2) The Buenos Aires metro reminded me of the French one (dirty and you can see the next station when you look down the track). It had some great carriages on one of the lines which were like old English trains. They were wooden and (a bit worryingly) you opened the (wooden) doors by sliding them open yourself. You could do this at any time, even when the train was moving.
3) The more south you come the more you realise that most retail outlets are operating a job creation scheme. Chile is very accomplished in this matter and made the Bolivian retailers seem like amateurs. You go into the shop and pick up the goods that you want. You give them to someone who writes out a purchase ticket for you and takes the goods for you. Then you go to the cashier and get your receipt. Then you take the receipt to another counter where two people are waiting for you. One of them will put your goods in a bag and the other one will take your receipt and stamp on it that you have received the goods. This happens even in the smallest shops and we had to go through this whole regime when we just wanted to buy a packet of crisps in the very small local shop. They could hardly fit all the staff behind the counter!
posted by Linda Hedges 6:01 PM
I am posting this blog as we are off on our cruise to the San Rafael glacier in twenty minutes and there were a few things that I wanted to note down that I won't remember when we get back from the cruise. I'm quite looking forward to the cruise but it feels strange to be finally going as it is something that we arranged a long time ago and is the mark of the end of our South American phase of the holiday.
So here are the things that I wanted to note down in no particular order :
1) Santiago de Chile is definitely the most modern of all the places that we have visited in South America and it seems very, very wealthy. We were wandering around yesterday for several hours looking for the American Express Bank (a long story) and ended up in the business district. There were lots of large, modern office blocks and they really were very architecturally interesting (and I'm not particularly an architecture buff).
2) Santiago de Chile is also the most expensive place that we have been and I have been quite shocked by the prices of everything. Even the laundry was on the pricey side!
3) I have decided that I will love fish by the end of this holiday. As you may or may not know, I loathe fish but wish that I liked it as it is very healthy. Additionally, Chile is famous for its fish (I have a feeling that is what we will be eating on the cruise) and I think that it will be a strong theme throughout the South Pacific. I made myself like olives (in fact I love them now) so I can make myself like fish. Every meal that we have had in the last two days has been a fish meal and I have to say that I really enjoyed yesterday's lunch (some King crab concoction which was a speciality of the house). I wasn't overly impressed by Steve's squid in it's ink last night (although it was an interesting unfood-like colour) but the Conger eel that we had was quite nice.
4) Steve was very impressive at spotting a fake note that someone tried to pass us. What was especially impressive was that it was a US $ note which we are not all that familiar with. We had asked an American couple how to spot fakes and they told us that you have to look for the strip that says "USA ten" (or USA twenty, etc.). It happened on the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls because we had to pay our entrance fee in Brazilian money. We only wanted to change just enough for that and went to the official cambio. We handed over a $20 note and asked for $10 in Brazilian money and the rest back in US. The man gave Steve the note and he said "The paper doesn't feel right". We held it up to the light and the strip was missing. We told the man that we wanted another one and he didn't look at all surprised when we said that the note that he had given us was fake and gave us another (real) one.
5) I have realised that we have too much stuff back in the UK. Every cupboard is full to bursing point and one of the rooms is full up with stuff. When we get back we will need to have a really good sort out. Mind you, I have been saying for ages that we need to have a sort out and when push comes to shove I am incapable of throwing stuff out.
6) Chilean wine is really excellent. Argentine wine was quite good but all the Chilean wine that we have tried has really stood out as very, very good.
That's all my rambling finished for a week. posted by Linda Hedges 4:11 PM
One amazing thing about the economic crisis in Argentina is that it has led to the creation and circulation of parallel, unofficial currencies.Most of the shops have signs in the window saying that they accept Patacones and Lecops. When we asked at the hotel, the concierge gave us a 2 peso Patacon. On one side this looks a lot like a normal two peso note (although there are some differences) and on the other side is a description of the law allowing them to be issued.
As far as I can work out, a Patacon is a short-term bond issued by the provincial government of Buenos Aires and used to pay their employees. The bond is scheduled to pay 7% more than the face value on June 25th. However, since they were printed because the province was running out of money, whether they actually will pay out is highly dubious I'd think.
It is strange enough that a regional government can get out of an economic crisis by printing its own money, but odder (for me at least) is that this bogus money can circulate around just like real money. I almost put real in scare-quotes, because it's no longer obvious to me what counts as reality with respect to money. I suppose real money is just what is accepted as real by the majority of people. posted by Steven Hedges 4:05 PM
