Brazil Baby!!!!!

so after galapagos we jumped on yet another plane and headed for our most visited city in this trip, thats right.... Santiago!

This was now the 3rd time there and this time was different as my holiday was over and I had to work there for two days. Rob lazed about the hotel recovering from a minor cold and fatigue after such a great trip.

On Tuesday night Rob geared up and headed to the airport for the trip home, she has a few days off still as she doesn't start the new job till Tuesday. Its a shit of a trip home though and it took her around 24 hours.

I jumped on a plane for my flight to Sao Paulo in Brazil to do some work for a couple of days there. The flight out was amazing with a perfect morning, and a crystal clear view as we went over the Andes. It was a really special flight.



Sao Paulo is HUGE, not quite as big as Mexico city but not far off it, about 18 million here. Its a monster. The traffic is terrible and the pollution is much much better than Santiago with 3 million, go figure....


Anyway, work as usual consisted of visiting a lot of shopping centres and a lot of negotiations and discussions, this time in Portuenglish. I will be multilingual after this trip for sure! Brazil is not really what I expected, although I was only here for 4.1 days I don't think I got a good feel of the city or the people.

On Saturday night I hooked up with Silvia Marino, well known to some of you balloonies as the cheif observer for Brazil and a good friend since 1997. It was great to catch up, although I did have one or two too many which may not have been the best idea right before my flight home.

Speaking of that, my trip home, from arriving at Sao paulo Airport will take me 37 hours! Thats a lot of time. Have a guess where I am as I write this...........thats right.... Santiago, again! This is the last time as I am now 7 hours into the return trip, only 30 to go, yeehah :(

WOW!

When you hear people who have been to the Galapagos Islands talk about their experiences you think they must be mad, it couldn't be as good as they say it is. The animals cant be so tame, there cant be such diverse life forms, there cant be stuff to keep you going for 8 days.

Its all true, and not just that, its 100 times better than anyone can explain. There are no words that can convery how amazing a place it is or how it is possible that every new day is better than the last. Swimming with turtles, searching for giant tortises and finding them mating, unbelievable snorkelling, stepping through and around giant marine iguannas, stepping around Blue Footed Booby nests on the trails as the bird just watches you go past, it is an experience you cannot get anywhere else on Earth.

We were on a smaller vessel with only 16 people, 7 crew and our guide, Monica. The pax were mostly Brits, with 2 Canadians, 1 yank, and us. It was a great crowd until mid week when we swapped out the canuks and yank and got 4 more aussies who were complete and utter wankers. The sort of people who give travelling aussies a bad name, noone wanted them in their groups as they were just so rude and stupid. not nice to say about fellow aussies, but true.

Anyway, I am not going to bore you with the trivialities here, instead I will let some pics do the talking. BEST holiday we have ever had.

Galapagos Islands Overview

OK, so it is clear that a number of you have no idea where the Galapagos is or what its significance in the World is. So I will do my best to explain.

The Galapagos Islands sites 1000km off the coast of ecuador and it is made up of about 20 islands and 60 largish rocks. The Galapagos Islands straddle the Equator and they sit directly above one of the Earth's hotspots. It is this hotspot that has created the Galapagos islands. They were not there 2 million years ago. Now I know that sounds like a long time ago, but 2 million years is like a 1 day old baby in geological terms.

The islands site at one of the most amazing ocean locations on the planet. It is the meeting point of 3 of the Worlds major ocean currents, coming from Panama, south America and the west. This brings an extrodinary array of marine life and mamals such as penguins. Penguins.... at the equator... think about that for a sec.

The Islands were the base for the Charles Darwins Theory on Evolution. During a 6 week visit on the Beagle he visited the islands and noticed the islands were very yound geologically and that it was impossible for the animals and plant species on the islands to have been developed there as it was all Lava fields and volcanoes.

He surmised that the animals made it to the islands by a rafting system that drifted them to the islands on the currents mentioned above. The majority of land based animals on the islands such as the Iguanas and the tortises have NO natural predators and this makes them have no fear of being eaten. This makes them very tame. They are not afraid of humans either which makes for an amazing wildlife experience.

He also noticed that the animals differed from those on the mainland and even differed from Island to Island in the chain. 30 years later he publised his origin of Species work which theorised that animals evolved to suit their environment, and as such, changed the World and its understanding of Evolution, which until that time had been driven by Creationism theory. This was 1850 something. A long time ago anyway.

To put it simply, the Galapagos Islands is THE only place in the planet to see these species in their own environments without the interference of humans. A visit to the Galapagos Islands is a singular privelige that is one of the most amazing and special things you can do in your life.

We are visiting 8 of the islands on our 8 day trip and are very fortunate to be visiting the islands of Isabella and Fernandina which are the two most active islands (and the newest) in the area. Most tours do not visit these islands as they are so far away.

We have 8 days in this natural wonderland, and it is something Rob has been looking forward to for 10 years and about the same for me.

We are very lucky to be here.

Updates

I am a few days behind with the blog so I will try and get you all up to speed with what’s been happening, there may be a few quick fire blog entrys so I apologise for all the reading in one hit.

We will be out of action for the next week as we will be in the GALAPAGOS ISLANDS.

You, will all be at Work.

P.S - read the updates from the bottom up.

Amazon

A few facts for you

1) It’s winter in Ecuador, despite the fact most of the country is Southern hemisphere.

2) It’s a full moon, but they get 4 days of full moon nights every month

3) The sun goes down at the same time all year around

4) Ecuador does not have any Amazon rainforest

Interesting fact that last one, especially as we signed on for an Amazon rainforest experience. The kicker is in the detail as Ecuador does have a bit of the Amazon “Basin”, i.e, the bits that lead into the Amazon. Not to be phased by this small fact, Robyn and I have decided to call the Ecuadorian rainforest we are in “the Aramazon”, no not a typo, but Adam and Robyns AMAZON.

