Eva and Les

Thursday 13th May 2010 pre-Spain

2010-05-13T11:49:00.000+10:00

Just seeing if I can edit stuff to the blog OK. Well, of course it has all changed now and it is a Google thing (isn't everything these days??). Just about packed all my stuff, deciding to take a backpack and keeping the weight down to less than 15kg, which isn't bad for 3 months away!

I hear there are still problems with the Iclandic Volcano (apart from pronounciation issues) so I may have fun wandering about Heathrow!

Well, that's it for now, hopefully the next post will see me on the way.

4th April Queen of Galapagos Cruise

2008-04-21T18:50:00.010+10:00

This was a fantastic 8 day boat cruise on a luxury class motor catamaran that has a maximum of 16 passengers, and about 10 crew. We arrived on board at about 12:45am, along with an English couple, Jan and John, who had been travelling about 4 months – others would join us later. We knew the boat would be a hit with Eva, when we were told that we’d have to take our shoes off before going to the inside areas! The boat really was fantastic, and I’d recommend Galasam and the Queen of Galapagos to anyone. There were 3 decks with chairs and shade on 2 of them, as well as an air-conditioned lounge and dining area. Our cabin was HUGE, about 3.5m square, with two beds, two small tables and a full length and width opening tinted window by the side of Eva’s bed. It had an additional large ensuite with a bath that had full length/width window, so that when you had a shower, you just looked out to sea! It was the best shower placement I have ever been it.
We soon met some of the other people we were going to be part of – Robin and Clive from Colorado, their daughter Jaye and husband Jason, Jonathon from Los Angeles and Marcus and Pam from Sydney. There were others, but I didn’t note down their names (sorry). Marcus and Pam were with us for 4 days but the others were there the whole 8. Later we were joined by some young people from Switzerland. It was a great group.
Basically, each evening we were given a briefing by our guide, Rafael, for about 20mins to tell us what we were doing the next day. Each day consisted of 3 meals on the boat at set times (7am, noon, 7pm), usually two times for snorkelling for about an hour in the water, and two times that we landed to go for short walks and look at wildlife. This left some time for relaxing/reading/drinking on board as well. It was a good formula, and we were tired at the end of each day.
We really enjoyed the snorkelling, as we saw very many sea lions and fur seals as well as penguins, sharks, many fish, star-fish, octopus, stingrays, turtles and elephants (OK, no elephants – just checking you’re reading this). We were amazed at how the animals on land, be they birds or mammals, did not seem disturbed by our presence, and allowed us to get very close to them. Actually we didn’t get closer, just because we were asked to stay 1m away. We saw so many things – nocturnal feeding gulls that had a big red ring around their eyes, huge albatrosses that had just started coming back to the islands to nest the previous week. We saw blue-footed boobies whose feet change to blue when they become adult. We saw the juveniles playing with sticks to practice turning fish around in their beak. Lots of red crabs, marine iguanas, and the more coloured land iguanas that varied from island to island as well as giant tortoises. We saw Darwin finches, inquisitive mocking birds, herons, hawks, pink flamingos and a red beaked something. We saw the dark coloured male frigate bird with its inflated red throat pouch successfully attracting females. We saw doves and bright white masked boobies and probably more too, but I can’t remember. There were lots of lava lizards that are about 10-15cm long and are various colours on the different islands. The vegetation in the different islands varied from grey lava flows with very little vegetation, through to cactus covered landscapes with grasses and small trees and bushes. There were flowers too in some parts. It was always hot and only rained once when we were on land. Most of the walking was slow and not very far – the main purpose was to look at the animals and birds. Rafael was good at explaining it all to us.
We did enjoy seeing some of the rocky outcrops of the islands. The strange erect penis of Bartolome Is, and the walk up to the lighthouse, passing small craters that looked frozen in mid eruption with a wonderful view from the top. Jason worked on his fitness as he ran up and down twice in the heat and humidity. The beaches were all lovely sand and often inhabited by very many sea lions – some just lying like lumps in the sand, others were rolling about, scratching themselves or feeding their young.
The boat rocked about quite a bit, even when we were at anchor, but more so when it travelled overnight to another island. The trips were from 5 to 10 hours, and it was hard to sleep sometimes – even hard to stay in bed without seatbelts! We are definitely NOT sea people, but although we felt a bit queasy at times, we were not sick at all.
We went to Post Office Bay where there has been a barrel that people leave notes in for others to pick up, or to take and hand deliver to someone nearby their home. We left a postcard for Chris and Beck there.
The islands we visited were:
Santa Cruz (Puerto Ayora)North SeymourSantiago Is, Sullivan’s BayBartoloméSan ChristobalLas PlazasEspañolaFloreanaSantiago
I think the best part of the Galapagos Islands is just being around such a variety of wildlife in beautiful, clear waters when it is warm and relaxing.
Some of the others were going to Isabella Island to where the more active volcanos are and they have larger iguanas. We would have loved to do that, but then again there is always more...we have to leave that for next time, knowing that there will probably not be a next time, as there are so many other places to see.

1st April - Puerto Ayora, Galapagos

2008-04-21T17:39:00.003+10:00

Puerto Ayora, Galapagos
Day 1
We had to get up at 4:45am in Quito in order to get to our flight to Galapagos Islands, which is about 1300km east of Quito and is part of Ecuador. Quito was quite cold (around 10 degrees C), despite it being pretty well on the equator, its height of nearly 3000m and cloudy/rainy conditions when we were there, made it quite cold.
We had to fly via Guayaquil, an hour’s flight south, where we had to stay in the plane for an hour while they tested the cold cycle on the aircon. Not fun, even if it WAS April Fool’s Day!
About an hour later, we landed at Baltra, which is a small island just to the north of the island of Santa Cruz. Our hotel was on the south side of Santa Cruz, some 42km away. We could not find anyone who spoke English, and I was happy to use Spanish to find out that we had to pile into free busses that took us to where there were flat-topped boats waiting to take us over the short stretch of water to then get a bus or taxi to the south of Santa Cruz. Our luggage was placed on the roof of the boat (I did watch for falling luggage on the way) and we decided to get a taxi for $15 rather than a bus. Ecuador uses the US dollar as their currency, using the actual US notes – quite a surprise for us.
We managed to get out luggage inside the pickup truck “taxi” before the rain started on the way down. It was very warm, so the rain was welcome, and we were to discover it was typical this time of the year to get a bit of rain (1 to 2 hours) around lunchtime.
We stayed at a hotel called the Red Mangrove, which was towards the Charles Darwin Research Station end of town. It was right on the water, and we had a beautiful room, looking out to the water on the first floor. We had a huge balcony and a private staircase to our room. We sat and watched the blue-footed boobies circling about 50 to 80m high above the water, and then they’d dive in (up to 3m deep we found out) to catch fish. There were tons of pelicans and also iguanas on the deck of the hotel. There was a seal sitting on a boat a few meters from shore.
We went for a walk in the rain and found maps and some things we could do for 3 days before our boat cruise. Puerto Ayora is a nice town; there are lots of tourist shops (T-shirts, books, souvenirs etc) and also lots of bars and restaurants. We borrowed pushbikes to explore and ended up going for a swim at a small beach not far from our hotel. The water was very clear and refreshing, with an occasional cold current being welcome.
There are a lot of black and brown volcanic rocks and many cactus plants around. It was a very different environment. That night we had a nice meal (and cocktails) at the hotel and went to sleep to the sounds of the sea, with all our huge windows open.
Day 2
We slept in this day! At last! The sky was blue and the day warm, so after breakfast we headed to Tortuga Bay. You walk just out of town and through gates that close at 5pm, then a 30 minute (hot) walk along a paved path past lots of cactuses, birds and small lava lizards, to a beautiful surf beach, that we were told is dangerous to swim in. We walked another 30 mins along the beach to a protected beach that was not as nice and had lots of biting flies, so we returned to the surf beach and had a great swim there.
On the way back to town, Eva had a swim at a lake called Laguna las Ninfas, but there were biting things there too. Nice water though.
We then got a water taxi from the main pier to go to Finch Bay, and had a nice lunch at the modern hotel there, before continuing on to a gorge called Las Grietas, where we had a great swim in the cool, clear water. It was a nice walk to get there too (sometimes a bit smelly) over rich red/brown volcanic rocks.
Went to dinner at La Garrapata, sitting outside at tables on black loose stones. The fish was really nice, and we noticed that often restaurants don’t specify the type of fish they serve, I guess they serve whatever came in that day!
Day 3
I got up early and read a book in our private cupola on our balcony, sitting on soft mats, looking out at the birds in the sky, boats on the water and iguanas on the dock. I then went for a bike ride and got some supplies, while Eva had a rest (hard life this holiday thing).
It rained for a couple of hours, and was unusually heavy, so much so that parts of our hotel were flooded.
We visited the Charles Darwin Centre to see the tortoise breeding program and some giant ones before then going for a swim.
We found a “design your own” t-shirt place, where you could place tortoise, bird, and dolphin iron on patches yourself – good idea, and we bought a couple.
It had been a relaxing few days where we had acclimatised to Galapagos, and were now ready to explore further afield by boat.

Inca Trail 26 March to 29 March 2008

2008-04-01T04:50:00.003+11:00

WOW! It really is very hard to know what to write. I must admit, I was expecting it to be a bit of a walk, some difficult bits, not much to see but ruins with Macchu Picchu as the big prize at the end that I wasn´t really interested in.

Well, I was wrong on most of that!

The walk is amazing, especially as we were lucky to have fine weather all the way. There are outstanding views of mountains, rivers, forests, birds, more flowers than you can shake a western australian at, and different sorts of ruins along the way.

Our walk was made so much better by our guide, Alvaro, who knew all the official stuff, but added his own interpretations to things, that often sounded more plausible than people like Hiram Bingham who exposed Macchu Picchu (MP) to the outside. I must admit I built up a probably unfair picture of Hiram Bingham as an arrogant thief. More research needed.

Not much of the walk was all that hard (as you said Chris) but the last 400m up Dead Woman´s Pass was difficult - more below.

Day 1 - Bus to start and about 12km walk.
The bus was interesting as it climbed up the hills of Cusco and we could see what life was like at 7am with school kids already going to school. Then we descended into a valley passed the town of Uramba (?) where they grow lots of crops and seems like quite a big place. Basically were were going in to the Sacred Valley, and we were glad we had not done tours there from Cusco, as then we´d just be going a second time! Further on to Ollantaytambo which is a small place with a lovely central square and very narrow streets off it and Inca ruins on the surrounding nearby hills. We didn´t visit the ruins but Alvaro told us about them and what they probably were. After that we went along a VERY narrow road, heading for the start of the track at km82. This road was so narrow that often the bus had to backup for ages to let another bus or car or truck pass coming the other way. Finally we arrived, got water, took photos, and headed off over the train line and the bridge over the Urumbaba River to the start of the track. Alvaro stopped on the other side and talked to us about several of the plants and how they were used for various natural medicines, and finally we started walking.
There were many cactuses, usually of the ear-shaped type, with orange prickly pear fruit, which we tried down the track - and SO many flowers of different types and colours. The track was a bit up and down but fairly easy. At regular intervals along the way we passed villages, of maybe only a few houses, where they sold water, lollies and other things, but would only take coins. Alvaro knew all the names of the plants and flowers and what they were used for (if anything). He had been guiding for 10 years, and often does back-to-back trips (his poor knees and back).
We were carrying a day pack, I think Eva´s weighed 3kg and mine 6.5kg (a lot of both was water). The rest of our stuff, all the food, tents, sleeping bags, mats, gas bottles etc was carried by porters. The were unbelievable and now that they were regulated were limited to 30kg each. From behind they looked like a load on short legs. They often preferred to wear sandals (so they said) and usually just bundled all the stuff into a blanket thing and carried it on their backs. As if THAT wasn´t amazing enough, when it came to downhill they usually ran. When it came to uphill they were always faster than anybody.
Our first campsite was at Wayllabamba in a small grassy area behind a mud brick low walled structure. There was a toilet there as well.
Our group was a group of 4, but in the evening we shared with another group of 11 or so that we ate with and camped with, and ideal combination.
The food was 4 star, really. Lots of meat, veggies, rice, soup, salad, dessert, tea coffee. When we would arrive at camp there were washing bowls with soap for each of us and a smiling porter to give us a towel to wipe our hands. There was more food than you could stuff into a hungry Ben and each breakfast, lunch and dinner was innovative and different. So good.
Along the track Alvaro told us lots of things, saying the Inca Trail was used by important people only and there were other tracks for townsfolk. I cannot remember the names of all the places but at one point we came over a grassy knoll and there below us nestled in the curve of the river was a lovely looking ruin with its terraces that housed about 150 people (Llactapata?).
We also stopped in a farmhouse and saw guinea pigs running around in the kitchen (they really are dumb animals) with chooks in the yard and kitchen too.
As the evening got darker, sitting in our tent we looked down a classic v shaped green valley with snow capped mountains in the distance slowly being consumed by high cloud, and we thought, yes, this was a good thing to do.

Day 2 - Dead Womans Pass
This was to be the hardest day, and I guess it was, but not too bad. We woke at 5:15am as it was better to walk in the cool, and we were formally introduced to the porters before breakfast. Oh yes, the wakeup method is to bring around boiling water, a selection of teas (coffee, choc) to get you going. This day was difficult due to the steep climb up and steep descent, but more because the pass is at 4200m and you start from about 3000m, then you have the descent to about 3600m after.
We finally got going at 7:15am when you go through a checkpoint (5 mins from camp) and we each walked at our own pace as some people need to rest at different points. The walk usually takes between 3 and 5 hours we were told. It rises slowly at first through some forest, following a river, then into more dense forest before coming out above the tree line I suppose and keeps going up, up (but not away). There were many people on the track, but many were resting, and regularly you had to make way for the porters who were faster than anyone and carrying a heavy load. We saw many flowers and mosses and a couple of hummingbirds.
Eva liked to take a couple of short breaks, but I only stopped to regain my breath (closer to the top) as I find if I take a break, my muscles refuse to start up again! We did the walk together though, and only at one point did I wait for Eva as I wanted to point out the snow capped mountains behind us. It was strange that at the beginning Eva found it hard to get going and at the end (the last 400m) she was VERY strong and I was getting stuffed. It is the only part of the walk that I have sweated as much as an hour long hard squash game. The trail surface varied from uneven rocks, uneven steps (some very big) to smooth dirt (not much of that). I usually walked zig-zag up, looking for the lowest point in the step to go up.
We made it up to Dead womans pass in 2 and three quarters hours - not a race, but it was more than an hour before another of our extended group got there. It was quite cold up there, and we gave an offering to the mountain of 3 coca leaves and three stones that we´d carried from camp. We stayed about 30 mins looking at the view and the others struggling to get up. The view was spectacular, and I hope I´ll get to put up some photos soon to show you.

After eating some of our scroggin, we headed down the steep descent towards our camp at Pacaymayu - the best campsite of the trail. We took it VERY slow, not so much because of my knees which were pretty stuffed, but because there were SO many flowers! Also, we´d stop and watch as the porters came down, running from rock to rock. I just could not believe it!

We arrived in camp at 11:45, and it would be over 2 hours before the next of our extended group did, and 4 hours before we were all together. The campsites cater for about 150 people and this one was on a small river and was on different levels. Our tents were setup at the lowest level, and while lying in the tent we looked out to a beautiful valley that had clouds swirling up to the very high mountains at the back. The scene would change every 5 mins, and it was so peaceful there, especially early on when there were hardly any people there.

When we arrived, we were pretty stuffed, and just lay in our tent for a few mins to relax, and a porter brought us a refreshing drink - they are SO good (have I told you that?). We saw so many birds, washed a bit in one of the smaller streams and relaxed. At night after the again amazing 5 star dinner, we came out and saw the milky way and so many stars on the moonless night. It was a strange feeling being in a "foreign" place and seeing the southern cross!

That night the snoring in the next door tent did not disturb us as we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the stream and the scream of our muscles.

Day 3 - long day but easy
Today was to be a long day but not too much climbing as we went though another pass but much lower than Dead Woman. Starting at 6am for wakeup TIT (tea in tent) to have breakfast and walk 18km with a rise of 200m, fall of 200m, slight rise then a descent of 1000m and lots of Inca ruins along the way. We saw messenger way-stations as well as ceremonial places, water temples where the water is channelled to where they want it, many trapezoidal niches for idols or mummies and a path that lead into the jungle to where the Incas went when they abandoned Macchu Picchu. It was interesting, and informative. We saw many orchids and a lake as well. It was a good day but it was long. We passed through a cool damp bamboo forest with lots of mosses and orchids. I think we really liked the forested bits, and the mountain views best. Alvaro told us lots of history about the Incas, the Quechuans, the Spanish invaders and more. It was all very interesting, but I have not retained very much of it (a lot is in my diary, and maybe one day I´ll read more, but I doubt it).
At the end of this day my knees were really stuffed as I knew they would be going downhill that much. It was fun watching the porters again too.
The last campsite had a brick building and music, hot showers, lights, beer, strippers, shops (OK, not strippers). We didn´t like it much, and preferred the camping in the wild, but the hot shower was good.

Day 4 Sun Gate.
The Sun Gate is a small collection of Inca ruins (like a few walls) that sits on a ridge and at the winter solstice, the sun rises here and shines through a window in the Sun Temple in Macchu Picchu itself.
We woke at 3:40am (no TIT this morning), packed bags, got ready, had breakfast and went to line up at 5am at the control point that opens at 5:30, so we could be one of the early groups to walk the 2 hours or so to the sun gate and get the first view of MP. Our group was running a bit late, but we got going at 5:45. The track is fairly narrow and daylight was just starting and it was not possible to overtake people, but by not having a rest, we eventually got very near the front. There were some very steep stairs, but mainly it was a pretty even path. I was still waking up, but did see some ferns, mosses, flowers on the way.
Again the day was clear and when we got to the Sun Gate it was a thrill to see MP below us - I didn´t think it would be. Within 5 or 10 mins of getting there, the fog rose and you could not see anything! Then 10 mins later it was clear again. Amazing.
We walked 1 or 2 hours (can´t remember) to MP and Alvaro took us on a 2 hour tour of the site. I won´t try to reproduce it here but it was very interesting, esp. his (and others) theories that the many terraces there were not for food, but were for gardens. When Bingham arrived in 1911, lead by local farmers, there were people living there as farmers and growing crops. As a side, when he "discovered" the sun temple, there was a note on a rock from a Peruvian explorer some few years earlier - but Yale still has the treasures.
The weather changed to the worse in the mid-morning, so we did not climb the small hill behind MP called Waynapicchu, but went back into town (Aguas Calientes) and relaxed.
We climbed Waynapicchu and went over the top to the temple of the moon and grand cave, but that´s for next time.

Cusco - 24 Mar 2008

2008-04-01T04:09:00.004+11:00

I've fallen so far behind in updating notes, so its fortunate I have my diary to refer to to help my slackness.
We took our diamox tabs in the morning but when we arrived at 3600m of Cusco, we felt quite out of breath but only slight dizziness soon after getting off the plane. We were met by representatives of Condor Travel (the agents for Adventure World who we book with) and time and again throughout our stay they were really excellent, reliable, informative, friendly and more than head-and-shoulders above any other similar organisation we have been involved with. Go Condor!
Anyhow, I was not really sure what to expect with Cusco, I thought it was a small place in the mountains, but it has 300,000+ people and many of the houses have terracotta roofs and brick or mud-brick walls and it has a Tuscan feel to the look. There are a number of squares with trees and open spaces and in the city area, lots of touts and people selling stuff. The first day we decided to not do much, to "acclimatize" so we rested in our lovely hotel (The Picoaga), but couldn´t resist walking to the main square and looking at the Cathedral from the outside - quite an impressive building, built by the Spaniards after they destroyed the Quechua religious building that was there before. There are many traditionally dressed people, some women carrying babies in the colourful large blanket-like things on their backs, others pulling a llama (pay for photo). The touts were persistent, but quiet and respectful. It was a little weird.

We went to markets to buy some snacks and to a restaurant where I managed to chat with the waiter in Spanish a bit - much easier than in Argentina or Chile.

We were really spoiled at the smorgasbord breakfast with heaps of fruit, lots of coca tea (which is supposed to be good for altitude sickness, stomach ailments and probably many other things) and there was even the chef to make omelets to order.

Eva had heard of a statue called "Sexy Woman" and we wanted to track that down, even though we had never seen it in any guide books. So, at the shop at the hotel, when we were buying stamps, Eva asked the young lad, "Can you tell us where is the sexy woman". He knew straight away and Eva was ecstatic!
Unfortunately it was off the city map we had and very highup as we had to go up steep stairs etc, but he drew a rough guide and we set off - after all, a promise of a sexy woman is enough to get me going too! We got to a church most of the way up, and I asked a policeman, in Spanish, if he knew where was the sexy lady? He looked a little puzzled for 2 secs and then said, "Yes Saxy Wooman just up the street 20 minutes". So we huffed and puffed up further, having walked quite a way, and there it was! Unfortunately, it wasn't spelled Sexy Woman, but Saysachuaman, and pronounced "Saxy Woman" and it was an Inca Ruin!! We laughed SO hard, and I took a photo of Eva next to the sign, so I'd have two sexy womans in the one picture! On one of the highest hills around Cusco there is a big white statue of Christ looking over the town, and now we were higher than it! We paid 20 Soles ($10) for an excellent guide that took us through all the buildings and showed us stuff we would never have found (including a really cool pitch black narrow tunnel that we went down, that the Incas used to control water to an artificial lake. By the time we came back I was exhausted, and crashed in bed - so much for taking it easy!

We did lots of other stuff in Cusco - the Inca museum is really cool, with many explanations showing the different tribes over time and the tools and utensils they used. Very informative and well laid out. I normally last 30 mins, but we stayed over an hour.

Went to the Cathedral, and lasted 20 mins. So much money on religion. The thing I liked was a religious structure that used to be pulled along on parades by people, then horses and now had a cloth covered inbuilt car! No photos allowed inside, so I took a couple. We decided 1 church in 2 months is about our limit.

We also went to Alpaca factory outlet (actually just a factory), many other shops, cafes restaurants. I didn't eat guinea pig, Eva didn't either, as she said she didn't really like them alive OR cooked! BUT, I do like the alpacas, well, when I say I like them, I couldn't eat a whole one so I just had a few steaks! And it doesn't really taste like chicken, it tastes like, well....hard to say....sort of....cute. Hehe. No it did taste nice, not gamey and was tender.

We have also had some Pisco sours but not much wine. I let the side down, and bought two T-shirts. I´d been surviving on just 2 T-shirts for 5 weeks and doing well, but now I have more.

At a restaurant Eva wanted a shandy - we knew there was no use ordering one, so we ordered a beer and a lemonade. Beer came straight away and the lemonade was taking ages. Finally it arrived in a tall, fancy cocktail glass and it was delicious old-fashioned lemonade, made with lime. No way that was going in a beer!

Met our wonderful Inca Trail guide, who comes from a farming family in the hills, as the next morning at 6:30am we were being picked up to go on the Inca Trail, but that´s in the next chapter!

Hasta Luego.

Iguazu Falls

2008-03-23T03:52:00.006+11:00

Ain´t it a bitch when you press "Publish" and you lose your hour´s worth of typing? Oh well, we go straight to the second edition folks! I really was not sure what to expect about Igazu Falls, I mean I knew there were falls there, and that you could see them from Argentina and also from Brazil, but beyond that I was not sure.We arrived at the airport and were very pleased to see Dani, our guide from Adventure World, waiting with our names. We are realising that tour companies in Australia just sub-contract to people or companies over here - not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn´t make it cheaper or give more money to the locals.Anyhow, Dani was great as she shepherded us through the Arg. and Brazillian borders and the National Park entrance. Its really a big place (supposedly 300,000 people, but that may be a translation error) and goes back over 70 years on the Brazil side. It was so good not having to queue up and find out what to do.I really wanted to go for a tour of the Arg. side (as we were staying on the Brazillian side) today, so we´d know if we wanted to go back, but I realised that it just didn´t make sense with all the border crossings and palava.Our hotel at Das Cataratas was really nice. It took about 3/4 hour to drive there from the airport (like I said a big place) and it was an old world kind of resort place, quite tastefully designed as a low 2 storey hotel with everyone helpful, friendly and smiling, but genuinely so. We put bags into the room, wondered how we were going to sleep on a bed that challenged concrete in hardness, and headed out to see the falls.I must say that when we first saw the falls, we thought, oh yes, they are falls, how nice - but we were not blown away by them. More was to come!We walked along a really nice walkway with about 500 steps and 1km long (maybe longer) that was tastefully set into the hill that was one side of the river valley. There were some people, but it was not overly crowded. The attraction of the falls is how wide spread they are and on how many levels. Some fall from the "top" to the river below, and some fall from the top, part way, then feed many other falls that fall eventually to the fast flowing river. Some falls have lots of water and some have a little, but it is the combination of it all that is spectactular.The falls are higher than Niagra and the river flow is less. We were told there is more water in winter, but there was pleanty enough for us!As we walked along we were adopted by a Brazillian guide who chatted to us and took photos - he was so much fun, he even laughed at my jokes! (OK, I know that means he had no sense of humour, but it was fun).As we walked along there were lookouts that went further to the side of the cliff to see falls, but the most spectacular was when we neared the end towards the Devil´s Throat falls, with it masses of water - unbelievable. They had built out a platform on the flat part at the top that went out maybe 100m to the edge of the chasm. All the way along there were huge falls, pounding their water down to run past the bright green islands of grass near our platform, and crash down the cliff on the other side of our platform. At that time of the day the sun was behind us, and the rainbow was small, but added a nice touch.We looked along to the actual Devil´s Throat and could see only the top part of the falls as there was so much spray. We were covered in fine (and not so fine) mist, and it was a nice relief to the 30 degrees and high humidity that we were in.We were very plesantly surprised when at 6pm the Park ranger said the last bus was going and we had to leave as they close the park. We could stay of course as we were in the hotel that is in the park, but it was so nice when we were really the only people on the whole platform (OK, there WAS another person), and the walk back alone was really special.We found a really nice wooen walkway through the jungle that we followed - it would NOT have been possible to build this in Oz as it was very steep (people might slip) had few railings (people might sue) but it was just perfect. We saw lots of lizards from 2 to 15cm long and many butterflies. When we walked back we were treated to a magnificent sunset over some of the falls. It was very relaxing!We had dinner in the hotel at the really nice pool (my teperature, like warm soup) as they had a HUGE smorgesbord with lots of salads and a really large grill area that offered about 10 different kinds of meat - the ribs being really huge.Desserts! They had tons of froots as well as cakes.There was no lady with the breakfast tray that came at 8am like in BA, so we slept in, but made it to the breakfast which was just as well, as there was an equivalent smorgesbord there too! More froots than you could shake a Rudi at and cakes that were too tempting to resist.We decided today to go to a boat ride, that we had booked with a really friendly travel person in the hotel - he just wanted to chat and show us his big smile.There are free busses that do the 10km or so run through the park and also go to the start points for various activities along the way. They have aircon bottoms and open sided tops.Our boat trip consisted of going on an electric vehicle thru the forest, while a tri-lingual guide explained the fauna and flora. We saw a monkey, but it was little more that branch movements. After that we walked a bit on a track thru the bush, and that was really nice, before bording our 20-30 seater boat. We had life vests on, and armed with my wateproof camera we were off. A bright blue butterfly had taken time to visit on my hand, but flew off as we started.It was SO much fun, bumping along through the rapids, heading upriver to various falls along the way. The man at the front kept putting on more and more wet weather gear, and when he finally pulled on a hood we knew it was going to get wet. We drove under one of the falls, and it was fantastic! Now we knew why some people had taken off their shirts (not Eva).Through the mist, spray and water we could see up to the balconies/lookouts that we were at the day before. It was so different looking at the falls from below, and was a nice change. We were very happy afterwards.We´d planned to go to the bird sanctuary, just outside the Nat Park, but we´d forgotten the slip of paper to show we´d already paid entrance, so we went back to the hotel to laze by the pool and have cocktails (its a hard life, but someone has to do it).Dinner was the same, with us prefering not to go to the more formal dining room. The same trio of ever-smiling musicians came by to play for the diners. The food was different in many ways, giving us quite a bit of confidence that the food was freshly prepared.We visited the tower at the hotel, which goes up another few levels to see the sunset over the falls to the west and the rising full moon to the east.Previously we´d gone on another walk to the end of the falls, and although there were more people that yesterday, it was very pleasant.Last day, we were picked up by Dani after another amazing breakfast, and went to the Arg. side. It was quite a drive and palava at borders etc, but we finally arrived in the Arg Nat Park (more fees of course), and we had to catch a train - a small electric thing with open sides that went thru the jungle. There were queues and more people than we´d seen. The train went quite slowly and was plesant, but when we arrived at the next station and were told we needed to catch another train and we wouldnt fit on the next one, I suggested we walk the 30 mins to the end. It was OK doing that as we walked next to the train line, and I had fun as the first train passed us, trying to hitch a ride. It got lots of laughter, cheers and comments from the passengers. We were all having a great time. We arrived before the second train, so it was a good call.People people everywhere! The Arg side follows a longer walk on a metal platform that goes over the river side quite a distance from the falls. There were many more butterfiles and we saw a crocodile (missed the photo) and it was nice looking at the fast flowing shallow river.The Devil´s Throat falls at the end were simply amazing. There was so much water, noise and spray - you could feel the power. The only annoying thing was there were touts there trying to take commercial photos and getting you to move away from the edge so they had a clean target. There was enough room though and we stayed there a while, a lot closer to this mass of water than on the Brazillian side.We went to some more falls on another track and it was good to visit them to put the picture of the whole area in our minds.We were sad to say goodbye to this place as we headed to the airport, and would have been happy staying another few days.Next was our 3 hour wait, 4 hour flight to Lima, overnight then to Cuzco.More walking - our bodies miss it!Hasta Luego!

Buenos Aires

2008-03-22T05:28:00.003+11:00

I´ve added some photos below for W-Trek, Perito Moreno and Fitz Roy, so scroll down if you haven´t seen them yet.
Buenos Aires is an interesting city. It took us a few days to warm up to it and to orient ourselves and feel just a little bit at home. We started to look around on a Sunday, which gave us a very different view. The streets are dirty with papers and dog poo, and because it was Sunday, not too much was open. When it came to Monday, and the rest of our time, the city took on much more character as there were shops open, people walking about and, well, character.
We walked or caught taxis everywhere as they were easy to get and quite cheap - usually about $AUS5 a trip.
On Sunday we went to the San Telmo markets which stretch over several blocks and consist of jewelry, knick-knacks, paintings, clothes and much more, as well as buskers playing music or dancing tango. It was somewhat remeniscent of Mont Matre in Paris, but MUCH bigger and even more crowded. We had a drink at Bar Dorrigo in the main square and did some people watching.
We then headed to Palermo Viejo, which we liked much more as many streets were tree lined and it seemed to have more cafes and bars open and still retain the character of cobble-stoned streets that San Telmo had. We tried to get into a really cool place, Olsen, a Scandanavian bar/cafe set in a garden, but it was full and we got sick of waiting at the bar, so we went around the corner to another garden cafe at Home Hotel. It was fun cafe hopping, but Eva tells me I´m eating too much, and she´s right.
We walked a lot after that, going through the botanic gardens past the japanese gardens (too crowded to go in) and along the embassy strip. Unfortunately it was here that there was an attempt to pick-pocket us. There were two women, and unknown to us one squirted brown liquid on our back and head as we walked under trees, and then ran over to help us clean up, using tissues around our pockets and backpack. Eva twigged to it before me, and as soon as we shooed them off they got into the taxi waiting a few meters away with another guy inside! At least they didn´t get anything, and we were even more careful from then on.
Next day we visited the Recoleta Cemetry, which is quite an experience as you walk past these huge crypts, many of which have a downstairs area (private) for more bods. We did the touristy bit and found Eva Peron´s grave and then wandered about as it was quite peaceful inside.
We walked to a really cool bookshop that was a renovated (or remodelated as a later tour guide would say) very classy theatre, complete with stage and three storeys of opera boxes. Just down the road we went to a great Volta place. Volta is a chain that serves ice-cream (not as good as Pompeii in Bondi) chocolates and coffee/cake. And yes, I did eat more there - a magnificent berry tart, and of course I just had to try the ice-cream (but threw half of it out as I was full).
Eva then went to a shopping mall for a short while and I wnet to a wine-store chain called Winery and had a tasting of 5 Argentinian wines. I liked the cheapest one.
That night we went ot see a Tango show at a famous cafe called Tortoni, the oldest in Buenos Aires. It was a classy place, lots of photos of famous people on the walls and chandeliers, nice floors and tables. We had dinner there and then were ushered in to the very small theatre to see the show, and had front row seats. The performance was amazing. The music, singing and dancing were fantastic. We shared a table with two young people (one from Spain and the other from Poland) and had a fantastic time. Another night we went to see a second Tango show at Viejo Almacen, and we were near the stage but had poor seats, and it was not nearly as good, even though it was longer and 3 times the price! It was still good though.
Next day we went on a city tour (good suggestion Marta and Kurt) and for nearly 4 hours we travelled to various areas by bus and heard statistics and tales from our informative and enthusiastic young guide. We had been to some places, but others, like La Boca we had not. Boca is where the Bca Junious come from (the team Diego Maradona played for) and it was fun to see the field, but an MCG it is not. The very tourisy area nearby has been remodolated (can´t stop saying that now) to be an open air museum of the multi-coloured houses of the immigrants who came sometime in the past (cannot remember that stat).
We got off on the way home at another shopping mall and pedestrian walkway to check out that area, but soon got sick of the crowds, so we headed for a bar called Milion, set in a multi-stoey house with a garden at the botton and had a coffee there. That night we had a fantastic dinner at Oviedo, not far from our hotel. They had a fantastic wine list and the food was amazing - one of our best meals (I had lamb, Eva had fish), with a dessert of floating islands in creme anglaise. Yum! Did I mention....yum!
Each day we got up at 7:30 as a breakfast tray was brought to our room at 8am. It was a great way to ensure we started the day early. On our last full day we walked about 4 or 5 km to Peurto Madero (another area in BsAs) which is a remodelated port area, and quite tastefully done. We walked on the cooler side of the buildings in front of the water and strolled along in the peace. We stopped for afternoon tea at Cabana Las Lilas, a well know tourist-trap but excellent food place, and had a nice front row seat to watch people go by. I wanted to try the grill so had little chorizo sausages that looked like dog droppings, but tasted nice. Very swish place, but the waiters were pushy and service slow. I noticed they had a Ben sized steak of 800gm (entree size for you Ben).
We had a walk on the Womens bridge (Puente de la mujer) a US$6M bridge built so you can walk over from the Hilton hotel on the other side. A lot of the streets in this area are named after women who fought for equality in Argentina.
That night we didn´t eat but went out to Viejo Almacen, but I´ve covered that above. I really like the tango and the music and singing that goes with it.
That was about it in BsAs. After a while we were getting around so well with walking. There are many narrow one-way streets, like in New York, and it is easy for pedestrians. No pushing of buttons for the lights, you just wait. The cars use the lane lines to indicate roughly where the road is, and I think the taxi drivers train in Rome, but they all respect traffic lights (but NOT pedestrian crossings). There are street signs on most corners that tell you which way the one-way goes and also what numbers of houses/shops are in that block. We saw many dog-walkers, people who are paid to take 10-15 dogs on leads to walk them for their busy owners.
I wouldn´t have minded another few days in BsAs, but Iguazu Falls were calling.
Hasta luego (hmmm...Í´ll have to brush up on my portuguese - what if I just drink port???).

El Chalten and Mount Fitz Roy

2008-03-15T07:22:00.004+11:00

El Chalten, the town.
We both really loved El Chalten. It is a small town, built in 1985 and now has 700 inhabitants, mostly (all?) geared to tourism, but some is serious climbing as well as the kind of trekking we were doing.
In many ways it seems like a "frontier town" with many small square buildings, many only partially built out of brick blocks (mainly). There are many restaurants and hotels and they are really interesting designs, using lots of wood and different angles and furnishings. Quite a lot of character.
Just across the road from Los Nires (our hotel) is an old small wooden building with half on stilts like a queenslander, and it is a chocolate place that makes the most fantastic, rich but not over-sweet hot chocolate. Inside is old climbing gear and a staircase with a ski as a railing takes you to the small upstairs room where you sit in the sun with views of snow capped mountains to drink the brown hot warming comfort! YES!!

Our walks.
Well, when we arrived after a 4 hour reasonably pleasant bus trip, we were lectured to by a park ranger (Alejandro) with a fantastic sense of humour to tell us the rules (no smoking on the trails, garbage in, garbage out etc etc). It was SO good and he had such passion that I was informed, entertained and moved.
Our first day it when we arrived, it was clear but clouding over, so we walked just 10km in the afternoon to a lovely waterfall just out of town. The waterfall was quite high and we enjoyed being just the 5 of us (Heidi and Paul as well as our fantastic guide Marcelo). Eva chatted to people and I danced about on the rocks and took photos. A lot of the walk was along a dusty 4wd road, but the last part was really nice.

Next day, was more overcast and we had just a spot of rain along the trail, and much of the mountains were not visible. We went on a 7 hour 22km hike to Laguna Torre and back. It was a fair bit of uphill, with views to the valley below and then over flat plain and a little forest to a glacier that we could see and its green coloured lagoon in front. We walked on the moraine and saw the most wonderfully coloured rocks, glistening with the rain. We had lunch on them, and also ate some blue berries and red berries that Marcelo found. They were juicy but not too sweet.

On the way back the weather did not improve, but the forest was lovely with different coloured leaves - more autumn colours here.

The next day we got up to a firey red colour dancing amongst the clouds, that turned golden yellow soon after. Despite my¨"red sky in the morning" sayings, the day cleared up spectacularly! However, as we were walking to the start of the track in the fairly strong wind, we saw the temperature was 6 degrees celcius (or with the wind, minus 2 on the testicle scale!) as we headed for the 13km ascent to Lago de los tres. It was quite an uphill walk, with increasingly better views as we ascended.
We crossed fast flowing rivers, walking in low and high forests and finally got to the really steep bit for 3km. Eva went up with the strength of an elephant and the elegence of a gazelle, and I followed with the strength of a gazelle and the elegence of an elephant. It was REALLY steep, but so worth it. We got to the top and were greeted by Fitz Roy - just there in front of us, and a couple of glaciers with their lakes in front. Marcelo wanted us to go up another hill, which we did, and just as we arrived to another glacier, there was a huge avalance - spectacular. We found some rocks to shelter from the wind and ate there in the sun - staying for ages, with no other people around us. Magic, magic, magic!
The way down ( that was 13km too!) was much harder for my knees, bu the adrenaline pumping through me, generated by the amazing views in all directions kept me going. 26km was quite tiring!

Day 3 - walk to Loma del Pliegue Tumbado.
This was a steady 12km climb of 800m and then a 12km walk back downhill. The day was unbelieveable - NO clouds whatsoever! We walked up behind the town giving us views of the glacial valley to the north with its distant snow covered mountains, the 15om high granite walls next to the town dwarfing the buildings.
We got to a beautiful forest, and walked inside it for 45mins. Marcelo again showed us some bush tucker as we ate "Indian Bread" a white fungus that is on Lenga trees and is about the size of a thumbnail and looks like an apple. Not much taste and rubbery texture.
The views of the mountains were beyond belief. It was SO clear. Chalten was the name orginally given to Mt Fitz Roy and means Smoky Mountain, because there is always a trail of cloud at the top. NOT TODAY!!

Once we left the forest we were above the treeline and walked on broken rocks in a minefield of fossils. I broke open a flat rock a little larger than my hand and covering the whole large surface was a fossil (no, not a picture of me, a real one). It was one of those spiraly shell-like things (tech name: spiraly shell-like things). There were lots of different plants along the way and some pertified wood that had only been discovered in the area a few years back (by Marcelo). We walked on the gently sloping hill, looking toward the mountain as we made our way to the top, where we could see many many peaks as we looked down far below us to Laguna Torre, where we were on the first day, and now we could see what was hidden in cloud before - and MUCH more. All had a light dusting (or more) of snow, and we would have stayed much longer that just the hour it took to have lunch, but we had to go sometime.
On the way back we paused for about 30 mins, just above the treeline to lie in the sun and watch the parrots and other birds near us. Earlier we had seen condors.
This was a most fitting walk on Rudi´s birthday, and we were tired when we got back.

So, that´s really all our walking till we get to the inca trail in a couple of weeks or so. Now we are in El Calafate again and will fly to Buenos Aires tomorrow - what a change that will be.

We will miss the mountains, and the passion and friendship of Marcelo. I thoroughly recommend the Fitz Roy area!

Hasta Luego!

Perito Moreno Glacier

2008-03-11T08:46:00.004+11:00

This is SO much better with pictures, but this computer does not recognize my USB hub to read the photos. Bloody computers!

We got a bus (what a novelty - NOT) for the 90 min, 80km to Perito Moreno glacier. It is huge. About 5.5km wide, some 30km long and walls about 30-60m high.

When we entered the National Park, the landscape changed dramatically. The sparse low vegetation gave way to greenery and trees. This is a result of micro-climate change rather than land clearing, we were told. The glacier is very impressive from the first sight, and more so when we got on a boat for a 30min crossing of the river and getting fairly close to the face of the glacier with its high, white walls of ice all criss-crossed with blue lines where water was making its own way to the green lake in which the ice-face sat. It was cold and windy but very impressive.

Eva had all her layers on, I had 4 and had one to go if needed.

After landing we were taken by guides to the ice, fitted with crampons and went for an ice-trek which was really fun. We passed deep blue holes, some full of water, but you´d not know unless you touched it, the water was so clear.

The guides were fun and allowed us some freedom in wandering about. At the end of the trek we were treated to some scotch on the rocks with a difference. They chipped away chunks of ice from the glacier and put them in glasses and added the golden nectar! What a view to toast from - the blue-white ice peaks behind us, the ice-walkway below with the green lake carpeting the way to the pale brown rocks, green hills and mountains beyond. Magic!

After we went by bus to the north facing wall of the glacier and saw a number of ice-falls, that sounded just like gunshots, and then lots of ice would fall and small icebergs form, one rolling over after it hit the water. There were a number of viewing platforms and not too many people. It was quite an experience, not very much walking but really nice.

We went back to the hotel to pack all our stuff for the bus trip (where have we done that before?) the next day to Chalten and Mt Fitz Roy - a 7am start.

Hasta luego mis amigos!

Torres del Paine - W-Trek

2008-03-10T07:32:00.004+11:00

I'm on a VERY slow connection in El Calafate, so still no piccies - sorry!
We left Bariloche and the plane was on time (amazing!). The people to meet us were 20 mins late (bus trouble), but it all worked out. The hotel room was almost a sauna (nearly 30 degrees with central in-floor heating) and noisy outside. We were SO pumped about getting to Torres del Paine the next day. I'll skip the 5am start,12 hour multi-buses ride (it wasn't a death bus though Ben) and the mega stuffing about at the border to get the the magnificent Torres del Paine NP. We saw it from a distance, with its towering, snow capped mountains and many different coloured lakes. The first, Lago Amarga was a bright lime-green, and we saw 3 pink flamingos fly low over the water in formation. Many guacanos (llama-like creatures) about as well as foxes. If we were pumped before we were bursting now! The bus drove through just about all roads in the park (to orient us) and that was OK, but we were well 'bussed out'!
Our campsite was within sight of Las Torres, three towers rising high in the distance. The weather was still supurb. We got some wine from the nearby refugio, had dinner cooked by Pablo and met our 21 year old very capable Chilean guide, Hector. Actually w´'d met Hector in El Calafate, sorry.
We went to bed, stuffed, at 11pm to get up early 7:30 for our first 18km trek to the base of Las Torres. We walked uphill for quite a bit over fairly barren ground, some trees, and a beautiful bush that has bright red flowers. We were following a lovely fast flowing river below with the white rapids still allowing the clear green water the show through. We walked through forests, up creeks, past refugio and camping ground to the base of the scree that led to the towers. It was a VERY hard climb up the scree for me, but mountain goat Eva just about ran! The scene at the top has to be experienced to be understood. The three towers rising out of the mountain, with the glaciers around sheeding water in waterfalls that ran down huge cliffs to the bright green water forming a small lake below. It was so amazing! We stayed there for ages, before the long descent back to the campsite. What a first day! The ascent up the scree reminded me a bit of the steep bit of the climb up Mt. Ossa in Tasmania (for those of you that have done that).
We were stuffed and slept in the same campground that night (more wine of course) after a warmish shower. Next day was a 16km trek to Camp Italiano. We followed a lake (beautiful) and had a little up and down, but not like the previous day. Many forests and views on the way. We passed along a beach of black stones and white stones that was so beautiful and calm. Weather perfect again, we were so lucky. We crossed a large river by stone hopping (it was fun, thanks gore-tex), and had luch on some high rocks overlooking the lake.
We got to the Refugio Los Cuernois (the horns) and one of our party (Heidi from Vancouver) had fallen and was bleeding from arm and hand. She was patched up by Hector and a tourist I think, but it looked bad. She has continued with us throughout - Canadians are real tough! The view of the huge Cuernos is amazing. They consist of large pale brown sedimentary rocks that have pushed up the darker granite on top, and then been weathered away to look like giant horns. It was almost humbling to walk so close to them.
We stayed in the free-camping, poor facilities Italian Camp for two nights.
After the first night we walked about 13km (total) and went up the French valley to watch avalanches that fell from a higher glacier to the French glacier. It was a hard walk up, but so beautiful, seeing the glaciers all the way.
On the way back Hector took us to a small lake in the French Valley where I had a swim (yes, it was cold) in sight of mountains, rivers and glaciers, and dried myself in the sun! I love this place.
Next day we were going to complete the W-trek by walking to Refugio Grey (18km or so) but due to the poor reliability of the boat from there we decided to walk 7.5km to Refugio Paine Grande and then walk on to a viewpoint of the Grey Glacier and back to the refugio.
It was a good walk, the day was getting a bit more overcast, and we walked in sight of the Grey Lake and other lakes, through forest with some uphill, but not too bad. When we saw the glacier it was quite spectacular with its 40m ice-wall and some icebergs floating in the lake closer to us.
It had taken us 2 hours to walk there, and was half way to Refugio Grey. I wanted to walk to Refugio Grey (another 2 hours) and then walk back to where we were staying (another 4 hours after that). Hector asked who else, and no-one else wanted to, so Eva, Hector and I set off on another 18km after the 12km we had just done.
We ended up doing 30km that day, but also the expected 6 hours was done in 4, with quite a lot of Up and Down. Stuffed was not quite the word I used to describe how I felt, especially as the last 3/4 hour was in rain.
BUT it was well worth it!! The refugio is set in a forest at the lake edge with icebergs floating in the bay. The glacier (an extra 10 mins walk) was amazing, we were quite close to it and there were many icebergs. I left Eva and Hector at the top of a hill and walked down to the water and had to run back as I had taken too much time.
Both of us felt $$%%&&'ed but felt SO SO good too. We decided to reward ourselves and slept in a bed rather than tents that night.
Turned out it was a good move as the rain continued a bit through the night but had stopped by the morning. The mountains nearby (the Paine Grande and the Cuernos) had a dusting of snow and were amazing.

The bas ride back to El Calafate had its comedy of errors and was long and painful - but if that's the way to see the magnificent Torres del Paine National Park - so be it!

Today (next day) we drove the 80km by bus to Perito Moreno Glacier, which dwarfs Grey Glacier, and went ice-trekking on its blue-white surface - but I'll have to elaborate next time as we will have a briefing soon about our treks in Fitz Roy area starting tomorrow. I know our first trek there is about 25km.
Hasta luego!
PS We are both well, have been drinking water out of all the streams and even have eaten salad and unpeeled fruit. That will change when we get to Bueons Aires, but that's a while away.

Driving in the Lakes District

2008-03-02T23:21:00.002+11:00

Waiting at the airport in Bariloche at the moment for our flight to El Calafate, so I thought I´d update the past week.
We got to Villa La Angostura and we were SO tired - I took that as a reflection of getting the most out of the day! We had no idea where to stay or how to find out at 7pm. We had noticed a smaller village called Puerto Manzano on the way in that had heaps of lovely wooden structured hotels, very nice architecture too, but we continued the 10km or so to the long main street of Villa La Angostura and parked. It is a very attractive place with all side streets being unpaved, and the long main street having lots of shops, cafes etc and lines with beautiful green trees with lovely red berries- very nicely presented, friendly people and quite a village atmosphere with the many wooden carvings of people and even a giant ice-cream. We were SO lucky, that I noticed an excursion place on the 1st floor of a building, and not only was it open but they also worked with hotels for bookings. The VERY friendly (and attractive) girl rang a number of hotels that were full before she found one right on the water at Puerto Manzano for us called Dos Bahias. It was really nice at the end of a long peninsula, with big windows and lots of wood. The room must have been at 30 degress and the aircon made it hotter! The day cooled down later and so did the room fortunately!
Next day was Marta and Kurt day, following their recommendations (thanks M&K) as we caught the boat to the Arrayanes forest at the end of another peninsula and then walked the 13km back through lovely forest, although the track was quite dusty in parts. The smooth barked light-brown speckled trees were very interesting. They were about 25m tall and grew in clumps, like a family! After the walk we had a wash and paddle in the lake. Later we drove to another nearby village and had dinner at the Hotel Correntoso (thanks M&K) and had the best meal we have had so far, with steak and lamb and georgeous dessert of cappuchino bavarois and warm fruit with custardy sauce, and of course an excellent Argentinian red.
Next day (Wed 27th Feb) we drove the 7 lakes road to San Martin. It was VERY slow, VERY dusty and quite busy and long. We didn´t enjoy it very much although the views of the lakes were very nice. It was more of a relief to get back on sealed road. We really liked San Martin and had a swim in the lake there.
Our plane is boarding so just quickly, next day we drove to a remote lake to the north west of San Mrtin, through Junin ( like a country town) called Heuchulafuquen (a Mapuche name) and it was remote and lovely. Had a great swim in the lake, just where a river came into it and had fun sinking into the half-pea sized volcanic pebbles to get free exfoliation! The people were great, I practiced Spanish a lot and we had a restul time gazing at the 4000m Vocan Lanin. Next day we drove on a sealed road back to Bariloche to stay for tow nights at Design Suites (very nice) eat, drink swim in the pool and relax.
Out flight is on time (wonders never cease) so I´d better go.
Hasta luego!

