TravelStream™ news feed for member crumpyj on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/crumpyj en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:42:25 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658220/tpod.html Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:42:25 -0500 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Port Douglas, Australia

Gretchen & Gerald's Wedding - Port Douglas

Port Douglas was the perfect end to our trip. We had a fantastic week with everyone and generally eating and drinking far too much! It was great to see friends over from London and a lot of Uni friends that we hadn't seen for years. Gerald and Gretchen were very organized for their wedding so we were able to see a lot of them too.



Port Douglas is a lovely small beach community. There are lots of fantastic restaurants, a nice wide beach and some great outdoors activities near by. We managed to avoid spiders whilst up in the Dainstree Rainforest area but had fun taking photos of a black snake with orange stripes, that we only discovered later was 'dangerous and highly venomous'! We had a fantastic 'breakfast with the birds' at the local wildlife sanctuary, where Jamie also got to see koalas and kangaroos for the first time. The guys had a second stag do for Gerald (he was really happy to be wearing a dress again!) whilst the girls drank bubbly for the afternoon and decided to try our hand at cane toad racing!



The wedding was gorgeous. It was held at a cute little church with a stunning view of the beach. The reception was at a luxurious golf club. The evening flew by and we soon found ourselves back at the local pub. The perfect end to the evening was finding the local baker down a back ally starting his days work. He didn't seem fazed by a bride and groom (still in full wedding attire) buying steak and cheese pies at 3am in the morning!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1192658520/tpod.html Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:34:27 -0500 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Wellington, New Zealand

Home Sweet Home
We've been back home for 4 months now and the time has absolutely flown by!

We've been very lucky as things have fallen into place very quickly. We've managed to find jobs, have an offer accepted on a house and book a wedding venue! Crazy times!

Jobs
Han was offered a fantastic job a couple of days after arriving back into Wellington (without actually applying!). She's working for a public sector consultancy called Allen & Clarke. They do a lot of work in the health and education sectors so it should be very interesting.

Jamie had a couple of months as a 'kept man' before starting at Tourism Wellington (Positively Wellington Tourism) as their New Zealand Marketing Manager. Being a passionate Wellingtonian he's excited about promoting the World's Best Small Capital.

House
We've had an offer accepted on a house which we're very excited about! (check out the photos in the slide show). It's a 1920's 3 bedroom bungalow in Brooklyn/Vogeltown. We won't be moving in till early March as the property needs to get title. The property developer has subdivided the section and is building 2 townhouses down in front of us - it wont impact us at all though as we're up on a hill. When the townhouses are built the developer will then be able to get title. The developer is actually a friend of Han's uncle (who is a very good builder) so we're doing this as a private sale and cutting out the estate agents!

Wedding Venue
And we have set a wedding date - 14 March 2009. We are holding it at Brackenridge, Martinborough, which unbelievably is now all booked up for summer 2009.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1198825680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1198825680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1198825680/tpod.html Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:08:44 -0500 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Wellington, New Zealand

Hello
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185806700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185806700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185806700/tpod.html Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:24:24 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Bolivia, Bolivia

We met up with Han´s brother Brendan in La Paz, Bolivia at the beginning of July. It was great to see B after nearly 2 years. Brendan and Jamie immediately began a facial hair competition. Han was part of the original challenge. but soon dropped out when she realised she was slightly out of her league. B & J continued to competition throughout and were soon being mistaken for one another by the locals - I guess all hairy white guys looks alike. Here´s a before, during and after shot of this 3 week competition. You decide who the winner is...
















So for a few general reflections of our time in Bolivia....

It is immediately apparent that Bolivia is an incredibly poor country, with over 80% of the population living in poverty and the average yearly income only $900 US. However, Bolivia is rich in colour and cultural traditions. The majority of the population are indigenous people and colourful traditional clothing is commonly worn. The most intriguing pieces worn were the bowler hats (worn by women), and large mainly pink blankets which were tied across their backs. These were used to carry any number of items, often babies. The majority of the population are Catholics, which in practice is a combination of Catholicism and their indigenous religious practices. Offerings to the Gods are common place, and the local markets full of various items ready for that purpose. These included stone amulets, bottles of wine, llama foetuses, candy etc.















We had two weeks in Bolivia, exploring La Paz, the Salt Flats area of the South, and Copacabana. Here´s a snapshot of each of those places...


