Sao Paulo for a day

So after a bit of running around trying to find an ATM that would take my credit card, we popped into the tourist office to ask about buses to Sao Paulo, only to discover that the next bus was due to leave in 10 minutes, but that the station was a couple of kilometers away. We waited for a couple of minutes outside for a local bus to the station, but none came and so we just walked to the station knowing we'd missed it.

It turned out that the next bus wasn´t until 3pm (it was now 11am), but that was already full, and the next one after that was 10pm. So our only option was to leave our bags at the station and hang around Angra for the whole day and get that 10pm bus.

So walking back towards the town we had a drink by the small beach and then another really lovely pay-by-weight lunch in the town centre (with more fantastic cake!). Spent most of the rest of the afternoon in an internet place before they closed and then got a bit of supper and drink in a nice local bar. From the bar I could see a bit of activity down by the waterfront, so we strolled down there to check it out.

It turned out to be a small local festival, with loads of food and drink stalls and a big stage with a group of kids dancing in traditional costumes. We didn't have too much time, but we stayed watching for over half-an-hour, during which time the one group of kids (about 20 of them) never stopped dancing, and it was at times pretty frenetic. I'm sure the whole show would have gone on late into the night, but we had to head back to the bus station for the Sao Paulo bus.

So after another brilliantly comfortable bus journey we arrived in the huge metropolis of Sao Paulo at about 5:30 in the morning. We immediately checked out buses to Campo Grande, but the first decent bus to leave was at 19:30 that evening. So although the thought of exploring such a massive city was daunting, we didn't have much choice really, unless we just hung around the huge bus station for the entire day. Of course, as always, once I got my bearings with the metro system the whole thing was a doddle, and I really enjoyed the whole day.

It didn't start so auspiciously though, as the queue just to buy a metro ticket was a huge snaking affair, and this was at about 6am on a Saturday morning! The metro system is actually really modern, fast, clean, efficient and very quite, but for some crazy reason they haven't cottoned on to the idea of ticket vending machines yet (even the Luas has them!). Anyway after finally getting tickets we hopped on a train to the city centre and strolled around, basically waiting for places to open. We checked out a cool art gallery and then what looked like a major ceremony in the huge central cathedral that hads lots of security guys hanging around and TV cameras filming the front row.

Not knowing what was going on we were about to leave when Sarah is approached by a priest in mad 'knights templar' robes. He explains in very good English that the ceremony is to mark the 1st anniversary of a plane crash in which 189 people died (it was the local military airline TAM (that serves local people too, and with who we catch a flight here in Bolivia tomorrow!)), but apparently it wasn't widely reported outside Brazil. Anyway, then the priest starts on a long rambling spiel that basically tries to convert us to his branch of Catholicism (using obvious hard-sell techniques that any gradute marketeer would be familiar with (e.g. never asking a direct question, immediately answering his own questions, never giving pause, making repeated positive references to abstract concepts of 'beauty' or 'purity', blah, blah)). Somehow I managed not to bring up any of the thornier issues surrounding his obviously fervent beliefs (much to Sarah's relief), and we eventually managed to extricate ourselves from his attempts at rhetorical entrapment (his final attempt being a request for our postal addresses), but he was a nice guy, and in the end I just felt a bit sorry for him.

We strolled around the Asian quarter for lunch (apparently Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese community outside Japan), having noodles in one Japanese place, and then some nice sushi in another up the road. Over lunch we got chatting to the guy next to us who was with his son. After a bit of chat (Sarah had asked initially if they knew a nearby cinema), the guy offers to drive us to one of the major cinema complexes as his car was just outside. So off we go and the guy drops us off in another part of the city. It turned out that we were too late for any movies, so we just ended up strolling around the area for a bit, although unfortunately we didn't really have time to check out the impressive looking MASP museum.

Anyway, after another quick metro trip and more rambling around one of the posher neighbourhoods of the city, and checking out some cool cafes and the like, it was time to head back to the bus station. Even though we only had a day, albeit a very long day, I quite liked Sao Paulo, although of course we only got to see a tiny fraction of what the city has to offer. So then it was another overnight bus journey, this time towards an area called the Pantanal, a vast wetland area famous for it's wildlife.

Ilha Grande

So after our quick ferry ride to the island we again ignored the few touts and started strolling about the small town checking out accommodation. Everywhere seemed very expensive though, especially compared to the great price we had gotten in Trinidade (R30 per night for a great ensuite room right on the beach). But eventually we found a nice place down one of the side streets who was prepared to haggle and so we settled in.

The island is famous for its many beaches, but it has no roads or cars at all (hurray!), so access to the beaches is either by hiking or by boat. So the following morning we head off on a hike, but we find another hostel offering cheap rooms. Sarah checks it out, and we decide to move as it´s a good bit cheaper. Turns out though that Sarah had misunderstood the owner (the price was per person, not per room!), and only after much fustrating negotiation we managed to get the same price as the first place. Anyway, after that wee debacle we hiked the 3 hours to one of the island´s most famous beaches, Lopes Mendez.

It was a great hike through lovely forest, and the hilly parts gave great views of the small offshore islands and the beaches. It passed by 3 or 4 lovely small beaches, each with a local hut or two selling cold drinks, so these were great resting points along the way during the heat of the day (the walk back only took 1 hour 45 minutes). These small beaches, and the main town, were all on the landward side of the island, and so all have very gentle waves washing the beaches. Lopes Mendez however is on the seaward side of the island, and so has stonger waves, making it difficult to land boats apparently, but much better for frollicking about in the water.

It´s a great beach alright, but I think I preferred the isolated beach at Trinidade. It was busy too, but not overly so, as the beach stretchs on for miles, so if you wanted isolation you just have to walk a bit. The beach has no development whatsover though, due to the restricted access, so it was very nice in that regard. And just after starting to hike back we came across a group of wild marmoset monkeys, and even though I know it's bad form, I couldn't help myself and just had to dig out a few crumbs from the wafer biscuits from our day bag and hand feed one of them (as they are definitely one of my favorite creatures, and this was the first time I'd ever encountered them in the wild (so another tick off the list)).

The following day I did a couple of scuba dives on the shores of a small offshore island, while Sarah came along for the day out and to do a bit of snorkeling. It was a long boat ride out, well over an hour, but the scenery was lovely and there were only 2 other Dutch divers, so the boat wasn´t crowded at all. Boths dives were very good - Lewis the divemaster was excellent. Although the other two divers were very inexperienced (one of the them frecked out completely and only managed to dive for a few minutes on his second attempt - he seemed very disappointed with himself afterwards, poor sod), Lewis would just send them up when they ran out of air and then continued diving with me.

