Rotorua (New Zealand)

Ahhhhh, New Zealand! Something feeling a bit like home after three months on the road. I spent most of the first day eating - a trip to the supermarket meant loading up on such things are chelsea buns, tea, cereal and, most importantly Marmite! The first curry house we saw also meant I had a sudden need to go for a curry. Fortunately, Jay and Julie, the two Americans we had met in Tahiti who were on our flight to NZ had a similar feeling so the four of us spent our first night in NZ at the local curry house!

We quickly warmed to the Kiwi sense of humour. Several men we met during the first few days were growing taches. After wondering why, it turns out that L&P (a soft drink) is running a 'Movember' charity programme, with some funny advertising!

With Dad and Clare having arrived in Auckland shortly after us, we followed them (I think the others on their coach thought we were stalkers when we kept appearing) down to the stinky tourist resort of Rotorua. Being the main geothermal area of the north island, there are loads of places around the town with steam coming out of them, golf courses, roadsides, next to the hospital, with life happily continuing in Rotorua amongst it all. The smell hits you immediately as you arrive into the town! New Zealand is really well set up for tourists, within half an hour of our bus arriving we had booked all our activities and transport for three days, plus I managed to get myself in a feature in the local newspaper! Hanging around the bus station looking shifty and stuffing my face with a pie seemed to attract the reporter, and there followed an interview about tourist views of the town. Having been there only ten minutes meant I struggled to answer a few questions such as how to improve the town, but managed to come up with the helpful comment that the pie shop could be a bit nearer the bus station! I suspect they may have used another interview in that edition.





One demolished pie later, and I was off Zorbing. Zorbing is one of the many bizarre adventure activities that the Kiwis dream up on those long winter nights. Essentially it involves getting in the large inflatable ball you can see opposite, and rolling down a hill! I went for the hydro zorb zig zag ride, which means the ball is filled with warm water and you get thrown from side to side as well as backwards and forwards. On the way up to the ride, the instructor informed me that Vania had requested extra cold water for my ride! She hadn't in fact, although thats exactly only as she didn't think of doing it! The cold water is apparently only reserved for Australians, or people taking the piss out of NZ sport (bit hard not to do that at the moment - NZ is in mourning, first the rugby (both codes), then the cricket and now they can't even win at netball despite the face that hardly anyone else plays it)! So I was very english and sticked to small talk about the weather to be on the safe side.






Click on the play icon below to see the video of my zorb:











That evening we met up for dinner with Dad and Clare. It turned out their coach had just passed the zorb place when I texted them to say I was doing it. I think their coach driver's words were something like "some people choose to spend their time here doing strange things like rolling down a hill like a hamster!"


The next day, we met up with them again at the Wai-O-Tapu thermal resort. Wai-O-Tapu is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera (depression) within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone. The Indian – Australian plate rising and overlapping the Pacific Plate causes a fault line, and the ground beneath Wai-O-Tapu is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. This is the North Island's most active geothermal centre and the home of the Lady Knox geyser. The geyser is set off each morning at 10.15, and to Dad and Clare's surprise we were on time for the third occasion in two days. Basically they shove a load of soap in the top, and after a few minutes of bubbling action the geyser blows up on cue for the tourist cameras.

Then we walked round the area, the highlight being the champagne pool below. The colours provide a spectacular landscape with the bubbling mud and pools of water. The smell isn't quite so good!

After watching all this bubbling activity, we felt like another hot spa visit ourselves. We went to lay about in the Polynesian spas, with a great view of the lake. A lot of birds also nest by the lakeside, giving it a slightly eerie feel.

Rotorua's geothermal activity drew the Maoris to settle here. The proximity of the hot pools meant they could bathe, cook and build houses on hot ground so as to have a natural form of central heating. That evening, we went to a Maori cultural evening. Each group had to wait at the entrance to receive a traditional Maori welcome. I'm not sure what they said, but we arrived to find Dad and Clare (in background) being greeted by this bloke, who really didn't look happy!

Fortunately we were eventually let in, and once inside were taken on a tour of the village. Now it was Vania's turn to upset one of the Maori people by asking for a photo of the other two women but not him! It was the prettier clothes apparently. He managed to sneak in the photo and get his own back! We then watched them perform the Haka, followed by a hangi (food steam cooked in an underground oven covered with earth) which was very tasty.

