7 days to go...

Pinch, punch, first of the month to you.

8 months to the day, I'll be returning home to colder shores and full priced everything. Joy!
To finish things off I'm off to chill on Ilha Grande for the remaining days to try and get a tan - I have to make it look as if I have been away for a while after all ;-)

See you soon...

At the Maracana stadium for the Flamengo vs. Athletico game (Flamengo edged it 1-0)

View from Sugar Loaf

A few beers and the view over Rio... Bliss!

It's a tough life

So there I was at the check-in desk of BA at Buenos Aires airport, sad to be leaving B.Aires but looking forward to warmer weather in São Paulo when the check-in lady brings me back from my thoughts: "Here's your boarding pass sir, seat 4A. Oh, we upgraded you to first class by the way. Have a nice flight."

Result!

I just hope I can wangle the same for the flight back to London... :) 2 hours was barely enough to fully appreciate it ;)

Long time no see

Just a quickie to say (a) I'm alive and (b) that there are more photos over on the flickr site now.

Still no phone number but I do have a new battery in my watch so I now know what time it is, hurrah!

Gringo-rama

Well it's been a week in South America and despite my appalling Spanish I'm still fed, rested and drinking way too much vino tinto. Some of Guido's fluid expletives are starting to make a bit more sense however ;-)

Santiago was quite pleasant and I managed to do most of the touristy things such as:
- wander around the old town
- head over to Valparaiso
- getting ripped off by the taxi driver from the airport

At the moment I'm sitting in an airport bar in Lima waiting for my connecting flight to Quito (and the Galapagos Islands tomorrow - wooo!) after a very long travel day so far. Due to fog in Santiago my 0645 flight was delayed 7 hours. So... instead of arriving in Quito at the pleasant hour of 1pm it's now going to be 12am. Oh, and the flight out to the Galapagos Islands is at 1030 tomorrow so the hotel stay is going to be short but sweet :)

Sweet as!

Not quite sure what they mean, but they say that a lot in NZ! Anyhoo, I'm off to Santiago tomorrow so back to the realm of not knowing what the h*** anyone is saying to me once more...

The phone will also be dead, so stay tuned for a new number at some point.

Dos cervezas, por favor! Le sange est dans l'arbre!

Map-tastic

I've added a Google Maps link to the right hand side that shows where the Stray coach tour has dragged me kicking and screaming at various ungodly hours (on the road by 7am???)

It's been a bit of a whirlwind tour cramming it all into about 3-4 weeks, but it's given me a flavour for where to spend more time for the next journey here ;-)

Spot the kiwi

Hmm, it's been a while since I've updated this thing. Mainly due to the lack of decent 'net facilities out in the backwaters of New Zealand rather than my laziness I'm sure you'll understand...

A few of the places visited while on the 'Stray' bus:

Rotorua - Smells nasty but if spa's are your thing, this is the place to go
Waitomo - Abseiling in caves and admiring maggots with burning poo (or glow-worms to the rest of us)


Raglan - surfers paradise, if that's your cup of tea
Tongariro National Park - with the real version if Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings films and one day walk across 17km of mountains, snow/ice and forests
Barrytown - drinking, not much else to do there!
Queenstown - skiing, skiing and a bit more skiing

Note to self, skip Auckland next time

I can't quite put my finger on it, but Auckland isn't agreeing with me. Maybe it's the traffic pollution here (surprisingly bad) or the mentality of the drivers (surprisingly aggressive) that's bugging me. Downtown is being churned up for some pavement renovations but even without those it strikes me as a characterless place. There's not even much to do around the city for that matter. Ho hum. My advice to others, fly into Christchurch or Wellington if you can and skip Auckland.

On Thursday I'm leaving the big smoke on a backpacker bus type thing. Should be interesting :-)

New country, new number

Now that I'm in Kiwi land, it's +64 211 173431

Am currently battling a cold (and losing). Ughhhhh. Snot-tastic.