The last little while

he last little whileOk so developments so far from the trip. Well it's been a little while since my last post as the internet hasn't been very good here in the southern part of Chile and Argentina. I have arrived in the capital of Argentina a city you may know as Buenos Aires or B.A. to the locals. It's a very very very very very large city. But before I tell you about the current city. There's all the other bits that need to be addressed first starting from Chiloe, Chile. I arrived in the town of Ancud, Chiloe from Puerto Varas. It was the most beautiful little town you could think of and the place I booked to stay wow. Sea views from window to window. It was amazing, i loved it so much but unfortunately the bed bugs also liked me a little too much. They ate me alive I didn't like that so much but you know what ya going to do really, oh and the guy that was sleeping in the next bed was a really loud snorer. I didn't get much sleep but the owner was really nice and offered a private room to the guy who snored so I could get a good nights' rest. The town of Ancud has an old fort which I went to visit it was quite a sight in itself there wasn't much left apart from the outline of the structure with cannons and stuff facing the inlet to the harbour. I actually didn't find the fort at first but went to a lookout that saw over the entire bay area which was amazing it looked like Great Barrier Island at home it was wonderful to see something similar again. I also managed to get some oysters at the local market which was not as I imagined them. I imagined the Pacific Oyster as we were on the coast of the pacific ocean but no they were more like Bluff Oysters but they weren't that nice really. Maybe I got them off season or something.. Anyways I cooked by myself for the first time since I got to south america and it was my favourite dish Spaghetti Bolognese, actually it's not my favourite it's just the simplest thing I can be bothered to cook. It wasn't bad though I shall find the photo and post it sometime since I have now bought myself a card reader for a ridiculous price but I needed it I was running out of space. So that was sort of my stay in Ancud except the part about the American girl and lunch together at the seafood restaurant. She reminded me of Justine, anyway save that story for another time I guess. Ok on to the privincial capital of Chiloe I guess you can call it Castro. It's quite a nice town Castro but there are certain things that you would want to forget about going. So first is toss out your lonely planet guide book as it is sort of useless for anything south of Pucón as I have found out the hard way. It's not the best book for it seriously. The bar or cafe that it recommended, when we went there sure the décor was nice the bar was an old boat I mean that's pretty impressive but the service was just shit really. They didn't have any beers at the bar and the wine well the bar manager didn't know the price of the bottle of wine we chose. So, we left and as we left he swore at us in English the only words he seemed to know I guess. But was laughed as it was actually quite funny that a bar can run out of beer. Imagine it happening to Shadows I'm pretty sure that there would be riots in the quad. But ya know, this is an island off the coast of Chile. Oh and don't bother trying to find Vicks in South America it doesn't exist instead they have something called Halls which isn't really the same but it does the job and is about a third of the price. So Castro had it's charming parts for example the hostel was the most comfortable I'd had since I got to South America and amazingly cheap too. It was CHP5000 for a night in a double bed with cable tv, it didn't have much of a view or heating but I was fine with it, it's a room to myself hell no I ain't going to complain. Although there is one thing you can complain about the hostel and that is how much laundry cost it was more than a nights stay at the hostel. The reason why I had to get all my clothes washed was because of the fleas. Damn they suck.. Castro offered some interesting outings to the surrounding area as well, but I don't think that it's that amazing. I went for a 2 hour bus ride onto another island off the coast of Chiloe which is billed to be the wonderful sleepy land of the ferries. But I didn't get that sense whilst I was there but maybe that's because I went there in the off season and nothing was open and the lady at the store tried to charge me CHP500 for a coke which specifically said it was CHP400 I know that isn't much to me being a New Zealander paying in NZD but I just wasn't thinking about that. The ones reading this that know me will know how I feel about stuff like that. Ok so that was Chiloe nearly I guess.. One side note that I will mention is that the main export of Chile is actually Salmon, not that any of it is consumed in Chile. I found out that all the Salmon that is dished up in Chile is actually stolen from the Salmon farms in the region or gathered after an accident with the transporting trucks. As strange as that sounds there is a lot of accidents in Chile. I have seen 3 since I've been here it's quite sad and annoying really. Ok I think I've typed quite enough tonight and it's midnight and everyones out drinking, but I think I'm going to go to bed given that I spent most of last night sleeping on a bus. I had quite a good sleep because the size of the seat is the size of my couch at home. So I mean who wouldn't but then again it just doesn't compare to a real bed if you know what I mean. So.. I shall continue with my story or there abouts' tomorrow from Castro to Puerto Montt to Bariloche to Buenos Aires. Till then..

