]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200673440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200673440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200673440/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:13:31 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

So arrived in Puerto Iguazu mid afternoon, thinking we mght get some things done, instead we spent the afternoon on the internet sorting out our accomodation for Rio and the trip into the Pantanal!

The next day we left our bags and found the bus to the falls nice and early, and got to look around a fair bit of it without hordes of other tourists around! The falls are amazing, much more beautiful than Vic falls, although not quite as impressive some how! We took the jet boat trip under some of the falls, and got thoroughly soaked, then walked around steaming for an hour or so!

We had some free time in the afternoon so did the jungle walk, saw 2 toucans up close, such beautiful crazy looking birds!! But managed to get some nice photos for a change!

That evening we crossed the border to brasil, and arrived at our hostel to find that 1. they had put the prices up and 2. they didn´t have mixed dorms so hamish and i were in seperate rooms. Luckily it was only one night! We then had to sample the Brazilian equilivilant of the Parrillada in Argentina, a Churassco, similar but it was all beef and they bring it round to your table (constantly)!

The next day was a busy one, we organised our bus to Campo Grande for that night, then headed out to see the Brazilian side of the falls, not as impressive, but still beautiful, and finally managed to get a photo of the illusive hummingbird!

Then it was a quick run back to town for a change of clothes, then off to the biggest hydroelectric dam in the world (by output - the chinese one is bigger now). a joint effort by Brasil and Paraguay. We did a techinical tour, where we got to go inside the dam, and saw one of the turbines, about 3m in diameter! They have 20 turbines, 18 running at any one time, and it provides anouth power for 20% of Brasil and most of Paraguay. However Paraguay didn´t have the money to pay for the building of the dam so it sells most of its half of the energy back to brasil to pay them back. All in all a good tour, and we just made it back in time to catch our bus to Campo Grande!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200241260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200241260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1200241260/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:54:49 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

So after our mammoth 36 hour trip (which actually wasn´t that bad - lots of movies in english, lots of food and even a game of bingo in Spanish!) we arrived in the big smoke. The first big city we had seen for a while, and certainly the most western place we had been in South America!

We decided that we desperately needed to shop, things being cheaper there than NZ, so we hit the town big time. Unfortunately it wasn´t as easy as we thought as a lot of the shops have displays in the window then you have to ask for stuff... a bit of a stretch for the old spanish! But we got some bits and peices to tide us over. Then we met up with our californian friends we met in Bariloche and headed out to another Parrillada (BBQ) as they were heading to England the next day and they hadn´t tried one yet! Good food and good wine made a nice evening, but the ´special american´we had picked up at the hostel was a bit of a drag! (he couldn´t understand what Hamish was saying at all, ever! it was funny!)

The next day we headed to La Boca, where they dance Tango on the street for the tourists, have heaps of funky bars and cafes, and have painted all the buildings bright colours! They have also killed a whole lot of cows and skinned them...which unfortunately got us thinking.....

We spent the next day seeing the Evita museum ( left us more confused than enlightened) and the crazy cemetery including Eva Peron´s Grave. But it was hot hot hot I think we spent more time eating ice cream and finding cold drinks (luckily they come out of the fridge super cold here!)

On our last night we decided it was time we saw some proper tango, so headed into San Telmo to find a show. Managed to find one for relatively cheap, which included the all important bottle of wine and some nibbles. Was a good show but very embarassing at the end where they made us sing (funnily enough we didn´t know the words!) and get up and dance! Then the singers and the band came and sat with us and talked to us for a while;;;once again the spanish was a bit stretched, but it seems to get better with a couple of bottles of wine so we could get most of it across!

On our last day, before the next big night bus we headed back to La Boca to pick up a cow...we had been talking about it since we saw one and both agreed that a brown one would be more practical....but we looked at a few then put a black and white one down just to compare and he was so much nicer that we had to have him! we have named him Lomo (which is a good cut of steak in Argentina!). So that is our south america souvinier ( a bit random but it will go well with our giant elephant, tin man and hippo we bought in Africa!)

Then it was on to see Igauzu falls!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199912400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199912400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199912400/tpod.html Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:55:41 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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El Calafate, Argentina

So after a nice sleep in a comfy bed we headed to El Calafate, crossing the Chile/Argentina border for the 5th and last time. We got to El Calafate....Booked a trip for the next day then set about finding somewhere to stay...easier said than done, all the hostels were full. But Juan at America del Sur hostel helped us out heaps by phoning some places and found us somewhere...he did warn us it wasn´t very nice, but it had to be done....He reserved a room for us, but when we got there the room had been given to someone else, so we ended up in a bungalow with 2 other guys, for a lot more money than they had orginally told us!