Got to see some lovely rock formations, and a small wreck with a huge hermit crab living under it. We did a really cool cave swim through (the other inexperienced Dutch diver doing really well here I thought, as caves can be quite daunting), and a great cliff wall covered in small green coral growths, but by far the highlight was the totally mad looking rosy-lipped batfish, certainly the most usual looking creature I´ve ever seen, above or below water - it kinda walks on two legs and has a mad snout! Lewis was quite cheeky though, in that he would handle the animals, which of course you should never do. But it was amazing to get such a close up look at the batfish, and a brilliant tiny spider crab too (Lewis gave us all a CD with loads of photos he took during the dives, so hopefully they´ll capture something of their unusuallness).

So our last day on Ilha Grande we did some more hiking (trails T1 and T2). This time we went all the way to a cool waterfall, passing quite a few people who gave up looking for it and had turned back, although of course I would never do that! It was an impressive waterfall alright and worth the search, and we could have abseiled down it for a few quid, but we´d both now done-that-been-there. So after lunch near the waterfall we hiked back to some more small beaches before heading back to the town for dinner.

So all in all Ilha Grande is another great spot with great hiking options, but the town is a bit big for my liking and if I had to make a choice I´d definitely opt for Trinidade if I was looking to just chill out and relax for a few days.

So getting the morning ferry back to the mainland I had thought that it made more sense to make our way to Sao Paulo and from there get a bus directly to our next destination, Campo Grande (originally I was going to go back to Rio, but looking at a map it would have meant a bit of unecessary backtracking). So back in Angra it was time to check out buses to Sao Paulo.

Trinidade

Trindade was so relaxed, the weather so good, the accommodation and food lovely, and everything so cheap that we stayed for 5 nights just doing not very much really. It actually seemed like a long time since we had had proper beach time in great weather, and Trinidade was in my opinion every bit as good a beach as any I've been to in South East Asia. In fact, it reminded me very much of South East Asia, with lots of cheap accommodation right on the beach (there is nothing quite like being able to get out of bed, putting on your swimming shorts and walking straight onto a lovely deserted beach under a clear blue sky and into the sea for a quick refreshing dip).

So on one of the lazy days we tried to navigate to the neighbouring beach by clambering over the rocks strewn around a large rocky outcrop at the end of our main beach. But they eventually became a bit too steep and high, and so we had to turn back. So the next day we decided to cheat and take the overland route and it turned out to be a really easy 5 minute walk! It also turned out to be a very popular beach (this being the weekend now), and so had lots of people and busy beach bars and restaurants. It was actually nice to have a bit of life around, and kids playing freely on a beach are always a joy to watch (I've always thought we're the ones with a lot to learn from the carefree nature of kids, rather than always trying to 'teach' them how to behave - case in point would be Sarah always giving out to me for playing with my food, or eating with my fingers, or having food all over my face, my point being she's the one with something to learn, not me!).

There were in fact two beaches on this side of the village, separated by a short rugged forest trail over a little headland. This third beach was the most scenic, having no development whatsoever along it's entire length, and having fairly steep hills covered in untouched native forest flowing straight down to the beach. At the end of the beach, and along another short trail, is a big natural pool formed by a rough ring of huge boulders. It's completely calm here and was quite popular with families.

One of the evenings Sarah fancied another tasty cake, so we strolled around to the local bakery. It turned out that there was a proper chess set on one of the tables and the owner of the bakery asked me if I wanted to play. I didn´t really fancy it, but decided to have a quick game. It turned out to be a very good game, and dragged on for ages, but I won in the end. The guy was clearly a keen player but explained, mostly through sign language, that he only really got to play online. He was also very clearly keen for another game, and it wouldn´t have been fair to just leave I suppose, so I very reluctantly agreed to another game.

Again this game took ages (and his shop was getting very busy, so he had to keep interrupting the game to serve people), but after I had gained a huge advantage (up a rook), I got completely befuddled trying to finish him off and he came up with a great counter attack to win the game. Naturally he wanted another game straight away, but by now it was late, I was very tired, and it seemed fair to end at one game each. Also I found it very fustrating playing someone of a similar level without using a chess clock, something I found playing Hanno on the last big trip too, as it means your always under pressure to make a move before your really ready - and Sarah wasn´t helping much by always telling me to hurry up!

So that just about wraps up our crazy adventures in Trinidade - definitely my favorite beach place of the trip so far. Our next port of call was the island Ilha Grande, and knowing the ferry didn´t depart from the town of Angra until 15:30 we had the whole morning to mess about back in Paraty. So we left our bags in left-luggage at the bus station, burnt a set of photos onto DVD and hired bikes for two hours to explore around the outskirts of the town. It always strikes me just how much more of a town you get to see on a bike compared to walking or buses, and we got to check out the small local fort on a hill overlooking the town and to ride alongside a small river with boat builders working away.

Then another lovely quick lunch in the local market again before going back to the bus station. It was a bit panicky though, as Sarah had gone to withdraw money while I loaded our bags on the bus, and she only got back with literally 1 second to spare (I had to knock on the bus to get the driver to reopen the door he had closed as he pulled away from the station). So an easy 2 hours later we arrive in Angra and get a slightly earlier boat across to the island.

Paraty

After waiting for a good while for the local bus back to the main bus station in Rio we got the 11am bus to Paraty, a journey of about 4 hours. On arrival there were only a couple of touts for accommodation, both of which we knew about from the guidebooks and both of which seemed a tad overpriced. We ignored the cajoling from the lads, but took their flyers, and strolled away as a third tout guy came up to us. This guy seemed a lot more sedate and genuine (the other two lads were far more brash), and he immediately offered us a room a lot cheaper than the first two lads. So having a good feeling about the guy, I decided his place was worth checking out.

It turned out to be just a couple of minutes walk from the bus station and was a lovely, homely place. It was just outside the small historic town centre, which I suppose explained the cheap price - you pay a lot more to stay in the very centre, even though the centre is small and we were only about 2 minutes walk outside.