With Dad and Clare's coach off down to Wellington, it was time for us to go back up north. On the way we made a stop at the Waitomo caves, as Vania was demanding Glow Worms and they have quite a few. Basically, the worms hang from the cave's ceiling and dangle a sticky thread (much like the spider's one) while producing a bright glow. The final effect of so many worms glowing together resembles the night sky, fooling other insects into flying upwards and getting entangled in their threads. The brighter the worm, the hungrier it is. Vania was very happy with the worms' display! No photos unfortunately, the Glow Worms in the caves don't react too well to flash lights. To my amusement, five coachloads of Japanese tourists had also turned up to see the Glow Worms, providing the rare spectacle of that many Japanese tourists and no photos! In fairness, they managed it, although several were unable to part from their cameras and the others looked distinctly lost without them.

We then made our way back to Auckland and onto the Bay of Islands.

More soon!

Tom

Moorea (Tahiti)

Content advisory: if you are sensitive to photos of paradise, turquoise blue waters and coconut trees on white sand beaches then please do not read this post. Viewing of the following photos can be particularly harmful for people currently enduring the European winter weather and/or at work.


Ola all!

The next stop was Tahiti! Tom had done some research and found the only backpacker friendly island: Moorea. Despite this, Moorea was still one of the most expensive places we've been on our trip. Oh well, Paradise was definitely worth its price.





After freezing our noses off in Patagonia we were so glad to reach the warmth of Moorea. Initially we stayed on the north side of the beach, in Cook's Bay. Cook's Bay is the one on the right hand side on the photo, although Captain Cook actually anchored his boat on Opunohu Bay, the one on the left. I'm afraid this is the only bit of historical information we have on Moorea. Well, that and the fact South Pacific and Mutiny on the Bounty were filmed there. After three months of gathering information on other cultures we decided to take some time off!





For a week we just walked around the island, relaxed on the beach and snorkeled through the coral reefs. I think the photos are self explanatory, really...

In one of the days we visited a nearby island where a small lagoon was prepared for the tourists. Here lived several stingrays which actually behaved like cats: they would brush against your legs in demand for attention. Then they just stayed in the shallow water by you, while you gave them a good scratch on their backs. It's the most amazing feeling, such a velvety animal, both in the way it swims but also in how it feels... I want one... There were also small "lemon sharks" (you can't be afraid of them with a name like that)! They were being fed, although the seabirds were very quick in and managed to snatch food from the water sometimes, until one got itself deservedly bitten by a shark!

We then moved to the south side of the island, where we stayed in a really cool place called Mark's Paradise. Paradise had two dogs, one cat and an awful lot of cochroaches, as Tom found out the first night we were there. Luckily I was already fast asleep when they decided to show up so Tom had again to deal with them on his own. He's getting really good at it too!





Paradise was also close to the best beach in the island, Pinapo Beach, so we decided to hang around for a few more days. We hired some bikes, which had no gears or brakes, but did have a huge wicker basket on the front. Fortunately the main road on the island is flat! The trouble is we are both used to cycling a lot back home, and its quite hard to remember you don't have brakes..... as Tom found out to his cost. On the way to the beach, he spotted a nice looking creperie and did a quick detour to check out the menu. Unfortunately, it wasn't that far from the road, and upon remembering he had no brakes, had to crash into and mount a large kerb (narrowly missing a tourist strolling along) to avoid taking a rather closer inspection of the creperie than planned! The cycle back home was less eventful, although this time we managed the 10km journey with a roasted chicken sat in the basket (how french)!

The only cultural event was one night at a "local traditional village", purpose built for tourists. There you could learn all about the pearl culture in the region, the agriculture, the tattoos and other aspects of the life of tahitians before the french arrived. The best part was an evening show, where pretty young women with straw skirts, long black air and flower necklaces softly sang and dance, while barely dressed tattooed young men played with fire. Very entertaining, I should say!

Unfortunately a week in Paradise sent our budget down the drain and we had to leave. Arriving in Auckland in the middle of a rain storm quickly brought us back to reality...


