TravelStream™ news feed for member amaway on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/amaway en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:56:28 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195746420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195746420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195746420/tpod.html Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:56:28 -0500 A Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

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Jerusalem, Israel

We left Ein Gev Kibbutz on Monday morning and headed down the Jordan valley. This is ow a verdent oasis of farming with the water being taken from the Jordan river and Sea of Galilee. The overall effect of this is to reduce the size of the Dead Sea, something that the Israelis are concerned about.
By the Dead Sea we visited Qumran. This is where the Dead Sea scrolls were found in a cave. We didn't visit the cave itself and a glance at one of the photographs in the album will show you why; it's most of the way up a cliff. This was a very barren area and all of the land around the Dead Sea is like that, it is a great contrast to the north of Israel.
After lunch we went for a float in the Dead Sea. You don't swim you just lie there or slowly punt yourself about. There are life guards watching who shout at people who try to lie on their front. I got splashed in the eye by some water and it stung for ages, that's why you don't swim.
From there we travelled down the west side of the Dead Sea to visit Mesada. Herod the Great built the hilltop fortress as protection in-case the Jews decided to turn on him. You can walk up or you can take a cable car and as we had spent over an hour in a shop at Qumran we didn't get to Masada until 3/4 of an hour before it shut (all the tourist sites shut at 5pm as that's when it starts to get dark.) The fortress is famous for the suicide of 960 Jews around 70AD. There are a number of Roman fortresses that can still be seen below.
From Masada we went to Jerusalem and entered it along the Chedron valley which provided a superb nighttime view of the Temple Mount and the city beyond. After dinner three of us headed into the old town for a wander around. It was shut. Everything is closed by about 7pm and we were significantly later than that. The only thing that was open was the Wailing Wall at which there were many people praying.
Our Jewish guide was not allowed to come with us to Bethlehem the next morning. Israeli Jews are not allowed to enter the Palastinian terratories and so we had a new Palastinian Christian guide who enjoyed telling jokes. In Bethlehem we visited the Church of the Nativity and the Shepherds' Fields. The Church of the Nativity is the only one to have survived from early times. It has plenty to see including the grotto of the Nativity, where the place is marked by a 14 point silver star. About 6 feet away is where the manger was placed. Next to this but accessed through the Roman Catholic Basilica is St Joseph's chapel which is the original entrance to the grotto but now blocked up and the cave in which St Jerome lived and translated the Bible into the Latin Vulgate. There are even some 5th C mosaics within the common part of the church. It is a rare thing in the Holy Land as this single building has the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and RC churches.
After a lunch, akin to a meza with kebabs, we visited the Shepherd's Fields. This is where the angel appeared to the shepherds who were watching their flocks. There's a grotto where they were abiding which even has a nice "show" section of how it would have looked at the time with straw everywhere and a manger. Next to the grotto is the church of Christ the Good Shepherd. This has three murels showing the angel appearing to the shepherds, the shepherds paying homage to the Infant Jesus, and the shepherds walking home rejoicing.
We took the coach back through the wall that the Israelis have built around Bethlehem and went to the place of the birth of John the Baptist, called en Karim south west of Jerusalem. Within the church is the inevitable grotto and some fine decoration. A short walk away is the Church of the Visitation where Mary stayed with Elizabeth after the Annunciation and before John the Baptist was born.
We got back to the hotel about 6pm and five of us went for a walk around Jerusalem. This time we went into the compound surrounding the Wailing Wall for a closer look. We had to pass through metal detectors to get inside but a group of Jews went passed us all carrying M16 assault rifles, they obviously have a different set of security rules for Jews and Gentiles. We ended up being too late for dinner at the hotel and instead had several pizzas in a Palastinian Christian cafe on the Via Dolorosa.
The penultimate day was spent on two mounts, the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion. On the Mount of Olives were the Chapel of the Ascension, the Church of the Pater Noster, a nice view across the old city of Jerusalem, a walk down the Palm Sunday road to the Church of Dominus Flavus (the Lord Wept) and the Garden of Gethesemane.