Anyway, the reason to visit Paraty is really just that historic centre. It is lovely of course, all white-washed houses and some lovely old churches along mad cobblestone streets. It's full of arty little craft and art shops, very expensive restaurants and trendy cafes, but really I found it all very touristy and not a little contrived. It would be a great place to spend a few days if you weren't on a tight budget and wanted to relax and enjoy good food. For us though we just enjoyed strolling about the centre, but then ate just outside the centre in a cool local restaurant (where we met two very interesting bird-watcher Australian retirees),

Or else we'd eat in the even cooler little market literally 1 minute walk from the historic part of town where we got dirt cheap food that was lovely (and of course, all very genuine and 'local' - both times we ate there we were the only gringos, and the waiter (the son of the 'auld dear owner who we could see cooking away in the back), was really smiley and friendly. These tiny little local places are always far more atmospheric than the fancy-dancy restaurants around the corner, albeit quite a lot grubbier, but than maybe that's part of what 'atmosphere' really is (and strangely enough, even Sarah agrees with me on this point!).

Another little discovery in Paraty was the delicious cakes being sold by vendors on the streets. They had these big flat carts with about 20 different cakes and sweets, and Sarah kinda fell in love with the cakes and the whole concept in fact (she's developing quite a sweet tooth on this trip, which isn't hard to understand given the quality of the bakeries all over South America so far).

Anyway, on our second day we took a day-trip to a nearby beach town called Trinidade (also recommended by Enda and Tracy), which is only about a 50 minute bus ride away through lovely scenery. This turned out to be a great little village with a fantastic beach, and after spending the day there and finding another really cheap hotel right on the beach we decided to come straight back the very next day.

Rio

So we arrived in Rio nice and early, and after a quick local bus to the centre we checked out the first place mentioned in our guidebook. It was a nice place, but seemed expensive - I knew that Brazil is one of the most expensive countries in South America, and that Rio would be more expensive still, but it still seemed a bit excessive. Anyway, we decided to give it a go and spend the next day checking out other places - after a bit of a mix up with the owner guy that is. He was afraid we were going to write a complaint on the internet about the hostel being noisy, when all we asked was did they have a quiter room, as our room was right next to the kitchen. At first I thought he was asking us to leave, but it was all sorted out in the end, and he turned out to be a really nice guy, and noise was never an issue in the end either (although Sarah initally felt very put out by the guy, and really wanted to leave, but luckily I persuaded her it would be too much trouble).

So we spent that afternoon and early evening checking out the centre of the town, which was really lively and had a huge market. Of course it being Rio, I was a tad nervous for our security, but as always, once you take the basic precautions and aren't a complete fool, everything works out fine and we had no hassles at all in Rio - but it still took a couple of days for me to fully relax.

Anyway the next day we got the local bus from just outside the hostel to the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. We were also checking out accommodation options in this part of the city, and as it turned out the place we found originally was by far the cheapest place of all of them. So much relieved that we didn't have to move we relaxed on the fantastically long beaches for a bit (pretty much deserted at this time of year during the week), and had a lovely, although expensive meal in an Ipanema restaurant famous for it's local grub.

The next day we decided to check out the area of Santa Teresa. We got the really cool open tram to one of the small squares, hopping off to check out the recommended restaurants for lunch (someone else's video here, our trip wasn't quite so crowded!). We had a fantastic prawn curry in the well known Sobrenatural, during which I could see that a tram was having great difficulty continuing up the track. I then didn't notice another passing tram for ages and so assumed that there was a major problem. So we decided to walk to the end of the tram line by just following the tracks. After a good 45 minutes walking, and some great city views, we came to a junction of the tracks, and so not knowing which way to go we just decided to get a bus back down the hill. On the bus down we passed a tram coming back up(!), so we hopped off again at the square we'd had lunch and hearing live music decided to have a beer in a cool little bar. But the music finished up after a bit, and so we decided to hop on the next tram going back up the hill. This time the tram reached the same junction we'd walked to, and then it just started coming back the way it had come! It was getting late at this stage, so we didn't bother hopping off and trying to figure out where we were, so we just got off the tram back at our familiar square again.

From the square I could see from our map that we weren't that far a walk back to our hostel, and so decided to walk back through the small streets. Negator was as usual more than a bit nervous, but in the end it was a lovely walk, and much quicker than getting the tram all the way back to it's terminus and walking back from there.

On the walk back we also passed a cool looking bar and so decided to check it out later that evening. Luckily the bar was very close to our hostel, because when we tried to get in they asked for ID, and so we had to go back for our passports. At first we thought it was an age thing, but in fact it's because you don't pay for drinks or food as you go along. Instead they give you a printed card when you go in and the waiters mark off what you order as you order it. You then pay the total when you leave. Anyway it was an interesting night, although it was more of a pool hall, and not that much different from back home really.

The next day was a Sunday so we checked out the beaches again - this time getting the bus all the way down to Leblon. Every Sunday one of the main highways right beside the beach is closed to traffic, allowing people to walk, cycle and rollerblade along the street. It creates a great atmosphere, and even now in low season it was very lively. So at one stage I just left Sarah sunbathing on the beach while I strolled around checking out restaurants for lunch. The area is one of the poshest in Rio and it was a lovely spot for fancy restaurants and the like. In the end we went to a famous pay-by-weight place (a common form of restaurant here), called Fellini's. It turned out to be probably the best buffet I've ever tastied, with possibly the best cakes I've ever tried too!

That evening we got the bus to the departure point for Rio's famous statue, Christ the Redeemer. We had hoped to just walk up the hill, but we arrived quite late in the day, and so decided to get the train up instead. It was great timing really, as we arrived before sunset (when it was very crowded), and just hung around until well after sunset when the crowds had much reduced. It certainly does offer great views of the city, and is an impressively iconic statue in it's own right, and it was a nice spot to watch the transition to nightfall.

Another day Sarah decided she really wanted to give hang gliding a go, and so I offered to bring her as an early birthday present (how brilliant a boyfriend am I?). It was all very easy really, as the hostel owner rang the company and 45 minutes later a taxi arrived to pick us up (along with another daredevil Irish couple, Ger and Katie), and we drove the 30 minutes to the company office right next to the beach where they land. After signing the forms it was another 10 minutes drive up a big hill and then waiting around for about 20 minutes while the queue of hang gliders took off before it was Sarah's turn. After a quick practice run with her cool instructor it was over to the take-off ramp and off they went. Sarah loved the whole thing, and wasn't nervous at all, although she was a bit disappointed that the flight itself was so short, only about 5 to 8 minutes.

So all in all we spent 5 nights in Rio, and I really enjoyed it. We only had rain one morning, and so we just stayed in the hostel and watched the very good movie 'City of Men', which is set in the favelas (slums) of Rio. It's a pretty gruesome movie about the warring gangs of the city based on true events, and it was a weird feeling leaving the hostel after the movie (the rain having passed by then) knowing we were walking some of the same streets shown in the movie.