Chile Part 3

So, it´s raining again outside for some reason and it´s horrible and cold.. I want to be in the house but I must push on to the next destination today in an hour or so the bus leaves this little town called Puerto Varas through a small city called Puerto Montt for the island of Chiloe.

Well to start I think I should tell you all about the journey on the bus I had coming from Pucon. Got up at 7 for the bus at 8.10 to Puerto Varas right.. Got ready and everything checked out and did all that stuff arrived at the bus stop on time and boarded the bus. It wasn´t a very pleasent looking bus but you would expect that I guess. About an 2 hours into our journey the back seats of the bus started to smoke and this was heavy smoke not your normal smokers on the bus kind of smoke. So all the locals that were sitting in the back came rushing to the front of the bus. I was seated around middle of the bus, saw and smelt everything. My god the stench was like burning plastic or something.. Anyways I think it was the heating on the bus that was causing the problem. The bus driver stopped the bus in the middle of the highway and started looking around to see what was wrong. Of course he couldn´t find anything wrong, by this time the smoke had already stopped pouring out of whereever as the heating wasn´t on anymore as the bus wasn´t moving. So we started off down the road again, again the smoke comes billowing out of the back seats. The conductor then goes to sort it out armed with a swiss army knife. Anyways after alot of fiddling the bus is stopped on the side of the highway again this time with almost everyone leaving the bus to the relative safety of the side of the highway.. A couple minutes later we were told to board the bus again and again we started off toward our destination. The emergency windows open full to ventilate the bus and get rid of the smoke that was still lingering. My god that was quite an interesting ride.

I thought a couple moments there that it would be like the stagecoach buses in Auckland that seem just to magically erupt into flames of fire. Anyways maybe that´s just my imagination at work. But we arrived eventually at a town called Valdivia and were told to change buses. Now this was a brand new bus I think it was much more comfortable and more like the price we paid which was 5,900. So that was the first bad experience on a bus in Chile.

As I said earlier I´m in Puerto Varas, it´s about 30 minutes by bus to get to the bigger city of Puerto Montt which is billed at the gateway to Patagonia which is where I want to go. So I went and checked out the prices from here to Chiloe, which is an island off the coast of Chile which is billed to have the most wonderful seafood and the most number of UNESCO protected churches anywhere in the world. There is a town called Castro, that where I´m going at a cost of 5,000 which includes a ferry ride across the channel. Not that it matters right now as it is cold and there isn´t anything to see. I hope the weather clears up or else I will be in Puerto Varas maybe for another day, which isn´t really what I want to do.

I checked out to prices for the ferry from Quillon to Chailten it was 17,500 for a 5 hour ferry ride then from there to bigger city is 18,000 I don´t know if it will be worth it just to see a glacier. I think I should see what happens but definately I´m going to Chiloe today or tomorrow and will sort of what to do from there if I do decide not to go any further south then I will go to Argentina and see what its like in Bariloche and then from there to Bueno Aires.

So not many dramatic stories these couple of days but then again I did get the best meat on a stick anywhere in the world yesterday outside the main bus terminal in Puerto Montt for 300 my god they were wonderful. Don´t know what the meat was but it was good. I want more.. Oh speaking of food, I had the most wonderful sourgrot outside of germany when I arrived in Puerto Varas which has aparantly a very large german population.. I don´t think it does some how from what I can see but there is definately a feel of being in Barvaria here as the architecture is very similar.

Ok I´ve written way too much photos are to come soon. Gotta get that stupid adaptor for 10,000 so not good. Stupid Sony cameras...

Chile Part 2

Well part 2 it begins.. I'm currently in a little tourist town called Pucón about 9 hours south of Santiago. It was an overnight bus ride from the big smoke. Ok you might find that my writing is better in this post for now (those of you that complained about the last one would appreciate this I guess). Well not to tell you about Pucón yet but tell you about what happened in Santiago before I came. Well the as I said before it was an overnight bus from Santiago, the bus was scheduled to leave Station Alimeda at 23.45. I knew this would be quite late to try and catch the train from the hostel, as there was a big concert on that night so I booked the taxi for 11. Giving me an hour to get there, but as it is Chile they tend to think that time is not of the essence. So I waited until 23.25 for the taxi and finally it arrived and by this time there wasn't too much traffic on the street. But this delay gave me only 20 minutes to get there. I learnt how to say the word for fast fast fast and I kept on saying it to the guy "Rapido, rapido, rapido" and man I'm never saying that to a chilian taxi driver again. He drives even worse than me seriously, on little tiny streets similar to those in ponsonby he was going maybe 150km/hr. I was scared i only say maybe because I looked over his shoulder to see what the actual speed was, only to find that the speedo doesn't actually work as it was showing 20km/hr. Anyways so they do get you there on time but it just might make you piss your pants.

Ok so onto the more interesting stuff here. I have been in Pucón now for around 2 days as the weather has been quite horrible and I have not been able to do much. Lounging around the hostel planning my trip has been a highlight, and also the girls that run to hostel make it really easy to waste away the days. One is from Quebec City in Canada and the other is from Bonn, Germany. So as many of you will know I'm somewhat in heaven. Anyways, enough of that. I went to the Hotsprings here in Pucón last night it wasn't bad but it wasn't on par with Rotorua for the price I guess but it was interesting to see how tourism works in another country. I think I might have caught a cold from having to walk 150m from one rock pool to the other, but I have to say it was immensely enjoyable given that you were allowed to bring your own alcohol to drink in the hot springs. Oh just as a side note my god.. the grog here is cheap as peanuts seriously. A bottle of 770mL pisco which is the local spirit brew is around 33 proof. It was 1700 pasoes which is around NZ$6 it's amazing so I have been drinking that all the time it's amazing I don't think I want to leave just for that. LOL.. But I better be quick about finishing this post as the laptop is about to run out of juice. Ok so I've covered pisco and the hot-springs we shall move on to my most favorite part of any country "FOOD".

So I said I was going to cook 1 meal a day since I'm out of the city, so i've been cooking breakfast at the hostel. Today I cooked sausages and Eggs for breakfast, since I wasn't used to using gas I nearly singed my eyebrows off trying to light the stove which wasn't that funny although it was an experience. Anyways after I finished cooking this perfect meal in the pan I went to take it out and the stupid handle is broken on the pan so it swiveled and burned my hand so stupid human reactions decided to flip the eggs straight in the air and onto the ground. So after all that hard work I ended up losing most of the eggs I cooked 4 and ended up with maybe 1.5 needless to say I wasn't happy at all but I guess you gotta learn somehow right. Ok now on to more good parts of my food experiences. Here in Pucón there is a restaurant called Rap its a local burger joint, if you will and they serve the best burgers in the world I would go as far as to say. Last night I had a chicken burger which I will get again tonight for dinner. It was 2700 pasoes which is reasonable I guess in NZ$ think burger fuel but 2 times larger and with double the filling like an entire avocado, half a lettuce, half a chicken and tomato and all the chili you want. My god that was just heaven and for me a big boy with some would call an endless stomach, I was stuff and could nearly not walk out of the place to get home. It was wonderful and there's more wonderful to come yet. I found this old lady on the street that sells mixed vegetables in a bag, my god she's the cutest lady you can find apart from my grandma of course. I didn't have enough change to buy the bag which was 600 pasoes I only had a 10,000 note and 500 change I gave her the 500 and some loose stuff and she gave it to me without even asking for more. Anyways long story short I felt bad so when I finished buying stuff at the supermarket and got some change I gave her the rest of what I owed her and she was so surprised. She was even more surprised when today I went back to her little stall and bought another bag and this time Emma the girl from the hostel was with me and she helped me ask her for a photo she looked so happy, you could be mistaken in thinking that she just won the lottery. I love little old ladies, they're just the cutest thing. Anyway I think I've bored all of you enough, and I will apologize for this again as I'm in a little town there isn't much in terms of cable buying facilities so I have not been able to grab any of the photos off my camera so no photos in this post "Sorry" but I will try my best to get some photos up as soon as I can and my mac has just informed me that I have 10 minutes until I'm out of juice. So.. I better go and do something with me life and get back to being a professional traveller. Take care all of you.. Maybe I'll be bitten by someone soon, I am in an area full of bees and the land where PDA is more normal than sheep shagging. Ok if you don't know what PDA stands for look it up or it'll be in my next post. Ciao

