Travel Blog

Despite the severe jetlag, we were all very excited indeed to be in the famous Australia at last. So it is only natural that we wanted to head straight for the most famoud beach in the world: Bondi! After a quick stop off at the Chinese consulate to sort out our visas for China, we drove to Bondi beach. Shauna kindly loaned us her car for the duration of the trip and Nik, the only one with a driver's license, kindly drove us around. Bondi was abit chilly but that didn't stop the girls going in for a dip. I would have joined had my swimming trunks not sadly perished a few weeks previously. One thing that hit us about being in Sydney was the amount of amazing looking food on offer all through the city. Having come from South America we were blinded by the array of Sushi, Thai, Korean and Chinese food on offer. So after Bondi we treated ourselves to a delicious bit of Thai green curry. It was around early evening that we began to really feel the effects of jetlag. However Shauna was determined to keep us up as late as possible to get over the jetlag quickly and so we decided the pub was the best place to try and stay awake.

We met Shauna's housemates and their mates in a pool bar where we had a few "schooners" and some food and shot a few rounds of pool. We were having fun except when 10pm came and Shoz finally allowed us to leave we were back home to our beds faster than you can say Rolf Harris. We had a good night's kip and woke up relatively early to get into town and see a bit of Sydney. After some shopping where I finally replaced my camera we met Shoz and Karin (another mate from Andrews) for lunch. When Shoz went back to work Karin took us to the opera house and a ferry tour of the harbour ending up at Darling Harbour for some pints. We indulged in the national dish of Australia - potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce - but then the dreaded jetlag caught up with us again. On the Wednesday we met Craig, a friend of Fi's who she met in Munich 4 years ago. We drove to Manley beach and had a fantastic day of swimming, bodysurfing and sunbathing but not before I bought a fly pair of Billabong swimming shorts.

Later in the day we went for a walk by the rocks and ended up on a cliff with a beautiful view of Manley beach where we watched the sun go down. Later on in the evening we had our first kebab in 4 months and man was it good! Next we were on our way down to Karin's place in Coogee to meet some more of the Andrews contingent who was over here. We had a bit of craic over a few brewskies with Craig dazzling us all with his guitar skills. We left early enough though as the girls were up at the crack of dawn for sky diving which is something you want to be neither hungover nor tired for. Besides we still hadn't quite shaken the jetlag. While the girls were doing their dive, I was posted to admin duty. Every now and again during our travels we need to do things like book accommodation for our next few destinations, book flights, research tours etc... We call this admin duty and as it is incredibly boring and tedious we tend to put aside a morning for it and blitz it. And so it was that I found myself spending the day with a computer and trying to organise the next few months of our lives. That evening we went to town to meet Karin and Andrew for dinner. This ended up happening with a good deal more people than orginally intended and as such we didn't make it to a restaurant until close to midnight. Still it was a good night with more catching up with the Andrews crowd.

For our final day in Sydney we decided to get to grips with the flora and fauna of the country, 70% of which is indigenous to Australia apparently. In the morning we headed for a nearby koala reserve which, despite its name, hosts an array of animals from koalas to kangaroos to wallabies to possums to wombats to dingos to quite a rude speaking parrot. Every animal, with the exception of the emus, was incredibly cute and we spent a longer time there than originally intended oohing and aahing. We were even allowed to pet the kangaroos in the walk-in pen. For the afternoon we headed to the famous Sydney aquarium. It was brill. A massive array of marine life of which Australia has the best in the world. But also the tanks were large and very clean and the whole setup is very impressive. The highlights included a trip to the seal sanctuary and walking under the water of the shark pool. After the aquarium the girls headed to Sydney harbour bridge for a bridge climb. Being slightly outside my budget I decided to opt out and after this internet session I'll be heading back to Shauna's to get a head start on the BBQ pool party scheduled for tonight. Then it's off to Melbourne first thing in the morning. It's all go go go!

Our last night in Mendoza was also our last night in Argentina and our last night travelling with Dave so we felt the full brunt of it busing the beautiful eight hour track through the Andes to Valparaiso on the coast of Chile. For such a famous place so steeped in history we couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. We understood that we couldn’t expect everywhere to be as awe-inspiring as, say, the Moreno Glacier, but Valparaiso was downright grotty and smoggy and full of rude people. We still did the obligatory walk of the city and took the token funicular. Actually at the top of the funicular we did find the one part of Valpo that was pretty with a decent view over the city and harbour. Our other day in Valparaiso was spent visiting nearby Vina Del Mar. We had heard there were great beaches there and I’m sure had the weather not been so grim the beaches would have been more appealing. We did find a nice little establishment named “Margarita” near the beach which we spent a good deal of the day in chatting to the friendly waiter.