In retrospect it was a pity we didn't get to try a real samba club though. We did go out on the town on a Saturday night, but not knowing where to go we ended up in a pretty ordinary place (the pool hall place I mentioned). You can't just wander into a place to check it out and then walk to the next place, as they all seem to have hefty cover charges. But I've since heard people talk of mad nights out in cool samba clubs, so next time I'll have to check with the locals to find out where is good (the guidebook recommends places but warns that the good places change regularly).

Another reason for having to leave Rio early was the shear expense of the place - it really ate into the budget (although we were eating in great restaurants a lot). Seeing as how the weather was so good we decided to head down the coast and check out a few beach places recommended by Enda and Tracy - first stop was Paraty.

Iguasu Falls - Part 2

So after checking out the hostel that the Scotish couple (Spruce and Sonia) had found we decided to move and stayed another 2 nights at Casa Cuentas (whose staff were really friendly, it was cheaper and the place had free internet).

Another reason for moving was that catching a bus to our next destination of Rio proved a tad tricky, as the day we wanted to leave they only had seats beside the noisy bus engine, so I just decided to stay an extra night, relax in Puerto and catch up on the blog instead. It also gave us the opportunity to visit the Brazilian side of the falls at our leisure, and after being informed by Spruce and Sonia that an organised tour wasn't worth the money or the trouble, we decided to just make our own way over to Brazil and tour around ourselves (yet again, this definitely proved to be the much better option).

It turned out to be a fantastic day, and the freedom of going ourselves rather than taking the tour allowed us time to check out the cool hotel in the park (much nicer in my opinon than the Sheraton on the Argentinian side), and visit a bird park next to the Brazilian Falls. Although the Brazilian Falls were very impressive (you get more of an overview as opposed to the Argentinian side which gets you up close and personal), it was certainly worth the little bit of trouble getting across the border and getting local buses. The infrastructure on the Brazilian side of the falls consists of just one walkway and a few viewing platforms, so even with checking out the hotel (and getting out Brazilian money there), it only took a few hours to see everything. But the highlight of the whole day for me was certainly the bird park just outside the park entrance.

The bird park itself was actually huge, much bigger than I was expecting. It also had a number of large avaries that you were free to enter and wander about, which of course I thought was fantastic. It meant you had the opportunity to get right up close to the birds, although at one stage I had a strange big bird jump right on my back, and gave me quite a fright I have to say (but he didn't do any damage). But by far the most incredible critters were the multitude of toucans in the park (although Sarah was most impressed by all the humming birds - they are very common here, our hostel even has loads of the them visiting each morning). Also impressive was the shear number and variety of parrots and parakeets, and getting to have a huge tame parrot feed on our arms (ok, so that bit was quite touristy, but still hard to resist). Also mighty impressive was the bird-eating tarantula, which even though I've seen quite a few huge spiders in repile parks and the like, this particular guy was by far the biggest and meanest looking one I've ever seen.

Unfortunately we weren't sure what time the last bus back over the border was, so we had to leave the bird park a bit early - I definitely would have taken another loop around the whole park otherwise, even though I was tired from three days of hiking through national parks. Back in Puerto, we met up again with the Scottish couple and another English couple who arrived that day, and all 6 of us went out for a few beers and dinner. But it was Sunday night, so the town was pretty quite, so we just came back to the hostel for a last late beer before bed (the poor English couple, Clare and Dave, had to get up for a 7:30 tour the following morning!).

The next day and a half we just took it easy, the weather was gorgeous now, and we just waited around for our overnight bus to Rio. Spruce and Sonia were on the same bus, but they were only going as far as Sao Paulo. So once in Rio it was a cheap bus to the centre and the usual search for cheap accommodation.

Iguazu Falls - Part 1

So Iguazu Falls is always listed as one of the major highlights of South America, and I've often seen it listed as the most impressive waterfalls in the world, so I was a tad sceptical of all the hype. But even though I try hard to avoid overusing superlatives, I have to say that the entire falls system is in my opinion the single most awe inspiring natural wonder I have ever seen. All the mad facts and figures for the falls are on Wikipedia here (including an interesting comparison with other falls around the world), so no point in reiterating them here, but needless to say it all adds up to one hell of a show. My overall impression was enhanced no end by the suberb infrastructure that the Argentinians have constructed to allow tourists get so incredibly close to some of the major individual waterfalls.

It really is just one of those life experiences which no amount of writing, or photos or even video clips can ever hope to capture - I really think it's something that must be experienced personally (if I ever have kids the only place in the world so far I'd really recommend them to see before they die would be Iguazu Falls!). The shear force of the water is unbelievable, and the whole spectacle really is, in every sense of the phrase, awe inspiring. The beautiful natural forest setting is just another bonus.

So the whole day was spent just strolling around the whole park complex, including using a small train line with three stops along it's length, and a very short ferry trip to a natural island in the middle of the whole thing (that had the best views of the hugely powerful San Martin waterfall, my personal favorite). Although often listed as the most spectacular waterfall in the whole system, the "Garganta del Diablo" was fantastic, but due to the constant spray of mist churned up by the volume of water, you couldn't see the bottom, and so all the water just seemed to disappear into an endless abyss. But it was still great to stand literally right on the edge of this massive waterfall, get well and truly soaked and if you hung around long enough you'd catch the odd glimpse of the river below (and watch the hundreds of swifts that somehow live behind the falls themselves).

With so many trails and walkways to navigate it took us the entire day from early morning to see just about all of it, and obviously I was stopping regularly to soak up the spectacle from every angle. Although it is supposed to be shoulder season now (although I'd timed it not be a weekend), I never found the place crowded, and we often had entire viewing platforms all to ourselves (if a platform was getting sprayed from the water then people would run in, take a posy photo or two and then run away (even if they had rain capes), but I never minded getting wet, it's all part of the experience really, so by simply waiting a few minutes a platform would often be deserted for a few minutes at least.

Even more kudos goes to the Argentinians for offering a second day in the park for half-price, an offer I wasn't going to forego. It was great to get back the second day, as the weather was a bit better and the volume of water seemed a little higher due to rain the evening before. It also gave us the chance to stroll around a bit more leisurely, as we now knew our way around. It also meant we could hike along an easy but long trail we hadn't had time to do the day before, and although we hoped to spot a toucan or two we didn't see much life really, but the forest was lovely and peaceful, with very few people. I wish now I'd taken the opportunity to go back for a second visit to Victoria Falls when we were there - strangely that experience seems a bit of a blur now, and so it's hard for me objectively compare the two waterfall systems now (hopeful looking at the photos of Vic Falls when I get home will refresh my memory!).