The place we are staying at is owned by a tour company that gets a lot of government business and does a lot of tourism promotion with overseas Journos. Its is quite a nice spot, about 3 ours drive from Quito the quick way, of 8.5 the long scenic way we came in.

The place is called Los Cascades and as the name would suggest there are a few waterfalls on the place which is why we picked it. The best thing of all is that Robyn and I are the only guests. We feel a bit like Posh and Becks, without the stupid accents and the billions of dollars. But we have the place to ourselves which is awesome.

In the info we saw on the place it shows itself as a C level of difficulty with the worst being E, so we figured it would be fine, given they probably scale for oldies and the like. Well, that may have been a little foolish of us.

Yesterday was a “trek” to the Waterfall with lunch and a swim and then a bit of a stroll back to the lodge for a lazy afternoon. Sounds awesome right. It was pretty amazing. They said it would about 5 hours so we set off with a local guide, Fabian, Rob and Myself. It was really interesting seeing the animals, learning about the jungle and rainforest and we saw some amazing stuff. If you want to know more about that, email Rob, ‘cos that’s not what I am going to talk about…..

I have decide that the C level of difficulty could stand for any of the following:

1) Cant be Serious

2) Cardiac Arrest

3) Climbing Skills required

I kid you not, the walk into this waterfall is something to be believed. We are in the rainforest so naturally everything is wet so we need to wear gumboots (Wellingtons to you poms out there), that instantly relieves you of most of your grip which is bound to make things fun.

Mud, these guys came up with the concept. It is everywhere. No grip, mud, big rocks, tree stumps. This had it all, oh, and that timing, 5 hours. About right. 2.5 hours in to the first waterfall, 1 to the next and 2 back out again.

Have you noticed how waterfalls are always in the bottom of valleys? Hadn’t though of it myself until the way in.

At one point in the descent we rounded a corner to find a mud wall with a 30m staggered drop and a rope on each side to “help” you down. God couldn’t have helped me down smoothly, let alone these ropes. I was covered in mud from top to toe. It was too much for my frayed nerves and I was glad at last to come to the first waterfall. Time for lunch and a swim.

Nope, change of plan, walk another hour to the next waterfall and we would swim there. Good Grief! So off we go again, crossing the river, up mountains down mudslides until finally we arrived. The water was freezing but that was not going to deter Rob and myself after the ordeal I had just been through.

Then, oh dear god, the climb back to the lodge. “2 hours away”, the guide tells me. And with a grin adds, “ and mostly uphill”. NOOOOOOOOOOO!! I though we had made some tricky navigation and ended up closer to the lodge, not so.

So up the hill, not on a gradual increase, oh no, straight up the side of the valley wall, with Rob chirping in with” Amazing how quickly we are going up”. Kill me now. And we are only 30 minutes into the climb.

I was lagging at the back, and Rob was making all sorts of excuses for hovering at the back after being admonished by me several times for undue heckling. She was taking pics and inspecting mysterious animals I never saw, in fact all I saw was the next rock, slippery stone or outcrop in front of me. I never for once doubted I’d make it…. I just wasn’t sure which day.

Needles to say we made it back, but the afternoon was shot and we all hobbled back to our rooms. For our guide, Fabian, it was also his first time at this lodge and on this walk, and he has sworn never to come back again. Maybe that is what the C stands for ………………… Completed – Never Again.

Ecuador

Ecuador, home of the highest density of active volcanoes anywhere on the planet. That’s not a bad claim to fame. Except for the fact, of course, that mosyt of these active volcanoes threaten to wipe out huge volumes of people when the erupt, and its not an IF you’ll notice, its guaranteed that they will erupt. Around once every 100 years, and most of them are at about 110 now!

Anyway, back to my entry here…..

When we asked a few people, even those in Quito, what to do for a few days when we arrived, all of them said “leave Quito”, so we figured that was the thing to do.

Thanks to our awesome travel agent here in Quito we have managed to get ourselves out of Quito and out to an Amazon Jungle trip for 4 days. All of these trips include days of travel as part of the experience so we are in fact at the lodge for 2.5 days and the rest is travel.

So we were met early in the morning by our guide, Fabian, who speaks excellent English and is quite a funny bloke. The trip took us through a few of the towns south of Quito and oddly they all seem to specialize in something different. There is the town that makes a type of ice cream that is famous all around Ecuador, and another we stopped in that is the blue jeans capital of Ecuador. All of the towns seem to have some sort of claim to fame. Pic below is at the highest waterfall in South America.

We also went through three towns that had been completely destroyed by Volcano eruptions in the last 120 years. Pretty amazing to see the river valley and see 20ft of ash in the soil profile. It is also a bit scarey as we were heading to the Volcano that is currently erupting, Tungurahara. Now T (as I am going to call it to save on typing) is a BIG BIG volcano. 5800m in fact. It started erupting 8 years ago and has been going ever since. But in the last three months it has been going crazy, lava flows, pyroclastic ejections, ash fall, you name it, its doing it.

At the foot of this volcano, no…. more like at the belly button of this volcano is the spa town of Banos. It is in deep deep trouble. If the volcano even slightly moves its crater face to the west, Banos will be annihilated. Experts have predicted that if this were to occur lava flows would reach Banos in 3 minutes. And there is no way out. I am calling it “certain death valley”. And that’s we were headed. Giddyup!

The first thing you notice along the road into Banos is that there is no road anymore, this is because a lava flow destroyed it two years ago, and 4 years ago and 6 years ago and 10 years ago. You get the idea. 4000 m above the town is the smoldering crater and vents of T. Well so we are assured as we couldn’t see jack because of the rain and low cloud.

So we had a lovely lunch in Banos another bit of an ABC episode and a nice wander around the streets, but there is this underlying feeling that noone is at peace here. Everyone is edgy, rob and I were not so much edgy as mortified…… don’t these people know there is a Fuc*&ing great volcano about to destroy them? They have already forcibly evacuated 15000 people from the town edges, but the locals are staying put. We were not.