The next day we were off to Santiago, our final destination in mainland South America. Due to its location, Santiago is a popular starting point for South American travellers. As such we had met a lot of people who had already been there and most of them had said it was boring. Perhaps because of this we went there with low expectations but we were pleasantly surprised. We found Santiago to be quite quaint and pretty and because it was Easter weekend it was pretty calm. The amazing weather helped too! We spent a day exploring the city including a funicular to a park at the top of a hill overlooking the city. After a good nap there we walked back to our hostel through a groovy bar area making a mental note to return later which we did. We had plans to cook a big roast on Easter Sunday but the unexpected excellent weather forced us to choose the more summery option of salmon steaks with Mediterranean veg and rosemary & garlic spuds. Despite a bit of a conflict of interests between me and the oven, the meal turned out delicious much to the envy of the others in the hostel.

Unfortunately the next day when we went to the Lan Chile office to confirm our flights to Easter Island we received a nasty shock. Because we hadn’t taken our flight from Ushuaia to Santiago a month previously, all our reservations with Lan had been cancelled. The upshot of this was we had to go to Easter Island a day and a half later giving us only 2 full days on the island. After a while of feeling gutted we decided to perk up and vowed that we would make the most of our 2.5 days there. Getting off the plane in Easter Island we were greeted by hordes of friendly, dark-skinned, Hawaiian looking islanders who were placing flowers around the heads of anyone who would let them. We hadn’t booked any accommodation as we’d heard the cheapest thing to do was to just turn up at the airport and choose from the hundreds of different guesthouses trying to get you to stay in their place. It was tough but we managed to choose one. We arrived there after dark so we couldn’t see anything around our guesthouse. Our first morning we awoke to the sound of crashing waves and when we looked outside we realised that we were on the edge of a peninsula with the sea right outside our door. Great stuff!

Our first day was spent visiting the island museum, which gave us a good knowledge of the island and its history, and checking out the various tour operators. That afternoon we attempted to climb to the crater of one of the 3 volcanos that formed the island 2 million years ago but we got horribly lost and ended up trekking off road for a few hours in the intense heat and humidity of a pacific island. On our 2nd day there we took a tour of the south side of the island which contains the majority of Moai (“those statues”). We went with a guide who only insists on taking small groups so there was only 4 of us which was great. Throughout the day we saw countless Moai – some upright, some toppled, some with hats, some in transit and some unfinished, still carved into the rock. We also climbed to the top of the “statue factory” which is the quarry that the statues were carved from giving us an incredible view of the island. The best sight, however, was the tongariki statues which are 15 restored Moai diligently standing in a row. That evening we went to Tahai to see the only statue with eyes. As its on the west side of the island we stayed there till sunset which was beautiful. Later that night we went into town to a hotel that showed a film every night produced by Kevin Costner called Rapa Nui. It was actually pretty good and offered one theory as to the fall of the Moai culture. The next morning (our last day in South America) we were up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise at Tongariki which is on the east side of the island. We rented a car with a girl staying in our guesthouse and drove out there at 6am. Unfortunately thanks to an abundance of cloud the sunrise wasn’t great but it was still good to see the best statues one more time before we left. We also headed up to the crater that we had failed to reach 2 days earlier which was definitely worth it. There were some Connemara-esque views including a great one of the small rock island that was swum to every year to elect a new island leader during the birdman culture.

The weather was beautiful and sunny as we were leaving for Sydney via Santiago and Auckland which was good since the waiting lounge at Easter Island airport is a gorgeous garden with a Moai statue in it. The massive flight across the Pacific was long and tedious but we arrived in Sydney airport eventually in good spirits. After meeting Nikki in arrivals we headed to town to meet Shauna. As we sat there making plans for the week we realised there are tonnes of Andrews people currently living in Sydney. Should be a fun week!

Me with three of the Moai statues at Tongariki

Well the two day journey to Bariloche wasn’t nearly as bad as we expected. Particularly as we slept for the first 2 of our 4 buses thanks to staying up all night nursing a few bottles of dodgy red wine with the Americans. The reason this entry has been late coming was because we didn’t actually do much in Bariloche. 3 months of doing “stuff” has taken its toll and we were ready to just laze about for a few days. And what better place to do it than the lake district of Argentina? The hostel we stayed in was a highly sociable place. So between the people we met there and the people we already knew from previous locations we had a great group of mates going on in Bariloche. As such many of our nights were spent in the hostel bar and the obligatory Irish bar, Wilkenny. Our first night there we met a couple of guys – one Dutch one Israeli – who were looking to rent a car the following day and take a tour of the 7 lakes. We decided to join them despite our promise to ourselves to relax in Bariloche. Renting a car with 3 others would be cheaper than taking a bus tour plus we could stop and get out wherever we want along the way. It was a good day driving. The lakes were beautiful, the empanadas were hot and the day was of the warm sunny autumn variety.