Oh well we had somewhere to sleep and a trip organised for the next day.

The next day we headed out to the Glaciar. It was awesome up close, but not as impressive from a far as the one in Torres del Paine we had just come from.

We stood on the walkways for about 1 hour, willing bits of ice to fall off, unfortunatley when a big bit did fall off my camera battery went dead! bugger. You could hear it moving all the time, and quite a few small bits fell off in the time we were there. It is however the only glaciar in the world that is in equilibrium and not retreating due to global warming.

Next we took the boat to the other side, and strapped on our crampons for a walk on the beast. It was an awesome view up there, and the water rivulets coming down were so blue it was beautiful. Awesome pictures up there!

Then it was time to head back to El Calafate to meet our australian friends we had met in the Torres del Paine. We headed out to our first Papirilla, a kind of all you can eat meat affair, where they have lambs on a spit and a massive BBQ, as well as heaps of salads and veges. The boys were in heaven! All in all a good experience!

The next day we took a bus to Rio Gallegos to catch our mammoth 36 hour bus to Buenos Aires!!




]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199479980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199479980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199479980/tpod.html Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:53:38 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Hi Everyone,

I seem to have let this get a little out of date again!

So after finally getting out of Ushuaia we got into Puerto Natales at 11pm. We had decided to leave the next day to Torres del Paine national park,if we could geteverything organised. We stayed at Nikos 2, because Astro and Suse had recommended it and they were great! We hired all our gear from them ( tents sleeping bags etc), she booked our bus to and from the park, and gave us a big breakfast, and a private room which was nice after a week orso of dorms!

We got to the park about 6pm the next day, and as we were being tight asses we walked 3 hours to the free campsite at the bottom of the Torres del Paine. It was a beautiful clear day when we arrived at the park but it started raining just as we got to the campsite!

The next morning we were up early to try and see the Torres (towers) but it was misted in. We decided to have breakfast and then head up anyway, which I´m glad we did because we walked up to above the level of the mist and had an awesome view of them.

Then we headed to the next free campsite, Italiano, which was a good 10 hours away according to the map! unfortunately I got wet feet and so had soft skinj alol day leading to some awesome blisters that covered my whole big toes! Ah well, the scenery was awesome, passing glaciars and rivers and lakes, with good weather all day as well.

We made it to the campsite, me a bit worse for wear, about 8pm, making for a long day!

The next day we didn´t have to go far as we were staying in the same campsite and just doing a day walk up to the glacial valley, so we had a good big sleep in! The view that day was awesome, but unfortunately the weather wasn´t quite so good with internittent rain and a strong wind by the evening. Luckily the campsite was nice and sheltered so the tent didn´t have any problems!

The next day again we were up early and heading to Greys Glaciar.Unfortunately it was still very windy and there was some bitterly cold rain,but we decided to head up there anyway, made it to the campsite about 3.30 for a nice afternoon looking at the glaciar. An awesome sight even in the rain. but even better the next day (our last) when it was an awesome clear day to walk out again.

All in all we walked about 80km in 4 days. My feet have only just recovered, and I´m seriously considering throwing away my shoes!

Hope you are all well!

Have a couple of quiet days coming up (after 24 hours on a bus) so will do my best to get this up to date!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199034120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199034120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1199034120/tpod.html Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:19:49 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Ushuaia, Argentina

So after a flight from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas, we discovered that we couldn´t get the bus we wanted the next day, our only option was to take a bus the day after (new years eve) that arrived at 9.30pm....not what we were hoping for, so we ran around town trying to find a flight or a hire car or anything that would get us there a bit earlier...we even considered hitchhiking.

But there was nothing available, so we booked the bus for NYE and spent 2 days in a shitty hostel, in a shitty town because there aren´t enough buses out of there!

But we decided to go to the penguin colony, even though it was quite expensive. We didn´t expect much, but the penguins were really cool, just coming in from their fishing, with heaps of them really really close to the path in their burrows with their babies. It was a worthwhile trip, we also saw skunks and the crazy bird thats a lot like an emu, and met this canadian couple who felt sorry for us and took us out for dinner! So not a bad end to a bad situation.