So after another long, tiring day it was time to head back. I decided to hike the short forest trail back to the park entrance, although initially Sarah wanted to get the train back. I told her I'd meet her back at the entrance so, but then she decided to do the hike too (although she moaned a bit as usual about being tired). Just before the end of the trail we spotted a small group of people up ahead obviously looking at something up in the trees. At first I thought it was probably a beautiful, but common, bird we'd seen many times over the past couple of days, but it turned out to be a toucan. It was something I'd hoped to see for the entire two days, they really are mad looking birds, just like the ones on all those old Guinness posters, and I was really chuffed to have gotten such a good view of this one (although I hadn't time to get any photos before it flew off). It struck me though as another great example of how you get 'lucky' only by giving yourself the opportunity to get 'lucky' - in other words, if I'd been lazy I could have just gotten the train back with Sarah, but although I was tired too, I really wanted to spot a wild toucan, and so I perservered by doing one last hike, and lo-and-behold we get to spot a wild toucan.

During that second day we kept passing a Scottish couple, and on the bus back to the town we met them again. It turned out they had found an even better accommdation deal than we had, so when we got back to the town we checked out their place.

Puerto Iguazu

We arrived in the town of Puerto Iguazu nice and early after another very comfortable overnight bus journey. Puerto Iguazu is the service town for the Argentinian side of world famous Iguazu Falls, and is a pretty little town in it´s right. It was nice to arrive in such a touristy place during low season though, as it quickly became clear that we would have our pick of the town's many accommodation options, and it meant we could haggle a great rate.

After trying a few of the places dotted around the small town we ended up spending three nights in the Colonia Hotel, which was nice and central and very cheap. Since we´d arrived early in the morning we just decided to relax for the rest of that day, rather than trying to organise getting into the national park that day. It meant we could just stroll about the nice town and also get the general information needed to explore the falls at our own leisure, as opposed to taking a crappy organised tour.

So the next day we got up early and just hopped on a local bus to the park (only 18km away I think), paid the entrance fee, got a park map and spent the whole day strolling around.

Concordia

The river ferry to Concordia only took an hour and so again we had a full day to check out the small town before getting another overnight bus direct to Iguasu Falls at 19:30 that evening. It was a very fustrating, roundabout journey to the bus terminal though - we had to ask four different locals for directions and buses - and just like everywhere in the world we got four conflicting sets of directions! When we did get to the terminal we bought tickets from the fantastically friendly bus operator (who had perfect English), left our rucksacks at the bus company office and then had the whole day to stroll about.

First stop, after a light breakfast, was a nice open park with lots of joggers and cyclists, that had a small botantic garden, and impressive ruins of an old colonial house. Then we caught a local bus back into the town centre and relaxed in a trendy bar on the main square (after getting some cash I also checked out the main church on the square, and had a quick look in the modern art gallery).

Then another leisurely bus ride back to the bus terminal, picked up our rucksacks and boarded the luxury overnight bus for Iguasu Falls.

Salto

So we arrived in Salto in the very early morning, it was still dark. We got a taxi directly to a cheap hostel recommended in the guidebook and the owner kindly let us go straight to bed without charging us an extra day (I´d had a great sleep on the overnight bus, but it was still nice to get another couple of hours kip in a nice comfy bed).

Salto is another very small town, and really it was just a stopping off point before crossing the border back into Argentina, so we only stayed the one night. Of course, since we´d arrived so early we still had a full day to explore the small town and have a lovely lunch in the Uruguay Club (I checked out a cool local art gallery, while Sarah tried to find a laundry (unsuccessfully)). That evening we got a local bus out to the main attraction of the town, a series of thermal pools. It was a lovely setup, and nicely quite, so it felt like we had the run of the place. After a good ´auld soak there it was back to the town for another great feed and an early night.

Next morning it was a short walk to the ferry that would take us across the river to the Argentinian town of Concordia.

Punto del Este

Punto del Este is a pretty major beach resort on the Uruguayan coast, very popular with Brazilians and Argentinians apparently, but of course we arrived in low season, so the whole town was fairly quite.

We still spent a fair while strolling around looking for cheap accommodation though, and ended up at the only hostel in the town that was open. It was a lovely place but quite expensive, so we decided to stay in a dorm and only spent one night (we arrived early though, and left late the next day, so we had a full two days to explore the town).

It´s a nice town, although very Costa del Sol with tons of skyscraper apartment blocks and big hotels. The second day we hired bikes again (after some fustrating and apparently futile discussion with the bike shop owner), and rode along the extremely extensive, and almost totally deserted stretchs of beach that seemed to just go on and on (and stopping for a photo at a cool big arty statue of the fingers of a human hand sticking up through the sand). Then I took a detour inland through some lovely forest before doubling back to the town. Then it was just sitting on the beach reading my book, followed by chilling out in the luxury hotel when the sun set (the hotel had a casino too, with the usual sad tourists sitting forlornly at the lines of soulless slot machines). Then we caught a late bus back to Montevideo and caught the next bus north to the town of Salto on the Argentinian border.

Montevideo

We only stayed a couple of days in Montevideo, as the weather wasn´t very good, there didn´t seem to be too much to do or see really, and the accommodation seemed quite expensive. The day we arrived the whole town seemed very quite, but then we realised it was a bank holiday, so that was an early night.

We did find a great restaurant though on one of the main city squares that seemed to have a very particular staff hiring policy that seemed to rate personal appearance very highly - the place was very popular with the local businessmen.

I finally succumbed to Sarah´s nagging and got my hair cut (it was long overdue in fairness) by a cool barber guy with 30 years experience and great English. I always find haircuts in foreign countries a daunting ordeal (they´re bad enough at home!), especially after the ´haircut´ I got in Nepal years ago by a guy who hadn´t the first notion what I was asking for and obviously had never encountered curly Irish hair before - nightmare.

We did manage a full day of museum and gallery scouting though, and another day strolling along the beautiful coastline before arriving at the very busy Mercedo del Puerto, a big waterside warehouse full of restaurants and bars. It was a late Sunday afternoon and the place had a great atmosphere (for some reason it really reminded me of a big Irish international rubgy game atmosphere). We´d already eaten so we just stayed for a drink to soak up a bit of the atmosphere. We sat at the counter of a cool open BBQ place with mad staff that were messing the whole time and seemed to be having a great laugh (they really reminded me of zany Italians for some reason!), and we met a cool American guy that just happened to be sitting next to us.

The best night out I had in Montevideo was undoubtedly the Saturday night at the "Fun Fun Bar". It´s a terrible name, but actually a brilliant wee bar with a long history apparently, and it was full of locals all signing along to a small live band that had a couple of cool, smiley ´auld lads playing guitar and accordian.