Beijinhos,

Vania

Easter Island (Chile)

Hi again,


See how well we are behaving now? Six new posts in a few days! (although as you might have noticed we changed the dates in the posts to match when we actually visited the places...)


We said goodbye to Santiago with a great night out with Carmen Gloria and Alastair (thanks again for taking such a good care of us)! We payed due homage to Pisco in all its delicious variations. You name it, Pisco Sour, Pisco Mango or Piscola, we are now Pisconnoiceurs! Having got to bed at about 4.30 it was seriously hard to get up at 6am the next morning but our destination was worth the effort: Easter Island!!!

Now, when Tom was organising the trip, Easter Island was Vania's first request. However, the ticket would have cost us 500 pounds, so we decided to leave it for another time. You can imagine how happy we were when we found out that our flight from Chile to Tahiti had a free stopover in.......Easter Island. Result!


The island is one of the most remote place on Earth, lying 4000km off the Chilean coast with it's nearest island over 2000km away. It was formed by the explosion of three nearby volcanoes, which over time accumulated enough debris in between them to form the island. All the volcanoes are now extinct are their craters are the sites for the few lakes on the island.

For some, this remoteness presents opportunities. You may remember a few years ago Coca-Cola launched a new mineral water, Dasani, claiming its its 'NASA-approved reverse osmosis multi-barrier filtration system' created water so pure it was much better than tap water. What they actually meant to say was that it was really just tap water from Dartford! When illegal levels of carciogenic bromate chemicals were also discovered in the water, Coca -Cola abandoned the Dasani launch. The whole thing caused Coca Cola worldwide embarrassment, and yet here we are in one of the remotest places on the planet and what do we see on sale everywhere?! Coca-Cola, peddling your expensive tap water to the Rapa Nui people, you should be ashamed of yourself! Of course, we made a point of telling the locals the truth.

No one really knows when the island was first inhabited by polynesian tribes. Upon arrival, these people were faced with an island very different than the ones they were used to. Easter island or Rapa Nui ("The World's Vessel" in its indigenous name) has only two beaches, making the access to the sea quite tricky. The sea is not as rich in life as other Pacific Islands nor is the soil as fertile. As the island's population grew, resources gradually became scarce: most sea birds were hunted to extinction and the island became deforested.

At the same time a peculiar cult was developed, although again no one really knows how it started. Massive stone statues called Moai ("The living face") were carved in the centre of the island and then moved to the coastal areas, where most settlements were situated close to fresh water springs.

According to the accounts of the natives, the statues represented important leaders or ancestors of the village. They were carved during the lifetime of the person and taken to the ahu, a platform facing the village.

Some people believe that the moai "walked" from the quarry to the village, by being rocked from one side to the other (like you would move a fridge) but others believe that they were transported on rolling tree trunks. When the person died, its body was placed in front of the moai and the statue's eyes were carved and covered in coral, finalising the statue and closing the person's spirit inside the moai. Through the moai the ancestors could continue to protect their villages.





Just after the first europeans visited the island in the late 18th century, something triggered massive inter-tribal fights. Some scholars believe that the effort placed on sculpting and moving the moai was so big that it overtook all other activities like farming and fishing. The lack of resources lead to intense fighting, during which members of one tribe would vandalise their opponents ahus by topping over the moais. When the europeans visited the island again, there were no moais left standing.

Fortunately, tourism has a positive role on this story (at least so far...). Until the 1970s, the island's only contact with the outside world was the annual warship from the mainland bringing supplies. Now, with LAN Chile offering daily flights, Easter Island welcomes 60 000 tourists all year around and has become a very popular destination. To please them, some of the ahu's were restored and the moai brought back to their former glory. In the old days, the moai stood by balancing on the ahu, since the indigenous didn't have any form of cementing them. This feat is particularly impressive in the moai with topknots, where a true balancing game was at play between the ahu, the moai and the topknot. Again, no one really knows why at some point the carvers decided to add topknots to the statues nor what do they mean. The best theory we heard is that the topknot actually represents the hair of the moai and that it is sculpted in a different rock because the natives would be red-haired. This means that the first colonisers of Easter Island were actually the Scots!! Or the vikings, but we prefer the former.