The Dominus Flavus church is constructed in the shape of a tear drop and was designed by a Franciscan monk called Garluzzi. He was the architect of the Church of the Transfiguration as well and he tried to make the building reflect the meaning of its dedication. This has left this church looking a bit odd but the view across Jerusalem is quite something and so he didn't put an altar piece or stained glass behind the altar but just left the view across the Chedron valley to the Temple Mount.
After this we visited the Garden of Gethsemane (Gat Shemanim in Hebrew which means "oil press".) We had Mass in the grotto where the disciples are said to have slept but we ran out of time to see inside the Church of All Nations as it had closed for lunch. The outside is very nice though.
After lunch we visited Mount Zion with St Pierre de Gallecante, King David's tomb, the Upper Room and the Church of the Dormition.
St Pierre en Gallecante (St Peter of the Cockcrow) is on the site of the house of Caiphas. Under the church are excervations of cells where Christ would have been held before being taken to Pontius Pilate. Outside the church are extensive excavations of buildings around and include a flight of steps leading down the mountain. Many of the steps are now in Rome as Jesus is known to have walked down them on the way to see Pontius Pilate. Inside the church there are lots of mosaics and a large stained glass cross in the ceiling.
Then came a couple of disappointments. The Tomb of David isn't any such thing. Quite what it is we weren't told but King David was buried inside the walls of Jerusalem so this wasn't it! And then the Upper Room is a 14C early gothic former Crusader church that got turned into a Mosque and the Pope bought back from the Israelis in 1999. It is not worth a visit as it doesn't inspire a feeling of what the Upper Room would have been like at all.
Two misses in a row were disappointing but the Church of the Dormition was much better. In the crypt is a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary asleep before she was assumed into Heaven. There are lots of nice little art works down there as well and the main church had a large mosaic of Christ and His Mother behind the high altar; it was a refreshing change after the disappointments.
We got back to the hotel much earlier and we were able to go into the old city at about 5pm. This meant that we were able to walk through to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and on the way we passed through suks where there was the most wonderful smell of spices and canaries singing in cages. The only dampner was that it was tipping down with rain!
Our final day was spent visiting St Anne's house and the pools of Bethesda before walking the Via Dolorosa and saying the Stations of the Cross all the way to the Holy Sepulchre.
The pools of Bethesda were BIG! They were the cisterns to store water for the old town. They were turned into a huge Bysantine church, that was destroyed and then a small Crusader church that has also been destroyed. St Anne's house has a little grotto with a nice colourful mural of St Anne holding the infant Mary.
The first stop on the Via Dolorosa is the Church of Ecce Homo. It is built over the remains of much of the Fortress of Antonio. Beneath it are the cells were Christ would have been held and the Pavement, or Lithostratus, where Christ would have been scurged and where the soldiers played the king game with condemned men.
Along the Via Dolorosa are a number of little chapels at the places of many of the stations. It is not possible to follow the whole path Christ took as later buildings have covered over the whole of the end of the path. Today the walls of the old town enclose a much larger area than in Roman times so things can be confusing as to what is inside and outside the walls.
The ninth station was on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre alongside the Coptic church. The Copts were pushed out of the main church many centuries ago and have to make do with being on the roof!
Calvary is inside the church and one is able to crawl under a Greek altar and place your arm into the hole that The Cross would have stood in. It's about a cubit deep. The Holy Sepulchre itself is about 25 yards away and is enclosed by an Italian marble chapel. Entry is strictly controlled by Greek Orthodox priests as is the amount of time you have in there, but there are always people waiting and it is very cramped inside, you can get about 6 people in at a squeeze.
And that was the end of it all! A trip to Tel Aviv airport and a plane ride home was all that awaited us. It had been a wonderful experience and immensly peaceful and invigorating spiritually. Is the Holy Land a good, safe place to visit? I think that it is you just need to be sensible about what and when you do things but overall it is definitely worth the visit.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195138020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195138020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/holyland/1195138020/tpod.html Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:45:32 -0500 A Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