So after all the big South American cites it was time to try some of the famous beaches, and so the next stop was the town of Punto del Este.

Colonia

Colonia is a very small town really, but very convenient from Buenos Aires, and a lovely wee spot for a couple of days. The old part of the town is all windy narrow little picure-perfect streets, often cobblestoned with the crazyiest cobbles I've ever seen, all completely irregular and misshapen.

Our great little hostel had free bikes, so again we took a day to explore the local environs. We rode out to Real de San Carlos, about 10km along the coast from the town, which has a huge sporting and entertainment complex built back in the early 1900's, but is mostly run down now. It has a very impressive bullring though, now in partial ruins, but you can easily crawl through a gap in the fence, and into and around the ring itself, which was really cool (very Galdiator-esque). We also rode out to check out the plush new five-star Sheraton Hotel, and relaxed in the huge lobby there for a bit, before riding back along the coast and watching a couple of local racehorses being exercised in the sea - Uruguay is quite horse-mad apparently.

So after a few days just chilling out (and updating this blog on the hostel´s free internet, a feature of more and more hostels it seems, a sign of the times I suppose), and relaxing in the laid back town it was back on a local bus for the 2 hour bus ride to the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.

Hang gliding in Rio, as you do.

As a wee interlude in the blog I thought I´d skip ahead a wee bit to where we are at this very moment, Rio in Brazil, and link to an uploaded video of Sarah hang gliding (it was kind of an early birthday pressie): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-564801963204048726&hl=en

And while I´m at it I thought I´d put up a short video from Iguasu Falls too (probably the single most amazing nature wonder I´ve ever seen):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8457912740244198219&hl=en

By the way, this little video is only a tiny part of the whole Falls system, and I´ve loads more, but only had time to upload this one video.

Buenos Aires

We ended up staying 9 nights in Buenos Aires, another huge metropolis, but once again one that has millions of cool bars and restaurants, although like Santiago they tend to be quite spread out across a number of little ´villages´, a bit like maybe Rathmines or Ranelagh at home, kinda! We would have left a couple of days earlier, but we ran into a long weekend, and it might have proved difficult to get accommodation in our next port of call, Colonia in Uruguay, as apparently it's very popular with Argentinian tourists at the weekends. I didn't mind at all though really, as I really like Buenos Aires, or BsAs as it's often abbreviated.

But staying longer in Buenos Aires meant more time to see the huge number of sights around the city, and of course to sample more of the great restaurants and bars. Most of the cool bars could be straight from Paris or Spain I suppose, but the atmosphere everywhere is great, as socialising seems to be a big part of life here.

It also meant that we could meet up again with a local guy we met one night in an Irish bar, Sebastian (he was wearing a Rangers soccer jersey, so of course I had to set him straight!). The locals tend to head out on the town very late, so the Irish bar actually had the most life and buzz to it when we were strolling about early in the night, i.e. about 10pm. After meeting Sebastian, the night turned into a bit of a bender, getting back to our hotel (Hotel Espana) eventually at about 7am.

A couple of days later when we returned to the hotel there was a package waiting for us. At first I just thought it was fresh towels or bed sheets or something, but when I checked properly it turned out to be a freshly baked cake. Obviously we thought there was some mistake so Sarah checked with the guy on reception, but it was definitely for us, and after a bit of broken Spanish and sign language it turned out to be from Sebastian (although there was no note). It turned out that he had gone to a party the night before and had baked 2 cakes, 1 for the party and 1 for us - now how friendly is that!?


We arranged to meet up with Sebastian a few days later and he took us on a bit of a walking tour of the city, showing us a couple of cool places not even mentioned in either of our guidebooks. He also brought mate (pronounced mah-tay), which is the national drink of quite a few South American countries and you see people drinking it all over the place, especially in Uruguay, although weirdly you can´t order it in any of the cafes or bars. It´s basically a kind of bitter tea, but was really cool for us to try it with Sebastian, as it´s such an important part of South American culture, but you really need to hook up with a local to try it. I thought it was nice straight away, although Sarah didn´t take to it really (even with lots of sweetner added).


The next time we met Sebastian he brought us out of the centre on a local bus to his favorite local restaurant, a parrilla, which is one of the national styles of Argentine cooking - basically a big BBQ or wood fired grill with lots and lots of meat. It was great food of course and the atmosphere was great (although Sebastian thought it was kinda quite). He also snook off and paid the whole bill before we were even presented with it, which was rather cheeky, but was warmly appreciated of course.


We returned the favour a few days later in a nice restaurant in San Telmo (recommended by Enda´s Tracy in fact). We´d spent that Sunday morning visiting the San Telmo street market, which was more impressive, and bigger, than I was expecting, and then we hired bikes for a few hours. We met up with Sebastian again after a bit of a logistical mix up and toured around the parklands that buffer the city from the sea front, and then he took us on a bit of a cycle tour around the city (including popping into a cool art musuem for a quick look, although I got to introduce Sebastian to the Philippe Stark designed hotel, the Faena Hotel, that I'd read about somewhere. It is really impressive, although the bar is ridiculously expensive - A$33 for a small local beer that is normally A$5 (that's like paying over Euro 30 for a Guinness in Dublin)).

We finally said goodbye to Sebastian later that day. He´d been incredibly generous every time we met him, but saying goodbye he actually gave us his mate cup and the silver straw, a cool Reservoir Dogs postcard (Sebastian is a huge movie buff) and a mad photo of the huge tattoo across his whole back! Hopefully we´ll get the chance to return all his great hospitality if he ever gets to Ireland.

A city the size of Buenos Aires has lots of great restaurants of course, but Casa Cruz on Uriarte, in the posh Palermo district of the city, was probably the best meal I've had on the entire trip so far. The place had a brilliant atmosphere, and although it was very upper class it wasn't too snooty or anything (waiters were all wearing smart uniforms, but most of them were wearing sneakers and jeans under their formal aprons). We had cocktails at the bar before being seated, a starter to share, I ordered lobster (not a whole one, but still plenty), while Sarah had the rabbit and a bottle of lovely Argentine wine, all top-notch grub and all for about Euro80 - amazing!

Earlier that same day we'd checked out one of the fanciest hotels in the city (Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt), and it was extremely stuck-up - Sarah felt very annoyed when we left, as all the staff seemed to be looking her up and down (we did look quite out of place in our backpacker touristy clothes), but she was made to feel very uncomfortable indeed. It was weird actually, as I felt quite uncomfortable too, which was probably the first time that's ever happened - I think it's the first time I've encountered a place that is completely over the top in terms of it's snobby-ness, and I didn´t think the hotel was particularly amazing in any regard either.

So anyway, most of our time in Buenos Aires was spent strolling around the city (or getting the odd local bus or metro), and exploring the many museums, gallerys, churches, plazas, etc. We saw a couple of tango demonstrations on the streets of the more touristy places (like Caminito and San Telmo), and did a cool tour of the Boca Junior soccer stadium. The stadium was a bit rundown really, but it's such a famous club (mostly because of Maradona, whose image is all over the area, but also Gabriel Batistuta), and it was quite cool to get a tour of the pitch, press room, changing rooms, etc.

So when we finally left the city it was a quick taxi ride to the swish new ferry port and a short 3 hour boat trip across the Rio de la Plata to the lovely old town of Colonia in Uruguay.

Mendoza

The bus journey from Santiago to Mendoza needs, by necessity, to cross the mighty Andes - the worlds second highest mountain range. It was a stunning bus journey I have to say, and made all the more enjoyable by the bus being very modern and comfortable, and the roads were in great condition (a big contrast to the only big bus journey I did with Hanno on my last visit to South America - it was a pretty horrible 36-hour trip from Santiago to Bolivia on a clapped out banger of a bus).

The customs stop at the Chile-Argentine border was at a high pass in the mountains, and we got the chance to walk about for a bit in the snow and have a little snowball fight. The scenery all around us was magnificent (including fleeting views of the mightiest of the Andean mountains, Aconcagua), and I was really regretting not having the opportunity to go snowboarding, as the season wasn't due to begin for a couple of weeks yet.

So arriving in Mendoza city, we tried to ignore the usual touts and we just headed to the nearest hostel (although we were kind of 'assisted' by this 'auld guy with no English that we thought was just chancing his arm by looking for money for showing us the way, but who turned out to really work for the hostel, and didn't look for any money in the end!). Yet again it turned out to be the best deal in town (amongst all the places we subsequently checked out anyway), and so we ended up staying 4 nights.

Again, Mendoza is another town I really like, although not as much as Santiago. We stuffed our faces repeatedly at all-you-can-eat places that had brilliant food (they are quite common here), strolled about as usual (the modern art gallery was particularly impressive), we had a 1-hour tour of the large city gardens (in Spanish!), followed by a nice stroll around the artifical lake with numerous rowers rowing about, as they tend to do (apparently the lake irrigates the entire park, which was all man-made on desert soil, or something).

One of the days we took a day trip to the local vineyards, about a 1-hour local bus journey away. After walking to the first vineyard and having just one tasting, we hired bikes and cycled to the main town centre for some lunch on the pleasant square. Then we headed off to check out a few more vineyards, but only one was open, and again we only had one tasting (although the girl was great, and gave us a pretty informative private tour of the winery). Another day we got another local bus to the famous Argentine vineyard of Concha y Toro (Mr. Mullins' favorite apparently), and had a nice relaxed tour of their operation, followed by a tasting and then we just relaxed in their nicely done wine bar (as all the poor tour group people got herded back on their bus).

So having 'done' Mendoza and a couple of it's main wine regions it was time to hit the capital, Buenos Aires.

Santiago

So we arrived nice and early in Santiago, and after having to take a wee wander to find Sarah's rucksack (someone had removed it from the carousel), we ignored the usual taxi hustlers outside arrivals, I got out some local money from an ATM and we hopped on the local bus to the city. From there we hopped on the metro (which is brilliant in Santiago, although often very crowded), for a couple of stops and then checked in to our cosy hostel.

At first, as usual when you arrive in a new country, you have no idea what a good price is for things, so initially I thought our room was quite expensive, but the place was lovely, so we took it for the first night. It turned out to be a fantastically good price in fact, as every other place we checked out was significantly more expensive, and nowhere nearly as good a location. This was all very convenient, because we ended up staying there for the best part of two weeks.

Most of this time was to allow Sarah to complete a 6 day beginners course in Spanish, consisting of an intensive 20 hours. Again we were in low season, but of course that provides many advantages - in this case, very small class sizes for Sarah, often having the teacher all to herself - i.e. private lessons.

Each night we'd eat out and stroll around, and I really liked Santiago - it has a brilliantly lively feel to it, with loads of funky restaurants and bars, and everyone seems to eat out too, which was something missing in many places we'd visited. All the food we had was great, although we did both have a bit of tummy-trouble for one night after eating in one of the city's better restaurants (only the second time for the whole trip so far, the other time being Kenya).

When Sarah was in classes I'd stroll about the city, checking out the museums, galleries, parks and hills (including going up the cable car to San Cristobal Hill which I'd done with Hanno 8 years ago, and which has great views over the whole city and the snowcapped Andes mountains).

One of the afternoons, as I was having a wee rest and a read of the guidebook in the huge main cathedral, the place started to fill up, and then a big 'show' started (I had no idea what was going on, it all being in Spanish). Basically about 300 priests walked two abreast up along the length of the church and congregated on the ´stage´, followed shortly thereafter by a procession of the big-wigs, including what I assume was the bishop or arch-bishop, who was all very grand, solemn and very important-looking of course. Then what seemed a fairly typical catholic mass kicked off and I left shortly after, not understanding a word of what was going on. But I was strongly struck by the pomp and ceremony, the solemn self-importance of it all, and especially the fact that not a single women was involved in the entire procession - something just felt very wrong and sexist to me about that single fact. The choir singing before and during all this was truly mesmerising though, so it wasn't all bad!

When Sarah's course was finished we had a day trip to the coastal town of Valparaiso. It's a funny town really, as the Lonely Planet rightly points out. Downtown is grim and grimmy, and not a little threatening, especially at night. But up in the neighbouring hills (where we stayed for one night), was a really charming district with brilliant little higgledy-piggedly streets and lots of individualistic cafes, bars and restaurants - and of course great views of the town below and the sea.

But we only decided to stay the one night, as the town is quite small, and you can walk around it quite quickly. So the next day we got the local bus to the next town up the coast, Vina del Mar. This is Valparaiso's much cleaner and greener neightbour, but of course it lacks the distinctive character of the the former's hill districts.

We spent the morning and early afternoon strolling around pretty Vina del Mar, checking out some of the lovely gardens, the impressively modern casino and hotel, a restored colonial house (in a very opulent French style, but disgustingly gaudy and ostentatous I thought - how did people actually feel 'superior' living in these places back in the day?).