LA PAZ
La Paz, quite literally takes your breath away. At nearly 4000 feet above sea level there is not a lot of oxygen to go around. The view as you enter the city is also quite breathtaking. We spent our time in a Paz, exploring the local markets and the surrounding landscape. Brendan and Jamie also did a trip down the ´Worlds Most Dangerous Road´, although by all accounts their masculine facial hair didn't assist and they were practically holding hands all the way down!





SALT FLATS
Our journey down and back was a bit of an adventure because most roads were blockaded by striking miners, and the main train had broken down. We instead took ´secondary roads´ which apparently had yet to be discovered. The local farmers we randomly came across appeared surprised by a van load of white people and kept themselves entertained by giving our drivers directions into ditches etc.

The Salt Flats themselves were massive expanse of white set against the blue sky. The terrain in the area was incredibly varied, deserts, mountains, emerald and red lakes, mountains interspersed with llamas, flamingos etc. We had two very cold nights out there (it can drop as low as minus 20 at this time of year), but enjoyed our night at the Salt Hotel - yip made entirely of salt.















COPACABANA
Copacabana is a lovely chilled out place beside Lake Titicaca and bordering Peru. We enjoyed a day trip out to the Isla del Sol, where we walked the length of the Island and explored the Inca Ruins.

Our next transport adventure was crossing the border into Peru. Being careful little travellers that we are we booked a reputable bus company to take us across the border. However, they´d overbooked and crammed us into a mini-bus and dropped us and our bags at the border with no onward tickets or obvious onward transportation organised. We were relieved to find a slightly rundown bus on the other side, that was our onward transport to Puno. However, due to ongoing teacher strikes in the area (and of course no public works schemes), the roads were still covered in rocks and glass and our bus was soon stoppèd at the side of road with a puncture. We were again crammed into another van, and eventually made it to Puno later that evening.




]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185891960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185891960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1185891960/tpod.html Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:14:53 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Peru, Peru

On to Peru....

Peru gives the impression that it really celebrates its indigenous culture. Speaking to the some of the locals it appears that this has only really emerged in the last 10 years. Perhaps the tourists fascination in the Inkas has been a positive thing?!

One thing we have really noticed during our time in South America is the role of children. The majority of children we came across were working; shoe-shining, selling arts & crafts, and/or photos of themselves. We very rarely saw children 'playing' and adults or older children's interaction with younger children was not as warm as we have seen elsewhere in the world. To us this appears a pretty hard life, right from the beginning. We had a couple of really memorable occasions sitting on the steps of the local church or square and just chatting with the kids (usually shoe shine boys), and giving them the few gifts we had brought with us. This was the perfect opportunity to use our basic Spanish as the questions they asked were usually fairly simple!













PUNO & THE UROS ISLANDS
Puno is not the pretteist of places but we really loved our trip onto Lake Titicaca and the Uros Islands. Whilst the almost 50 reed Islands are now very touristy, they are still incredibly surreal. They are contructed of thick bundles of reeds which are added to daily as the materials underneath gradually disintegrate. Each Island has a large extended family living on it and the Uros Islands community has a floating local school and church, reached by elaborate boats made of reeds.





CUSCO AREA
The former capital of the Inka Empire was converted into a colonial settlement by the Spanish conquistadors. The main squares are surrounded by beautiful colonial cathedrals and homes, but even more impressive are the famous Inka walls. The fact that these walls have survived 2 major earthquakes while many colonial buildings have not is testament to the architectural skills of the Inkas. We visited a couple of nearby Inka villages & fortresses (Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Sacsayhauman - also know by the mnemonic 'sexy woman'!), that again have impressive remains of Inka architecture. The tour guides frequently pointed out images in the rocks (Pumas, Condors etc), which you had to have a pretty good imagination to really appreciate. Brendan's imagination went further than most and he was soon spotting Paul Holmes, Angelina Jolie etc in the rocks.





INKA TRAIL & MACHU PICCHU
The Inka Trail was fantastic and challenging, but the reward at the end was worth it. Brendan found the challenge wasn't quite enough and managed to break one lense of his glasses playing footie with the locals. This would have been ok had he remembered to bring contact lenses, and if he didn't have negative 7 eyesight! Despite the one eye (pirate style or Diego Almagro the famous conquistador), he mananged to be the first to camp each day.