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Tiberius, Israel

When people hear you are going to the Holy Land they fall into those people who haven't been there and are convinced something bad will happen and those who've been there who say that it is a great place to go. In terms of getting the plane it is certainly much harder to get on-board than an ordinary flight as the checks took so long just to check-in that almost everything had shut beyond passport control as our flight didn't leave until midnight.
Israel was welcoming and very sunny and warm, at least for the first few days. It was a real whistle-stop trip and we never had much chance to just take in the sights and relax. This travelogue is somewhat similar in being mainly a list of the places we went with minimal insight. Where I have something more to say then its probably attached to one of the pictures and a lot of those have a comment next to them.
The first day consisted of a drive-by of Megido, a visit to a Discalced Carmelite Convent on Mount Carmel, Cana, Nazareth and onto the Ein Gev Kibbutz resort on the east side of the Sea of Galilee (or Lake Tiberius or Lake Ganesareth, take your pick.) Megido looked an amazing site with a lot of on-going excavations by Israeli archaeologists. It has been the site of so many battles through history that St John the Divine set the battle at the end of time in this place and called it Armageddon.
Cana is the place of the first miracle performed by Christ, the turning of water into wine. The one thing I will say is that they sell a special Cana Marriage Wine, whatever you do don't drink it, it is disgustingly sweet and is only worth buying as a memento.
Nazareth boasts the Church of the Annunciation, built over the grotto where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, and the Church of St Joseph's House, also built over a grotto. Apparently, it was very common for people to live in caves at this time and the geology of the Levant being what it is there are an awful lot of them around the place.
The second day was spent around the northern and western sides of the Sea of Galilee. We started at the Mount of the Beatitudes, which has a small church and very nice gardens and then went down to the foot of the mount and had Mass by the lake where Christ fed the 5,000. This was the place he had gone to when he had heard that John the Baptist had died; it was a very peaceful and tranquil place that you can imagine why he would have gone there.
Next was a boat ride across the top left corner of the lake ending at Caphernaum. This has been partly excavated by the Franciscan monks and we visited the synagogue and St Peter's house. The synagogue has the foundations of the one that Christ taught in but the main body is from 4th C AD and is a two story affair that is an impressive sight. Peter's house contains a small octagonal structure, this is a domus ecclesia and is a very early form of a place of Christian worship.
Next was a trip to Mount Tabor. This is the sight of the Transfiguration of Our Lord but the coach could not get up the road and so it is necessary to take a taxi up and down and that is all that these taxi drivers do all day long. The church is an impressive structure and has a wonderful mosaic above the High Altar. From beside the church there are wonderful views across the surrounding countryside, at least that is what we had to assume as there was so much dust in the air because of the lack of rain that the views weren't great but if you're there after it rains they can be spectacular.
The third day started with Mass near Magdala (where Mary of Magdalene came from) which is another ongoing archaeological site. The we went north upon the Hula valley. This provided amazing views of storks migrating down the valley and the raptors rising on the thermals from ploughed fields. The purpose of going north was to do a long loop up to Caesarea Philippi, via a small nature reserve, on onto the Golan Heights before dropping back down to the east side of the Sea of Galilee. Caesarea Philippi is at a place called Banias and there is a large cave from which issues forth one of the tributaries of the Jordan river. There is also a Druze place of worship most of the way up the cliff which the Druze visit on a Friday, so that's not a good day to go if you're coming this way.
On the Golan Heights we were taken to see the no-mans land between Syria and Israel. This also provided the most worrying incident of the trip when we pulled up at a viewing place and there was an Israeli army jeep with a heavy machine gun on the back pointing straight at us: for once we were all well behaved.
The final place we visited was the ruins of a 5th C monastery. This is below a cave in the cliffs where two men possessed by daemons lived before Christ drove the daemons out and into a herd of swine. The monastery had some nice mosaics which seemed to have been damaged in the oddest way in that the damage seemed to be limited to depictions of animals alone and not to any of the images of plants or geometrical shapes. Bit weird in that sense.
That was the end of our three days around the north of the Holy Land and from there it was onto Jerusalem and Bethlehem via the Dead Sea.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1154275200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1154275200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1154275200/tpod.html Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:39:43 -0400 These are the pictures of Dale and Krista's wedding in Richmond and Porvoo.

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Porvoo, Finland

On Friday evening Paul, Jason, Kathryn, John and I travelled over to Helsinki on a BA flight from London. Anatole and Lara were on the same flight and the seven of us were met at the airport by Dale and Krista who drove us up to the hotel near Porvoo. We got to the hotel at about 1am and were quite tired and became quite confused. The receptionist told us to take the lift to the 4th floor but when we go to where the lift was supposed to be there was only what looked like a door to a broom cupboard. This turned out the be the lift but there was only a down button to call the lift. At this point we discovered that the hotel reception was on the sixth floor and the hotel was built down the side of a hill! It was all too much after a long day.