The other thing we did in Bariloche besides hardcore socialising was a white water rafting trip. As I had never done it before I was highly excited about it. We set off down the river with our mate Dave and 5 other Irish after a few words from our instructor on the different commands and how not to fall in. The first few rapids were nice. Good fun but not too difficult. Then came the most difficult one. We went up over a rock and plummeted down the other side into a whirlpool. There we were spinning around in the middle of a rapid and thanks to my general lack of balance I of course fell in. Except that because of the whirlpool I couldn’t seem to break free and float down the river. Next thing I find myself wedged between the rock and the raft itself. I managed to push myself down under water but then I couldn’t resurface because I was underneath the raft. Just I was about to panic I broke free from the whirlpool and found myself thrashing around in the river. All I could see was the maniac photographer standing on the rocks laughing his head off and taking photos of my plight. I floated down river and managed to grab onto a branch and hoist myself onto a rock to wait for the others. Afterwards it was fun to reminisce however at the time I was slightly freaked out. After another 10 rapids or so we headed back to base camp. There we enjoyed a delicious BBQ with lamb, sausage and a massive quantity of potato salad which we somehow managed to devour between the 8 of us.

In Bariloche we met an English blok Dave who we had met before in Ushuaia. As it happens Dave was heading to Mendoza next too and so we decided to rent a car together and amble up there slowly over a couple of days while stopping off at a few random places. Sadly this idea didn’t work out. The price of the rental was 600 pesos – not too bad between 3 people. However they were trying to charge us 2000 pesos just for the drop off in Mendoza! No thank you. So the next 2 days in Bariloche were spent watching the complete third season of 24 which Dave had brought with him from England. As we sat in the lobby watching 24 all day we attracted a large group of other people who were staying in the hostel. By the last few episodes we had the entire hostel hooked and everyone was gathered round to watch the final few episodes. We took an overnight bus to Mendoza and after checking into our hostel we decided to walk around the city for a bit and up to the park. It turns out there was a massive storm a few days previously and all the good parts of the park were closed due to flooding. But at least we got to play in the kids playground. Then we walked around the city but it wasn’t that beautiful and the storm drains lining every pavement didn’t make it any more attractive. It was then we decided to do some shopping but it was right in the middle of siesta and everywhere was closed. And so we just went back to the hostel slightly pissed off at Mendoza!

The next day we took a bike tour of the wineries. The way the tour operates is that you get a bus for 40 minutes out to the sticks where you rent bikes. You then cycle for roughly 12km down a road that has a few vineyards, a licquor & chocolate factory, a delicatessen and an olive oil factory off it. You stop off at the various places and taste wine/olive oil/licquors/chocolates etc… Unfortunately thanks to Mendoza’s great night life which we had experienced in full the night before we didn’t make it out to the bike rental place until lunch time. Because we had to drop the bikes back by 6 we knew we would have to cut out some of the places. We made it to the first vineyard which was the smallest but cutest and very intimate. After taking a tour of the vines we got stuck into some serious wine tasting. It was great to learn about how the wines are made and then to taste them so the taste actually means something to you. We purchased a couple of bottles and headed on our way without Dave who had a flat tyre. We hit the olive oil factory and bought olives and headed to the second vineyard. It was bigger than and not as nice as the first but we did get a bit more wine into us. We only had time for one more place so we decided on the delicatessen. When we arrived there we were disappointed to learn it was closed despite the sign saying it opens until 6pm. So we legged it to the licquor and chocolate factory to catch a last minute tour and sample some of the products before getting back to the bike rental place.

That night we decided to go to a club that was 10km out of the city but apparently really good. Unfortuantely we didn’t get there until 2.30am and it was already full. So we made our way back to the city and thankfully in Argentina bars stay open until the last person leaves. We got back to the city at 3am and the bar street was absolutely hopping. So we camped ourselves at a nice bar until about 6 in the morning. As you can imagine the next day was spent sleeping. It was a Sunday anyway and in South America nothing happens on a Sunday. It is now our last day in Mendoza and Argentina for that matter. Later on Fi and Dave are off paragliding however I will be observing from the ground. Mentlers. Photos follow: