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Friday 17th October 2008 : Cairns
This is last years web site. Click here to see what I've got planned for this year.
Friday 14th March 2008 : Cairns
Well, I've finally updated my photos on to the web site, so click the Photos link to see them all.
Tuesday 22nd January 2008 : Cairns
I did manage to get home with all my luggage on Saturday, but I've been a bit busy to get back to my web site. But I've just finished updating my Antarctica page for those who are interested. The next step will be to upload some photos, so that will be over the next few weeks. Back to work tomorrow!
Saturday 19th January 2008 : Sydney
I'm nearly home, I've been travelling about 30 hours and just have the last flight to Cairns in an hour's time. The return journey has been quite an experience. It looks really good on paper when you have only 1 or 2 hours between each flight, but then each time a flight is delayed or something else happens, you become aware how everything depends on everything else and if one thing goes wrong, you might end up missing all your flights.
My drama started when I tried to cross the border into Brazil by taxi to catch my flight to Sao Paulo. I was ready early (3.5 hours before my flight left) so I decided to leave early and do the waiting at Foz du Iguazu airport. It is usually up to 1 hour to go by taxi from where I was staying in Argentina, through the 2 border crossings (Argentinian and Brazillian) then on to the airport. But when I got to the Brazil crossing, they rejected my visa - the Brazillian embassy had issued it with the wrong date - 2005 instead of 2007. Now, remember they had let me through the day before without anyone picking it up. But this time they would not allow me through; I had to go back over to the Argentinian side and go to the Brazillian consulate and get a new visa re-issued. This involved getting photos done and paying the fees all over again. The normal time to get this done is 24 hours, in emergency they do it in 2 hours - and I had a flight to catch in 3 hours. They actually did it for me in 1 hour and I got to the airport with 50 minutes to spare, when the recommended time is 2 hours.
Then because I was travelling on a different airline, I could only check my luggage through to Sao Paulo, then I had to collect it and re-check it in for my international flights. I had 1 1/2 hours which should have been enough time, but first of all the plane was late, then it took them 1/2 hour to get the luggage to the carousel, then a mad dash from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, but I made it with 30 minutes to go. And then when I got to the gate lounge found out that the flight was leaving 1 hour late anyway.
But I've finally got as far as Sydney, I'm not quite sure where my luggage is going as the lady at Sao Paulo said I had to pick it up in Sydney, but everyone here in Sydney says it will go through to Cairns - it is an international flight. So I will soon find out. I'm now about to have my third breakfast for the day. I will do some more updates tomorrow - today is for vegging out.
Wednesday 16th January 2008 : Iguassu Falls
I've just spent two days visiting the Cataratas Iguassu first from the Argentinian side then from Brazil. It is an absolutely amazing place - I'm glad I left it until last. It is so, so big and there's an incredible amount of power in the amount of water that comes over the falls constantly.
In Argentina, I did a full day trip (along with 50,000 other people). There is so much spray from the falls that you get totally soaked through, you need to take everything in plastic bags, and eventually you have to put your camera away because it gets so wet. We went first to The Devil's Throat which is the most massive fall, then we did two walks to see different parts of the whole thing. Every new thing we see is more amazing, it really defies description. You have to see it and experience it to understand.
Today I visited the Brazil side of the Falls. It was only a half day as there is really one main trail. But totally worth doing - from this side you get to see the whole of the Falls laid out in front of you, and you also get very close to one of the main falls - again I got completely wet through, but it is such an awesome experience. Getting wet is part of the whole deal and it is so hot here that it helps to keep you cool and you dry so quickly.
Tomorrow I head home - Fog de Iguazu - Sao Paulo - Santiago - Auckland - Sydney - Cairns - 34 hours if all goes according to plan. I get home lunchtime on Saturday.
I'm now going to update some more on my Antarctica page including my close encounter with humpback whales.
Monday 14th January 2008 : Iguassu Falls
Please excuse any typing mistakes in this post; I'm using a laptop but the keyboard is not like any keyboard I've ever used before. I've sort of got used to the control keys being in different places on Spanish keyboards and having to use a special key combination to get the @ symbol, but this keyboard has swapped the a and q keys and z and w keys and the m key has moved as well, so I'm reduced to pecking at the keyboard.
Getting to Iguassu has been quite an effort. I started out well - getting to the airport at Ushuaia 2 hours early and just as well. It was a madhouse - hundreds of people in a small airport waiting, waiting, waiting. I found out that some people had already been waiting for 5 hours and no-one knew when planes were going (and all in spanish of course). What I eventually found out is that Aerolineas Argentinas was holding some sort of industrial action and the international airport was virtually closed. I was flying into the domestic airport but all flights were affected to some extent. The screens with flight information were not being updated and the announcements were only in rapid Spanish, so I was constantly asking people to translate for me. Every time they made an announcement, there would be a mad rush for the gate, then nothing would happen for 20 minutes. Eventually I caught my flight only one hour late, so I was one of the lucky ones.
This morning was even more chaotic at Buenos Aires. The queues were huge and the check in staff were inclined to disappear without notice. The screens were being updated but virtually every flight said delayed. The 7:50am flight to Iguassu said delayed - new departure time 11:20am. My flight was due to leave at 10:00am so I didn't hold out much hope. I checked my luggage in OK, and then found out that security won't let you in to the passenger lounge until your flight is scheduled. At this stage my flight said 'Contact agent', not very encouraging. So after trying unsuccessfully to get more info, I went to the cafeteria with some other passengers in the same predicament to wait it out - luckily I had 3 nights scheduled in Iguassu, so I had time to spare. After a bit of a wait, I decided to get a cup of tea and settle in properly. I had about 3 mouthfuls, then noticed that the flight info screen now said that my plane was boarding - no announcement - so I hot-footed it back to the passenger lounge to try my luck again. Success - the comment from the security guard - 'Bingo' - for some reason our plane won the lottery and I left for Iguassu only 1 hour late. There was still a huge crowd when I left.
Tomorrow I visit the Argentinian side of the falls, then Wednesday the Brazillian side. It is very tropical here - quite similar to Cairns - I feel right at home here, even had a swim in the pool.
Sunday 13th January 2008 : Ushuaia
This morning I visited the Tierra Del Fuego national park. The train was quite interesting, they related its history while we travelled. Ushuaia was originally created as a penal colony, and the train was built to take the prisoners into the forest to cut down timber. The railway was eventually shut down but re-opened again in 1994 as a tourist train. It travels away from the road so you see a different view. Then we visited several places in the National Park. It is a very beautiful place. I have to wait now until 7:30pm to catch my flight out of here, and there is not much open on a Sunday afternoon in Ushuaia, so it seems a good time to catch up on my web site.
Go to my Antarctica page for the first instalment.
Saturday 12th January 2008 : Ushuaia
We arrived back in Ushuaia this morning after 11 magical days on our cruise ship. The weather has been close to perfect - the staff keep saying that Antarctica is not really like this! We had a very smooth Drake Passage crossing coming home and not too bad going over, so amazingly I didn´t suffer from sea sickness. Of course, I did take anti-seasickness medication going over, just in case. We were in Antarctica for 5 full days, and there were 13 excursions, of which I did 10 - it´s pretty full on. I had a close encounter with 2 humpbacks one day, and a leopard seal another day. We also saw minke whales, orcas, crabeater seals and weddell seals, and about a million penguins - gentoo, chinstrap and adelie. I slept on an Antarctic Island on our last day and got to watch sunset and sunrise which goes from about 1:30am to 4:30am. It never really got dark and it was really weird last night to have actual dark time.
The weather down there was amazing - we had 3 days of brilliant sunshine - it was actually hot and we had to take layers off. The other days were overcast, but quite mild with no wind. We had a few short times where it snowed, but it was very light and not for long. All our landings were in perfect weather. The staff and other passengers were really great - there were probably about 25% Aussies, 25% US, 25% UK and the rest from all over. There were also 15 - 20 passengers who were originally booked on the Explorer (my other ship), so we already had a lot in common.
I will update my diary notes to the web site over the next few days, so you will get a blow-by-blow description of my trip. I stay here in Ushuaia tonight, then Buenos Aires tomorrow night, then on to Iguassu Falls for a few nights. Tomorrow morning, I have booked a tour of the Tierra Del Fuego national park - I travel by train (The Train At The End Of The World) and by bus, so I will see a bit of the park before my plane flight tomorrow evening.
Monday 31st December 2007 : Lima
Prospero Año Nuevo - Prosperous New Year is the customary greeting in South America, so I hope you all have one. I am currently listening to the New Year celebrations hotting up - some of you may remember Guy Fawkes from a long time ago when you could buy firecrackers, well, that´s what it´s like here, but there doesn´t seem to be any restrictions, just lots of loud bangs going off everywhere, stirring up the dogs. There also seems to be several parties with excessively loud music very close by. No stupid noise restriction laws here apparently.
My plane to Buenos Aires leaves Lima at 1:20AM, so I will be ringing in the New Year at Lima airport - it´s my home away from home. I have no idea what it will be like at the airport - quiet or wild, so I guess I will find out soon. I arrive at Buenos Aires at 8:00AM then my next flight to Ushuaia, where the boat leaves from, is at 4:00PM, so I have a day to kill at the airport - New Years Day - everything will probably be closed. That will test my patience. Of course, I do have to transfer between the International Airport and the Domestic Airport which will eat up 1 hour. I´ll have to check out the facilities to choose which one is the best to spend time at, or maybe split it between the two.
I hope to do a last update from Ushuaia before I leave on my cruise, but in case I don´t have an opportunity, I´ll be back from Antarctica on 13th January 2008, so I may be out of contact until then.
So I hope all goes well for you in the New Year, and I´ll update you all again soon.
Sunday 30th December 2007 : Quito
I´ve been off the air for the last few days because I changed my hotel and their internet is not working, and after a full day touring each day, I was too tired to look for an internet cafe. But I´m having today off (sort of) so its time to make contact with the world again.
On Thursday, I went to Quilotoa which is a lake at the bottom of an active volcano. It hasn´t erupted since the 1750´s, so I guess its not too dangerous - well not as dangerous as some of the others. The lake is green and changes colour as you look at it. When we arrived it was cloudy and foggy, so I didn´t hold out much hope, but the cloud cleared on and off, so we could see the lake quite well. We walked down into the crater to the edge of the lake, probably nearly an hour, its quite a long way down. Then we rode horses back up (no proper saddle, just a blanket, no stirrups, no reins), when we started back it started to rain quite heavily, so the path turned into a river, and considering its nearly 45 degrees in some places, I was glad to let the horse negotiate the path. Then it rained all the way back to Quito, so I was lucky to see what I did. The trip to Quilotoa was interesting as well, thru lots of farm land, up and down hills (really mini mountains, too high for trees to grow), lots of cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys, llamas, very rural. And lots of tiny villages. A really rough road in places with lots of potholes, but a spectacular drive.
On Friday, I took a Quito town tour, which was interesting - saw lots of churches, covered with carvings, paintings, gold - very elaborate. We walked thru the Old Town, which is now a World Heritage area because of the architecture. We then went to one of the lookouts over the city. Quito is at 2800 metres, but it is actually in a valley, from the lookout you can see out over the city in all directions. And lastly we went to the Equator monuments - there are actually two, because the first one was created before they had GPS and is not quite on the Equator. We had lunch at a restaurant there - I had a typical Ecuadorian meal - grilled pork pieces, fried potatoes, bananas, and lots of different types of corn. At the other Equator monument, there are lots of experiments to prove that you are actually standing on the Equator.
On Saturday, I went to Cotopaxi which is another active volcano, 5897 metres high. It last erupted in 1904 and they say it is overdue to erupt again. We didn´t go to the top, to do that you need to be part of an organised mountain climbing tour, but we did go up over 4000 metres. It was extremely cold, I actually bought a jacket from one of the stalls that were fortuitously located there, others on the bus bought hats, scarves and gloves, luckily I had them with me - my Antarctica gear is getting a good practice run. When we first drove there, there was heavy fog, which did not bode well, but while we were there, the fog lifted, and we got lots of glimpses of Cotopaxi. I never got to see the whole thing in one go, but I have lots of photos of different parts as they emerged from the cloud. We had lunch up there at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, great food, 3 courses - soup, grilled chicken or trout, then passionfruit mousse for desert. Amazingly good food for the middle of nowhere.
Today, I fly back to Lima tonight, so I´m having a sort of quiet day. I slept in for probably the first time since I left home then had a leisurely breakfast. Then I decided to take the cable car (Teleferiqo) to the top of the city - 4100 metres. You drive (or in my case, get a taxi) to the bottom of the Teleferiqo. Then the cable car from there - very similar to Skyrail, but much cheaper - US$4.00. It is actually on the side of another active volcano - Pinchincha, which has been erupting on and off since 1999. But it isn´t a problem because, there are 2 Pinchincha craters - the old one is closer to the town, but is no longer active - the newer one faces away from Quito, and often sends out smoke fumes. It was really busy up there today (Sunday), lots of families taking advantage of the sunny day, there is also an amusement park at the bottom, which is enormously popular. You can walk up the mountain above the cable car, which is really hard work when you are already at 4100 metres. I decided on a short walk only, and I´ll chill out for the rest of the day, before my 3 hour (at least) wait at the airport.
Wednesday 26th December 2007 : Quito
I´ve just got back from Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, a most amazing place. It was really surprising in so many ways. Firstly, it was cold, I mean really cold, colder than Cuzco, I´ve been trying out all my Antarctica gear there. Actually Quito is cold at night, and sometimes during the day as well, a big surprise for a city virtually on the Equator. It also rained (misty stuff) virtually the whole time I was there, but I guess you should expect that in a cloud forest. But despite the weather, or even because of it, it was a fantastic place. As soon as you get out of the car, and start walking towards the lodge, you go past all these bird feeders, which are filled with humming birds of all different shapes, sizes and colours. I spent a lot of time standing and sitting in front of the bird feeders watching them and taking photos.
The room where I stayed was also rather surprising. The main building is a 4-storey , thatch-roofed geodesic dome. Bottom storey is service area, second story is dining room, third storey has double rooms with private facilities - that is where I stayed, top storey is dorm. The third storey rooms are shaped like pieces of pie, with the doorway leading from the centre, and the tiniest little bathroom, next to the entryway - this is all reached via a very steep spiral staircase, all built of bamboo with a thatched roof. From the bed, you can see straight out into the rainforest. The food was fantastic - 3 courses for lunch and dinner - some sort of vegetable soup, meat and vegetables and rice, then dessert.
Each day they have guided walks at 6:30, 9:30 and 3:30 so I got to do the 3:30 one yesterday and the two morning ones today. Yesterday, we did a fairly easy walk, and saw lots of different birds, we heard the mountain macaw calling, but never got to see it. We actually saw quite a few different humming birds as well. The 6:30 walk this morning was officially a bird watching walk, but we didn´t see as many as the day before, but a nice walk in the mist/rain. This morning´s 9:30 walk was much more challenging. Our guide took us to one of the waterfalls, which was really beautiful, but getting there took some doing. It was marked on our maps as moderate/difficult and slippery when wet, which was quite an understatement. It was extremely slippery in places and I was glad I was dirtying someone else´s gum boots. It also included walking along a rocky creek bed which varied from 10cm to 40cm deep - you had to watch where you were walking. There was also climbing down a ladder, and two sections where you had to use ropes - one down some very slippery rocks, and the second sideways over a big slippery boulder. I found all this very challenging, but I got there, and I didn´t fall in once, although I got extremely muddy.
So tonight my knees and ankles ache, I´m extremely tired and just about ready for bed.
Monday 24th December 2007 8:pm : Quito, Ecuador
I´ve just had a typical Xmas dinner here (they celebrate on Xmas Eve). It started with a tamale, which is like a parcel made of corn dough with goodies inside. I recognised olives, chicken, capsicum and there were other things I have no idea what they were. After that was turkey, a potato salad with extra unidentified vegetables, probably corn, then 3 other brown things that I don´t know what they were - one had mince meat and olives and maybe nuts of some sort, one had apple and I don´t know what and the third was an entire mystery. Then for desert was little doughnut like balls in a sauce that was similar to golden syrup with other flavours mixed in. All in all, a very interesting and delicious meal, although a bit challenging. But typically, there was far too much and I really should be walking this off. But that´s enough for tonight, off to the cloud forest tomorrow.
Monday 24th December 2007 : Quito, Ecuador
Feliz Navidad to you all. Xmas here starts this evening, when everyone gets together, but the real thing starts at midnight when they exchange presents and have a big feast that extends into the day. However, I imagine I will be in bed early again - holidays are very tiring.
Quito is a really beautiful city, it is perched in the mountains of the Andes, 2800 metres above sea level, I feel a bit tired, but nowhere near as bad as Cusco (or Nazca). It is much nicer than Lima, which is really flat and smoggy. Here the air is really clean and you can see the mountains all around. I haven´t seen the volcano yet, I´m not sure which direction I should be looking in. The city of Quito seems more ´finished´ than Lima, where there is a lot of roadwork and building work going on all the time. It has lovely parks and more modern cars, shops etc than most of Peru. I don´t know whether this is typical of the rest of Ecuador.
This morning I found a travel agent and organised what I am doing to do while I am here in Ecuador. See here for details. I´m not sure when I will get back to the Internet again, or if I will be able to phone home for Xmas. So Merry Xmas to everyone back in Australia.
I´ve started updating the Chiclayo / Trujillo page with photos, more still to come.
Sunday 23rd December 2007 : Lima airport
I am here at the airport waiting for my flight to Quito, Ecuador. When I checked in, they said that it would be leaving 2 hours late, but on the boards it still says that it will leave at the original time, so I have between 2 and 4 hours to wait. Because my flight is supposed to be late, LAN have given me a meal pass to use for lunch at the food court here - McDonalds, etc.
Yesterday, I did my flight over the Nazca lines - they are truly amazing, some of the figures are 100s of metres long, and they look just like they do in the pictures. I´m not sure how my photos will come out, it was very bright and hard to focus. The plane (12 seater propeller) would tilt first to one side, then the other, so everyone gets a great view. I was alright at first, but after a while, I felt a bit airsick and was glad to get back on land.
The bus trip back was pretty interesting, really comfortable wide seats, that tilt back, very new bus, I certainly saw a lot more than I did on the plane trip down. It is desert down the coast all the way from Ica to Lima, but its certainly not deserted. There are little towns all along the road, I don´t know what they live on there, it would be a very marginal life. I saw lots of signs of the earthquake in August. Some of the main buildings have been repaired, like the hotel that I stayed at in Ica. Apparently one wall collapsed, but there is no sign of it now. But there were a lot of public buildings like churches that had a lot of damage, and of course a lot of peoples houses. There is a lot of temporary housing - either tents, or made of these woven mats made from palm fronds.
I´ve just finished the final update to my Iquitos page, hopefully in Quito I´ll have time to update some more pages with photos.
Friday 21st December 2007 : Ica
Most people know about altitude sickness that you might get after travelling from Lima (sea level) to Cusco (3500 metres above sea level), but nobody tells you about getting it after travelling back from Cusco to Lima. Today, I was supposed to fly over Nazca to see the Nazca lines, but I ended up too sick. So I am staying here in Ica tonight, then doing the flight tomorrow morning, then a bus back to Lima in the afternoon - about 4 hours. Then on Sunday I fly to Quito in Ecuador. Further updates to follow.
Thursday 20th December 2007 : Cusco
Yes, we´re still here, and no further disasters, apart from the inevitable flight delays. Our flight from Trujillo was delayed 2 hours, so we never got to the hotel in Lima; once again we slept in the airport.
We´ve spent the last 4 days in the Sacred Valley (Cusco to Macchu Pichu) and its an amazingly beautiful place with Inca ruins everywhere. Macchu Pichu is an incredible place, so large and parts of it surprisingly well preserved. The first day that we were there was fine and sunny, the second day it rained on us.
This morning I´m doing a tour of some of the Inca ruins around Cusco before my flight to Lima early this afternoon. Nicky will be catching a flight to Puerto Maldonada where she will be joining Kaj, in fact, he should be on the same plane. Tomorrow, I am scheduled to do a 1 day trip to Nazca. Then I have a day in Lima before I fly on to Ecuador. So in the next few days, I should have some time to update some more photos to the web site.
Sunday 16th December 2007 : Trujillo
Today is Sunday so we must be in Trujillo. You know that you´re not in Australia any more when you see signs in the hotel saying ´Safeplace in case of earthquake´. On the Peru TV news this morning we saw something about an earthquake. We asked the waitress about it in my beginners Spanish and she was saying that it was yesterday in Lima. I couldn´t find anything about it on the internet, so I guess we´ll find out when we fly in to Lima tonight.
We were driven here to Trujillo yesterday and taken to our hotel. There we said good-bye to our Chiclayo guide and driver who had looked after us so well, and met our Trujillo guide and driver, who I wasn´t so fussed about. Yesterday he took us to a small museum which had some really interesting pottery, but everything was jammed together with no information. Today we visited Huaca del Sol Y de la Luna, which means Temples of the Sun and the Moon. It was an amazing site, which has only been partly excavated, one of the pyramids, the biggest one, has not been touched yet. What we did see was a lot of carved painted pictures on the walls. It is in amazingly good condition for its age. It was built by the Moche people (100 BC-650 AD). More info here
Then we went to Chan Chan, capital of the Chimu Empire, which is America's largest prehispanic mud-brick settlement. This large city covers 7.7 square miles, there are 9 citadels, of which only 1 has been excavated so far. It is an amazingly huge structure, there were 3 large squares, where most ancient cities only have 1, a lot of carvings, particularly birds and fishes, and a lot of the walls are net or diamond structures. It contained several large wells, the one that we saw was about the size of an olympic swimming pool. All of this in a place which is technically a desert.
More info here
Friday 14th December 2007 : Chiclayo
We finally made it to Chiclayo. We had 1/2 hour to change planes in Lima and amazingly we and our luggage actually made it (the luggage part was helped by it actually being the same plane for both flights). We spent today visiting 3 museums and checking out all the pre-Inca civilizations.
Sican National Museum and Royal Tombs of Sipan
I took lots of photos which I'll publish next time I get to the internet. We have our own private guide and driver and we're staying at one of the best hotels in Chiclayo. Today lunch at a nice restaurant in town was included and they served a lot of the typical foods of the region - delicious.
Tomorrow we're off to Trujillo - we will be driven by our driver in a fairly recent private car - quite a luxury. In Trujillo we will be visiting a lot of ancient temples which I'm looking forward to.
I'm updating my Iquitos page, including photos so go and check it out.
Thursday 13th December 2007 : Iquitos
Just a quick note to say that I survived the jungle and am back in Iquitos to catch the plane to Chiclayo tonight. Hopefully tomorrow, I will find some time to tell you more about my jungle experience.
Wednesday 5th December 2007 : Iquitos
Today we started having fun. We went to Monkey Island, about 1 hour by boat on the Amazon river. It is an animal refuge, specialising in monkeys, lots of them and lots of different sorts, howler monkeys, woolly monkeys, marmosets and lots of others that I can´t remember their names, like the ones with ginger fur and red faces. They were very well behaved, although sometimes quite playful, and liked to pinch your sunglasses. One of the howler monkeys climbed on to me and was very happy to be carried around. They all liked interacting with us, and some especially liked having their heads scratched.
Next stop was Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm and Amazon Animal Orphanage - back down the river nearer Iquitos. In addition to the butterflies were monkeys, caiman, manatee, tapir, jaguar, giant anteater and sloths. Very interesting place to visit run by an Austrian lady. She gave us a personal tour and allowed us to feed and handle most of the animals (not the jaguar).
A great day all around and topped off by finally picking up my luggage from the airport tonight. Nicky is still waiting for hers, hopefully will arrive tomorrow morning on the early flight. So that was 4 full days with no luggage, not an experience I ever want to repeat. Tomorrow, we head into the jungle for 8 days at Tahuayo Lodge. We have been staying at their offices in town and have had our own personal guide for the two days - a great help when we needed to buy clothes and stuff.
We will be out of communication for that time, so probably there will be no updates for 8 or 9 days, hopefully then I will work out how to update some photos.
Tuesday 4th December 2007 : Lima
I´m pretty sure its Tuesday. We had Tuesday in Auckland, then went back to Monday when we flew to Santiago, Chile, and now we`re having another go at Tuesday. It`s been a rather eventful trip so far. After sorting out the flights from Sydney to Auckland, we both got there (on separate flights), but then found out the Auckland to Santiago leg was delayed, not due to leave until Tuesday at 3am. LAN airlines put us up in a hotel in Auckland and paid for meals, bus transfers and even international phone calls. Unfortunately our luggage was caught up in transit so we`re still in the same clothes we put on in Sydney.
We were told that we would not be able to connect with our Lima flight because we were leaving so late (8 hours), but when we got off in Santiago they rushed us straight onto our Lima flight. So we will be able to make our Iquitos connection at 5:30 this morning (currently 3:30am), but unfortunately our luggage didn´t make the connection. In fact, nobody really knows where our luggage is, so it looks like we will be doing some shopping in Iquitos tomorrow (really later on today).
Sunday 2nd December 2007
Well, here we are in Sydney. That part went OK. Somehow I thought that when I got on the plane, all my problems would be over, but oh how wrong I was. They (the holiday gods) cancelled the flight from Sydney to Auckland and rescheduled us to other flights. Nicky's flight leaves at 7:35am, no problem, however they rescheduled me to 6:35pm, so I would not have been able to connect with my Santiago flight. We found this out when we checked in at Cairns at lunchtime today, and its taken us until now to reschedule my flight until 7am. We ended up having to ring Lan in the US to sort out the change. But at 9:45pm today we finally got everything sorted, so now its back to the hotel (from Sydney International), have something to eat, then up in time for 4:30am breakfast.
Friday 30th November 2007
Only 2 days to go and I'm frantically busy doing all the last minute stuff. I still haven't received my documents about my Antarctica trip, I'm waiting for my plane tickets to be re-issued, and trying to organise accommodation in Ushuaia and Buenos Aires.
I've booked my accommodation in Quito, a lovely small hotel in the heart of Quito, near the American embassy. I haven't planned any trips, I'll wait until I get there. I've decided that it is too hard, takes too much time and is possibly a bit dangerous to travel into the jungle on my own by bus, so the animal refuge will have to wait until another time. The main things I want to see in Ecuador are the volcanoes, there are lots of them, 19 according to one web site Ecuador Volcanos. Some are extinct, some dormant and some still very active - Tungurahua News. I also want to visit the markets at Otavalo, supposed to be the best in South America. Apart from that, who knows.
Tuesday 27th November 2007
My booking has gone through. I have just received the email and I'm having a hard time believing that it is true. I probably won't be really convinced until I have the documents in my hand (and maybe when I actually set foot on the ship).
I'm still waiting on details, but now I can book my flights and plan the rest of my holiday. What is most ironic is that I've had this trip planned to within an inch of its life for months now, and actually booked the Antarctica part in February to make sure I didn't miss out. And here I am a week before I leave starting all over again.
Sunday 25th November 2007
I have been trying to organise an alternate trip to Antarctica, which has involved emails and phone calls in the middle of the night, so I'm a bit tired right now. There is a trip available which fits in quite well with my dates, more expensive than my original trip, but I can live with that. I now have to wait for all that to be confirmed, but I'm hopeful that it will all work out. Once the trip is confirmed, I then have to organise alternate flights to Ushuaia. That will give me about 10 days to fill, so my current thoughts are to spend time in Ecuador. I'll check out tours on the internet today, luckily I've been given the day off today. One of the places that Nicky and I would have liked to visit in Ecuador is, so that is definitely an option if I have enough time.
Saturday 24th November 2007
Well, the official word from Gap Adventures is that the trip is cancelled. I'm trying to organise a trip on a different boat, so I have to wait to see if that will work out. I still have the option of doing the Patagonia part of the trip. Other options are to do other stuff in Peru, like Kuelap, or maybe visit Ecuador. Lots of possibilities still there.
Friday 23rd November 2007
The latest news is that the ship that I am due to travel on to Antarctica is sinking. The company Gap Adventures web site has now gone into meltdown, so I guess the news has got out. I'm not going to panic yet, its over 5 weeks before I'm due to go to Antarctica. Of course, its ironic that Antarctica is the whole reason for this trip, but I'm still going regardless.
Check out here for photos.