It was with a great sense of relief that we left the town in one piece, without being engulfed by a red hot lava flow of being obliterated by a pyroclastic boulder. We loved the town, very beautiful and with absolutely no long term future. At least they didn’t have to kid themselves.

On to the Amazon lodge then!

“The Incident”

We just missed the booking agency as they closed at 10pm and we got there about 10:30. too late to make new booking for the grey glacier, but they can book us for the day after if we come back tomorrow. So now, Argentina and Perito Moreno is binned as we can do the same thing here without the 5 hour trip. I am up for this flexibility thing and changing plans as required.

So we book in the next day and we have to be in the park for the 8am ferry. This necessitates a very early departure in the Hyundai, leaving around 5:30am. It’s a long way to the park on some pretty dodgy roads.

Cruising along, enjoying the drive when WHAMMO. A big hare runs in front of the car and unable to avoid it I plough into it head on and the car is not well. The Hare has ripped off most of the wheel guard lining and the front guard has popped most of its anchors and is wobbling loose.

We tried to amble on, but it became painfully clear that we would not make it as we still had 150km to go on some very very rough roads. So I turned us around and rolled gingerly back into Puerto Natales, all hope of Ice Hiking was gone, as was $700 for the trip, as was my enthusiasm for the rest of this leg of the trip.

It was devastating to me, it still is. It was the one thing I wanted to do, and with a series of bad decisions, bad luck and poor planning it had all gone to crap. I vowed that this was not the last time I was going to be here and the rest of the time in and around Patagonia would serve as a Reconnaissance for the next time we come here to do it properly.

The following day we had a trip booked for two days into the park. The first day was a boat trip into the Serrano Glacier with an overnight at a lodge across the river from the Glacier. It was very beautiful, but I had developed a cold so I was quite keen to linger in bed. This was perfect for this lodge as there was little else to do.

The Following day has us on A zodiac up the Serrano river into the Torres Del Paine national park with a trip through the park in a van to see the key highlights. It is a stunning park as the pictures here and on Flickr will show, but as I said before, this is a reconnisance mission and while beautiful, it is not as beautiful as being in the mountains and seeing it all up close.

The following day we had our last night in Patagonia as we made our way to the airport bound for Santiago for a very quick stop over of about 12 hours before boarding our flight and heading to Ecuador and the Galapagos islands.

Catch Up

At the end of the cruise we were dumped into to another city that claims to be the southernmost in the world, Ushuaia. It is in Argentina and is more south than Punta Arenas in Chile. However, none of them are the most southern. This honour belongs to Puerto Williams in Chile.

So we spent a short day in Ushuaia took some pics and bought the obligatory trinkets to prove we were there. It is a spectacular setting for a city and it was great to see it. We booked a seat on the first flight we could get and hopped back to Punta Arenas that afternoon.

The plan was to head up to Torres Del Paine national park and do some day treks in and out of the park, with maybe an over night. However all of the lodges were full for the whole time we had left. So they we thought we’d hire a camper van and sleep in it and do hikes in and out from there. So we hunted around and could not find a camper van for hire anywhere. Plan out the window.

So we decided to rent a car, head up to Puerto natales ( the town outside of the park) and then drive across into Argentina to visit the Perito Moriano Glacier and do an day’s ice hiking on the Glacier which is the one thing I have wanted to do since being down here.

So we rented a car. There were no cars left in th town because we were last minute, so we ended up getting shafted and renting a heap of crap Hyundai excel for $100 US a day. We had no choice as all other options were exhausted.

This has been a bit of a learning curve for Rob. She is the big fan of doing things last minute. I am not. We have been shafted from pillar to post on this leg of the trip because we are trying to do it last minute. It doesn’t work. Well it doesn’t work if you have a short amount of time somewhere, are traveling in peak season, and in the middle of school holidays. A lesson learnt.

So we get to Puerto Natales and head out for one of the best meals of the trip so far. Patagonia is known for its lamb and the way they cook it. We had patagoninan lamb and it was spectacular. While at the restaurant we bump into some WA miners and they tell us they are off to iceclimb grey glacier in the park the next day an just booked it. We determine to get on the same trip.

Old Salty

the thing is you see, I hate boats. not so much hate them as the seasickness effect they inevitably bring on, at even the slightest hint of a ripple on the surface of the water. It has been said that I would get sea sick in the bathtub if left there for long enough.

So it was with great trepidation, and outright fear that I stepped onto this cruise with my seackniss drugs and my straps and all the rest of the gear you need to mentally prepare for such an arduous sea going venture as this one. yes I know its only 3 days, but still ^....

So this boat as its 3rd day agenda has us heading for Cape Horn. THE Cape Horn. The one where experienced salt encrusted sailors fear to go. The same Cape Horn that has claimed 10000 lives and 800 ships, damaged many more and has the reputation of the wildest seafaring weather on the planet.

And here am I, adam the sea wary, lilly livered land lubber, on a boat that is going to attempt to land on this place. Good God what am I thinking!!

So Morning dawns, I have had a very restless sleep with the fear building in me. I feel suprisingly well for the mountaious swells that must be outside the window that I dare not open the curtains too. I am even quite sure footed on this heaving deck, I must be aclimatising.

So it is we don the life vests in the room and make our way up to the deck as the Captain has said we will be able to make landfall. Incredible given the foul weather that must be about.

I pop my head out and to my extreme disappointment I find that infact I have not acclimatised at all. The weather is in fact, spectacular! Some of you are familiar with the phenomenon of LAGO, well this was EMGO. It was as smooth as glass with barely a tickle of movement and a glorious sun beating down on us.

So onto the Zodiacs and we land on Cape Horn. I Adam the land Lubber, has made it to the southernmost point of any landmass (excluding antartica of course) on the planet. Me! On Cape Horn.

Throughout all of this, sailor robyn had been taking the weather in her stride and looked a little disappointed for the weather not being a bit rougher. Lunatic!