The next day we caught our bus to Ushuaia, discovering along the way that Argentina had a time change on the 30th, and so were now one hour ahead of chile....so instead of arriving at 9.30pm it'd be 10.30pm...bugger.

Luckily we took drinks on the bus, and 4 buses later (they kept changing us so the drivers weren´t away from home!) we arrived in Ushuaia. We ran to our hostel, checked in and dropped our bags then made a bee line for Bryce and Muss's hostel....

It was good to see them, but we were on fire by then and don´t really remember much of the evening! The next morning (afternoon!) we all caught up and tried to find something for lunch....hard going as everything was either hideously expensive or closed. But we had a few more drinks at the irish bar and then bryce took us out for tea.

Bryce and muss left the next day, we spent about 4 hours trying to find a bus out of there (it was as hard to leave as it was to get there!).

The next day (we couldn´t leave then we had to wait another day!) we went to the national park, not a big national park, but we did manage to see a beaver (we may have gone down a closed track) and several beaver dams which were quite cool. That afternoon we also managed to book our 36 hour bus from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires, just to make sure we didn´t get stuck anywhere again for a while!

And then we made it to Puerto Natales!

The next day we
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198446600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198446600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198446600/tpod.html Wed, 02 Jan 2008 15:15:11 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Bariloche, Argentina

So after crossing the Chilean/Argentinian border for the first of many times, we arrived in San Martin de los Andes, a ski resort next to a lake in the Argentinian lake district. Hamish was a bit emotional about being in a snow resort in the middle of summer, but it was a beautiful town to break the journey to Bariloche.

The next morning we caught the early bus to Bariloche, via the 7 lakes route, through stunning scenery, once again very reminiscent of New Zealand, complete with lupins growing wild at the side of the road. We got to Bariloche to find, that yes, our hostel for christmas where we had hoped to find some people to hang out with for christmas was full of Israelis...most of whom had no idea it was even christmas! Bugger. We had met a couple from california on the bus though, and made plans with them to go out on christmas eve..We ended up at another hostel, on the 10th floor of the biggest building in Bariloche, with an awesome view over the lake and the mountains from its balcony, where they were having a pot luck christmas dinner and party. The amosphere there was so much better than our hostel!!

The next morning we woke up late, then headed the 100m to the 'beach', a stony area next to the lake where you could sit and eat and swim. Once again the water was freezing, but refreshing after sitting in the blazing hot sun. We drunk the first bottle of wine down there, then headed back to our hostel to cook ourselves a magnificent feed! We roasted veges, then cooked an awesome argentinian steak, the best steak hamish has ever had apparently, and then we got stuck into our cake with pavlova bits on top of it we had found in the supermarket, and of course some more wine. Our californian friends were supposed to join us, but they couldn´t find our hostel!

The next day we did manage to meet up with them though and took a picnic lunch down to the lake, a nice chilled out day.

All in all we had a very lazy christmas, with lots of food and drink, and thats exactly what we needed!

Next we were heading back to Chile, to catch our flight down to Ushuaia (in Argentina) for new years eve!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198348380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198348380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1198348380/tpod.html Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:35:59 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Pucon, Chile

So our bus arrived in Pucon, Chile, and we felt like we had been transported to New Zealand somehow by mistake!! There were grass verges on the side of the road, big sections with seperate houses, blue skies and a very hot summer sun!

We were picked up at the bus station by a woman with 3 houses on her property, one for her and 2 for guests, and we had one house, complete with big kitchen and cable tv all to ourselves for the night! Score. And it was cheap by chilean standards as well!

I was feeling a bit rough after the night bus so went to bed for a while while Hamish did some recon...We ended up hiring bikes for the day, and heading from Pucon to Lake Caburga, via the Ojos of Caburga (lakes with waterfalls between them). We braved a swim in the lake but it was bloody cold! It was about 25km each way, the way back we chose to take the gravel road which was hard work going uphill and down dale! Anyway we made it back in one peice, feeling happy we had achieved something for the day! The next day we took our picnic down to the lake in Pucon itself, a lot like Lake Taupo, but the area was completely deserted (3 days before christmas! this area would be packed in New Zealand!) We didn´t brave a swim here though, its all a little chilly with the snow on the hills feeding directly into the lakes! All in all a beautiful area with an active volcano overlooking the town. You can climb the volcano, but at $80 each we decided it was a bit much and we'd climb Ruapehu sometime instead!

Then it was over a beautiful, if dusty road to Argentina!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197746160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197746160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197746160/tpod.html Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:01:54 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

So... Chile is expensive.

We found the cheapest accomodation in town ($8 each compared with $7 for the 2 of us in Bolivia! ouch!), and tried to get some money out of the ATM´s. One of them didn´t take visa, and the guy in front of hamish at the other one asked for 150000 pesos and only got 80000 out! The rest of the money was stuck in the machine. The owner of the shop next door attacked it with pliers and managed to get another 20000 out ($40) but the rest was gone. and the machine was no longer working. lucky we had some US dollars on us, so we changed that into pesos to tide us over. The german guy whose money was in the machine ended up staying with us. The accomodation was a camp ground, we were in a dorm room. Unfortunately for us everyone else´s spanish was better than their english so that was the dominant language. Serves us right for not learning it properly! But we sampled some chilean wine and went to bed with a bit of a rosy glow.

The next day we were very lazy, we tried to sort out our flight to Ushuaia for NY but the internet was so slow and so expensive we gave up. That evening we went out to the valley of the moon, a crazy ancient volcanic landscape. we climbed to the top of a massive sand dune to watch the sunset, but we were there a bit early and the wind was absolutely freezing so waiting for the sun to go down was a bit painful! Anyway when it did it was awesome and we trudged back to the van.

Then after some more wine with our buddies at the campsite it was an early night for an early start the next day to try and get to Santiago.

We took the bus to Calama, where by spending $3 we had saved $20 on the bus ticket from San Pedro to Santiago, but stupidly believed the relative prices in the lonely planet and ended up taking another short bus to Antofagasta to try and make it even cheaper. Unfortunately this time we spent $8 and saved $4, and had to wait till midnight for a bus. Bugger. Anyway we filled in the time in Antofogasta by spending hours in the first supermarket we had seen in months (a proper european one with all the clothes and electrical appliances and everything!!) which was a bit sad but we had missed the western world more than we realised.

Then we finally made it to Santiago!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197659580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197659580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hamishandkatie/worldtrip/1197659580/tpod.html Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:45:32 -0500 Katie and Hamish's trip around the world!!

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Uyuni, Bolivia

Well after just the one flat tyre we arrived in Uyuni, Boliva, about 6pm. What a shit hole. Rubbish all over the place and just a small ugly town in the middle of a desert. Awesome. Right first priority was get a tour leaving the next day so we didn´t have to spend a day there!

Luckily by about 7.30pm we were all sorted, then got the last cheap room in the gringo hotel, where we met up with the dutch guys from our mine tour again. bugger, it would have been good to get on a tour with them again. nevermind.

The next day we set out, we had a nice jeep, but unfortunately because the driver brought his wife along we were a bit pushed for space with 6 of us in the back (us, 2 english and 2 aussies - all english speakers! yay!). Luckily one of the english girls had quite good spanish because the driver didn´t speak english and his wife didn´t speak at all!

First stop was the train graveyard outside Uyuni itself where there are a collection of trains and carriages sitting there rusting out.

Then we headed to the edge of the Salar (salt plain) where we saw how they treated and packaged the salt for table salt.

Then we were driving out on the salar through streams of water. I´m guessing these jeeps rust out quite often! They make piles of salt by raking them by hand, then shovel them onto the back of trucks to be taken back to the village for processing. For as far as you can see it is flat and very very white, awesome to see and really good for some crazy perspective photos!

Then we headed to an 'ísland', an old coral reef in the middle of the salar, which was covered in cool cactuses and gave an amazing view of the salar.

That night we stayed in a´' salt hotel' not quite as cool as the ice hotel, but still kind of interesting, with the whole thing including the chairs and tables made of blocks of salt!

The next day was a big drive through the desert, passing lots of volcanoes and lakes on the way. Long day in the car, then we stayed the night in a very cold refugio, but they gave us pizza and wine for tea so it was all good!

The last day they take us to some geysirs which were more like mud pools and some hot springs that weren't quite hot enough to take the chill out of the air! Then we were at the border with Chile (a single hut!) and the bus was there to take us to San Pedro de Atacama, where we had all our bags searched for fruit and vege. Then the hunt was on for cheap accomodation in this much more expensive country!
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