The next morning we met up for breakfast and then set off for Krista's parents house which was down a long country lane. The house was set in woodland by a rocky beach within the Finnish archepelego. It did not seem like an island as the road network was so good.

On arrival at Krista's parent house we were met with a glass of champagne and stood around nattering and enjoying the sunshine. Dale and Krista were lucky as it was a beautiful day and they were able to be married on the rocks next to the sea. After the milling around and being introduced to everyone we went down to the beach and their the local minister(ess?) blessed Dale and Krista's marriage to the accompaniment of oil tankers passing by. Maj-Lis and I read from the letter to the Corinthinians, Maj-Lis in Finnish and me in English (luckily it was the right way round.) Then Anatole serenaded the happy couple with a couple of songs that meant a lot to them.

Once that was complete there were the usual photos, taken by Lara and Anatole, and the tossing of the bouquet and then the really important part, THE FOOD. This was excellent and enjoyed by everyone. Once we had had our fill of food and wine there were the customary speeches. Dale managed to do his in English and Finnish to much appreciation. Paul gave the best man's speech and then Paula, Nina and Anne teased Krista remorselessly particularly about her ability to cook! They also supplied her with a photo album which was a guide to the hair styles of the 1980's.

From the house we then took a boat ride around the archipelego and headed for the summer house which was on a separate island. The summer house is in a beautiful setting (see photo album) and we were to spend the rest of the day there playing darts, drinking the odd beer, using the sauna, drinking a few more beers, swimming in the sea and drinking a few more beers. Nothing will be said of what Kathryn was doing with the binoculars nor of John and his close relationship to a rock, or what happened when sitting on the swing seat, or tree hugging, sufficit to say that everyone enjoyed themsleves. The only comment I clearly remember was Jason's "At least I'm only the second most drunk person here." However, everyone else agreed that he was the most.

After 3 it got a bit colder and the wind picked up so it was time to retire and try to get into my bunk. It's not easy getting into a bunk 5 foot 6 off the floor when you've had a few beers and are completely nackered. After a bit of a struggle I managed to get in and get to sleep.

A couple of hours later, Jason decided that he needed to get up and use the toilet. Unfortunately, he woke everyone else in the house by opening and closing every possible door, and there were only about 3 of those, in the building and slamming them shut before announcing "Where's the toilet?" The summer house has an outhouse or plenty of trees, hence Paul's reply of "It's outside, just use a tree!" Jason then disappeared. Soon after someone else (can't remember who) went to use a tree and found Jason asleep on the viranda. He did manage to get back to bed latter on.

After breakfast and a boat ride back to the other island we said good bye to Krista's friends and family and headed into Porvoo. Porvoo used to be the capital of Finland and the Tsar of Russia used to come on holiday there. There was a nice church in the town but someone burnt it down a few months ago so it is shrouded in scaffolding and is being restored. Dale, Krista, Elsa, Jason, Kathryn, John, Paul and I went and had a pleasant lunch in a restaurant near the church. Then it was time to head of to Helsinki for a quick drive around before heading to the airport and home.

It had been a long and tiring weekend but great fun and it was good to see a side of Finland that would not have been available as a tourist. The quality of life there is very good.

bed and a high bunk
breakfast
boat ride
drive to porvoo
lunch
helsinki
home :0(
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1153598400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1153598400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/finland_2006/1153598400/tpod.html Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:52:07 -0400 These are the pictures of Dale and Krista's wedding in Richmond and Porvoo.

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London, United Kingdom

On 22nd July, 2006 at 3pm Dale and Krista were married in the Registry Office in Richmond, South London. Present were Dale, Krista, Dale's mother, Paul Osman and myself along with three staff from the resigtry office. Paul and I acted as the witnesses and Dale's mother as the official photographer.

After the wedding we all went to a pub and then to the Petersham Hotel in Richmond were we had a very nice dinner.

It was all very quiet and informal and a shock to the registry staff that so few people would go to the wedding. Little did they know what was to come in Finland...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1141734780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1141734780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1141734780/tpod.html Sat, 29 Apr 2006 07:34:04 -0400 The South Hemisphere and Beyond

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London, United Kingdom

Home to a cold and wet country.
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Well, now Carnaval is over Rio has returned to normal, but that must be by Brazilian standards as the buses are even more manic that before and there seem to be even more people on the beaches and wandering around downtown.