Refugio Otto Meiling

2008-02-27T23:56:00.004+11:00

Wow! What a 2-days this has been. Pictures will need to be posted later because this internet connection does not recognize my USB key!
We knew it was going to be a challenge, to walk the 18km in an estimated 5 hours with a climb of 1100m - and it was.
We drove the half hour from the peaceful Hotel Tronador to Pampa Linda where we registered for the walk with the National Park, parked the car in the shade and set off with our 7kg or so packs.
The track for the first 4 km or so is on a stony dirt 4wd track through fairly open forest, so we were glad when we arrived at the Puente Rio Castano Overa log crossing. This fast flowing grey-green river is from one of the glaciers of Mt Tronador, and later we´d have a spectacular view from above it, with its ice falls and waterfalls. But for now we were happy to go into the thicker forest and less dusty track.
We deviated for a bit to go down another river (because it was there) and this is when Eva has the first of a few blister stops. She is a real trouper, as she struggled on despite the developing very large blisters, and eventually found ways to ease the pain and discomfort.
The main track from here has two alternatives, a more direct uphill, steeper, shorter path - or a more windy better graded longer path. We chose the latter in deference to Eva´s blisters.
We walked for 3 hours getting wonderful glimpses of the valley far below us as well as the sheer cliffs on the other side of the valley, that started out towering over us, and were now below us. The glacier was SO impressive, with the white heavily fissured ice contracting with the black glistening cliffs stripped with a number of waterfalls. It was almost dreamlike.
We stopped for lunch in a lovely wooded area, sitting on a log in the shade as the day was now getting quite hot (around 28 degrees). We has the sandwiches prepared by Hotel Tronador, some fruit and chocolates. Yum. Food tastes better on a bushwalk!
Our next 2 hours were the best part really, but also quite hard. We ascended first up a steep dirt track through the last part of the forest. Along here we could see the huge top of Mt Tronador as well as the speck that was the refugio. Very soon, we left the protection of the forest as we rose above the treeline and crossed just rocky ground. We were walking on the very edge of the 800 plus meter drop on the valley carved by the Castano Overa Glacier. It was hard to keep balance, look for the white paint track markers, the view and keep going. It was so amazing, and all the while the Refugio was getting bigger.
Eva perked up towards the end as my knees were protesting, and it was a welcome sit outside the Refugio, looking at the tops of what looked like hundreds of surrounding mountains, shining like stiff egg white peaks around us. There were a number of glaciers there too.
We quickly got a bottle of Mendoza red and settled down to look a the view, read and explore.
At sunset we were treated to a lightshow from the surrounding electrical storms, a full and strong rainbow and reds and yellows glowing off the clouds. It just doesn´t get any better.
We slept in a single large room with about 25 people complete with each one´s own body function symphony, but it was OK.
It took us 5 hours and 20 mins to get up, but only 4 hours to get down. We took the shorter, steeper way and I used walking sticks for the first part over the rocks.
We were quite tired when we got down, but decided to drive 3 hours to Villa La Angostura to stay the night there, but that´s another story!
Hopefully, photos will follow soon.

Hotel Tronador

2008-02-24T12:20:00.004+11:00

Hotel Tronador has been our home for 4 days now. It is about 70km from Bariloche that you get to down a timed one-way road. It sits on a emerald green lake with mountains in the background, and the 3400m Mt Tronador at the end of the valley. It is called Tronador because of the thunderous sound of ice breaking away from the glacier and floating in the lake - not OUR lake, which is a little warmer.
We have spent each day walking for about 5 hours on the mountain paths to lookouts (usually very steep), over rivers and swing bridges, to other lakes, to glaciers, waterfalls and just generally in the forest. When we were at Mirador del Valle we saw two condors just above us.
The forest is interesting, as it has some flowers, but lots of native bamboo that gives it a tunnel effect in places. The days have been warm (25 degrees) and very sunny. In the afternoons the sun is VERY hot and we swim in the cool lake.
Everyone is very friendly, most people speak english, but some don´t and it has been fun and functional using the little spanish that I know.
I will try to upload more photos soon, but it is 11:30pm and this internet access closes half an hour ago!
Tomorrow we are planning an adventure - walking 18km to a refugio that is high on Mt Tronador, around the snowline. The track is flat for its first third, then climbs 1100m. We will sleep there overnight, and I´ll let you know how it went next posting (along with some photos hopefully).
We have met some Israeli people from Buenos Aires and we will contact them when we are there and they will show us around a little. We are both well, having a great time on the long days (sunrise 7:30am, sunset 10pm) with lots of walking and sleeping.
Hasta luego!

Puerto Varas to Bariloche

2008-02-20T14:19:00.005+11:00

Well, finally got to a reliable internet connection in Bariloche, so I thought I'd better update while I can!
We arrived OK, but it was over 30 hours due to a 6 hour delay in Santiago - setting the trend of things to come. On advice we packed all the electronic gear in our carry-on (Thanks Jeanette and Pat) and everythig arrived OK. We had to wait 3/4 of an hour to get our bags though, not sure why, but we were relieved when they arrived.
The flight to Puerto Varas, about 900km south of Santiago was fantastic. The weather was mostly clear and we saw lots of the Andes and many lakes. Some mountains had snow, but not as many as would further north, as they are higher there.
Got a taxi OK at Puerto Montt to go to Puerto Varas, and my Spanish was continuing to be useful (thanks Nancy), and I am enjoying tryong to use it. Everyone is SO friendly and helpful.
We arrived late and very tired, but had dinner an a fish restaurant above a fish market (El Mercado) and walked around the very small town and along the waterfront (of the lake). We saw the volcano Osorno in the distance, looking like a transplanted Mt Fuji, complete with a sprinkling of snow on top. It was lovely and peacefull gazing at it from our hotel room.
Next day we set off on the Cruce de Lagos which is the crossing of a few lakes on boats, and linking them with bus rides.
We didn't have much sleep as the alarm went off at 7am for our 8am pickup. There was a bit of argie-bargie as names and luggage was sorted out and then we set off. It was a nice drive along the lake to Petrohue and we were surprised to see quite a few gum trees, but no koalas. The houses were interesting and had a Swiss/German feel to them. Eva thought the German influence could be seen in the super-organised and maintained gardens.
The first lake crossing was awesome - the weather was clear blue sky and warm with views of the volcano Osorno and other mountains over the emerald water of the lake. We visited Vincente Perez NP with lovely waterfalls - and it was good to be free of the bus for a while. We arrived at Peulla by boat and went to our hotel, Natura, which is SO nice. Lovely architecture using lots of wood, with large open areas and an awesome dining room with partial glass ceiling looking out to the vally flanked by tree covered mountains with some snow on a couple. I tried to use the internet ther but ... well that's another story!!
That afternoon was free, so in true Rudi fashion we found a hill and headed UP. Boy, was it steep - much more so than the traing ground of Mt Ainslie or Black Mountain. We walked for around 45 mins looking for a track described to us in broken english, but we gave up. It was a nice walk thru the forest that was already showing some autumn colours.
When we got back we decided to go on "The Canopy" which consists of flying down a wire that is strung between trees some 50m above the forest floor. You are dress in a harness with a helmet and have a pulley on the wire and use a heavily gloved hand on the wire as a brake. There were 8 to 10 "stages" and a total distance of 900m. It was SUCH good fun, mainly due to the fun nature of the guys running it. They sang Eva Happy Birthday afterwards too. Nice touch.

The next day of travelling from Peulla to Bariloche was not quite so good. Maybe because we had a late dinner the night before (finishing around 11:30) with a bottle of wine and pisco sours and had to get up at 7am again. There was SO MUCH waiting - for boats, busses, customs etc etc. Not everything was translated and didn't pick up enough. The weather was excellent, and we had a walk by ourselves in the forest, lovely cruising on the lakes and a visit to the spectacular Cantadores Cascades where you walk up 700 steps to the falls and a lake. A VERY long day. And when we arrived at the end we had to hang around till everyone else left (why you ask? We did too!). The bus brought us in to Bariloche and then we had to find a taxi to the hotel which Eva organised. We found we had been upgraded in our room to a suite, which is huge. I'm glad I brought a compass! It's really nice, and a welcome surprise. We finally sat down to dinner at about 10:30pm and now I'm updating this blog at 1:45am and because I feel more shagged than a persian carpet on steroids, I'm going to bed after I try to also upload some photos.
I've put some photos up on facebook already (so much easier).

So, till next time - hasta luego!!

Preparing for South America

2008-01-30T21:47:00.001+11:00

Well, its not long now, 2 weeks before we go! We've been researching, getting fit and have bought all the things that we think we need.
We've been up Mt Tennant (thanks Jeanette and Pat) and tomorrow we head to Charlotte's Pass to walk to Blue Lake and Mt Kozzie. We figure that 2,200m may not be very high, but it's the best we can do in Australia!
We've talked with lots of people who have been (thanks Kurt, Marta, Alex, Jenny, Sid, Jenny, Jeanette, Pat, Chris, Kadty, Emily and more). Our bookings have been capably made by Renee at Jetaway Travel. I've done some booking n Spanish, so we'll see how they work out!

So, in a nutshell, our plans are:
17th Feb - Fly to Santiago, then straight on the Puerto Montt
18th Feb - Go on a two day boat/bus trip through lakes to Bariloche
20th Feb - Hire a car
- Spend 4 days at a remote hotel near Mt Tronador
Spend 7 more days driving about in the Lakes District (and sleeping in the car because Les would have forgotten all his Spanish).
2nd Mar - Fly to El Calafate and go on a 13 day walking tour with Peregrine Tours in Torres del Paine and Mt Fitz Roy.
15th Mar - Fly to Buenos Aires and stay 5 days
20th Mar - Fly to Igazu Falls for 3 days
22nd Mar - Fly to Cusco and stay 2 days
26th Mar - Inca Trail hike for 5 days
31st Mar - Fly to Quito
1st Apr - Fly to Galapagos for 10 days (includes 8 days on a boat)
11th Apr - Fly home via Santiago

We are excited!!!!

Napa and Drive to LA

2006-07-16T14:35:00.000+10:00

We reluctantly checked out of our hotel - it was such a fun and friendly place, and we went out to pickup our car and it all happenned smoothly. We got a Ford Taurus, which I do NOT like at all. It had a column auto shift and it beeped at us annoyingly for whatever we did not do (like putting on seat belts, having the key in the ignition but motor not running, not eating chocolate for 5 mins - OK I made that last one up). We did get used to it after a while.

Nifty navigator Eva (I call her Genius in Positioning Selves or GPS for short) got us through San Francisco easily and we crossed the Grey Ghost in partial fog again, but we would have another chance on the way back as Napa is North of SF and after Napa we will come back down south and go along the west coast from SF to LA (OK?).

We headed along busy highways for about an hour and found the Napa Visitors Centre OK, and Sylvia there booked us into a nice hotel in the middle of the "Napa strip" of wineries at Rutherford. Some wineries you have to make appointments at, so we limited ourselves to those that you don't need to, and chose a few. We went to the Hess Collection (amazing building and grounds, with art collections, lilly ponds, huge flower gardens in grounds, tasted 5 wines for $20). I didn't realise that wines at wineries ar dearer than the same wines bought elsewhere. Still, these wines were retailing for around $90 per bottle. No, we didn't buy any.
Continuing north through Napa we went to Robert Mondavi wines. The building and grounds were extensive, and I think they hold concerts there too. There were a couple of tasting rooms as well as sales and souveniers. We chose to taste 5 wines for $30, and had a fantastic time chatting with people there. They gave us an extra 2 wines to taste, and I think they enjoyed our company as well. I quite liked most of the wines we tasted, but being in the vineyards and seeing the buildings, meeting people etc, was the best bit.
We went to Rubicon vineyard, which was rejuvenated by Francis Ford Copolla, and it was so so so crap experience. They forced valet parked the car (20 meters away) gave passports, didn't want us to have just a shared tasting etc etc etc. Soooo painful, and I didn't like the wines either (which were exhorbitantly priced).

The last one we went to was Ducjhorn, and the beautiful building and tasting room had all things to do with ducks there from a huge duck infested mural to glass ducks. We got there one minute before closing, but they were very friendly and some wines were quite good.

From there we went to a higher point in Napa to a place called Auberge de Soleil which was an upmarket but nice cafe in the hills overlooking Napa Valley. We sat in the sun eating dips and drinking coffee on a small wooden verandah. It was bliss.

For dinner we went to an amazing Italian Restaurant in nearby St. Helena called Tra Vigne which was in a HUGE room with a floor to high-ceiling full wall bar on one wall, a huge wood fired oven and kitchen on another wall, and a lovely garden outside with lots of greenery and fairy lights. The food was excellent too.

The next day after breakfast we called in to the Dean and Deluca store in St Helena and stocked up on dried fruits and chatted to the manager there for a while about foodstuffs. They had the biggest range of cheeses I have seen anywhere in one place. It was lots of fun there, and the bread we bought was excellent too.

Eva navigated us through back roads that wound through the rolling hills covered in vines and found our was to Muir Woods which is an area just north of San Francisco that has large redwood trees and some walks you can go on. The ever present fog was drifting in and out, so our views were sometimes good and sometimes grey! But, down in the trees it was very nice and cool. The red bark of the trees is amazing, as is their height. We went on a 7km walk there and enjoyed it very much, although our map was not too good, and the signposting was not as clear as I would have liked.

After a rewarding ice-cream we headed over to Stinson Beach, just 'cos we had heard of it. It was a small and somewhat old looking town and (as usual) the beach was OK but not as good as ours in Oz (Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie oi! oi! oi!).

The Grey Ghost was the same as we passed it for the third time, and we decided not to go too much further and ended up in Santa Cruz on the coast south of SF for the night. The coast road was very nice, with us not very far off the water most of the time. At one point we saw about 30 surf riders with kites to zip them through the water (and sometimes the air). It was an awesome sight.

We stayed in a hotel right on the beach on the 9th floor looking out to sea. The air was clear, the sun shining and we had a nice meal in an Italian restaurant on the very long pier, by a window on the water. Very nice. The guitar player/singer was good too. It was a lovely way to finish a long and tiring day!

We woke at 6:30am to a beautiful blue sky and Eva went out for an hour's walk on the boardwalk (that wasn't on boards) while I minded to bed to make sure no-one was going to steal it! By the time Eva came back the fog had come in! We walked out to the pier to Gilda's which is a diner style eatery for breakfast. We then checked out of our hotel and headed further down the highway to Monteray, which used to be the capital of California before they joined the Union. We walked through the old town section, to the nice but touristy Fisherman's wharf area. There we saw lots of birds and also otters at play in the sea near the wharf. We walked further to the shops at Cannery Row, and saw many references to John Steinbeck. There is a museum in Salinas (near Monteray) about Steinbeck, and I only thought Salinas was made famous by Janis Joplin in Bobby McGee! We ate at a place called The Fish Hopper and the food was good, but better still was watching the seals outside our window and the many birds perched on rocks or flying at a zillion miles-per-hour just a few centimeters from the water surface. We stayed there for ages, but eventually caught the free shuttle-bus back to where our car was parked and ventured on a special "17 mile drive" they have organised here. This went past famous Pebble Beach (famous??) and some lovely homes and beaches as well as rugged coastline. It was very nice, but took too long - I liked some ghost trees and lone cypress pine on a rock best. It was foggy for some of it, but I think that made it more eerie and better.

We then started the "cliff drive" (my words) section of 90 miles of the 300 miles between San Francisco and LA, which starts just south of Carmel (which is just south of Monteray). The view really was spectacular, with the deep blue sea contrasting with whitish rocks whose bases were outlined by the foaming sea and giant kelp at their base. We pulled over so many times to get a better view, and the swirling fog sometimes completely cut off the view and at other times made it look magic.

By about 5pm we started looking for accommodation and ended up in Big Sur Lodge which reminded us of BinnaBurra Lodge in Lamington National Park. We were lucky to get the last room. It was 7pm so we set off on a few km hike to a waterfall over dry tracks and accross lovely wooden bridges surrounded by big redwoods. We extended the walk because I found a great uphill bit that led to a view of the valley. We were a little sweaty as we settled down for dinner at 8:40 (restaurant has last orders at 8:45) but we were sitting outside looking at the beautiful trees and listening to the sounds of the forest. Couldn't be a better setting for dinner!

On Friday we woke at 7am, ready to leave early to backtrack a bit in case the fog had lifted. Sleep-in won the day and we left at 9am to backtrack to about an hour and we were greeted by brilliant sunshine, so we saw all the bits that were partially obscured the day before. We were lucky to have seen it both ways. By the time we went a little further south, the fog had come back, so we stopped at a lone cafe, perched high on a hill, right on the coastline, and had breakfast there. We were bathed in sunshine, looking out along tens of miles of coastline that we could see clearly. Eerily, we could see no water, just fog. The cafe was great, the setting, the people we chatted to and the relaxing time we had were all worth it. The added bonus was that by the time we finished the fog was gone!

