Empanadas...and Aoife's birthday!

Buenos noches! I am having trouble with this lovely Spanish charactered keyboard so if there is a considerable lack of punctuation, such as apostrophes or even exclamation marks.

Christmas passed in a fun blur of salmon and competing for kitchen space with some intrepid Scotspeople whose cooking skills were vastly superior and their oven-taking-up-space skills even more superior. Still, we managed and had a veritable feast whilst talking wistfully about our Christmas dinners at home. Everyone we talked to that day had a Christmas dinner story, whether it was what kind of stuffing they liked, or how drunk their mother got.

We are finding Chilean people delightful - they are always willing to help, whether it be with our abhorrent pronunciation or with simple directions. Ole!

We are currently in La Serena, the Chilean version of a beach town which means that their lighthouse has been painted a friendly shade of terracotta. We celebrated Aoife's birthday here with pizza and a cool Aussie girl called Mel who sweetly partook in proceedings. Freeman and I cycled twelve kms to a nearby town called Coquimbo which is notable only for its giant crucifix on the hill, La Cruz de la Tercer Millenio. Pope John-Paul II had visited it and his calm visage smiled out from many walls. Its relative splendour was contradicted by the shabby houses which shared its hill.

Mike had a speed wobble on his bicycle on the way home and called it a 'near death experience'. He also expressed some controversial views about dessert at Aoife's birthday dinner.

Tomorrow, we take a 14 hour bus ride and will be crossing the border into Argentina, which is meant to be incredible. It will be in Mendoza that we celebrate the coming of the New Year, a good three hours behind Ireland. Boo to that! In Australia, I had become used to the smug feeling of 'telephoning from the future'. Now, I am merely a relic.

Feliz Navidad!

This is just a quick Merry Christmas post from sunny Santiago. Honestly, the weather here was absolutely amazing today - possibly the worst part was wandering around the city looking for an open phone place to call home. Also, there was no turkey as I celebrated my first vegetarian Christmas. Salmon was the order of the day, until I suss out the moral implications of fish eating.

I will post properly soon, but until then, as Miss Munro would say, Si, paella, si!

A Chilean Christmas

And I think that it most likely won't be a White one.

Aoife, Mike and I are off to Chile tomorrow afternoon (we land 5 hours after we depart Auckland - spooky!) and it's a suitably terrifying/exciting prospect. We all refuse to think about what's beyond the free alcohol on the plane ride. And what movies they will be showing. And whether we get peanuts. Corralling the brain into tight, non-negotiable corners is the best way of dealing with the unknown.

Well, to update you fully with all that we have done since Christchurch would be an abomination. Highlights included a seal swim in Kaikoura, the Te Papa museum in Wellington (I got all teared up when a brass band played Silent Night), the Napier Prison Backpackers...

Actually, that one deserves a little elaboration. In Napier, we stayed in a converted prison which had been fully operational up until 1984. Our room was formerly the Psych Ward and there is still writing from former inmates on the beds. The jail was rustic, damnably creepy and the 'Hanging Yard' is now for hanging clothes (snigger snigger) as opposed to irredeemable scoundrels. Best of all, however, was the night tour. All inmates (sorry, guests) got to dress up and hide throughout the prison and terrify an unsuspecting tour group. The sign proclaimed the prison 'better than Alcatraz' - I will nod in agreement wholeheartedly until I get to see San Francisco for myself.

After Napier, we went to Rotorua, or Rotten-rua, as it is 'affectionately' known as. It is a volcanic, highly unstable area, full of hot springs, mud pools and the distinctive smell of sulphur. Aoife wanted eggs the whole time we were there. We went to a Maori culture night and in true backpacker spirit, tore into the all-you-can-eat buffet with gusto. We also went to a Thermal Wonderland where everything was hot and fluorescent and named for the Devil.

After Rotorua, Mt Maunganui (we climbed the mountain, woo! Ok, it was small, but baby steps people! I am calling on my Korean mountain climbing genes and failing miserably). And now Auckland, city of sails. It's actually getting difficult to remember things now. I am pretty sure that I left my brain behind in Australia, where it was kidnapped by a kangaroo and used in a boxing match.

Photos!

I finally got around to posting up a few photos on Flickr so have a wee look and discover what myself, Aoife and Mike have been getting up to. No good is what many might say...

The Afore-promised Mike Highlights...

Hello all!

I am posting from Wellington after a long arduous day of travelling from Kaikoura. We took the Interislander ferry on what has been called 'one of the most beautiful ferry journeys in the world'. Now I don't want to call New Zealanders greedy (well, I do actually) but they have claimed a lot of 'most beautiful in the world' titles. We have been on the Tranzalpine, 'one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world' and their glaciers are meant to be 'the most spectacular', the Southern Alps are at least the beauty equivalent of their European cousins and there is nowhere more beautiful to do a skydive. So basically, everywhere in South America is destined to be disappointing. 'The tallest in the world' and 'highest city above sea level' are not going to impress anyone. I shall look upon these geographical features with disdain, disdain!

Anyhow, to Mike. I guess the Mike highlight so far has been this. I am going to describe it fully because it deserves its moment in the proverbial blog-a-rific spotlight.