The hotel I´ve stayed in is in Lapa near the downtown area and it is well placed for visiting there and for buses as many go straight passed the front door or down the street behind. This has made it easy to visit many of the beaches and other areas. The main tourist spots of Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf and Copacabana can be taken in in a short time but I´ve also managed Ipanema beach, Hippie market, Niteroi and watched a game of football at the Maracana as well as eating lots of by weight meals and all you can eat pasta and pizza evenings. Having lost a bit of weight in Peru I think that its all come back.

Christ the Redeemer provides panoramic views of Rio and we were lucky that when we (Anthony, Heather, Mike, Kev, Jen, Andrea and myself) visited it was with blue skies and the sun shining. Almost everyone else went on other days and managed to get 30 seconds of clear sky. One person told me all they could see where His feet!!! This is also a good way of seeing the layout of Rio and how the areas are separated as it is easy to walk from Copacabana to Ipanema, the next beach along, but it doesn´t look it on a map. From the figure of Christ we went to Copacabana beach for a swim and a laze on the sand before Jen, Andrea and I headed up Sugarloaf to watch the sunset. The sun sets behind the figure of Christ the Redeemer and it is an amazing sight. We waited and let the sky turn black(ish) and watched the lights of the city come up and dazzle us. Jen even managed to try out her US$8 camera stand that she´d bought in Paraguay after haggling the salesman down from US$10.

The trip to the Maracana was on a Wednesday night and we watched the second game of the night (2 first division games in one evening in one stadium!) at a cost of 10 reals, about GBP2.50. The game wasn´t very good until Botafogo, the local team, equalised with a bicycle kick into the bottom left corner. It was a pretty special goal and the crowd suddenly became excited and Botafogo woke up and realised they might win but it was only for the last 10 minutes and ended in a draw. The stadium doesn´t seem enormous but it can hold 180,000 people!

Rio has a sister city of Niteroi on the other side of the bay. Becky and I decided to go over there to see a film. You catch a slow ferry for 2 reals, get on the boat and then wonder where you need to go as we knew it was next to a museum but not where the museum was. However, as we arrived at Niteroi there was a shopping centre with a Cinemark cinema and so we went there instead and watched Match Point, the new Woody Allen movie. It is a really good movie and very funny but I did play a bit of trying to guess where certain scenes had been filmed in London. I did have the usual problem of watching the subtitles when I didn´t have a clue what they were saying as they are in Portuguese. The problem with this is that the Brazilians have there own way of pronouncing the language so knowing how something is spelt is no help. One of the language books that someone bought had 12 pages of how to pronounce different sounds depending on which letter or pair of letters followed another. It´s almost impossible to order anything as they look like your speaking Greek at them rather than Portuguese. The only one who was appreciative was the guide at the Favella we went to who was delighted we said obregado (or the women said obregarda) for thank you.

A Favella is a like a shanty town just better built. We went to Rocinha, whose Carnaval school had been rained on at the Sambodrome. We were given a short guided tour to show us the facilities there and what problems they had and what the place was like. Two days before Andy and Veronica had done the same tour, they were told to only take photographs when they were told is was ok to do so. One American on the trip did not pay heed to this and photographed people all the time. A fifteen year old took exception to this and walked over to him, pulled out two hand guns and asked to see the pictures on his digital camera. The boy then made him delete any picture with the boy in it and then put his guns away and walked off; apparently he´d been nice and polite just didn´t want his picture taken. When we started our tour we were told emphatically that we could photograph anything we want and anyone we want it would be fine but then again we had a tour guide and two minders whereas Andy and Veronica had only had a guide. It was an interesting visit and the buildings are extremely solidly built. The reason for this is that to build on a plot you have to talk to the next door neighbour who´ll sell it to you, the government has no part in this, or you can build on someone else´s roof. This means that you build a couple of stories, the ground floor for your business and the first to live on. Then when your kids get married you build more floors for them or if you want to gain some rental income you build a floor for someone else. The Favella is built on the old Formula 1 circuit that was used in the 1930´s and the main road through the Favella is part of the circuit and was quite steep, a good 1 in 12.

Along with all of this has been a lot of goodbye dinners and watching people take the cab to the airport or the truck leave to travel back round to Quito with 21 new people onboard. I am now, this very minute, supposed to be on a plane taking off for Heathrow but it has been delayed and we have been taken to an hotel in Copacabana and will be taken to the airport at 8pm tonight for an 11pm flight to Sao Paolo. It is the first time on the trip that I´ve had any problem with a flight so I´ve been lucky up to now.