So we fiddled about at the Cape Horn Lighthouse for a while and took a lot of pics of the beautiful monument to all fallen sailors and it was a surreal experience that we will both remember for the rest of our lives, but the best was yet to come.

We reboarded the ship and the Captain decided that the weather was good enough for a circumnavigation of the actual Cape itself. OH MY GOD. We were about to sail around Cape Horn.

We set off and it was breathtaking. To think of all the people who have lost their lives in the area, the awe with which this place is talked about by those who have sailed past, the respect it earns from even the most experienced of captains, and here were we, going around the Horn. It is still unbelievable.

Weather like this is rare as down here. To give you an idea, our ship had done the trip to Cape Horn 66 times, and in only 6 of those, have they managed to go around the Horn, in fact three weeks before the weather was so bad, noone got off the boat in the entire 3 days. pussys.

All of the crew were on deck as we went around, and as we went past the bottom of the Horn, three loud blasts from the ships horn, signified the moment and nearly brought Robyn and I to tears from the emotion of the moment.

We will never forget the feeling or the sight of Cape Horn.

Until next entry then.... Adam and Robyn, Cape Horners, signing off.

One of the great days of my life

This was one of the highlights of my life so far.

I am calling it Glacier day.

Today dawned a very very wet day, as we expected. It was very grey and misty with very low clouds. It was dead calm though which made for an amazing effect as the mist and cloud was stuck to the valleys and channels as we sailed through them. It was spectacular.

Today we got to see one of the most amazing things anyone can experience in their lives. A Magnificent glacier in full cry. The glacier in question is caled the Pia Glacier, and is one of the few glaciers that is still advancing. There are only a few left in the World that are advancing so it is an honour to see one. And we got close!

As we pulled into the fjord we started seeing small bits of ice floating by. This Glacier actually reaches the water still and is about 120m above the water. As we came in closer we could see it emerging out of the grey at the end of the fjord. It was breathtaking. Even as we were on the ship we could hear it exploding as parts of the face were falling (carving) off into the water with resounding huge BOOM as it hits the water. It was an unbelievable experience that gave me goosebumps, and still is as I write this.

We jumped in the zodiacs and headed right in through the icebergs to land beside the wall about 100m away from the face. The run in the zodiac was an experience in itself through the ice.

So we hotfooted it off the zodiac and made for the best vantage of the front wall of the Glacierand it did not disappoint. It was in rare form and was dropping some huge sections of the face into the water. This was unusual according to the guides, and they believed it had something to do with the very hot (25 degrees) weather the week before. To see something so huge and to realise that this is constant motion at its best is just mind blowing. Its huge. I mean really huge. I also have a video of it carving a large slice as well. The sound is huge but not done justice by the camera.

We spent about 2 hours around the glacier and just before we left had a scotch and coke with iceberg ice that we had fished out of the water as it is so pure. Best scotch and coke I have ever had! I fished out some ice on the way back from the zodiac and ate the whole thing. It was an amazing experience.

In the afternoon we sailed through Glacier alley which was 5 glaciers one after the other. The best was Italy which is the only one which still reaches the water and reaches 1200m from the water level and is 8km deep. 8km!!!! That is an incredible amount of ice. It really makes you realise what we are messing with if we are going to add all the ice we have to the sea levels. Seriously, if you live on the coast.... move!

It was an unbelievable day, we have thousands of photos of this day alone. So I wont add them all to flickr. I probably wont add a lot until we get to Santiago and I get access to the laptop as resizing these is a real bugger.

Cruise Day 1

It is clear that the demographic of the travelling public is changing. Of the 130 people on this cruise there are threecouples under the age of 40. Of these, one is the doctor and her husband, interestingly they don´t tell the passengers that they have a doctor on the cruise as this leads to mass work for the Doc from all of the whinging americans (or so our friendly team member tells us).

After a pleasant night on the boat we awoke to day one of the cruise. Day comprises of two outings. The first is to a beech forest at the base of the Glacier Marinelli. I have never seen a Glacier close up, and this did not change today. The Glacier is retreating at an alarming rate of 1 METRE per DAY! So there area we were in, was completely covered by the Glacier 20 years ago. Now it is a blip in the distance. The mountain range it is from is called the Darwin Cordillera and they are seriously impressive and sporn about 15 of the Glaciers in the region. More on those later.

After the beech forest we motored to the next field trip for the afternoon which was to Tucker Island. It is a tiny little island that is home to a substantial contingent of Magellanic Penguins. We cruised right into the bay on the zodiacs but did not disembark as it is a protected area. There must have been 600 penguins on the beach and as we floated in to them they did not even move a muscle. It was amazing to see. As we sat there in amongst them, there was plenty more swimming into the beach around us bringing food for the kiddies.


The amazing thing about tucker island is that 15 years ago, it didn´t exist. The other thing is that it is the only conglometae island in the whole area. Let me explain. remember I said the glaciers were retreating... the thing about ice is that it is heavy, bloody heavy. It compresses everything else below it and becomes the dominant force.

Well, now that the ice is retreating, all of that ground that was squashed under the ice is now rising up. Its a type of static compensation. the pressure must remain in balance see. So because glaciers contain a lot of rubble from breaking down the mountains and rocks while making valleys, this ends up at the bottom of the glacier. So when it melts, this compressed rock is forced up by the magmatic chamber pressure underneath it and Voila, a new island, that looks a lot like dçsome of the bodgey cement jobs I have done in the past, full of all the rocks and sediment from the glaciers.

It really is amazing stuff.

Tonight is a nice dinner. we are on a table with 4 Scots, one of whom sounds like Sean Connory and another who looks a like like simon groom (for those of you that know him). Tomorrow is when we get to the good stuff with a close in look at one of the advancing glaciers in the range. Also s´posed to be a bit dodgey in the weather stakes. It is patagonia, so i´d be disappointed if we didn´t get at least a few really bad weather days.

toodles

Shiver me timbers....

Thats right. We got onto the boat!