When we got back to Valparaiso we headed back up to the main hill district for a fancy lunch at a highly recommended restaurant run by a 'mad' French guy. The city is littered with loads of cool old lifts and funiculars to help people get up the many hills, and so of course we took the funicular. The restaurant was packed, and we had to wait a few minutes in the short queue outside, but we were soon seated. It actually turned out to be another disappointment really, but apparently the chef is notorious for experimentation, and maybe we just happened to arrived for one of his not-so-successful experiments.

Strolling back to the bus station to get our bus back to Santiago we passed a place the guidebook highly recommended, and after peeking my head in the door, I was mighty disappointed we hadn't had lunch there instead of the French place - it too was packed, but seemed to have a fantastic atmosphere and a completely mental interior decorator - loads of glass shelves packed with trival and tacky bits and bobs.

I also took a wee detour to check out one of the more usual escalators in the town, the Polonia. You pay your few cents and walk through a long horizontal tunnel to a lift, which then ascends straight up (I think all the other escalators move up steep slopes), straight up through the solid rock of the hill, and then up through a square tower. You get out at the top of the tower to great views, and walk along a gangway to the hill district itself. It seemed a rather run-down area (well, very run-down in fact), and so we didn't linger long before walking straight back down the hill to where we'd started, and then straight to the bus station to head back to Santiago.

Next morning we got to bus to Argentina - first stop, the wine region of Mendoza.

Auckland

So we only had a couple of days in Auckland before our three month holiday visas ran out. After a rather exhausive trail of the hostels looking for somewhere that would allow us to stay in our van, we eventually found a place, but on a wickedly sloping road. After a fair bit of deliberation we decided to give it a go, and in fact it turned out grand. We were in a nice part of the city too.

Didn't do too much over our two days - strolled about one day, popping into the impressive National Musuem, and watched the cultural show. I saw the same show the last time I was in Auckland, but as I remember it was free then, and much more impressive. Maybe it was because it was low season, and there were very few people for the show, but for the big finale, the Haka, they only had three lads, and so had to flesh out the performance with the three ladies. Needless to say, this wasn't anything like as impressive as the last time I saw it, as then they had a full complement of big, scary, imposing looking warrior dudes. Ah well, the rest of the museum was good.

We checked out the landmark Auckland tower of course, the SkyTower. Didn't bother paying to go up it though, as we'd had great city views the day before from the top of Mount Eden (which has a pretty cool, albeit small, extinct volcanic crater). Didn't bother with the sky jump thing either, as it looked a bit tame really. I thought the SkyWalk thing looked pretty cool though - trust the New Zealanders to come up with that one (given that there have been similar observation towers all over Europe for many decades).

I was looking forward to some pretty fine dining in Auckland, and we'd taken note of two places that were highly recommended by the in-flight magazine on our way to New Zealand. One of them, Satya, an Indian restaurant, turned out to be literally two doors down from the van rental company's office, so we went there for a big lunch after dropping our van back (the guy there was brilliant - he immediately gave me a refund for getting our first puncture repaired, said no problem about our lost picnic table, and various other bits and pieces - it was great to get to experience a genuine ´no quibbles´customer service). But the restaurant was quite disappointing really, and we were the only customers for lunch.

The second recommended place was a disappointment too - Live Fish on the harbour waterfront. It was an expensive place, although pretty cool in that they select a live fish from their tanks and they present it to you before preparing and cooking it. But the place was pretty grim really (although popularly patronised by local Chinese), as it's a working fish market during the day.

We got a bit of a scare on the morning we were due to fly out of Auckland though, as Sarah noticed that the van had another puncture (making one puncture at the start of the trip, and one at the very end). After a bit of a panic, I rang the rental company to see if they'd pick it up, but they couldn't do that, we'd have to sort it out ourselves. The big problem seemed to be the mad slope of the road that the van was parked on - but with a bit of help from the hostel owner guy (forcing some broken paving stones under the tyres to prevent a roll-back once I'd jacked up the van), I managed to change the wheel. The rental company were good too, in that they didn't require us to have the puncture repaired before dropping the van back, so that meant we weren't in a mad panicky rush to get the van back (they shut for the day at midday, it being low season now).

So after lunch we strolled back to the hostel and waited for our pre-booked taxi. It arrived on time, but then the driver refused to accept the booking voucher I had paid for and received from the New Zealand tourist office (iSite) the day before (he claimed his company didn't deal with the iSite booking system). After a bit of arguing I had to pay him again, otherwise he was going to just leave us there. At the airport I explained the situation at the iSite office there, and they accepted their mistake, and told me they'd refund my credit card (they didn't, but after 3 or 4 e-mails they finally did process my refund!).

Other than those minor annoyances, everything else went swimmingly, and the flight to Santiago in Chile was really smooth. We finally got individual TV screens in the seat in front (the first time on this trip), so after watching a few movies I conked out for a good bit. Originally we had four seats to just the two of us, and we could have probably slept quite well, but then a girl moved into the far seat and so I was all scrunched up. The independent American movie Juno, by the way, was brilliant, I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

So after a very pleasant flight we arrived in Santiago in the late morning.

Rotorua

So after a bit of a dodgey detour we get to Rotorua (I wanted to take a more scenic route rather than the direct route, but then realised we were quite low on fuel, but of course we just about made it!). First stop was a petrol station of course, and as soon as I open the door of the van I was struck by the strong smell of sulphur - the whole town is built in a terrifically active thermal area - a city centre park and even some of the town gutters have steam pouring from them, it's mad!

A quick trip to the local tourist office shattered my hopes of reliving one of the highlights of my last trip to New Zealand - the scree run down the inner rim of a volcanic crater. Apparently, due to damage caused by uncontrolled access, your only allowed do it now as part of an orgnaised tour group. Needless to say, I consider the thought of tour groups as rather repulsive, so I just give up on the idea (although I reckon if we'd had more time to spare we could have just made our own way out there and just done it regardless, like I did last time - but anyway, it's just a pity Sarah didn't get to experience it).

I cooked the last of the Thai curries for New Zealand that night and the next day we just did the guidebook's walking tour of the city. After the walk we visited the famous Polynesian Spa (where I'd been with Hanno, Keith and Bebhinn last time). The spa has been updated since my last visit, but I seem to remember the pools being hotter. Anyway, after a good 'auld soak we rushed up for dinner at the fancy Bistro 1284 restaurant, apparently the best in the city - and mighty impressive it was too.

We contemplated staying another night in Rotorua, but that would have left us very tight on time in Auckland, so reluctantly we left and heading up North to our final destination after 3 months in New Zealand, Auckland.