The rest of the trip down the coast was great, it is hard to capture the feeling of seeing the coast and the blue sea, especially when seeing it for hours, as the road was very windy and slow. There were beautiful flowers of red, yellow and other colours too.

I'm sitting in Qantas club at LA airport as I write this at 10:45pm and our plane is about to be called, so I'll rush through the highlights of the remaining day!

We walked to a waterfall that was a free fall (90 feet? 90m?) from a cave opening into the sea on a pristine beach. There was even a gum tree there. The NZ couple we talked with were really nice too.

We stayed at Santa Barbera on our last night in a huge but tasteful (and a little noisy) hotel on the beach. We both went for a long walk in the morning (wow, that was THIS morning) and also went for a swim in the cold Pacific Ocean. We went on more wine tastings (and bought a bottle) ate at great restaurants along State St in Santa Barbera, drove to LA, visited Rodeo Drive in Bevery Hills, avoided getting booked speeding to the airport, managed to get the hire car back and check in.

Phew! Its been a fantastic holiday, we have been so lucky to have been able to do this, and lucky that we have been 100% well the whole time.

I will try to add some photos when we get back. Not looking forward to the 14 hour flight, but I hope we can sleep. Looking forward to being back home and seeing family and friends.

Thanks to all of you for reading our blog.

Cheers,
Eva and Les

San Francisco

2006-07-11T08:19:00.000+10:00

Does time speed up towards the end of a holiday? Sure seems like it and there is so much we want to do! Good way to be I guess.

The trip from Montreal was quite long with a delay at Chicago and the 3 hour time difference (backwards) made the day very long. When we arrived at San Francisco we decided to get a cab in to the hotel as it was easiest, even though the alternative of BART (train) was far cheaper. Turns out it was a good move as the taxi driver was so friendly telling us of his move to SF in the "love years", being the 60's, and of his family as well as very many tips about SF, where to go etc. What a great introduction to this very friendly city!

Our hotel (Compton Place) is a block from Union Square which is a great central part of SF and easy to get other transport and walk from - as long as you know which way to go to avoid the hills!

We decided to make the most of our time and ventured out for a walk. It was a little chilly, probably 16 degrees with a wind, as the SF fog was coming in (not in the city though). We visited Union Square, which had recently had a multi-million dollar facelift and then walked down Market St to the waterfront. All this was slight downhill. There was an amazing huge sculpture/fountain there that you could walk through, so I played there for a while (hehe). It had huge square pipes coming out at different angles with water gushing out of most of them. We then walked around the dull but flat and smelly waterfront a long way to Pier 39. This is an attractive wooden large touristy shops complex. I liked it there and thought, for what it was, it was well done. There were not too many people there, but it WAS crowded.

We walked around to the Boudin Sour Dough factory and I remembered the sour dough starter kit Erin brought back for me many years ago. We explored the shops in the Cannery, had dinner at a fish restaurant near Fisherman's Wharf and caught the cablecar back to Union Square. It was such fun on the cablecar, even though it is such a touristy thing to do.
What a long day that was!

On Saturday we decided to wander around various areas and also discover what it was like to walk UP some of the hills. So, with adventurer and super-fit wonder-woman Eva I spent the day playing "catch-up". We went to a huge food and trinket market at the end of Market St and had the best peaches and apricots ever. There were so many shops there - 4 choc shops even!
Went by Fisherman's Wharf again, saw the nearby sea lions (were they alive??), explored the shops at Cannery and Ghiradelli Square and tasted some chocolate there. We went up Columbus St to the North Beach area where there is Washington Square and a number of churches (including the one where Joe di Maggio and Marilyn Monroe got married) but more importantly a number of italian cafes and gelato bars. Yum! Had lunch there and it was all a buzz with nice food and coffee. Lots of flags flying for Italy in the World Cup Soccer final the next day.

Walk-a-thon Queen then took us UP to Telegraph Hill and the tall cylindrical Coit tower, where we caught the elevator up to the top for panoramic sunny views of SF. We met two guys and chatted a while with them. Honestly, we have met so many nice people along the way, it has been fantastic!

Hill-climbing Eva then took us UP to Nob Hill and through Chinatown. We saw some older people struggling up the hills (besides me) and wondered if this exercise was good for them - I guess it was. After queuing up to go to the movies, but not getting in (grrrr) we went out to dinner in a small lane that had 5 restaurants side-by-side there. Very interesting, and we settled for the Italian one called Tiramisu (thought of you Chris), and the food was delicious. The place was buzzing with people which added to the fun of being there, and the Californian Chardonnay we had was very nice too! We watched an in-house movie back at the hotel (Eva is amazing, she can watch movies with her eyes closed) to make up for not getting to see one!

Sunday was our bike riding day and we left Blazing Saddles on Columbus St at 10:30am and headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. It was nice riding the bike paths along the waterfront, and there were not too many hills along the way. That day, the golden gate should have been called the Gray Ghost as it was shrouded in fog. It was the most amazing experience riding over it. Unlike the fog I'm used to in Australia, which is very still, here it was windy which meant that the fog moved. So, we got glimpses of the water far below, then it was gone again. Various structures of the bridge loomed out ahead and then disappeared again. Awesome! I guess when it is clear it is also nice 'cos you can see the water and the city, but this way was fine for me.

We continued on to Sausolito, a lovely bayside, touristy place. I should say, that apart from crossing the Gray Ghost Bridge, it was a clear and sunny day all day. We watched the second half of the world cup in a pub there, had italian sour-dough rolls by the bay for lunch and watch an old guy (hey who is old these days??) balance rocks in an amzingly impossible way by the water. After a wine-tasting in a shop we rode on to Old Mill Park to see some large redwood trees and some beautiful houses set amongst them. We completed the ride to Tiberon and caught the ferry back past Alcatraz to SF. I guess we rode about 40km and we were tired by the time we gave the bikes back at around 7pm. They certainly have a great system for selling these bike rides, as there would have been about 80 bikes on the ferry, and they stacked them very expertly. For dinner, we went out to a French Restaurant (tried not to gloat about the soccer) and it was a very cosy place - though the food was not too good. Eva said my Coq-au-vin is better.

So, that was really the end of our stay in SF. On Monday we had a slow day, having a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, doing some jobs and Eva shopping while I updated the blog and diary.

Tomorrow we will hire a car and drive to Napa Valley to taste wines and then head down to LA to get our flight on Saturday.

Not sure when or where the next update will take place, but we are both well and happy.

Till next time.....

Montreal

2006-07-07T01:11:00.000+10:00

Well, Chicago the musical was excellent, with a very unusual set design of a large tiered platform for the orchestra taking up most of the stage, which meant the dancers were really at the front of the stage so we could see extremely well. We had coffee and New York Cheesecake opposite the theatre and the man who played the lawyer in Chicago had his dinner at the next table. It was fun.

We got a car to the airport the next morning and arrived in plenty of time, and our flight was delayed by an hour or so (did I say already that I don't like airports ...grrrr..).

Miri and Robi were waiting for us at Montreal airport, and it was so good to finally meet. The relationship is that Miri's father was the older brother of my grandmother, making my mother and Miri first cousins - but whatever the relationship is called, the four of us have had such a wonderful time together, it has been fantastic.

Robi drove us to their home on the 5th floor of a very lovely apartment block and took us on a tour of the very green lawns and gardens around. They have a large plastic owl that keeps (very poor) guard over the balcony to stop the pigeons coming, just like my mother had plastic snakes that were equally ineffective!

We chatted in the evening, and it was like we knew each other forever really. Miri is an amazing cook, and the chicken soup, chicken paprika and cakes we had for dinner brought back so many gastronomic memories for me. I guess real Hungarian food doesn't change over time and over good cooks!

On Tuesday, Eva and I started the day on the treadmill in the gym here and then Miri made us a lovely breakfast of "real Montreal bagels" (that Robi said should be eaten with lox and cream cheese which I couldn't face so early in the day) and fruit, coffee and more! Robi drove us into downtown Montreal, and Miri, Eva and I went to the Museum to see a very fine display of Italian Design (you would have loved it Ben) that covered such a long and detailed Italian history, will quite full explanations (in French then English). There was everything from furniture, crockery, motor scooters, ceramics, artworks and much much more. We were pretty "museum'ed out" by the time we finished, so we had a quick tour of the huge underground shopping and Metro complex that serves downtown Montreal well especially in the winter. Miri went home and we went to explore the huge Notre Dame church with it's magnificent opulence (or is it opulent magnificence?) and its very modern small and light chapel at the back. The chapel at the back looked quite good. We overheard a tour guide who said it was rebuilt after a fire, saying it is called "the wedding chapel" as no-one wants to get married in the big area out front, and weddings are booked ahead here for ages. I thought...hmmm...good business - but then I am a cynical person, right?

We explored the waterfront area with its parks and pools and redeveloped piers, as well as the backstreets of the old town with its tourist shops, restaurants and bars. It started to rain, so we called in to a pub and watched the Italy-Germany World Cup semi, with Italy winning 2-0. I want Italy to win overall, as they put Australia out, and if they win it will be like us coming second!

We caught the train back (it is a very good metro) and Miri made my favorite Vienna Schnitzel, complete with fried parsley. Wonderful! We went through some old photos and I found it very hard to keep all the names and faces in my head, but Miri wrote out a tree structure of everyone, and I think I have most of it straight now.

On Wednesday we got up a little later, probably a reflection of how relaxed we were feeling and we were picked up at around 10:30 by Miri's friend Agi, who would take us all (not Robi) to the Laurentian mountains to her holiday cottage by a lovely cozy Lac Solar. We had a great time chatting all the way, and Agi took us to some ski-fields (St. Sauveur) and other parts further in the Laurentians so we could appreciate the beauty of the lovely rolling green hills and the variety of foliage and forests along the way. It was a wonderful drive, and I'm not surprised that people from Montreal (Montreallians???) like to head for the mountains in summer and winter.

We arrived at Agi's beautiful cedar cottage that looked out through a large variety of trees to a lovely lake, and decided that we should look after our stomachs having lunch on the big deck out front before going on a walk in the area. Agi put out a feeder of sweet water and we saw a humming bird come to investigate. Their wings must beat faster than light, because I swear I could see no movement as it hovered darting its head about.

We went for a walk around some lakes and ate wild strawberries and wild raspberries - with such strong flavour it was like a fruit explosion in the mouth. They were small, but there were many of them. I just followed Agi's lead and was very surprised when we were back at the house as I hadn't realised we had gone in any sort of loop. There were few people about and it was nice just wandering along the road, talking, looking at the bush and houses as well as the lakes along the way. We decided to go for a swim in the tea-tree coloured fresh, clean water, and it was quite warm. I was expecting it to be icy, but it was not. Miri stayed on shore to take photos, but we 3 swam out quite a way.

We had afternoon tea and afternoon beer, and then went for another walk before heading back home. It was a wonderful day - we certainly like cities, but I think prefer the quiet, openness and fresh air of the countryside!

We went out to dinner at the nearby Greek/Italian restaurant, and we met Robi's sister Vera who lives in the same block of units. After dinner, as it was "only" 9:30, Robi and Miri persuaded Eva and I to go into town to attend some free sessions of the Montreal Jazz festival, which is an annual event here. Robi drove us in, and we saw there were several free outdoor stages. We saw a group called New Cool Collective, which was like Cat Empire with Dizzy Gillespie overtones and quite a range of music, as well as a Cuban group called Ska Cubano that had 11 members in the band. Both were excellent and we sang and danced to their music, catching a taxi home at around midnight. There were thousands of people there, and we had a great time!

On Thursday we managed to talk with Miri's brother Ron, in Israel using Skype and see him via webcam. It was good to see Ron after hearing about him from Miri. I feel like I have just discovered a part of my family that of course was always there - and I have.

Robi drove us to the "so-called" mountain in Montreal, Mont Royal. This was named by the person who "discovered Canada" (so the plaque said) and he named it Mont Royal, and that is where the name Montreal comes from. We looked at the view, and then Miri, Eva and I wandered through the pathways looking at sculpture, lakes, forests along the tracks through the reserve, till we walked down to downtown. Along the way we saw squirrels, chipmunks and even a beaver who looked to be living in a drain!

After a nice lunch in town, we separated at the Metro, and Eva and I headed to the Olympic Centre, built for the 1976 Olympics and Robi says is now a white elephant, as it is not used for any sporting (or other) events. It was quite a building though, with a large arm from which wires extend over the circular dome that is meant to be able to be raised and lowered.

Nearby there was the Botanical Gardens, which is the most extensive and amazing Botanical Gardens I have ever seen anywhere! There were a number of buildings housing special things, and they alone, would be amazing. The tropical section had floor to ceiling flowers and leaves of the most amazing sizes, colours, shapes and density that I have ever seen. AND it seemed to go on forever! There was a Japanese gardens area that had Bonzai trees nearly 3 hundred years old, zen garden, teahouse, waterfalls, lakes, bridges, grassed areas and more. AND this was such a small part of the overall gardens! We were there for 3 hours but did not manage to explore many of the areas, that had plants from all over the world.

We did manage to go to the bio-dome, where there were 5 (I think) climates represented from the tropical, through temperate to the Antarctic. There were plants, animals, birds, fish, crocodiles there. We saw tree frogs, small orange and small brown monkeys (each with babies), a sloth, otter, many many birds - including Eva finally seeing a puffin!And guess what? It wasn't puffin! Really I could go on and on about that place (OK, I won't then).

We were late getting back home, and called by Dan and Karine's place to see if they wanted to come out to dinner with us, but they were not home (Dan is Robi and Miri's son, and Karine is his wife), so we headed to a lovely fish restaurant and we each had lovely salmon and Fatoush salad - Eve, can you send me the recepie?

On the way home we called by Agi's place and managed to see her and say goodbye (and she kindly gave us yummy cookies to take).

It was a great few days in Montreal, meeting people and getting to know each other. It has been such a rewarding time, and as I write this, everyone is asleep (after all it is 1am). We will be sorry to leave tomorrow, as we must go around 9:15am to get our flight to San Francisco and the next phase of our adventure.

As always....more later. Sorry about the lack of photos, I will put some up when we get back home.

New York

2006-07-03T05:46:00.000+10:00

Wow! Up to now I thought we had been really pushing ourselves each day, but New York has SO much to do that we had a fantastic week, and collapsed late at the end of each day, to start the next one early!

We arrived very late, with the time difference it was something like 4am and there was a very long line at immigration (and we were at the end). It was all straight forward though and our taxi driver made good time, but was pissed off when I gave him $50 for a $49 ride (it was all I had). No tips? he asked.

The Sofitel on 45 West 44th is a fantastic hotel. So nice, quiet, comfortable with wonderful furnishings but not overdone in any way. Our room was large and we greedily sought out the solace of the bed. Surprisingly, we woke at 7am (we had gotten to bed at 2am local time) and we were raring to go! I thought I'd sent Laci and Marilyn an email from Munich (later found it had bounced) and so I thought they would contact me, and we set out.

We managed to change some money (not an easy thing to do at a bank in NY), discovered the difference between UpTown and Downtown and where East and West separated at 5th Avenue. We visited Times Square and ooh-ed and aahh-ed at the electronic signs and thousands of people. We walked up to the Rockerfeller Centre, explored the shops, had a coffee at Dean and Deluca and went up the top of the Centre (called Top of the Rock) which I'd recommend as we had a 360 degree view of NY just by turning around in the one spot. Also the ascent is amazing as the elevator has a clear ceiling and you watch lights wizz by as you go to the 67th floor. We had a choc fix at La Maison du Chocolate and caught the subway to 86th and Lexington to walk the few blocks to the Guggenheim museum. We saw a pioneer architect and her designs (Zaha Hadid) and some Jackson Pollock. I love the inside of the Guggenheim itself, the rest was just a bonus! We thought of Kadty and picked up a brochure for her.

We then walked around the big reservoir in Central Park and over to the other side we worked our way down to the south and visited Strawberry Fields and the nearby Dakota Hoel/appartments where John Lennon was shot. There were hundreds of people in an area called The Sheep Paddock in Central Park, and it was quite relaxing, but a little warm. We then walked down 5th Avenue, passed all the big shop names of Gucci (thought of Rudi), Louis Vitton, Tiffanys and much more. Called in to Tiffanys to look at a new design range by the architect Frank Gehry.

Back at the hotel, I rang Eve who rang Alex and finally I got on to Marilyn who had been waiting to hear from us. I had not received the two messages that Laci had left at the hotel either. Still, we were now in contact, and would spend tomorrow together. It hadn't helped that we had changed rooms from the night before!

We had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant which was OK (the waiter was from Perth), and visited Times Square by night before getting back to the hotel after 11pm.

Phew, and that was just the first day!

Next day we got going by 8am and walked to Grand Central Station and looked at the food markets there which were like a huge food hall or deli (no lama). Eva checked out some shops as did I (me-food, Eva-clothes) and we called in the Grand Hyatt and the Rockerfeller Centre before being picked up at our hotel by Laci at 11. It was SO good to see him, and we spent the whole day and evening together. Marilyn had sussed out the best plays in NY and had given us discount vouchers, so we went and got tickets for "The Faith Healer" with Ralph Fiennes and the british play "The History Boys".

We headed down to the Lower East side in Laci's 2 week old BMW 5 series and went for an ealy lunch at Katz Deli. This is where the orgasm scene for When Harry met Sally was filmed, and the place was packed! The 2 HUGE pastrami rolls we got were too much for the 3 of us, and it was such fun there. We called into a pickle place and a bially place (bially is like a bagel with the hole filled with onion paste). We called in at the Temple Emanuel which is the second largest synagogue in the world (the largest being in Budapest), but the main hall was being renovated. We saw the museum and a smaller chapel. We then went to the huge and ornate St John's church which was MASSIVE. It was being renovated too, and more than half of its 600 foot length was cordened off, but it still was amazing - and so high too. I must admit, I prefer the restrained setting that synagogues have as a place of worship, but maybe this blog is not the place for religeous debate. It was good to see St John's. Opposite was something even better - a hungarian pastry shop. Laci bought the shop out and we then went on to see the labs and buildings at Mt Sianai Hospital where Laci is the director of the labs there. It was amazing. The scale, automation, tracking and testing that goes on there was absolutely fascinating! I had seen his lab 30 years before, and it was interesting to see how much it had scaled up. We also saw a new hospital building designed by a chinese-american who made it so that the patients could get lots of light either from outside or an atrium. We then drove to Laci and Marilyn's home at Port Chester but called in to their local synagogue. It was the most amazing synagogue I have ever seen. It was 30 years old (I think) but look time independent. It was so modern and light with a lovely view out the back where the congregation looked. The high timer ceilings set of the modern setting for the Torah beautifully. It was a nice feeling to have been there thinking of when my mother and Aunt had come there for Paul's Bar Mitzva. After meeting Marilyn at a nearby restaurant and catching up with her, we went back to their place for some hungarian cakes and then Laci drove us home. We were so grateful that they had spent so much time with us, especially since they were going to Baltimore the next day. Thanks Laci and Marilyn!!

I really better speed up with what we've done, but New York just goes on and on and on (bit like me).

We started out early the next day (Thursday 29th) and caught the suway down to the World Trade Centre and saw Wall St and surrounds before waiting in the queues to get on the boat to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. We didn't get off the boat to see the Statue of Liberty, but the immigration Museum at Ellis Is was fantastic. The audio tour was what made it - the voices of actual immigrants telling you stories as you looked at the rooms where they were examined etc. It was good seeing the NY skyline too as we went back to Battery Park. We then walked back through Chinatown, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, SoHo, TriBeCa areas and then all the way up Broadway back to Times Square. We had a break along the way at a wine bar, spent time chatting to a gay guy near the Village, bought umbrellas to keep off the thunderstorm and had a good time. The Flatiron (wedge shaped) building was so unusual - knife thin at one end and then "normal" at the other. We also called in to a huge Dean and Deluca gourmet foods and bought some dried fruits to eat (they had TONS to choose from). We got back to the hotel at 9pm and went out to a fantastic Japanese restaurant for dinner. I was stuffed by the time I went to bed at midnight!

Friday, up at 7am - breakfast at the "diner-styled" Red Flame diner nearby and off to spend a few hours at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). They had an exhibition on DAD and that, along with their normal exhibitions were amazing. The range of artists was fantastic, the best collection (in the one place) I've seen. And the building itself was amazing - great use of internal space. The audio was nowhere near as good as that on Ellis Is, but helped.
We ate at the bar/restaurant there, browsed at the MoMA shop then headed for Columbus Circle at the south west tip of Central Park to look at the food court and shops at the Time-Warner building. I bought some sushi and cherries and bread for dinner back at the hotel, which we had and then went to see The Faith Healer. It was quite a show. There were 3 actors and each gave a 30 minute monologue and then Ralph Fiennes gave another 30 minutes. I found it a little heavy and although I thought the performances were excellent, I thought the directing could have been better to keep me better focused (maybe it was just me). We enjoyed it very much - never seen anything like it before.

Saturday - shopping day!! Eva went shopping for 6 hours and I went walkabout. I revisited Greenwich Village, Little Italy, more dried fruit at Dean and Deluca, Empire State Building (didn't go up), Madison Square Garden, Penn Station. I had a couple of coffees and a couple of beers in two bars as I watched some of the Brazil vs France soccer game with very pro-Brazil fans.
I walked back up all the way and we went out to dinner at Sardi's (no famous people there beside us) and then went to see "The History Boys" which I really enjoyed. The theatres here all have an infra-red hearin system and I used that in the second half and it was fabulous!
Sunday our last full day, and we were getting a little touristed out. I went over to 9th Av and W 34th St to the huge camera and video store B&H. It is run by orthodox jews and they are closed on Saturdays (which I found out yesterday, and remembered Alex telling me that!). They had an amazing range (got a cattle-dog) and when you buy something, they put it in a bag and attach it to a conveyer belt that takes it via the ceiling to the checkout place where you pay and pickup. Caught the subway back to 5th Av and 50th and walked to Columbus Circle to meet Eva in the Warner building. Had coffee on the 4th floor looking out over a huge internal space over to Columbus Circle itself. Very relaxing and cool - it was SO hot outside.

Eva had bought tickets to see Chicago and had managed to get seats in the 8th row in the middle. We are going tonigh for our last thing in NY. We leave tomorrow around 9am from out hotel to fly to Monreal and see Miri and Robi. I'm so looking forward to that.

More later, and maybe photos too.

We've had a fabulous time, and I'm sure I've left out heaps that we did. It has been hard keeping up my diary (which is now 200 pages long) and the blog. I will update again from Montreal.

Munchen

2006-06-25T17:22:00.000+10:00

Well, we did get to the Arabia museum/shop in Helsinki and it was fun using their trams. We couldn't work out how to pay on the trip out, so had a free ride! The Arabia factory was huge and incorporated a Design University of some sort on its 5th floor. The bottom floor was a shop that sold much more than Arabia things and there were other shops as well selling fabrics, pots etc. It was OK to look around in, but basically just shopping!

The museum on the 9th floor was very well laid out with examples of Arabia design of their plates etc as well as artworks of their designers. It really highlighted the relationship of art and functional design. I saw an example of the sunflower Arabia plate we have but we didn't stay too long as it was SO hot. We concluded that Helsinki is not hot for very long and so they don't have air con anywhere!

We went back into town and did some more last minute shopping and looking at design places and got the bus to the airport. The airport. What a crazy place that was! There was a queue of about 50m long of people to check in, and it was moving so slowly that I was sure we wouldn't make our flight. Eva went to go back to the queue and I went to look for other alternatives. I was amazed that Eva was actually at about the 100m mark in the queue and was not moving forward very fast! Fortuneately I found a Finnair Club queue that the lady said we could go in, so we checked in OK - otherwise I'm sure we'd still be in Helsinki. The fun of air-travel!

The 3 hour flight to Munich was as OK as flights can be, and it was great to see Hedi and Werner waving German and Australian flags to greet us. Much fun and laughter. Eva has been fantastic in her speaking and translating German - she is so good at it and so thoughtful, keeping everyone informed.

We arranged to meet Chris and Kadty at Hedi and Werner's place and had txt'ed them the directions. It was raining when we got the call from them that they were nearby but lost, so Werner and I set out to find them. It was joyous hugs from wet Chris and Kadty when we finally found each other. We all had a great time together, with everyone making a great effort to speak in Genrman and English! Werner drove them back to their hostel, and I went along to keep him company, and we managed to "talk" OK on the way home.

Next day we walked for a few hours from Hedi and Werner's place all through the Englishe Garten into the city. Werner explained how high the floods on the Isar had come, and had nearly flooded Munich City. It was a long and beautiful walk, and we had a break at the Chinesishe Turm beer garden for a beer and pretzel. Werner took us to show us many things in the city, from a cannon ball still stuck in the side of a church, fired by Austrians in some conflict. We also saw the very modern Synagogue and Jewish centre being built, which is a lot of glass and does not look like a synagogue to me, but it is not finished yet. We bought some fish and veggies for me to cook slamon for dinner for us all in the evening, and then we went to visit Max and Traudl (Inge's brother) and had a really nice afternoon tea at their place. Max is not well, but talked and joked with us, and even got up to wave to us from the balcony when we left. It was so good to see them. I think the best part of holidays is meeting with people!

Dinner was great fun cooking in Hedi's kitchen, she was very generous in allowing me to, and we ate and drank a lot! I was very tired by the end of the day, but we watched some soccer and went to bed quite late (again). We saw Australia play Brasil, and although we lost 2-0, we played really well.

Next day (Friday) was shopping day for Eva, and I walked about and bought some things as well as updating my diary. We met Chris at his hostel near Hauptbahnhof and went to the markets behind Marienplatz for lunch. I had sausages and sauerkraut (have to have that at least once in Munchen!) and we chatted with people at our table about football and life. It was crowded, noisy and fun!
After that, Eva went shopping, Chris went off to look for friends and I stayed behind to write up my diary. I had another beer and pretzel to help my creative juices, and was treated to a Bavarian band and whip cracking display. It was a lot of fun, but after writing several pages the beer was taking its toll and I became drowsy! So, what else could I do, but go and have coffee and cake! Ah, what a life.....:-)

Met up with Eva and we headed back to Fritz Meyer Weg to Hedi and Werner's house for dinner, soccer and bed.

On Saturday we were invited to a weisswurst party at the neighbours place, and there we met a number of the neighbours, who were really very nice. Some spoke English and it was really a lot of fun. Of course much talk was about the Germany vs Sweden game at 5pm. We went for a walk to the Englishe Garten at around 4pm and we saw many people sunbaking (it was hot hot hot) and some paddling. We paddled for a bit, and then, as there were some nude people about, I stripped off and went for a quick dip. The water was fast moving and quite cold, but very refreshing.

We passed a beer garden at about 5:10 and the huge roar told us that Germany had scored a goal. We watched the remainder of the match at Hedi and Werner's place and then went for a walk to the local shops to buy some washing liquid and have an ice-cream.

On the way back there were so many poeple ya-hoo'ing and tooting horns, waving huge German flags and laughing, chanting, singing. Its so good to see sport have such positive effects!

We watched the Mexico-Argentina game (which I thought was much better) but I was hoping that Mexico would win, just 'cos Ben was there!

Another late night. Although I am so tired at the end of each day, I am happy that I am trying to get so much out of each day.

So, our last full day in Munich - hard to believe time goes so fast. The day started out really well, with emails from a number of people, including Miri, Eve, Leah and Ben - so I answered them and then it was time for brunch. Hedi had organised for Monika, Jurgen, Christianne, Peter, Nina to come over for brunch. It was so good to be together, eating a breakfest feast! We ate, drank and chatted till about 4:30pm when Jurgen and Monika cycled home in the 32 degree heat. Peter didn't come as he had hurt his back, and I hope he gets better soon. We'll see him next time.

Although we were a little tired, we decided to go and see the Allianz Arena in Munich as Eva had seen a show about it and we had seen a number of soccer games played there. I write this just before we leave. I may or may not get to update this post before we leave Munchen for New York at 5pm Monday Local time. If not then more form the US of A!!

Les in Helsinki

2006-06-21T06:38:00.001+10:00

A rare photo of Les - about to get some exercise lifting up a cup of coffee.

Photos from Helsinki

2006-06-21T06:38:00.000+10:00

Eva outside the Cathedral in Helsinki

Helsinki

2006-06-20T06:39:00.000+10:00

I'm slowly getting the hang of blogs and have now added some photos, so check out the posts below for some piccies.

I seem to be only able to add one picture per post (is there another way Ben??).

Anyhow, back to the saga! We did a last minute 2 hour shop for Eva and a 2 hour walk to discover parks for Les in Stockholm and then we headed out on the train to the airport. We arrived in time, but had to queue for nearly an hour to get checked in! And then the flight was delayed half an hour which was just as well as we (or our luggage) may not have made it.

The flight was about 2 hours and the time difference was 1 hour, so we are back to daylight till midnight now, which is great.

We found the hotel, (Seurahuone) after getting a bus from Helsinki airport that took about three quarters of an hour to get in. The frightening part is that the traffic going the other way was heavy and we will have to get through that going back!

We decided to go for a few hour walk which we did to the botanic gardens, which is set around a fairly large lake with a water spout in the middle and surrounded by bushes, trees, flowers and a healthy Finnish supply of joggers! From there we crossed the railway line, and called in at a teahouse that had a beautiful view of another larger lake, with people sitting about drinking tea. We just looked and moved on to walk in a third park that went around the olympic site built for the 1952 (?) olympics here. We returned via the opera house (had a beer nearby) and the Finlandia building designed by Alto. It was a good walk and got all the cobwebs out.

We went out to dinner at a Finnish restaurant and my salmon was excellent as was Eva's reindeer. It is very hot and the hotel does not have air conditioning, so I stayed up till late and did email things, updated my diary (I've written over 100 pages now) and updated the blog.

Next day we go going early and had a great breakfast. This hotel reminds me to some extent of a bygone era. There are chandeliers, large drops of curtains, long sweeping elegantly curved stairways that look like they have come from the "Gone with the wind" set. But it is all very tastefully done. So, we had breakfast in such a setting, and we felt very special.

Afterwards we headed out to see an number of Design shops/museums, and for some reason there are very many in Helsinki, more than in Stockholm which surprised me. In general, Helsinki seems like a poorer cousin in that it has a worn sort of feeling, but not that of a favorite jumper, more like a carpet that was once grand, but is now a bit tattered but cannot be replaced as a new one costs too much! But when it comes to design, a different story. They are so well organised, with a "Design District Helsinki" brochure that list 104 design places in the city alone! We went to only a few and they were amazing!

For those of you reading this that are not so interested in design, you should read this paragraph as I talk about it. And those of you interested....well....you know! We first went to Artek which was a design showroom and a shop. I think the success of their presentation here, is that all the places were both, so you could actually buy the stuff as well as see the history. Much of the design was done by Aalto (husband and wife) but there was much much more. We stayed a bit too long for me (felt like shopping, for which I have a tolerance that can be counted in milliseconds on one hand) but Eva enjoyed buying stuff. Then we went to a few other places which were pretty amazing, but I want to get to the Design Forum. In their showroom part they had a display of so many varied design things from utensils, to lamps to furniture and more. Some were concentarting on design, but most had an aspect of the material that was fascinating. Some were on recycled materials, other were on new techniques (such as printing on concrete). There was a brush made of pine that was water blasted at the end to rough it up so you could use it for scrubbing pots - things like that. Then downstairs there was the cup of grass (or as the French might say Coup de grace)! There was a design of concept vehicles and they were amazing. Many designs were minimalistic (is that a style Ben?) and so different. The best was a three wheel motor bike that was driven by petrol that generated electricity that drove separate magnetic motors in each of the wheels. This allowed the wheel to be completely hollow, no axle, just supported top and bottom by struts! I just stared (and wanted one).

We had coffee and a well known (but I've forgotten the name) place that was in a long strip of green parkland, and it was styled like out hotel - very old world. We also visited the markets, which had so many strawberries that there would be enough sticks in all of Finland to shake at them!

From there Eva and Les separated - Eva to shop, Les to go exploring. Not sure what Eva did for more than 2 mins of shopping, but I had so much fun exploring. I walked for about 1 1/2 hours and found some churches, lots of flats, a few embassies, some interesting restaurants and bars. I kept getting lost, somewhat intentionally, and then having to figure out where I was and which way might be nice to head towards to get lost again.

One time I found a path between some flats that opened up to a very big park. It was quite unusual to find that the huge green lawns were undulating, as Helsinki is quite flat. One part of it was a very large south facing hill, where there were hundreds of people all stripped down to bikinis and shorts etc. It was so weird, like being on a beach but there was no water in sight! Then suddenly, the park ended at a major street! I think it was a green area for all the flats. Helsinki is good that way, there are lots of parks. I also came across a really cool looking night club, which was a set of stairs leading up to doors that looked like a church. Reminded me of Ben telling us of a night club called The Church. Will Eva and I go to this hot night club? Nah, don't think so, we are way too cool for that!

As I neared the hotel, I found a large Piazza where there was a rock band called Carmen Gray playing. I think they are famous througout the depth and breadth of the Piazza and there were more piercings on weidly hair-coloured 15 year olds, than there were strawberries in the markets! Actually the band was OK - they sang in english, and it was fairly heavy rock, but not noise.

(arghhhhh...I just lost 20 minutes of typing, well here goes, I'll do it again - bloody computers!!)

Eva had orgainised for us to go to dinner an hour later so she could do some more shopping (no she's not addicted, just female). This gave me more time to do stuff, so I updated the blog and my diary as well as catching up with some email - including hearing from Ben who was on line at the same time. It was almost as good as talking to him!

I then went to a chocolate place, that was descibed to us as "the best chocolate in the world". I had a wonderful berry tart, that was all berry, and a very nice hot chocolate. It was good, but Koko Black in Melbourne need not worry - those non-Melbournians who have not been to Koko Black should make the pilgrimage! I got back in time to have a shower before heading off to a Lapp restaurant to have some reindeer. Does having reindeer make you horny? I was about to find out!

We felt quite comfortable in finding our way around now, and just headed strait to the restaurant. I should add that in Stockholm Eva was somewhat navigationally challenged, but here in Helsinki she was able to find her way back to the hotel without a map. Go girl!

The restaurant was quite nicely done as a Lappland theme restaurant, with all the walls and ceiling (even the lights) all done in logs. Its funny, it looks like it might be Lapp, but for all I know they live in round houses made of insulated plastic!

Eva had fish and particularly enjoyed the salad for which I think she was having withdrawl symptoms. I had the reindeer osso bucco, which was nice but a little dry. When had with its accompanying sauce, it was nice. We also had a Cloudprioska, which is a caprioska with cloudberry liqueur with schnapps and lime. Yum! With some hard work and concentration we are also getting back into the swing of having wine, and the burgundy I had was very nice! Just a glass mind you.

No dessert as we were full and the restaurant was a little noisy with loud diners, so we were happy to go. We came back and watched England score a goal in the World cup against Sweden and repack our bags ready for the trip to Munich tomorrow afternoon.

In the morning we intend to go to the Arabia factory/museum/shop and amybe some other things (depends how late we get going) , but I will write about those things from Munich.

We will meet Chris and Kathy (Eva's brother and sister) and Hedi and Werner (Eva's Aunt and Uncle) in Munich as well as other relatives. I'm really looking forward to it. Hard to believe we have been away for 4 weeks now.

Oh, does eating reindeer make you horny? Well, I'm not going to tell you ..... ;-)

Stockholm

2006-06-19T07:31:00.000+10:00

We said our sad goodbyes to Norway as we'd had such a terrific time! The last 5 days of driving nearly 1000km was really great, being in the countryside and exploring freely without having to decide on museums and "must do" tours of cities.

We headed out to the airport at Tromsö, and found it and the rental car return easily, and so had more time to kill than we really needed, but airports are like that, they soak up so much time.

Our flight left a little late, but we made the connection in Oslo to Stockholm all OK. It made me realise just how far north we were in Norway when the flight south was about 2 hours or so. I guess a bit like Mebourne to Brisbane.

We read about the Arland Express, a train right from the airport to the centre of town, so we decided to take that option. It was a little expensive, but we knew the reailway station was near the Rica hotel where we were going to stay. After a little bit of walking about we found the hotel, which was OK, but the room was quite small, and we had to be careful where we placed things. The room was exceptionally quiet, looking out into the breakfast atrium.

We decided to head out for a walk, without backpacks and cameras for a change. We ended up walking non-stop for about 5 hours, just exploring the old town with its narrow streets and tourist shops and bars etc. We walked all around the extensive waterfront of the old town, and some of a neighbouring island, which was even nicer, as it was very green with many wonderfully smelling lilac trees hanging heavy with blossom. Eva and I both thought of our mothers - lilacs do that.

There were many people sunbaking, walking strollers or just sitting on the grass. On that island there were a number of large and colourful scultures by a french sculptor whose name I did not get, but we have seen their work in a fountain in Paris. Nice memories. We listened to a military band for a while and were fascinated by the one person not in uniform.

We asked back at the hotel for a recommendation for a restauant, and to cut a long story short we eventually ended up at the Radison Hotel's Fisk Restaurant (a fish restaurant) but we were pretty exhausted by the time we corrected the directions we were given. One of the fun things about travel! The fish was delish and the wine was fine!

Next day we decided to hire bicycles for a few hours and explore a larger island that had many paths, rivers, lakes, bars, marinas etc. It was glorious. We just poked along on our bikes, stopping to have sandwiches in the shade looking out over some sunbaking people to the water and the boats beyond. We also visited a place called the Skansen area where there was a reconstructed town, farms buildings from early Sweden, with some of the buildings and many artifacts original. There was a storehouse dating back to the 14th century or so. There was also a zoo, and I finally got to see reindeer, and was surprised to see just how big they were and how they have long thin legs!

We had a delicious icecream and then went on to give our bikes back. We were so surprised how slowly we now moved on two legs rather than 2 wheels!

Earlier in the day we had watched an international boules competition, and now returned for more and a beer. A well deserved rest. Also earlier in the day we had seen a large military band playing what I thought was a polka, so I grabbed Eva and we polked past them as they marched. It was nice getting applause from others in the crowd, though I think Eva was a bit embarassed!

We had dinner in the old town ina restaurand underground in a whitewashed cave. Great lamb shanks!

Last day we visited the Royal Palace and went on tours which were very interesting, telling us much of the history of the aristocracy of Stockholm. We then went to the National Museum, mainly to look at Sedish Design, which was interesting but not great. So, today was museum day!

Eva then went shopping, I went and did email and watched Australia play Brasil. We wandered around the old town again and picked a random place for dinner, and the fish I had was great. I had been wanting to try cloudberries, and finally did as a dessert. I'm still not sure what they are, but they are nice.

So, we ended up with a bit of a feel for Stockholm, finally, and tomorrow we head for Helsinki, probably after a quick extra shop for Eva and a wander about for me.

More from Helsinki later - sorry still not photos, but I have taken about 1000 and about 2-3 hours of video!

Driving in Northern Norway

2006-06-16T04:35:00.000+10:00

5 days driving in Northern Norway.
Our second car adventure in Norway, this time in the north. After much deliberation, we decided to head east through the Lyngen Alps which were meant to be quite jaggerd mountains. We left the small island of Tromsøya, going over a bridge that looked like the Hobart Bridge, towards the town ofBrievikeidet (hard to pronounce names!) where we got a ferry over to Svensby. The beautiful green trees and foliage contrasted well with the snow capped mountains and black rocks. We arrived for the ferry early and although it was cold and windy we did a small walk along some rocks for a better view of the fjord. There is so much water in Norway, in waterfalls, lakes and fjords. It is never far away (and often it even falls from the sky!!).

Svensby was a very small place and we were hoping for some advice from the tourist centre that was supposed to be there. Turns out it was just a kiosk, and although the woman who did not speak much english tried to be helpful, we got little out of it by way of advice or maps.

So, we continued on to the other side of that "island" to where the walking was supposed to be better and there may or may not be a tourist bureau. It was good to be finally in a remote area, and although we were finding it difficult to get information, we were taking in wonderful scenery and enjoying the isolation. The real summer season starts in 2 weeks when the school holidays are on, and so there are very few people about, but most things are open. Great balance for us.

We got to Furufaten where we hoped to walk, but could not see any tracks marked. This seems to be usual, and you are either supposed to just know, or else walk wherever you think it is OK. We called in at the marked tourist centre but there seemed to be a wedding there, and all we could get in response to our request for any information was "not here". Fair enough I guess. At least it was nice looking at the children who seemed to be dressed in a traditional very colourful costume.

So, we just drove on and decided to go further south, planning to go to either Lofoten Islands (a very long drive) or to Senja Island which we knew nothing about. We stopped at the decision point for the night at a town called Setermoen. It was quite a dead looking place whose claim to fame was it was a military town and involved in hydro schemes. The Bardu Hotell was weird. Huge hotel, with only a few guests and a long hike from reception to our room. People at reception were very friendly and informative and apologised for the dining room being closed and said the only place to eat was Patricia's Pizza. So, we had a 40cm pizza for about $45 and it was nice.

We visited a waterfall/holiday area called Malselvfossen (fossen at the end of a place means waterfall), which was a huge "flat" waterfall, like a large river with steep rapids really. It was a fishing area, and they had built a more gentler "ladder" for the salmon to leap upstream so they could go further up to spawn - though why salmon want to go further up, or up at all, is beyond me!

We went on a very new board walk to examine the staged river they had blasted out of rock, and it was very interesting and peaceful. We thought of staying there, but the cabins they had were only for 4 people and correspondingly priced!

The man at the Bardu hotell spoke very highly of Senja Island which was easier to drive to than Lofoten, so we decided to head for Finnsens, the gateway town to the island.
At Finsens we spoke with a wonderful lady at the tourist centre who told us of the most amazingly interesting sounding places to visit on Senja, so we finally set off with enthusiasm, now knowing what we were going to do.

We drove for about 80km along the eastern side of the island, which was mainly lowlands for fishermen and farmers. The centre of the island was mountains and the north-west was fingers of fjords which we were headed to. The first really interesting place was a very small island called Husøy. This was settled by Spanish people we were told. It is an island of 1km by about 300m and has 200 inhabitants and is very remote from anywhere else on the island. You cross a mountain range and then suddenly below you is the small island connected by a small bridge to the mainland with its colourful houses and flowers. There were NO houses off the island either, making it even more special. We walked around for ages, and chatted with a local person for about half an hour as well as having coffee and cake. We explored the lighthouse at the end of the island, set in its plot of green grasses and flowers. We really loved it there, looking out to the Arctic Sea with a backdrop of amazing snow capped mountains and clear sky.

We then headed off past another couple of fingers of land pointing out to sea, to a place called Mefjord, which again looked out over the water to mountains shining in the sun. It was a very small fishing community and we decided to stay the night at a local inn. We walked up a steep path to a clifftop lookout before dinner. The meal was a yummy fish soup followed by flatfish and veggies. The chef/waiter/receptionist, Frede, was so friendly, telling us about the place, playing traditional Norwegian music and telling us of a romantic stroll we should go on after dinner. The stroll was great, over heathland past artifacts that were found to date back thousands of years, over a subterranean waterfall to a rock and shell covered beach.

We happily returned to our lovely 2nd floor room looking out to the fjord and went to sleep (after watching some of the World Cup soccer).
I woke at 2am ansd saw directly out our window, the warm orange glow of the colours in the clouds and the big round midnight sun! I was over the moon, as I just could NOT get over the sun!

Next day we headed off south, but I'll cut it a bit short as I'm hogging this hotel computer too much! We went to a national park and walked in the wetlands there over planks that you had to balance on that went for hundreds of meters. We stayed in a cabin with bunk beds and I cooked steak, onions, mushrooms, capsicum, tomatoes with one hotplate. We then returned via Finnnes to Mefjord, as we liked it there so much and we talked with the waitress (Kristine, aged 22) who had spent 2 years in Perth and just arrived back home. We learned what life was like growing up in a remote community for her. A great evening.

Then today we returned to Tromsø via the summer island of Sommerøya which had real beaches of sand. It was too cold for a swim, and is mainly used for swimming in winter when combined with sauna! But I think they swim there in summer too.

Back in Tromsø I talked with the Parking police and they agreed to take back our parking fine, and we completed the day (and effectively our stay in Norway) with an amazing dinner at Emmas "Dream Kitchen" with the best Creme Broulee I have ever had in my life. We even lashed out an had a Souvignon Blanc from the Loire.

Tomorrow we leave Norway for a few days in Stockholm. More at the end of that.....

Tromsø

2006-06-11T09:11:00.000+10:00

The last day or so of the voyage was not quite as good, as the weather closed in a bit, and we could not see the steep walls of the Lofoten Islands from the boat. Also, due to the strong winds and big swell, my philanthropic tummy must have been in a generous mood and wanted to share its contents with the world, but managed to not quite do so! The sea was too rough for the ship to call into one port, but when we entered the fjords again, it became calm, and the view was better too, as we were very close to the walls and could see them as well as farms and high mountains and islands.
We crossed the Artic Circle and King Neptune performed his ceremony (in 4 languages) and we all had iced water poured down the backs of our necks! The sherry that followed, down our throats, warmed us up again.
All in all, the boat trip was great. At times it felt like the land was moving and we were still, a never ending panorama being played out for our benefit. Still, a much better feeling for the land is when we had our feet on it and worked hard to get up and down its hills.

We arrived in Tromsø at 2:30pm and found our hotel easily but the hire car was only available at the airport. Someone kindly came to pick us up and Eva successfully navigated our way back into town. Tomosø is on a large island, with the airport on one side and the main town on the other. It joins to the mainland by a large bridge and a road tunnel.
I think the weather is improving, but it still rains occasionally and the temperature is about 8 degrees. Sunday it is supposed to soar to 14 - just as well that I brought my swimmers.

There are very few signs in english here, so we had trouble working out where to park, but managed to find somewhere. A nice parking policeman gave me a short course on where it is illegal to park. Still, the fine was less than getting someone to deliver the car to us on Sunday when parking is free and when we needed the car first.

There are very many cafe/bars in Tromsø and it does carry its reputation as a University town, with many young people about giving it a great atmosphere. We had a beer at Le Mirage which was great. There is no smoking in bars in Norway, and that makes so many more places accessible to us.

So, what did we do? We walked about the streets, looking at the many wooden houses here. I have come to realise that Norwegian towns have houses made of wood as it is part of their tradition, but also cheaper and as you travel further north, they believe it is more appropriate for the harsher climate. Still, over time, each of the cities have had a diasterous fire (in 1904 a fire completely destroyed Alersund) and Tromsø had its fire, but I cannot remember when.

We went out to one of the many bars - Tromsø has a population of 60,000 with 10,000 students, so it is no wonder that there are many bars. What I cannot understand is how they can afford it, with beer prices around 60 NOK ($15). The "Le Mirage" had a great atmosphere, with big sofa benches and tables, dark wood, buzz of people talking and drinking.

We came back to the hotel after a wander through the streets, looking at the coloured wooden houses, some with Swiss architectural influences. There is a huge church in town, made of wood, I think it is so powerful, because of the wood. It seems such a meek building, as opposed to the magnificence of some of the huge stone cathedrals with their ornate carvings. We didn't go inside, but maybe we will before we leave.

We went out to dinner at a restaurant with table cloths, and the meal was nice. I've been drinking beer, partly for the cost, but also because I think I've rediscovered the taste. Eva has been sticking to wine and water. We had sole for dinner, which I expected to be a whole fish, but was served as a roulade sort of thing with a really nice sauce. Good meal.

We went to bed around midnight, and it was still just as light as it had been during the "day".
Next day we woke early, had breakfast and planned our day. We went to the Polaria, a sort of aquarium where we saw a fantastic film on Svalbard, and island to the north of the Norwegian mainland. It is quite a harsh environment but has such rich fauna and flora. The film was made with 5 cameras and projected on to 5 screens all joined together. A fabulous show. Next we saw the feeding of 5 very active bearded seals. They were so cute, and their whiskers made them even cuter.

We then walked along the waterfront, and over a very long bridge, sort of like the Hobart bridge, to the Artic Cathedral, which is a very modern A-frame strucutre with the A's slightly offset along its length which lets the light in. One end of the A has a huge stained glass window depicting the ascension of Christ, and it is so bright and modern, I just kept looking at it for ages. The other end has a big organ, and we were treated to a great organ recital.

From there we walked a further 1km or so to the base of the cable-car to take us up for a fantastic panoramic view of Tromsø. We went out to go for a short 1km walk even though it was about 4 degrees celcius with a slight wind. We walked over heath, passing by snow and small ponds and found our way to a really nice hut where we rested, took photos and looked at the view. It was slightly overcast, but not raining with the sun poking its head out sometimes.
Then we walked back, got the cable car down and walked back to town. We'd bought a town walks book and so followed one of the walks and ended up at the hotel where we had dinner.

After that, I'd picked out 5 bars where I wanted to go for a "pub crawl". They were amazing, each different and each very enjoyable. I had a beer at each. The first was at the waterfront, and had a great deal of paraphenalia about shipping over the walls and ceiling. It had an open fire and was not too crowded, and no music.
The second was called the Tromsø Railway, which was fun as Tromsø has no railway, but probably wishes it had. The seats were all done as railway carriages, but it was a little dead.
The next was a "rock cafe/bar" and it was amazing. It had many levels with lounges at each level and relatively quiet music playing. There were many posters on the wall of various groups (Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Beasty Boys etc). Cool place, not very crowded and I thought we were a little early.

Next place was getting crowded, and it was ordinary looking, but had billiard tables and got crowded as we left.
The last place was really cool. It had a separate area where people lounged on various types of furniture, but I think it may have been a "special" area as often the door was closed.
We left there at around 12:15am and when we got out the whole sky was blue, not a cloud there! The night was MUCH brighter than the day had been, it was amazing. We went for a walk along the waterfront and looked at the snow covered mountains with their ridges so sharp against the clear light blue sky. I just had a cheshire grin the whole time, and not all due to the 5 beers I'd had!
Eva was tired, so she went to bed, but I stayed up to enter this on the blog, just to show that I'm not as pissed as she thinks I might be! As I finish this, I will go for another walk (it is now 1am) as it is just as bright as it was an hour ago. I'm thinking of Ben who is about to leave for Mexico in about an hour.

Tomorrow we head off in our car to the east of Tromsø, to the Lyngan Alps, and we still have not decided if we will go north to the wilderness or go south to the Lofoten islands and the rich views there. Tomorrow promises to be awesome weather (i.e. blue sky and sunshine all day) so it will be great to be in the mountains. Next installment will tell you what we did with the car over the next 5 days. It is so good being north of 66 33, the land of the midnight sun. This is one of the things we came for and I'æm revelling in it!!

Cruise up the West Coast

2006-06-08T21:22:00.000+10:00

We went back to Bergen on the Hydrofoil, and although we'd seen the islands and towns, the 4 hour trip was still stimulating. We had time to stock up on some salmon at the fish markets, and our return to Bergen was like seeing an old friend again! Our passender ship is quite big and has seven levels, our cabin being on level 3. It has two fold out beds, one of which doubles as a couch. It has a shower and toilet as well as a small table, arm chair and desk and heaps of cupboard space. Our large porthole looks out to sea rather than on the land side, but we've been surprised that there are very few "open sea" sections of the voyage and most of it is through fjords or amongst islands, so the views from the cabin are quite nice. Often we have woken up at 3am and looked at the scenery for a while as is is light around then.

We call in at various ports along the way and I'll describe some of them. Alesund is a small town that we had two stops in, one for three quarters of an hour and another for an hour. The town is VERY compact and has Art Noveau architecture, so the buildings have turrets and lovely wrought iron. On the first stop we wandered around some of the street recommended by Lonely Planet and found our way to the old town centre. We had a good brisk walk, with not many people around as we were quite early in the day. We made it back to the boat with a couple of minutes to spare.

Then the boat went to the famous fjord (which I hadn't heard of before we planned this trip) called Gieranger. It is a small fjord, with many waterfalls, some whispy and some raging. It has steep sides and typical glacial walls where the rock faces show the waring that the ice caused so long agog. We stayed outside on the deck the whole time, and it really was enthralling. Poor little town of Geiranger which has a population of around 1000 that has 150 cruise ships visit with an estimated 600,000 people passing through! We decided not to go on a land excursion (as we'd just be sitting on a bus for 5 hours) and stayed on the ship for the return to Alesund, and enjoyed the fjord a second time.

Back in Alesund we'd discovered a park (Aksala) with a view over the town, and so we raced up towards the 418 steps to the top. It really was a magnificent view, so we stayed a little longer than we needed to regain our breath. We wandered off the path on the way down and ended up in part of the town we didn't recognise, but Eva avoided panicing and we made it back to the ship with 2 minutes to spare! These adventures are good for our adenaline supply.

I still haven't worked out how to upload photos and often the internet computers are locked away so I cannot get a USB connection. So sorry, the photos may have to wait till I get back to Oz or at least till we get to Munich.

Next stop was at Trondheim, although there are quite a number of stops between, but they are too short to get off. We walked the 20 minutes or so into town and found an old looking bridge with a beautiful view of coloured houses by the river. You could almost picture the viking ships coming alongside! We made our way up a steep path to the old fort, which was a lovely grassed area, with cannons and old white buildings and a lovely view. They had built a cycle lift to help get cyclists up the hill and this worked a little like a skiing t-bar. We never saw anyone using it though. Next we visited the enormous catedral. Trondheim was established in 997 and in 1022 (?) Olav H introduced chrisianity and had this cathedral built which has a very large number of stained glass windows and thousands of arvings of people, angels etc all over its walls. We also visited the museum which had finds from the area discovered when various renovations were being done. The nearby armoury was very interesting and presented very well, in some styles reminiscent of the Australian War Memorial.

We filled up on rolls and fruit and cake and headed back to the ship.

We are now in Bodø and are north of the artic circle. Tomorrow we arrive in Tromsø and get our car there to go exploring for a week. The weather is meant to be improving although the forcast max for Tuesday is 5 degrees. As long as the rain stays away (which it largely has) we are OK. Eva has more layers than a battery hen farm and our gortex jackets keep the wind off very well. But often there is no wind and we always have had some sunshine.

We have used the exercise room on the boat (me for 30 mins and Eva for an hour) and done our washing. We've met a very nice Dutch couple who may come to visit Australia. We are well, happy and having fun!!

Driving for 3 days

2006-06-05T07:56:00.000+10:00

We've just completed 3 days and 500km of experience in the most amazing Norwegian countryside near Stavanger, in the south-west of Norway.

The first day was lightly raining, cold and windy, so we thought we'd head for as far east as we were going to go, to both see the countryside on the way from the warmth of the car, and in the hope that the weather might improve in that area.

We found a large "walking park", more like a huge botanical garden, and spent some time walking in the past some small lakes and the most brilliant display of various coloured rhotodendrons I've ever seen. My feet got quite wet (joggers are not serious walking shoes), but the rain was not constant, and although cold, we had a great time there. There were a number of very cheeky birds, about the size of sparrows, that would come right up to us I guess in the hope of food. This allowed us to study their lovely colours which included brown, blue, green, black and white. We had lunch of sandwiches in a small hut. Very romantic.

Next we went to a ceramics factory, called Figgjo, which had some quite innovative designs for jugs, bowls, serving plates and more. They also had "every day" dinner sets, and people were buying heaps. The feel of the glaze (mainly white) was so smooth. We wanted to buy some, but it was more expensive to ship than the cost of the items, so we just bought a small souvenier, which we hope we can get back in one piece.

Driving in Norway is delightful, mainly, as drivers are most thoughtful and will let you in even if they clearly have right of way. The hard bit is that most of the roads we go on (and it seems most of the roads) are very narrow and you have to move to the edge or more when a car comes the other way. There are small car-length sized widened areas in case a camervan, bus or truck comes the other way. Trouble is that most drivers do not slow down - particularly Mercedes drivers it seemed! Lucky our small Ford Fiesta was not very wide! I only ran off the road a little bit once, and mainly drove at about 50 to 70kph.

We stayed the night in a touristy place with a 4 poster bed, but as the "Summer season" only starts on 1st June, we were the only ones there, and felt like kings when we were individually served breakfast which always seems to be included in the very expensive hotels bills! Just as well.

Next day we drove to a place called Kjerag which is 800m above the Lysefjord. The weather was better and we were hoping to do a 6 hour walk to Kjerag rock - a large boulder wedged between two walls, 1000m above the fjord. The man in the cafe there advised against it, as the track was wet (still raining a little) and there was snow still there and likely to be fog. I know the track is a little scary even in good weather, so we didn't go. We did drive down the 27 hairpin turns to the town of Lysebotn at the bottom and watched a car ferry come in and load up. The nearby waterfall was quite spectacular, and it is so easy to take these waterfalls for granted as there are so many of them!

We then drove about 5km back to where we spent the night at Byrkjedal, and saw some huge boulders that were part of the moraine of a glacier and climber around them for a while. Then we drove another 20km or so to Manafossen falls. These were spectacular, a 92m free fall waterfall with a very large volume of water. The track up was very steep having ladders in some spots and chains in others to hang on to as we heaved our way up. It was worth it too. We decided to go on to Man Farm, which was established in the Middle Ages and now served as a form of cheap accommodation for walkers. It was beside a river which we followed a couple of km further before the track became too wet to walk in our joggers! There were the sounds of birds, of flowing river and of the bells of sheep and goats. The sun was out and all was peace in the world! It was very pleasant.

We had trouble fining accommodation after our 3 hour walk but finally did by 9pm or so, and managed to get the last room in the only hotel we could find, so it must have been meant to be.

On our last day with the car, we woke to glorious sunshine! This was the day we were going to walk to Priekestolen, a sheer sided 600m drop to the Lysefjord on 3 of its sides. We had to drive about 40km and go on a car ferry to get there, but we were excited as we finally set off on the 4 hour return 3.8km walk that rose 350m. It was on tracks that ranged from wooden walkways to prelaid stones, and large smooth rock surfaces but mainly was on stones that you just found your way through, though the overall track was well marked. There were many people walking, but I enjoyed overtaking most of them, especially on the way up! We passed bonsai pine trees, small lakes, righly moss covered floors of small woods till we first caught our glimpse of the Lysefjord. It was magic. The fjord stretched for over 20km and you could clearly see its end and the patches of snow on the many rounded fjord "tops" beyond.

Finally we walked along a narrow ridge (no fence) to the flat top of Priekestolen itself. There were crowds of people there, some barbequing sausages others drinking champagne. We crawled to the edge to look right down the 600m to the water, but mainly just marvelled at the view down the fjord in both directions.

The crowds sent us off after a while and we went off on on nearby track to a place with just as good a view, but NO people. With our back against a warm rockface, out of the wind and the sun streaming down on us, we had our sandwiches, water and chocolate. It is the best sight I have ever seen on any walk.

We got back down after more than 4 hours and drove to the south-west coast of Norway and were surprised to see so much flat green farmland that went right to the seaside. No seaside resorts, but I guess the North Sea is not so inviting to swimmers, even though there was a surf up!

We got back to Stavanger by 8pm and had a wonderful beer in the sun before dinner.

It's been a very long and wonderful day. I updated my diary and this blog and now it is 12:30am and I'm finally off to bed. Free internet access at the hotel is too good to pass up.

Tomorrow we get the hydrofoil back to Bergen and start our 5 day cruise up the west coast of Norway to Tromso.

Stavanger

2006-06-02T06:30:00.000+10:00

We got to Stavanger from Bergen by hydrofoil which took 4 hours. It was a pleasant trip, and we called in to a number of ports along the way. What amazed me was the number of islands that we saw! It was like have the coast on two sides.

Stavanger is a very pleasant place, with many old narrow street with white and colored houses with their beautiful pots of bright flowers outside.

It seems to have quite a number of bars and restaurants too, all concentrated in a small area. We've had a beer and a wonderful meal here. Tomorrow we hire a car for a few days and venture into the countryside.

Bergen

2006-06-02T06:21:00.000+10:00

Bergen is a lovely place. It is centered at the Bryggen (waterfront) and the fish markets. Our hotel was in the centre of town and we could get anywhere easily. The hotel was actually an apartment, so we took advantage of the wonderful produce at the fish market and I cooked two nights. Once was salmon and the other time was Munk. Both were great.

We walked a lot both in town but also one day we set off at about 5pm to go up the furnicular railway to a view at the top. From there we started a walk, but didn't have a very good map at all. We guessed our way to the two nearby peaks and then had to get down again. On the way (there were MANY tracks) we met a couple of girls and asked them where we were. They said 'You are now-where' meaning we were not on our map. Anyhow they said the prettiest way back, although long, was the way they were going and we could follow them. We did that at a discrete distance behind, BUT they walked so fast - even faster than I walk when I walk fast! That day we covered over 15km (according to my pedometer) after walking all day in town. We go back to the hotel at 10pm, and then I cooked dinner. This was the only sunset we've seen in Norway at 12:30am.

We also went to some museums, the best was the Decorative Arts Museum, which made us think of Ben because it was really a Design Museum. It had furniture and teapots and chests and more, all so well laid out and from many periods.

I've left heaps out, but I'd better finish this post as people are waiting for this free hotel internet computer. Not sure when I can post more!

Flam and the Fjords

2006-06-02T06:10:00.000+10:00

On Saturday 27th we set off to Flam by rail from Oslo. The trip was long and the first part was nice but nothing special. When we got into the mountains, or really high up rather than mountainous, it was snow covered and passing by frozen lakes was interesting and kept my interest.

We arrived at Myrdal and changed to a smaller train for the 800m descent over 20km, a third of which was through tunnels. It was billed at the most amazing train journey ever, and although it was good, I wouldn't quite agree with that accolade. We stopped at a waterfall along the way which was truely spectacular.

Out hotel Fetheim in Flam was very special. We were on the top flor, and some rooms there had a little alcove with glass ceiling, but you could curtain it off for sleeping time. I sat there at11:30 at night reading in the sunlight while Eva slept!

We did a lot of walking there - to a waterfall, and also we caught the train back halfway to Myrdal and then walked up higher to an old farm that had been worked for the past 1000 years. Then we walked down, following a river most of the way. It was a terrific walk.

Next day we hired bikes and rode about 20-30km to the next town and beyond, then back - all along the fjord. It is so spectacular - you'll have to see the photos and video one day, I just can't describe it. When we came back there was time for a beer by the water before we had to get on a boat for a 2 hour cruise in the fjord to Gudvagen. The last one half of the cruise took us to very steep sided fjord with such bright green coloured water, it looked artifical. I guess it is green because the steep sided walls are largely covered in vegetation and the water reflects more from that than from the sky.

After Gudvagen, we boarded a bus that drove up an incredible zig-zag road (I hope it was one-way) and we marvelled at the view down the valley as we had a short stop at the top before continuing on down to Voss. At Voss we caught a train that took us to Bergen.

Oslo

2006-06-02T05:56:00.000+10:00

We both had a good sleep on the flight to Helsinki and so we were refreshed when we arrived in the moring at Oslo. We couldn't work out the train tickets into town very well, and ended up getting an express train for twice the price rather than the local train which would have done fine. The ticket machines were automatic and only the express one had an english option. Good train though!

It was early when we arrived and quite cool, about 6 degrees celcius, but the sun was shining and we were happy. Again, our hotel was excellent, with a lovely internal lift of glass, and a very nicely appointed room. The door to the room opened outwards, which we've found is typical in hotels in Norway. Makes for a much better use of space in the room, you just have to be careful when you open the door that you don't knock someone over!

We grabbed some apples and maps from the desk and headed out to explore our first taste of Norway. We walked to the Royal Palace and its grounds which were really nice. There were the usual guards standing to attention, and I was surprised when after taking a guard's photo I said 'thankyou' and he answered me and we had a brief chat. Very laid back.

In Oslo, we also visited the Henrik Ibsen Museum one day and 100 years after his death. It was where he lived for the last 8 years of his life and where he wrote his last 2 works. We walked all over the city, to the botanic gardens, though many back street and along the famous Bryggen (I think that's a name for the waterfront). We had dinner one night along the Bryggen and another in a fish restaurant near the Royal Palace. Both were good, but very expensive. If you can find a beer in Norway for less that $15 Australian, you've found a cheap beer. As for wine in a restaurant, the cheapest bottle is about $100!! We are staying sober.

We also went to a sculpture park with about 250 sculptures by Viegeland. They were all of people, but people in action, and usually not alone. There was also a stone spire made up of intertwined people. Amazing!

We also visited the Munch Gallery and saw some films about him and saw his works which were a little dark/depressing but good to see.

Bangkok

2006-06-02T05:44:00.000+10:00

Its been over a week since we were in Bangkok, but I thought I'd post the highlights anyhow.
We arrived around midnight, and found our way to outside arrival hall 2, which is where the green and yellow cabs are. They are the ones with meters that are supposed to work. We lined up, told a person in a booth where we wanted to go, and they handed the paper to the driver, who nonetheless asked us where we wanted to go. No traffic that time of night along the tollway and we were soon at Siam Square at our hotel. It was a Novotel, and really was quite wonderful, although anything with airconditioning would have seemed that way! We were pretty tired so just went to sleep.

In the morning, we went to the fantastic breakfast - so colourful and so much variation in foods from fruit and cereals to meat, sushi, juices, breads and more.

We decided to look at the nearby shops, which were a little upmarket for us, so we took the sky-train down to the river and avoided being taken for a ride on the narrow boats, and decided to just go by normal ferry. This took us to the royal palace. We walked to near the palace and were told by a very friendly guy that we would not be able to go in as we were wearing shorts and in any case it was closed for prayer, so would we like to go on a tuk-tuk ride to another temple or two and then to some shopping places. We agreed (silly to believe him) and set off. The temple was OK, but then it was just rip-off shopping places until we insisted he take us back, which after quite some arguing he did. We then found that you can borrow skirts and trousers at the palace and it was never closed. The palace was amazing - so many buildings and so intricately designed pieces everywhere you looked. They sure do like gold colouring.

We were pretty tired after that and just went back down-river and then to the hotel. We went to a nearby Thai restarant for dinner, and it was really good, especially the steamed fish in lime that Eva had, although it was a bit too hot for even her.

We had a late checkuot at the hotel, but left at about 9pm for the next phase - our flight to Helsinki/Oslo.

Two more sleeps

2006-05-21T17:42:00.000+10:00

With my 60th birthday party behind us (which was fantastic!!) and having said goodbye to Ben and Leah (which was hard) we are now so close to leaving. Tomorrow is the day for packing, as we just can't seem to get into it today. At least we plan to pack lightly.

Starting to get a little excited, but more worried that there is still so much to do, and not much motivation to get started on it. Maybe in the morning.....

Preparation

2006-04-01T15:36:00.000+11:00

We started to look at where to go in Norway, and there are SO many awesome places that it was hard.