We went to the office at the designated time to see if someone would cancel and we could get a room. This is a pricey trip so it is unlikely anyone would cancel. Nevertheless we were there. We had all of our eggs in one basket as we gave up the day to wait for the opportunity to go on this trip.

We arrived at 5pm and had to wait until 6pm to make sure the final 3 rooms of passengers checked in, if not, one was ours. With Rob giving every single person the detah stare as they walked in and other passengers offering to nobble would be passengers for us, we crossed off the first room at 5:15. Two more to go.

At 5:45 the second room went. Shit!

6pm, no sign of the third room, woohoo!! At 6:01pm they arrived. Shit! So now we were stuffed. Full boat and no accomodation and no trip to torres del paine, all was not good and I went to collect our luggage. As I was leaving Rob was stopped by our booking lady and said to hold on as there may be some hope........ may be.....

The boat sailed at 7pm so we were scraping it still. At 6:26pm we got the nod, they had a spare ro9om they keep on every boat ¨just in case¨and they would sell it to us. YEEHAH! So we headed down to the pier and made it for the last bus to the boat. Last ones to arrive on the bus meant first onto the boat.

We were on our way to see some of the most amazing glacier in the world and to also go down and hopefully if the weather was helping out to land on Cape Horn, the end of the World and the place of myths and legends and a place revered, respected and utterly feared by marines the World over.

We knew it would be cold, and windy and rough and the weather could make or break our trip. we didn´t care, we were on our way. We rang a few of you to let you know we were off then we sailed for the south, the glaciers, the horn, and the adventure of a lifetime.

Patagonia

54 degress South. Doesn´t probably mean a lot to most of you out there. What it means is wind, and cold. Yeehah! Let me put this in perspective for you:

Sydney: 34 degrees South
Melbourne: 38 degrees South
Hobart: 42 degrees South
Punta Arenas: 54 degrees South! Thats almost Antarctica baby!!

That means we are about 1,400km below the bottom of Tasmania! Think about that for a second..... if that is hard to fathom, just think of it as 2000 return trips to your local shops.

We have been here for two days now and are trying to scrounge our way onto a cruise that goes down to Cape Horn (latitude 55º 58’ 28’’) and lands there so you can stand on the end of the Earth, thats if you can stand from the wind. We are doping to get on at the last minute around 5pm tonight.

Had a pleasant flight down here, well until we started our descent. We had a great view of Perito moreno Glaciar from the topo f descent which was just stunning. We then had the approcah from hell. It was one of the roughest approaches I have ever been in and I love bumps in the flight. It was in Fac. so rouge, that I did not realise we had actually landed. It was 80kph at the airport and the little airbus we were on was protesting vehmently.

Thats the first thing you need to know about down here. Its Windy. I am not talking about a slight breeze you get in Australia, I am talking about the wind that threatens to pick you up, dorothy style, and deposit you in another country. Poor oRob has nearly blown Hawai a couple of times. I have more mass (thats what I am calling it OK!) and am able to stay put a little better.

We have come down here a little unprepared in terms of activities and are trying to wing it on last minute trips. Its proving a little tricky as it is peak season down here so a loto f staff is booked out for a while in advance. The season down here lasts from October to March as alter that is is just too cold or snowed in.The town itself is right on the Magellan straight which was one of the earliest trading routes between the Pacific and the Atlantic that allowed chips to bypass the trecharous Cape Horn and the huge seas found there. Originally called Sandy Point, it took on the spanish equivalant of Punta Arenas about 100 years ago.

It is not at all mountainous down here, in fact, It is quite flat and there is a lot of farming, especially with sheep. In Fact it might interest you to know that there are in fact a lot of Welsh settlers here and the local language is in fact a dialect of Welsh. Quite amazing when you consider its about 12000km from Wales.

No pics yet as I seem to have misplaced my cable for the camera. Hope to get another update in from the boat if we get on, wish us luck!

Santiago de Chile

Well alter the debacle of the airline as mentioned in the previous entry, I made it to Santiago in Chile. I had a couple of hours to wait for Rob as she CAME in from Sydney. It is a 16 hour flight from Sydney via NZ, so its a long haul.

Santiago is an interesting city. It is nestled in a natural basin in the Andes mountain range. This gives it one of the most stunning panoramas of any city in the World. However it also jeans a big problem. Pollution. In Fac. for a small city (about 3 million) is is terrible polluted. It is the 8th most polluted city in the World which seems to stand in Stara contrast to the beautiful snow capped mountains all around.

The problem is that the pollution cant get out as it is trapped in the valley. There have been all shorts of ideas as bandied about to solve the problem, including believe it or not, blowing a hole in the mountains to let the pollution out. The thought of cleaner living has not seemed to enter the thought process.

Santiago is about the same lattitude as Sydney so it is experiencing similar weather (well, without the bucketing rain and storms), it was about 30 degrees during the day which is too hot for a fat bugger like me to be walking around in and a bit of a shock after pleasant high ttens in mexico. Rob of course, being the sunlover she is, was in her element.

We stayed in a small hotel called Hotel Vegas. In the Centro Historico part of town. It was a great little hotel, rooms were pretty Basic but nice enough for our needs. We were both pretty weary after all the travelling so we just lazed about for the first night. We did manage to pop next door for a beer first which may not have been the best idea.

The reason I say this is that we met a french man who was staying around the corner and he had been robbed…… twice….. just outside our hotel. Took his laptop and Iphone and cash and cards. He was wusing his laptop and phone in a back lane in Santiago….. really, that is just stupid. Anyway, on hearing this Rob went into a bit of shock and was very jumpy the rest of the whole time.

Anyway, we cruised around a few of the old sites in the city centre the next day and met up with the guys again for a beer that night. Santiago is a nice enough city in my opinión but there is nothing to make it noteworthy, except from the mountains that you cant see because of the smog. The people were nice enough to us, but you never quite felt safe walking around. I felt less confortable here than in Mexico City and that is saying something!

We jumped on the plane and have headed down to Stara one of the key parts of the trip, Patagonia! I just hope we can manager toi fluye a few of the tours in last minute style as we are very late in deciding what we want to do. Stay tuned for the next post.

Check out the flickr link to the right as there are heaps of pics of Santiago up there.

Seriously..... How hard can it be....

I have just aged 10 years in the space of 9 hours. Not something that is easy to do, but let me tell you my story.

I arrived at Mexico City airport 4 hours before my flight so I could make sure I would get on the flight, as American Airlines (AA) now have a habit of overselling their arcraft. No probs, there nice and early and will have a nice bit of time to check out the airport and get some crappy mexico-esque stuff.

So I stood in the AA queue and had a lovely chat to the guy behind me about world politics as the AA line crawled painfully slowly. No probs, I have 4 hours.

I got to the checkin counters and give the guy a big friendly welcome and tell him I am off to Santiago via miami as per my ticket, all normal stuff. He looks at my ticket and tells me that the plane is running late, and will not make my connection to Miami and he could not help me, sorry.

My World collapsed in on me. I tried asking him about my other options and he refused to even look on the computer, just told me that I had to wait until tomorrow for the next flight out. I lost it. I told him exactly what I though of him at about 150 decibels. Loud enough that the manager came over to see what the problem was. Excellent, progress.

The manager understood the problem and managed to get me onto a LAN flight direct to Santiago, and wait for it..... in Business Class. WOOHOO. Still not believing my luck I asked him to make sure it was a proper ticket, not standby, he confirmed, and gave me the ticket and told me to head to LAN, Terminal 2, on the train. I now had 6 hours till the new flight. Sweet!

So I stuffed around till 3 hours before the flight when checkin opened and I was the 3rd to check in. When I got there, presented the ticket, the lady told me that the ticket was a standby ticket and the plane was full. I would not be able to travel and the next day was also full. I am sorry, you cant be fuc&*ng serious! She was serious. There was also apparently 5 other who were in the same boat, booked by AA on LAN but with no chance of riding.

I LOST it again. Robyn was on a plane heading to Santiago already and I was not going to arrive for 3 days by which time we were supposed to be in Patagonia on tours. I have never been so angry in my life. She told me to take it up with AA. They took my bags and told me to come back at 8 to check if anyone had cancelled. Its making me angry again just typing this........

So dart back to the train and head the other way back to AA. Get there and the counters are closed!!!! no-one there. Went and found the AA office, closed!! Went back down to the counters to find a junior guy just finishing some paperwork. I absolutely gave it to him. He was nice enough but could not help me, he called the manager but he was busy and unavailable. If I could have climbed the counter I would have decked him.

Then to my suprise 2 other people turned up, thy were from the other 5 missing seats, a mum with 2 kids under 6, and a husband and wife. So there was now three of us going crazy at this guy, and he spoke to the manager again who agreed to come out and see us.

Turns out it was the same cockhead who checked me in. Once he realised this, we made a little progress. They spoke to Mexicana who spoke to LAN who spoke to AA who spoke to Mexicna who spoke to LAN. you get the idea. After abusing this guy non-stop (3 of us remember) we seemed to have breakthrough and he agreed to send the junior guy with us to get things done at LAN.

So back to terminal 2 on the train. Find the LAN office and then have another heated argument with LAN and AA. The manager then took us down to the counter and spent 1 hour trying to get us on the plane.

The plane was meant to be leaving at 9pm. at 8:55 we did not have seats. We were screwed.

I was wondering how long I would b detained for for punching out an airline employee, when we got waved up and issued with tickets at 8:59pm. Business class still! But we had to bolt to make the plane. I have never run so hard in my life.

I then got to security and they wouldnt let me in as the boarding pass was not the proper one. When she saw me turning red and about to explode, and with 5 others just catching me in the same predicament she decided to let us through before she was hammered.

Bags through screening and at this point, at 9:05 the security guard pulls out miniNICK to investigate. He spoke only spanish. I smiled a srained (you are a fuckwit, give me back the penguin now) smile, pulled ut the cam,waved it to him and he miracusoly understood. I then bolted to the plane and was the very last to board, they had been waiting for me.

I collapsed into the seat, and the guy next to me said "left it a bit late huh...." I shot him a look that said "say anything else and you die" and he didn^t say anything else until the end of the trip. I hooked into the champagne, toasted my fellow coconspirators, who were also in business class, and let the steam die out from my ears.

American Airlines, you suck.

Pyramids Baby....Yeah!

On of the Worlds most significant historical sites is approximately 40km North of Mexico City. It is an ancient site about 2500 years old and has the Worlds 3rd largest Pyramid. The place is called Teotihuacan.

As I have been working nights in Mexico it allows me some free time during the day. So I organised a day tour and headed up with a guide to see the site on my own so I can get the most information about this place.

Everything about the place is impressive. The Pyramids (there is two major ones) are what people come to se but its not what the site is all about. The site is a religious ground where the practicioners, did all they could to appease the natural gods. The site is often attributeds to the Aztecs but this is wrong as they didn´t get hold of it until about 15th century. It was built well before them by a local tribe.

The city complex has over 2000 rooms, a lot of which are underground and most are temples. They are still excavating under the Temple of the Sun (the biggest pyramid) and under the Temple of the Moon. Both of which are linked by a prehistoric cave system that has yeilded some of the earlist human remains in the whole of the Americas. The ancient tunnels formed the baseplan for the location of the two temples. It really is an amazing site.

It is also HUGE. make no mistake you will be shattered just from walking the perimiter. The original city complex was 20 square km and contained an estimated 100000 people. Which is amazing for 2000 years ago and would make it one of the largest cities in the World at the time.

The temple of the Sun is the equivilant in height to a 20 storey building and there was a platform on the top used for ritual sacrifice to appease the gods. The main walkway called the avenue of the dead (named by the aztecs as they thought the pyramids contained the remains of ancient kings - they don`t) was originally covered in a white marble flooring, which is remarkable when you realise its 2.5km long!