Vania admited to having naughty feelings when she saw the moai nicely lined up in their platforms... She keep having these visions of large scale dominoes falling synchronously! Probably this is why the people restoring the moai decided to use cement to keep them vertical and dissuade some tourists from trying to push them...





There are almost a thousand moai in the island. We decided to hire some mountain bikes to get around the island and see some of them upclose. Most are still in the quarry and seem to have been suddenly abandoned half way through completion. Over the years they became buried by the eroding montain. Who knows which secrets might still be hidden there? The largest moai of all remains in quarry, towering 21m high! I guess that even if its sculptors wanted to, that moai would have never left the quarry: too big a fridge to walk to the coast!

There isn't much else to do in Easter Island but for admiring the Moai. Fortunately there are so many of them that you can be entertained this way for a longtime! And they are quite stunning at any time of the day or night. When we weren't Moai-spotting we spent time relaxing at the hostel, which was more like staying with a family. They were very friendly, although the daughter had turned up for the week to stay/boss everyone around, including the guests! We were allowed to use the kitchen, although were allocated a slot for dinner between 9.15-9.25pm. We were allowed to eat, although when Tom spilt something on the tablecloth the woman immediately appeared, pointing at the mark whilst hopping around and waving a cloth around. Feeding the cat was also a big no-no (whoops, shouldnt have given it the rest of our dinner)! Fortunately, she mainly spoke in Spanish (and our Rapa Nui was a bit rusty) so it was Vania who got the bollocking after each misdemeanour, much to Tom's amusement!

Oh this reminds us of our worst night so far! We had gone to bed quite early as there was no electricity in the island (they were replacing the generators, apparently). At some point Tom woke up because we had a moth flying around in the room. This turned out to be a cockroach, and as Tom went to get the torch out a splat in the back of his neck confirmed that it was of the flying variety! How disgusting! And it wasn't alone, it had brought two friends with it! Whilst Tom was chasing around in the dark trying to simultaneously kill the roaches and put the mosquito net up, Vania made the obvious move of hiding under the bed covers and refusing to come out. It wouldn't be fair to say Vania was no help at all during all this, at one point she bravely exposed one hand from under the bedsheets for a couple of seconds in order to hold the torch! To add insult to injury, the next morning we were told by the owner of the hotel it had been our fault the night visit had happen. We had taken the key with us so they couldn't clean our room! In fairness to then, we never had other problems in the following nights, to Tom's relief...

Bye for now,

Tom & Vania

Torres del Paine (Chile)

Ola!

After returning from Argentina we made our way to what actually had driven us to visit Patagonia: the Torres del Paine Park!




This is one of the biggest parks in Chile (if not the biggest) and features several glaciers, prairies and mountains, which can be hiked through over several days following diverse paths. Being the professional hikers we are, we opted for the one day hike to see the stars of the park, the Paine Towers (you guessed it).






We made it to the entrance of the park to be met by a blizzard. Then five minutes later in was brilliant sunshine. The Ranger told us they had just had 50cm of snow at the base of the towers and advised us to start the trek in the other direction and wait for the snow to clear. Typical! Our "good-luck" was still with us, throwing an unseasonal bit of snow just to make things more interesting! As we only had a couple of days, we decided to do the trek that was open up to a refuge near the towers and spend the night there, in hope we might reach to towers the following morning. We were able to appreciate a little bit of the beauty of the park on our way to the refuge. At some point it started snowing again (not a good omen for the next day) but we just put our ponchos on and had a snowball fight!








This photo always reminds me of Master Yoda fighting Darth Vader, I don't know why...

At the refuge we met other people as frustrated as us. It turns out that the walk to the base of the towers had been inaccessible for a few days - people just waited and looked out of the window for a glimpse of the top of the towers. The Torres del Paine were living up to their name! Fortunately we had artists amongst us, so we could have a nice sing along around the fire. Reassuringly six doctors also happened to be staying there, should we have any trekking mishaps!

The following morning we woke up to find the towers were still inaccessible. Like the others in the refuge, we took the advice of the Ranger and didn't even attempt to try and get nearer the towers. At least we managed to see their top, so we can say we saw a little of them!