It was fantastic turning up to our campsites, to be met with warm smiles and cold drinks from our porters who had already set up our cosy tents and mattresses. They of course had run past us hours earlier carrying our luggage, tents, cooking equipment etc!! These guys are simply amazing - tiny guys walking in little floppy sandels. This will definately be one of the images we hold forever.

Machu Pichu didn't fail to impress. In fact it has been the highlight of our trip. On the final morning of the 4 day trek we arrived to a misty valley in which you couldn't see the hand in front of your face. It was an incredible sight watching Machu Picchu appear from out of the mist! We spent the morning climbing the steep hill above the site (Wayna Pîchu), then exploring the ruins.


AREQUIPA
We said goodbye to Brendan in Cusco and travelled overnight to Arequipa. Arequipa is a beautiful town, due to the colonial buildings being built of a white stone called sillar. A highlight was a visit to Museum Sanctuarios Andinos, which is home to the frozen body of an 12-14 year old girl who was sacrificed to the Gods by the Inka's at the summit of a nearby mountain some 500 years ago. Her body, clothes, and various sacrifical offerings found with her are incredibly well intact as they lay frozen all of these years. Whilst in Arequipa we also took an overnight trip to Colca Canyon where we got to see the magnificent condors. Our trip also coincided with the local religious festival of Santiago Apostol.





NAZCA & HUACACHINA
The main reason to travel to Nazca is to visit the Nazca lines, and the town has largely arisen for this purpose. Han overcame her fear of flying and become co-pilot when we viewed the lines from a light plane. Many theories have emerged over their history (astronomical calender developed for agricultural purposes, running tracks, extraterrestrial landing lines) but the jury is still out (by the way you'll need to double click on the image of the hummingbird to see it properly!).

Huacahina is a tiny resort village surrounding a small lake and surrounded by giant sand dunes. This was the perfect spot to relax and enjoy our last couple of days in Peru before returning to Lima and flying to Australia for Gerald and Gretch's wedding in Port Douglas.











]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1183046220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1183046220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1183046220/tpod.html Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:06:29 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Mexico, Mexico

Hola!

We are coming to the end of our time in Mexico. Here are a few relections on our time here:
- Each place we have been to has been incredibly different to the last (the vibe, sites, landscape etc)
- We have met heaps of very friendly and helpful people and only a few that have tried to rip us off
- Mexico is a very colourful place with many brightly coloured textiles and buildings etc
- For a few extra pesos the deluxe/1st class buses are fantastic (twice as much space per seat, tvs, food, drinks etc!)
- The Mayan and Aztec people were pretty advanced with their architecture and calenders etc
- Our limited Spanish and others limited English has served us well and actually resulted in some reasonable conversations
- There are an incredible variety of street vendors working really hard to make some money
- The food has been great food although on reflection we actually enjoyed Irma´s (J´s sisters-in-law´s Mum) cooking the most!

Here´s a quick run down on each of the places we have visited - we´ll let the photos fill you in on the rest...

PUERTO VALLARTA
Puerto Vallarta, a lovely town on the Pacific Coast, was a pretty easy entry to Mexico. We managed to avoid the built up high rise resort area and stayed in the center of the old town. Most of our time was spent wondering round the old town, along the new esplanade and chilling out at the fantastic beach! On our last day there Jamie became a bit worried about swollen glands under his arms and consulted the health section of the guide book to establish this mysterious medical condition, without luck. It was only later, sitting on the beach with beer in hand, that Jamie recalled his press ups that morning. His pecs (or glands under his arms!?) were not entirely use to this attention!





GUADALAJARA
Despite having the same population as NZ, Guadalajara felt like a pretty relaxed city. The historic centre was beautiful, with many colonial buildings and plazas and huge murals that graced the interior of many of the historic buildings. We had a fantastic day with Jorge (Irma´s cousin) who took us to Tequila to learn about the tequila making process and of course try a few!





GUANAJUATO
Guanajuato is a georgous town, with hills crammed fill of colourful adobe houses. It has a real buzz, with a thriving University population. Visually Guanajuato reminded us alot of the Amalfi Coast, without the Coastline! We stayed in a georgeous little house, set on the hill side. Diego Rivera´s birthplace held an incredibly varied display of his art. We also visited the Museo Mommias - a museum filled with mummies that were disinterred from an old cemetary (when they ran out of space). To their surprise instead of skeletans, they found scarily well intact bodies that were preserved by the soil content. Those that were not identified or claimed become the content of this Museum!