I have heaps of pics on my flickr site, just follow the link to the left.

If you go to Mexico City and do not go to this site you will be the poorer for it. Mum will kill me when she sees the pics and finds out just how impressive a site is!

Once upon a time

Once upon a time in the high hills there was a group of nomad people who were looking for a new home. They had been given a quest, the quest would lead them to a new home. Their great spiritual lord had given them the task to find a new homeland for their people.

The great leader had said to them you must go out and find a new home (it is unclear what they had done to be kicked out in the first place, but anyway... I digress). The leader told them they would know that they had found the new home when they saw an Eagle eating a snake while perched on a rock with a cactus coming out of it ( I think thats like telling an aprentice to get a can of striped paint, again I digress though).

So off they went for many many years they wandered the lands looking for this mysterious occourence. One day they came across a lake. It was a magnificent lake, in a natural basin with no way for the water to escape, replenisehd all the time by the magnificent snow fields all around. They were thirsty and needed a place to rest so they camped.

From their campsite they saw a very small island in the towards one side of the vast lake. They set out to the island to find food. When the got there, to their amazement, there was a huge Eagle perched on a rock with a cactus coming out of it. In its mouth was a Snake. They had found their home.

Over the next 100 years they set out building floating gardens to grow their food and build bridges to the coast to make transport easier. As their numbers grew, so did the need for food so more gardens were planted and they pumped some of the water out to make more land (some of the earliest land reclamation on the planet). They realsied that they would need to make a drianage system as most of this reclaimed land was below the natural water level. So they built an intricate system of weirs and drains and dams that also allowed them to purify the slightly brackish water.

They were producing so much food that they became very wealthy and took over the whole lake valley. More and more poeple moved in and they needed to reclaim more land, and so the process went.

These people were the Aztecs. Their island home grew into a huge city that is home to 22 million people, built on entirely reclaimed land, with the Worlds most intricate drianage system some of which are 6m wide, and where today there is NO trace of the huge 50km lake that used to be called Lake Texcoco.

every day you can still see the Eagle on the rock with a cactus coming out it, and still with the snake in its mouth. It is on every piece of currency in the city, it is on the flag as well. The Eagle is a symbol of Strength, The rock is the nature, the cactus is food, and the snake is virility. This is one of the most incredible citities I have ever visited.

Its called Mexico CITY.

I forgot

I know this seems like a hard thing to forget but I did... OK. Just near Mexico City (70km to the SE) is a BIG active volcano. Well she let go on Monday night. The ash cloud was quite visible from the hotel. I didn't hear it or feel any earthquakes though. See the report below:

Popocatepetl Volcano (Mexico)
A moderate eruption occurred at Popocatepetl volcano on 28th January at 1753 hr, local time. An ash column reached 3.2 km above the crater and drifted northwest. There were 13 small ash emissions in the preceding 24 hours. A 12 km exclusion zone remains around the volcano.

Pretty awesome and it reminds me that we are in a very active region for most of our holiday. There is a big bugger of a volcano quite close to Quito that is also erupting daily and has in the past covered the city in Ash. Wouldn't that be exciting!! Its called Tungurahua

Need a snooze!

A full day here in mexico.

As usual I am suffering from my no sleepitis that I tend to get while my body adjusts to the different time zone, so since I arrived I have been averaging about 4 hours sleep. So I woke around 7am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Ramiro was up and was heading into the city to have a look around at for some gear we needed for the nights work, so rather than spend the time in the hotel I headed out as well. We jumped on the train and headed into prowl the back streets of the city.

Everyone told me that Mexico city is a dangerous place, muggings, e.t.c everywhere. If that’s the case, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. At no stage did I feel in any danger walking through the back streets, on the contrary, it just felt like being somewhere in a big city in Asia. Crowded, noisy, and street vendors everywhere. I think Mexico city gets a bit of a bad rap.

We spent 4 or 5 hours in walking the streets buying the bits that we needed. Unlike Australia where you would go to one shop to get all the bits you need, here you have to visit 100 shops, 1 of who will have some of the bits, another will have the rest. But… these shops change almost weekly so you have to go through the whole process everytime!

I enjoyed it immensely again, I even went all brave and was eating from roadside vendors on Ramiro’s advice and it was sensational food. I am really enjoying Mexoico, I think its country that is not given its dues. There are some really amazing places to see in Mexico and I think I will have to come back sometime for a holiday.

After a couple of hours of questions about our systems we headed out for the night shift at 11pm. The work being done by the electricians here was a real eye opener. There was 10 people to install one of our sensors, normally there is 1 or two! The other amazing thing was the work methods. Workplace safety is something that is not yet heard of in Mexico. Scaffolding held together by wire, ladders up to an 8m roof, unbelievable, things that if done in Australia would get you in a LOT of trouble. I looked away and pretended to be somewhere else.

So we had some problems and the downside of that is I now have to work Wednesday night too. This means I probably wont be able to get up to the pyramids North of the city as I will be toasted after another full night. This means my cunning ballooning plan is looking flawed. Bugger!

Anyway, off to sleep. Need to see if I can get past 4 hours.

Working in Spanish

First day of work here was interesting. I am over here to help the guys out with some new technology that we have and they have never seen it. It made for some interesting times in trying to explain how it all works. Training in “spanglish” is certainly something interesting, not dissimilar to when I had to train in China and they all only spoke Mandarin. It’s a lot of waving of the arms and things progress very very slowly.

After 4 hours or so of training we hit the road again to go and see some of their sites for work. Most of you know how much time I spend in shopping centres for work, so it was no surprise to find myself in a couple more in Mexico, and surprise, surprise, they all look exactly the same as shopping centres everywhere else.

We cruised around through the Zoccalo, which is the main square in town on the way back. The Zoccalo is Stunning. It is in the Centro historico area of the city which is the original spot where the Maya settled Mexico City a couple of thousand years ago. The Zoccalo and the big church next to it are actually built on top of the original Maya ruins. Just amazing.