After all these months, Australia seems a long time ago, it has been very enjoyable and I´ve missed most of the worst winter in England for years. At the moment I haven´t decided what to do when I get back so I may just have to go away again to try and help me decide.

I hope you´ve enjoyed the log and I´ll try and get all the photos done back in England including a final update which will include pictures other people took that I have´t included in mine.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1140268860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1140268860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amaway/south/1140268860/tpod.html Thu, 06 Apr 2006 08:20:35 -0400 The South Hemisphere and Beyond

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Patanal, Brazil

We travelled up from Foz de Igauzu to the Panatanal to stay on an ranch in the middle of the wetlands. Once in the national park we immediately saw some caymans, toucans, cranes and kingfishers. We were told that we were in hammocks one night, camping another and the last night would be in an hostel but it was too wet and so we would have 2 nights in hammocks and all 18 of us would sleep in the same shed full of hammocks that had a dodgy mosquito screen, you have never smelt so much deet in your life! The first night we were taken on a night walk to see what was out there. We saw an agouti, some capybara and the guide wrestled a couple of caymans before bringing one back to show us so that we could feel how soft the skin of the side of it was compared to the rest of the animal!

The next day it was horse riding in the morning and a forest walk in the afternoon. It was the first time I´d been on an horse in years and mine decided that it was fed up with being covered in biting insects and tried to rub itself against every available object including trees, bushes, other horses and other riders legs as well as sneezing all down Emma´s legs. The horses are well trained and follow each other so when we started cantering mine managed to overtake the others before realisin there was no other horse infront and it didn´t know what to do and started looking around or help from the others. From this you can tell how much control I had over it!

The afternoon walk was mainly ejoyable for seeing the howler monkeys. We had been woken before dawn to see the sunrise and the howlers had been roaring away as we watched the sun but now we got to see them in their environment. We also some some paccaris,a type of pig, and lots of mosquitos that took a liking to my back and bit me through a thick cotton shirt. The mosquitos are rather big up here!

The next day it was a walk and canoe before piranha fishing. Along the walk we saw peccaris and howler monkeys again as well as a red haired deer as well as lots of butterflies, crickets and frogs. This time the Becky was on the receiving en of atleast 247 mosquito bites in about 3 hours! The canoe ride was amazing as we saw some giant otters. These are much, much bigger than normal ones and the ones we saw lifted their heads a good 12 inches out of the water and their front legs were still under water.

After lunch it was a truck ride off to the hostel for the night but when we crossed the Rio Paraguay they stopped the trucks and we took out some cane rods with a fishing line and big hook tied to one end. We were given lumps of raw meat and just attached those to the hook and dropped them in the river. You could feel the fish coming in and biting the bait and after 20 minutes I hooked reallife piranha and the first fish I have ever caught!

The trip to the Pantanal was excellent and a full list of animals seen will be included once I remember to bring my notebook with me when I updating my diary. It´s a very long list!
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Foz de Iguazu, Brazil

It took 2 days of driving to get from BA up to Igauzu and once there we went to an hostel just outside the town. The hostel had an excellent swimming pool and we enjoyed an afternoon playing in the pool. In Santiago I had bought a blowup crocodile and this was our first opportunity to use it. We ended up trying to jump onto the croc from the edge of the pool and land so that you floated away. Only Rachel was good at this and managed 4 out of 5 attempts; my best attempt ended with me landing on the croc before being catapulted over the front of the croc!

We spent the whole of the next day at the falls and it was worth it. They are about 2kms lnog (about 1 1/2 miles). The first thing I did was take a boat ride up to the falls. They actually take you almost underneath them and you end up getting absolutely soaked. From here it was mainly walking around looking at them from various different angles, the best was from just above the part called The Devil´s Throat. There was a gentle roar before you got to it but as you arrived at the viewing platform over the falls the sound was almost deafening. The falls are an amazing sight and the Argentinians had set it up so that it was very convenient for people to walk around and see them from the best angles. The alls are in the jungle so there was a fair amount of wildlife there and I managed to see caymen, iguanas, coatis and lots of ants and butterflies.