MEXICO CITY
Despite all theories and warnings to the contrary, we left after five reasonably easy days with all wallets and limbs intact! Yip, its a big (pop - 20 million) hectic city and you need to be smart and careful with valuables, but it is manageable. We had a great few days seeing the main sites, including an amazing Anthropological museum. We are not ones to get overly excited about museums but this was world class. A couple of other highlights were the Ballet Folklorica (no Jamie wasn't subjected to ballet - it was performance of dances from all over Mexico) and a trip to the huge pyramids of Teotihuacan.







ISLA MUJERES
We are currently staying on this idylic little Island just off the Coast of Cancun. It has beautiful Carribean beaches and a very chilled out vibe. Its a backpackers paradise! Weve had a perfect few days soaking up the sun, eating some great food, enjoying the pool and beach. Weve also had a snorkling trip and a day at the famous Mayan ruins of Chichin Itza.















We are heading down into Sth America this weekend, where well be meeting up with Han´s brother Brendan and spending a month in Bolivia and Peru. We will update the blog again when we have a chance....

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181506740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181506740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181506740/tpod.html Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:39:57 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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San Diego, California, United States

Our last stop in the US is San Diego, where we've stayed with Jamie's brother Rupert, his wife Lisa and her family. Jamie continued the tour of baseball stadiums with a game between the San Diego Padres and LA Dodgers (similar rivalry to Arsenal vs Tottenham). We've also managed to squeeze a bit of shopping into our packs. Again, its been fantastic catching up with everyone, and we are counting down until we see all the US contingent at our wedding in '09.





Our next three weeks will be spent in Mexico, before we head down into to South America (Bolivia and Peru) in July. We'll aim to update our blog during towards the end of our Mexico tour.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181501400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181501400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181501400/tpod.html Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:28:01 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Kansas City, Missouri, United States

Our next stop on the family/friends tour of the US was a visit to Jamie's American host family the Phillips'. We kicked off our stay with a fun few days down at their condo at Lake of the Ozarks! We were treated to a Baseball game and dinner/drinks in the stadium club and loved wondering around the stunning Plaza (Kansas City is Seville's sister city) and downtown KC. The weather wasn't kind but it didn't matter - we had a fantastic time catching up with everyone!



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1180644060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1180644060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1180644060/tpod.html Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:18:23 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Miami, Florida, United States

CARIBBEAN CRUISE

The Cruise was a perfect start to our trip. Great food, weather and relaxation. And despite being out of shape ourselves, there's nothing like a ship full of obese Americans to do wonders for the self esteem! The Cruise was pretty entertaining - for those ''Dirty Dancing'' fans you just need to imagine "Kellerman's 2007". We gave the line dancing event a miss but did win a fabulously tacky gold plastic trophy (of a ship) in the famous places competition!






The Cruise stopped at Cozumel (Mexico), Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios in Jamaica. The snorkeling was fantastic and the Dunne's River Falls in Ocho Rios were pretty impressive. It was great to catch up with our friend from NZ Joe Margison ('The Chief'). Joe's been living and working on Grand Cayman for the past 2 years and we spent an afternoon with him enjoying cocktails on the beautiful 7 mile beach!





MIAMI

Following the cruise we spent a few days in Miami, and very quickly made friends with the locals (we had a small argument with a taxi driver and got to meet Miami police!).
We spent an afternoon cycling around the extremely wealthy Key Biscayne area, where the local Mums/Nannies pick up their kids from school in their golf buggies. Another highlight was a trip we took to the Everglades National Park to see the Alligators and local wildlife.



]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181493780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181493780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crumpyj/trip_home_2007/1181493780/tpod.html Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:16:56 -0400 Han and Jamie's Travel Blog

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Boston, Massachusetts, United States

BOSTON

We made two stops in America's most European city. The first was to stay with Jamie's Great Aunt Berry (who came to the USA as a 20 year old) and her husband Walter. Considering they are octogenarian's Berry & Walter were very active and in fantastic form!

Our second stop in 'Beantown' was with our great friends the Piltch/Katz family. Significant amounts of Gatorade and Ben & Jerry's ice cream were consumed (Jamie's favourite American cuisine). And we were then run ragged by Lee in a number of different sporting events including tennis, golf and lacrosse (an extremely fast game in which you get to whack each other with sticks).


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