Still, in all his expertise Tom managed to get one great photo of the Torres del Paine in their full glory! To do so he risked himself out in the cold for hours and bravely faced the elements.........

.......Actually no, he just took a photo of a poster they had in the refuge... not that you'd have known the difference! This is what the towers supposedly look like, in case you were wondering.

We left with the feeling Patagonia is a place we'll visit again one day... in the summer!

Beijinhos,

Vania

Perito Moreno Glacier (Argentina)

Hello all,

After flying down to Patagonia we made a brief visit over the border into Argentina. The crossing was particularly welcoming - after passing a sign announcing "The Falklands belong to Argentina," the immigration office was stuck at the top of the mountain, where we ended up queuing in the snow! They looked delighted when I produced my British passport, so I was quickly back on the coach before they changed their minds about letting me in!



As soon as we arrived in El Calafate, we went quickly to the bar to watch England beat France in the rugby world cup semi final. The game was followed immediately by the second semi final, Argentina v Chile.........wait a minute, Chile don't play rugby? Oh no, this was Argentina v Chile in the football world cup qualifiers, although from the way they were tackling each other it took a few minutes to realise there wasn't still a rugby game on! So we watched that game as well, it was very funny watching the locals as much as the game which Argentina won 2-0 if anyone cares.







Vania's consolation for an afternoon in a bar watching sport was yet another dog back at the hostel. I'm sure she's got a guide book with a dog count in it!

The purpose of the Argentinian visit was to see the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the most spectacular in the world. Our pick up from the hostel was 8am, unfortunately we didn't realise Argentina was an hour ahead so we ended up still in bed when it arrived. Less than five minutes later, we were on the coach, luckily having managed to throw on enough warm clothes for the daytrip. As we discovered withing seconds of the first stop on the way to the glacier, Patagonia has a fairly constant bitterly cold wind, so even on a sunny spring day it is very cold. As we approached the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, and caught a first glimpse of the Perito Moreno Glacier, there was a gasp from virtually everyone on the coach. The glacier is a stunning sight, a huge wall of ice (the front alone is 5km long and 60m high) extending 80km up the valley.

Upon arrival, we went on a boat trip to the front of the glacier before the crowds gathered. The glacier looms large above you, with broken pieces of ice floating in front of the craggy, deep blue ice. The boat does not get too close as large pieces of ice often fall off the front edge. This, coupled with the fact that the wind alone whips up large waves on the lake, can make the lake very rough at times. Having taken our pictures, the boat made its way back to the quay only to discover that an iceberg had inconsiderately deposited itself right in front of where we were going to dock. Apparently this was no problem, out came a rope to tow the iceberg out of the way! This was fine until a large piece of ice broke off to leave the remaining iceberg well and truly blocking our exit. In the meantime, the winds were picking up and the waves on the lake were getting larger, making the job of clearing a wide enough space and navigating through it all the more difficult. (At this stage Vania was reminding me of how right her feeling had been!) The expectant crowds that had gathered on the shore for the next boat trip were departing fast, although some lingered long enough to take pictures of us stranded amongst the icebergs, which was nice. Our hour long boat ride had turned into a three hour one, but it was fascinating to watch the crew gradually work a gap in the ice large enough (only just, as you can see) to get us all back to shore without having to reach into our bags for our swimwear. So no Titanic moment on this particular trip!

After all the excitement, we went up for a walk along the side of the valley to see the glacier from a different vantage point. The glacier is quite active, advancing by two metres a day. As we sat eating our lunch, a few crashes alerted us to some ice splintering off the front of the glacier. A few more followed, then slightly bigger pieces of ice until a huge column crashed off the front and into the lake. About thirty seconds of real glacial action happening right in front of us! Every few years there is a large rupture, but we were very lucky to see this:

GOING.........

GOING.........

GONE!

After all the day's excitment we decided we needed a relaxing drink back in El Calafate. The second rugby world cup semi final just happened to be starting, so we made it to the bar to see Argentina get thrashed by South Africa, which was a shame!

After a couple of days we made our way up into the Andes and back across the border into Chile.

Bye for now,

Tom