We were in the YHA in Queenstown and had settled into our rooms after checking in. Mike, Aoife and I were alone and then three new roommates (complete strangers at this stage) walked into the room. We started up the friendly, standard 'where are you from?' questions then, mid-sentence, and completely unexpectedly, Mike pulled his trousers down to reveal a stunning pair of turquoise y-fronts. And they were skimpy. He was simply trying to change his clothing but the timing ensured maximum looks of horror from our new roommates. They quickly made their excuses and left the room with presumably burned retinas.

Aoife and I laughed for about six hours afterwards. Our roommates unsurprisingly declined our friendly offer to join us for a drink.

Other Mike highlights include:

1) whilst filling out a waiver form, asking if 'extreme sexiness' is a chronic medical condition.
2) knocking a glass table and breaking a pepper shaker in an attempt to pursue a possum. On a main street. And the possum didn't exist.

There are more but they escape my mind right now, predominantly because I'm still sniggering to myself. I promise to update this section as Mike-tastophes continue to occur.

Errant Stupidity

Hello all!

I'm not sure if anyone reads this still but I am still egotistical enough to assume that at least one person does so I shall keep updating with my travel stories. Unfortunately, I have been doing an absolute crap load of stuff since I last blogged and am now mentally incapable of recording it via the medium of type. I may have to stoop to something simpler, like paper airplanes or wildly vacillating finger motions.

Mike, Aoife and I have now nearly completed our South Island adventures. We did all kinds of crazy things - my personal craziest was doing a 12000ft skydive over the epic scenery of Wanaka (woo me!). It was suitably terrifying but mostly, it was fantastic fun. My tandem instructor, Geoff, was kind enough to point out where all the sheep were on our way down. It was 45 seconds of freefall but fortunately, the fact that the ground is so far away means that your eyes deceive your brain into believing that it's not real.

We also climbed the Franz Josef Glacier, a natural marvel that is one of only 5 glaciers accessible to beguiled tourists such as ourselves. The hardest part was trusting the spikes attached to your boot to actually hold you to the ice as there were some truly perilous drops and crevasses to keep a beady eye out for.

Mike did river sledging, a crazy boogie boarding type activity down a fast flowing river. He returned to Aoife and I with a kind of shell shocked look on his face.

I could bore you with allllll our activities but it's really too much to keep track of. Other brief highlights have been Wanaka's crazy cinema with a car in it, getting up close to sea lions, penguins, albatrosses and fur seals in the wild, meeting lots of crazy people along the way and, of course, the Mike highlights. There have been many. And they shall be recorded for posterity, oh yes they shall!

Errant Stupidity

Hello all!

I'm not sure if anyone reads this still but I am still egotistical enough to assume that at least one person does so I shall keep updating with my travel stories. Unfortunately, I have been doing an absolute crap load of stuff since I last blogged and am now mentally incapable of recording it via the medium of type. I may have to stoop to something simpler, like paper airplanes or wildly vacillating finger motions.

Mike, Aoife and I have now nearly completed our South Island adventures. We did all kinds of crazy things - my personal craziest was doing a 12000ft skydive over the epic scenery of Wanaka (woo me!). It was suitably terrifying but mostly, it was fantastic fun. My tandem instructor, Geoff, was kind enough to point out where all the sheep were on our way down. It was 45 seconds of freefall but fortunately, the fact that the ground is so far away means that your eyes deceive your brain into believing that it's not real.

We also climbed the Franz Josef Glacier, a natural marvel that is one of only 5 glaciers accessible to beguiled tourists such as ourselves. The hardest part was trusting the spikes attached to your boot to actually hold you to the ice as there were some truly perilous drops and crevasses to keep a beady eye out for.

Mike did river sledging, a crazy boogie boarding type activity down a fast flowing river. He returned to Aoife and I with a kind of shell shocked look on his face.

I could bore you with allllll our activities but it's really too much to keep track of. Other brief highlights have been Wanaka's crazy cinema with a car in it, getting up close to sea lions, penguins, albatrosses and fur seals in the wild, meeting lots of crazy people along the way and, of course, the Mike highlights. There have been many. And they shall be recorded for posterity, oh yes they shall!

Land of Lord of the Rings

I confess to making lots of Lord of the Rings references since I got to New Zealand. I can't help it - it's like trying not to think about a pink elephant. Every beautiful vista that awaits me merely brings to mind Orcs and a giant fiery eye waiting to condemn me for taking away it's all-powerful ring.

I can't use enough superlatives to say how beautiful it is here in New Zealand. The weather has been largely perfect since I arrived (which is a miracle considering how the West Coast of the south island alone gets 5 metres of rain annual. Five metres! That's like the depth of a diving pool!). Aoife, Mike and I are Magic-Bussing it around the South Island at the moment - we got the Tranzalpine Express from Christchurch to Greymouth, then we went to Franz Josef Glacier for some icy fun. We conquered the glacier and there were no casualties left behind other than a guide dropping some beer down a crevasse.

And now we're in Wanaka which is absolutely gorgeous. It's all mountains and lakes and extreme sports. In fact, I have a sky dive booked for tomorrow morning, weather pending. The sane part of me is desirous of a freak thunderstorm to roll in overnight. The other part of me, mistakenly labelled 'adventurous' (I would term it 'stupid') can't wait to jump out of a plane.

I have done so much since I arrived - the photos are on their way, I promise! At the moment, I am in a YHA and 'The Fellowship of The Ring' is playing behind me. I knew I'd get a LOTR reference in there somewhere. And yes, I am sacrificing lots of friends along the way.