Chile Part 1

So... first post of my trip around the world and what would you know I´m in Santiago, Chile on the 3rd full day of my trip around the world... You may ask what have I been doing for the past 3 days.. Well I have walked so much these couple days I have probably done more walking than an entire year in NZ, but as most of you who read this know I don´t tend to walk anywhere in Auckland.. I have seen the main Plaza where the government buildings are they´re amazing are in similar style I think to the ones I saw in europe and the markets here are similar to the ones found in asia. They´re fill with everything you can imagine from food to clothing to bleders. Speaking of blenders did you know that there´s an entire street in Santiago decicated to just the sale and repair of blenders it´s amazing. theres just shop after shop filled with blenders. They must really love their blending here :-) OK on to the food and experiences of travelling alone.. On the 2 day I got into Chile I met a really nice girl from Australia she´d been here for a while so she took me around the town showing me the sites and informing me what I should do about travelling safe and everything it´s quite nice to meet people like that when you´re one of those people that hasn´t travelled to many places around the world that is quite in similarity to Santiago and well most of South America. Anyways we went to the top of a monument in the centre of town with allowed you to look over the city.. Seriously I couldn´t see much of the city at all, the visibility was maybe 3km, the smog was so bad.. But you could see all the building aroudn the city which is quite siilar to Auckland I guess. There´s old buildings and new buildings the funny thing is that some of them are half old and half new.. Enough about buildings and sights lets talk about the food as most of you know içm quite a fan of food. The first experience of chilian food was in a little restrant in the bank district. Walked in and the place was rally flash or anything similar to a diner in the states I guess. The waiter is dressed in a tux, i couldnçt believe it the waiter in a diner is dressed in a tux.. now that is class. anyway i ordered a pico sour not knowing what it is apart from that itçs a chilian speciality. this is one of the most amazing drinks you will ever try itçs alcoholic but itçs sour as well itçs amazing, i wouls say that the pisco sour is second only to its cholocately cousin which i donçt rememebr the name of (i´ll find the name of it tomorrow and tell you all), so we ordered our meals she had pork and i had pollo which is chicken. The chicken wasnçt great but it was alright jono you would like the chicken here itçs breast and all breast, me i like the most saucy bits of a chicken usually what europeans donçt like. Anyways if you have a meal here theres always bread included and salsa my god the salsa here is amazing itçs so much better than the stuff you get at home which is just tomato and that it mostly. Here itçs full of herbs and sauce that you can dip your bread into itçs so amazing and to top it all of itçs just spicy enough to give you a kick but it wouldnçt slap you to the floor like the stuff at the mexican cafe. Just devine is what I would say about it. After we finish and went to get the bill the waiter took our plates and came back with a drink which was very unusual he gave us a desert wine of some sort which is wonderful it was similar to an ice wine ummm...... so yum... We jsut couldnçt believe our luck in finding this place amazing first meal in Chile and itçs hard not to fall in love with a city like this when the people are so friendly. The most amazing thing was the price, man it was cheap it was way too cheap for what we had it was 8450 paseos which is maybe 15 dollars for the entire meal including drinks. That was the first day, but that night i got shit faced, it was fun but the hangover was horrible and i distinctly remember the guy who ran the hostel teaching me to say i have a pink dick in spanish so i donçt think the alcohol helped in this sense. But today is a new day and Içm going to find myself some breakfast and then off to the bus station to change my ticket as I bought a ticket to the middle of no-where not knowing that thereçs no where to stay and nothing to do. So going to try and get to pucon by tomorrow morning to see the mountains trying to make my way down to Ushaia. Shoudl be interesting wish me lcuk and i willt ry to keep you informed about what is happening. And sorry about this Alex Içve just basically written another book..