From here we travelled across to the border to the Brazilian side of the falls. In the afternoon Jen, Kevin, Mike, Andrea and I went over to Paraguay as this is supposed to be cheap for electronics and to get another stamp in the passport. Cuidad del Este reminded me of Hong Kong except that it was even more crowded! It was mayhem and as you crossed the bridge you saw people carrying all sorts of things from Paraguay to Brazil as there are no border controls and you only get your passport stamped if you ask for it. We spent a fair amount of time trying to find some where to eat and failing and looked at a lot of electronics but none of it was as cheap as we had been told. So it was back across the border to the hostel to prepare for the Igauzu falls Brazilian style.

Jen, Kevin, Andrea and I were dropped off at the entry to the National Park where the falls are as we were the only ones who wanted to do the helicopter ride over the falls. This was an amazing way to see then and gave you a completely different view of them as you can see the whole of them in one go, which is not possible from the ground. The Devil´s Throat from above looked amazing as it appeared to be a gash in the smooth river. It was only about 10 minutes and we had had to wait for 50 minutes but it was well worth it.

From the helicopter we went to a bird park. This contained mainly birds of the area such as rheas, macaws and the wetland birds we would see when we went to the Pantanal in the next few days. One of the birds there was a harpy eagle, the biggest eagle, and that was sitting eating an opposum and casually ripping it apart with it´s bill. There was also a humming bird enclosure where you could see the birds in close up and one full of macaws where there was a warning outside that you entered at your own risk as the birds bit. One of the blue and gold macaws took a liking to my hat and flew over and sat on it. It then tried to remove the rivets from it but was defeated in this and decided to have a go at Kevin´s bandana instead as that was orange and it liked the colour.

From here it is up to the Pantanal, the world´s largest wetland to try and see some animals.
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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Carnaval is the most amazing experience. The people, the music, the Sambodrome, the food, the sights and the sound all blend together to make a very potent mix. Our introduction was an evening out in central Rio. There we had a free concert of samba music where audience participation was to the for and age, for Brazilians, was no barrier to dancing, drinking and enjoying yourself. This was a good introduction for the Sambodrome as it was all of the music that is used by the Samba Schools who compete in the parades. At about midnight we moved about 1/2 a mile away to a area called Lapa close to our hotel and there we had a free concert of Brazilian pop amidst multiple food stalls and itinerant Brazilians selling beer from eskies. It seemed that everyone in Rio was trying to make some money by selling beer, water or caipirinhas. The sights and sounds mixed together with the crush of people lead to enjoying yourself so much that you forget the time and soon find out that for some people nighttime is for partying and daytime for sleeping.

On the Sunday night all of the group went to the Sambodrome. This is an area of Rio that has been closed off to traffic and where a stadium has been built to allow the Samba Schools to parade over half a mile in front of 30,000 people and some judges. This is the most visually and aurally stunning 7 1/2 hours I´ve ever spent. There were 7 schools parading on Sunday and another 7 on Monday and from that start there were people dancing in the stands, encouraging the dancers and just enjoying themselves. It´s difficult to describe what it is like but that floats stand out for inventiveness, colour and animation, to that is added the costumes, the dancing, the audience participation and the music that just goes on and on and drives everything. All of the floats had men and women dancing all over them and were brightly lit with neon lights and are so large and complex that the people have to be loaded on and off by fork lift truck or by cranes! Then there are seas of dancers between the floats whose costumes add more colour and all are singing along to the song that goes on for the hour and 20 minutes each school has, yes it takes them that time to do the half mile but there are around 4,000 participants per school. The scoring is anathema to me but it includes the floats, how well certain nominated dancers do and how well the crowd interacts with the performers. One school, Rocinha, had a nightmare of a night as at the start of their run it started to rain which turned into a torrential downpour and soaked us to the skin. At the end of their run it eased off and then stopped completely thus destroying their run but not ruining anyone elses.

I didn´t stay for the full 9 hours but the last school I saw was Vila Isabel who were the winners this year. Their last float was a figure of Simon Bolivar standing 40 feet tall. This was too large to pass under a small bridge half way down the course for photographers so as it arrived at the barrier the figure sat down and passed underneath before standing up again. The floats are just amazing.