The Zoccalo is like stepping out of a third world country into the central Europe. The Buildings, the history, the architecture are breathtaking. We came down a beautiful street with intricate sandstone walls and then BANG, opening in front of you is the Zoccalo. I loved it.

We then headed back to the hotel for some great Mexican food, followed by my first Corona of the trip. Followed by about another 20. These guys know how to drink, I think its because of all the chilli in their food…….

Tomorrow is a long day with a day shift followed by a full nightshift in the shopping centre. Not really looking forward to that.

Mexico City at a glance

Well what a fantastic day. I met up with Ramiro and Chucho from our sales partners here and they took me out for a great afternoon. We did a lap of the city in the coolest car ever. It was a massively loaded up Jeep Wrangler that was like driving in a boat it floated about that much.

It is interesting to cruisea around some of the back block as you get to see some of the absolute poverty that most of the people in Mexico City live in. Everytime you pulled up at a set of lights street vendors were selling everything, from cigarettes and beers to Dashmats for your car. There is also a lot of “performers” who do some sort of novel act in the 4 minutes between light changes to encourage you to give the some coins.

Probably the most depressing we saw was a mum with her 3 kids. She was lying in the middle of the road while they were doing somersaults and other tricks off her feet. Desperate stuff, especially to have the kids involved, but people do what they have to to survive in the Worlds biggest city.

Speaking of that, this city has 22 million people in it. That’s the population of Australia + 1 million. All crammed into a 75km square area. Think about that for a moment………. It makes for a crammed in place.

We did a lap of all the city highlights and then headed back into the south of the city to meet up with one of Ramiro’s good friends who then took us all out for dinner to an amazing place called Arroyo. It was HUGE and completely full. It was everything I expectedx of Mexico and more. The food, the music, the people, the colour. It was just a fantastic place with some great company.

There were many beers, much poor Spanish and poor English, and too many laughs. These people are fantastic and if the rest of the Mexican population is like the 4 I have been out with so far this will be an awesome week. It did get a bit concerning at one stage when it seemed miniNICK had headed off and we didn't know where. Found him in the end, guess where he was.... suprise suprise....

After the cantina, we went back to Orlando and Heli’s place and had a few more beers and solved some of the Worlds problems. All in a days work when you are representing the views of your entire nation J

I got back to the hotel around 11pm and was very very keen to hit the sack ready for the big day ahead.

Mexico City

Hola! I made it to Mexico. I was not fortunate enough to find a bed in the beast that is LAX airport so I had to push through. In the end that made for around 36 hours with no sleep, but when I did get to sleep I managed to punch out 14 hours without waking up so I am now as fresh as a daisy.

On the upside of the trip, I think it is the longest Australia Day I have ever had.

The first thing you notice about Mexico City its its size. It starts appearing about 40 minutes before you land. Huge! The second thing you notice is that you can only see a little bit of it at any one time because of the pollution. There is this constant grey haze that is like a blanket. Still it doesn’t seem to bad (from one who has spent about 35 minutes outside).

I have to say that the trip from the airport was not as traumatic as everyone makes out and I was to the hotel in no time. The Airport itself is SPECTACULAR. The guys who own LAX could learn a thing or to from the Mexicans. It is spacious, has a good amount of shops, is modern and I think if you were stuck there for a while it wouldn’t be too bad.

Today (whats left of it) I am meeting up with my work contact for a quick tour of the city and then heading out for dinner with them. Should be a good opportunity for me to practice my Spanish before I have to train a group of them tomorrow in a language I know nothing of J

Adios Amigos.

In God We Trust

In God we trust

So it says on the US currency. And just in case he doesn’t do his job, then we will make getting into the country a right bastard. And so they have.

A couple of things that strike me as I sit here in LAX airport waiting to meet my connecting flight to Mexico city, the first is that the tanks are not keen on making the airport a great first impression. Its tired, very tired.

The flight over was OK though. Had a funny thing on the plane, the captain announced soon after take off that the US Transport Admin has decreed that on all planes heading into the US people are not permitted to “gather” around the toilet areas. I had to do a double take.

What harm is 2 or three people waiting to go to the john going to do on a plane that is 11,000km from the US. More importantly, who is tasked with the responsibility to make sure no such milling occurs? Ridiculous, yet another case of the Americans being scared of shadows.

Anyway, about 7 hours in, I confess…. I was milling. When along came the Captain, stretching his legs and doing a walk of the cabin. He stopped for a chat and we had a nice 5 min convo as I was one of the few awake. In good spirits I asked if it was OK for me to be milling while talking to him as the captain….. he thought about it, and smiled and said, sod it, and walked off.

The next great thing was the Visa waiver form they give you on the plane, that outright asks you if you have been involved in espionage or terrorism, or drug smuggling with a helpful yes/no checkbox. On further reading, it said that if you ticked one of these boxes in the affirmative, you should contact the US embassy in your country (hard to do while on the plane) as you MAY not be allowed into the country. Pure genius at work here….. no doubts about it.

Maybe if they trusted a bit less in God and a bit more in common sense then the World wouldn’t be half as fucked up as it is now.

Also attaching a nice pice of Rob, miniNICK and I before departure, and one of miniNICK here at LAX.

Hopefully I can find a snooze room somewhere here as I am a little weary.

More later

Sideline

Its only 3 days now until I jump on the metal bird to start 6 weeks away. Lots of things to do and organise before I head off but I am getting through most of them.

One of the things I have been doing in dribs and drabs is working on my basket. Since Simn has put a new floor in it I thought it needed to be resueded as it looked terrible. Never done any leather work before so it was a bit of a learning curve but I have to say I am really happy with how it has turned out.

I got the suede from leffler here in melbourne at a good price, its a great place with everything you need to redo the basket leather.

This is how it turned out.


My next post will probably be from an airport somewhere as I have a lot of time in them over the next few weeks. enjoy yourselves at work while we are on holidays!!!