Itinerary

Ok as popularly requested
None of the dates are set so I will give you the destinations first and edit the dates as and when I know them.

2 April, 2008
Auckland, New Zealand - Santiago, Chile

Santiago, Chile - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sao Paulo, Brazil - Lima, Peru
Lima, Peru - Mexico City, Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico - Dallas, Texas, US
Dallas, Texas, US - Vancouver, Canada
Vancouver, Canada - New York City, New York, US
New York City, New York, US - Miami, Florida, US
Miami, Florida, US - San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico - Madrid, Spain
Madrid, Spain -> London, England
London, England - Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Hong Kong City, Hong Kong
Hong Kong City, Hong Kong - Mumbai (Bombay), India
Mumbai (Bombay), India - Bangkok, Thailand
Bangkok, Thailand - Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo, Japan - Bali, Indonesia
Bali, Indonesia - Perth, Australia
Perth, Australia - Brisbane, Australia

1 April, 2009
Brisbane, Australia - Auckland, New Zealand

Preparation for the trip

Well the preparation for the trip could have gone better but it's been an experience in itself. Who would have thought that in New Zealand of all developed places you cannot find a power adaptor that is NZ to universal.. They only seem to sell wherever in the world to NZ. So that's a little hick up. (umm maybe I should import some and sell them, I bet ya I might be rich) oh well that's obviously not going to happen now given that all of you know about my secret plan.. Anyway.. Enough of my ranting, on to the apologizing. So I am truly sorry if I didn't get to meet up with the ones of you that I was meant to.. I have been extremely busy with work right up until 4 days before I left and then I was packing and sorting stuff out like accommodation. Alas if you do get time and don't hate me forever you could send me your address and I will try my best to send you a postcard from wherever I am around the world. So if you're ever thinking about going away on holiday for as long as I'm be better prepared than I am. Currently my pack is 22 kgs and it's full of stuff. I'm quite prepared in the emergency medical department given that I have almost everything from an ER. A full first-aid kit kindly donated by a dear friend of mine, which seriously is taken up half my pack but still, you can never be too cautious. Other things that are in my pack. Well more medical related stuff. I have a box of medication like seriously large box of medication which the doctors at uni prescribed me which includes 4 kinds of diarrhea medication, itch cream, malaria tablets, hydration packs, pain killers and much much more. I have a sleeping bag, can opener, and toiletries. The clothes I have is pretty good. They should be what I need. One thing I will mention is that in hind sight I might have sold my dignity for a t-shirt hey but it's a chance for my 15 minutes of fame right. I got a T-shirt from bFM for free in exchange for taking photos of myself around the world with it. Which should be quite cool I rekon given that I went to the university that it's broadcasting from and work for the association that owns them I guess I'm only helping them out. Apart from that the preparation for the trip is just basically looking online for cool stuff to see and do. Actually this might be the right time to open up this call to all the people who read this blog. If you have any suggestions of what I should do around the world email me so I can see if I can do it. And I think I have ranted enough tonight, there will most probably be another post tomorrow before I leave at 6.30pm NZ time. Oh one last thing. I can't believe it I'm going to arrive in Chile before I leave NZ it's crazy I love it.. Now why didn't I go on my birthday???