Carnaval really is party time in Rio and an experience that I will never forget. The pictures don´t do it justice but I hope you enjoy them.
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Buenos Airies, Argentina

The drive from Ushuaia to Buenos Airies started on Australia Day and proved to be one of the more eventful. Leaving Ushuaia you have to travel back into Chile, cross the Straits of Magellan on a ferry and then travel back into Argentina. This is all achievable in 1 day as long as the weather is good as these are sealed dirt roads not tarmac. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad and coming to a steep hill the truck decided to fishtail and almost went into a ditch. This required everyone off the truck and push. There was 14 of us and a 17 tonne truck but after some effort and using the sand boards to add a grip the truck rocketed forward and it looked good for about 100 yards when the wheels started spinning again and we were stuck again. This time it required a rope attached to the truck and us pulling to try and stop the truck moving sideways but after an hour where we went about 100 yards and with over 100 yards to the top it was decided to reverse back down the hill, turn around and go by another route. By this time we were all covered in mud and turned up at the Chilean and Argentine borders looking complete messes. Strangely we had the easiest passages across any of the borders, they must have not wanted to clean up after us! By the time we got to the campsite it was very late and so we had a dinner of empanadas and cup-a-soup which was all people wanted before crawling into their tents for a well deserved rest.

From here it was a beach camp looking at the stars and a half day up to Puerto Madryn. This is where some Welsh came to settle in the hope of religious freedom. For us it was the National Park of the Valdes Peninsular that drew us. Here we did a day trip that took in beaches of sea lions, Magellenic penguins and elephant seals. The elephant seals are huge but we only saw female ones and the males are even bigger. It is also here that the killer whales take seal cubs from the beaches. Unfortunately we were a couple of weeks too early and did not see any of them although it was surprising to hear some people who didn´t like seeing insects harmed hoping to see a killer whale take a seal cub! Steph is leaving the truck at Buenos Airies and was very taken by one of the penguin chicks so as a leaving present Mike and I bought here a cuddly toy of a penguin which she named Valdes and spent the next 3 days cuddling.

The trip from here to Buenos Airies was pretty uneventful and the playing of twister, bingo and esky surfing only shows how bored people were. However, the group of people who stayed on the truck were those that tend to get along together so it was a good atmosphere.

Arriving at BA was good news as I´d managed to bend my glasses by rolling over one night and crushing them to add to the scratches on both lenses and this was the first chance to replace them. In a lesson to British opticians this was achieved in a purchase lasting 20 minutes and in very broken Spanish on my side for the grand sum of 220 pesos or about 45 pounds. Also on arrival we learnt that the plan to travel up the River Plate and cross in to Uruguay at Fray Bentos before going down to Colonia and Montevideo has had to be changed. The Uruguans are planning to build 2 paper mills near Fray Bentos and the Argentinians don´t like it and they are protesting by shutting the bridge. Consequently the truck is going to stay in BA and we can go to Uruguay under our own steam. This means that about 10 of us are going to take the ferry to Colonia, a bus to Montevideo and then the ferry back from Montevideo. It is a pain but means that we can get to see a bit of Uruguay.

Jen, Steph and myself went for a walk starting at the Evita museum, moving onto the Japanese garden and then onto Recolleta to see the grave. The museum was quite interesting although maybe a little one sided on what they showed of her life and her work in being very pro everything she did. The Japanese garden had the biggest Koi I have ever seen, about 18 inches long and a girth of about a foot. However it was not the usual place of calm and tranquility as it is next to a very busy road and they were working on the pond using pneumatic drills. When we got to the cemetery we had a bit of a problem in that it was about to shut and they wouldn´t let us in! From here Jen and Steph went back to the hostel and I went to pick up the ferry tickets and get my new specs. It felt very strange to have glasses that were level across my eyes! It also allowed me to see that BA is a very nice city. It has a very Western European feel with the South American traffic and driving. However, when you look a bit closer you can see that there are a lot of people here who are struggling to support their families and it shows that the country is still struggling to come out of the economic slump that it experienced.

With the change in plan viz Uruguay, Jen and I have agreed to travel across to Colonia on Friday, spend the afternoon there with Kev and take a bus to Montevideo to meet up with everyone else going over and hopefully watch the 6 nations in Montevideo (Jen is a mad Scottish fan but aren´t they all?) before going back to BA on the Monday morning. This should allow time to look over Montevideo and allow us to see Evita´s tomb and visit La Boca area in BA as well. This is a far bigger plan that is normal when visiting a city but we´re going to give it a try.
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