Sucre, Bolivia

Saturday to Tuesday, 23 - 26 February 2008

Our next stop is Sucre in central Bolivia. This city is meant to be a nice spot to spend a few days in, particularly for soft gringos like ourselves who are yearning for creature comforts. Bruised and battered after the Salar de Uyuni trip, we are looking forward to the respite. We are so keen to get there that, as soon as the Salar tour is over, we get on an overnight bus there. We have to change at the mining city of Potosi in the wee hours. At 2 am we shuffle out of the bus into the darkness and are met by a Diego Maradona lookalike who says "Sucre" to us and motions to a bus from a different company. A lady who who has been cradling a couple of labrador pups on our bus from Uyuni, also seems to be going to Sucre, boards this bus and so we trust her judgment. It's not a pleasant journey. Food poisoning strikes Dara with a vengeance. He spends alot of the journey leaning over his neighbouring passenger with his head out the window. We finally arrive in Sucre at 5 am and, after 10 minutes of vigorous door-knocking, manage to wake the guy at the reception of the Grand Hotel. Compared to the spartan lodgings Pamela Tours had us in for the last few nights, it's pure luxury and worth the US$20 a night. Dara is laid low for the next few days, on a strict regime of flat lemonade. It's not pretty and the makers of Immodium may well have bumper profits this year. To our shame, we don't end up doing alot in Sucre, although you can't help but notice the spectacular architecture in the city centre. It's difficult to understand how a visibly wealthy city like this, can exist in an otherwise extremely poor country. We fuel up on comfort food in the Joy Ride Cafe and Kulturcafe Berlin and book a flight with Aerosur to avoid having the 16 hour gruelling bus journey to La Paz.

For more photos click here.

Arica, Calama, San Pedro de Atacama (Chile); Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)

Tuesday - Friday, 19 - 22 February 2008

We get a collectivo the next morning from Tacna bus station. Our fellow passengers are Matt, Brenda and Morgan, a friendly American family who are just after passing over to Peru from Chile. They are now doubling-back on themselves, having learned at the eleventh hour from their tour company that their package tour to Macchu Pichu has been cancelled due to protests around Cuzco, in central Peru. They are understandably disappointed. We are supposed to be doing the Inca Trail in two weeks time, back in Peru, so are wondering now whether this will happen.

The city on the other side of the border in Chile is Arica. On the basis of the malls and chic pedestrian shopping stretches in the city centre, the average Chileno seems to be alot better off than his Peruvian cousin. We find the Gustav Eiffel designed church in the centre of town and catch up on emails. We can't find anything on the English-language internet about the disruptions in Peru. We bump into Matt, our fantastic Canadian interpretor from the previous day, and have a few cervecas with him before catching the overnight bus to Calama, about 10 hours south of Arica. Although the bus is comfortable, baggage checks with no obvious purpose in the middle of the night by Chilean officials and the bus steward's insistence on playing back-to-back martial arts movies until the wee hours (including a real gem in which Jean Claude Van Damme is cloned to help a US cop chase down the original JCVD who is a psycho-killer - a real mystery as to why this didn't win a Palme D'Or) do not make for a restful night's sleep.

We spend a few hours the following morning in Calama, which looks a lot less well-off than Arica, having the feeling of a mining town on the decline. We then get the bus to San Pedro de Atacama. The latter is the tourist destination in northern Chile and it shows. It's a small village with narrow unpaved streets, lined by quaint mud-walled houses and shops, no doubt producing the desired effect of a tourist's fantasy of what a South American pueblo should look like. In return for sacrificing their village to a Bunratty-makeover, the locals get the opportunity to fleece the moneyed tourists, both Chilean and foreign. Accommodation, food and tours are expensive. We are not staying too long though as the next day our plan is go on the three day tour to Uyuni in Boliva, taking in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. The Lonely Planet sits on the fence when it comes to recommending a 4WD tour company for this. The message is that all of the companies are equally bad and that it is pot luck as to whether you get a good driver on the day. We ask at the Thaka Thaka hostel we are staying at and are told that Pamela Tours are not too bad. We talk to them and they don't seem too suspect so we hand over the US$110 per person for the tour. In a portent of what is to come, the guy behind the counter says with little conviction that our driver will be able to speak English "mas o menas" (rough translation: yes he will, more or less).

The next morning we meet our driver Daniel and a guy with an unpronounceable name beginning with "p" (let's call him Pomegranate) who helps Daniel on the tour. Sami, from France, is the only other tourist on the trip. He can speak a fair amount of Spanish. This is a blessing because Daniel's ability to speak English is more "menas" than "mas". He can't speak a word.

The border crossing out of Chile into Bolivia is a static queue for an hour before 9 o'clock followed by a choatic rush when the one bureaucrat opens his kiosk. A Frenchman behind us opines loudly about the moral deficiencies of South American queuers and then, at the first opportunity, trys to jump ahead of us.

It is all unsealed track as soon as we leave Chile. The Bolivian border crossing is very low-key. A Bolivian flag flutters above a small building in the middle of a plain. We swap our Chilean jeep for the one that is to take us on our trip for the next few days. It's a rusty battered bucket on wheels, although not significantly worse looking than any of the other tour companies' jeeps. Worringly, Daniel and Pomegranate are immediately occupied with with something underneath the bonnet of the jeep. This is a sight we are to become familiar with over the coming days. In any event, they manage to resolve whatever the problem was and the first day of the tour is quite good. We pass through desolate sand-covered plains, ranged by bare snow-capped hills. We stop off along the way at brilliantly coloured lakes - the Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde - and the Rocas de Dali (rocks scattered on the plain, real student bedsit gallery material). As we pass each sight of interest, Daniel launches into his commentary with the preamble "Mis amigos". We cannot understand a word of it but reply in chorus like schoolkids, saying "Si" and solemnly repeating the name of the sight as he utters it. The final stop of the day is at Laguna Colorado, a beautiful red-coloured lake, the colour coming from algae and plankton that live off the minerals in the water. We are at 4278 metres in altitude and it's cold. The lodgings here live up to their reputation of being really basic and really cold. There is no heating, the toilets are bleak (plenty of unidentifiable biohazard on the floor and walls) and the beds don't so much have mattresses as unyielding wooden planks. As we are a small group, not all of the beds in our domitory are occupied so the 5 layers of thick woollen blankets that we thieve from other beds help against the cold. We meet another tour group that night, including Derek from Cork, and huddle around the table.



After a poor night's sleep, we wake to find Daniel and Pomegranate under the bonnet of the jeep. A group of men from the settlement have grouped around the jeep and look at it with the sympathy normally reserved for a terminally ill patient. Daniel seems to be an industrious mechanic and has already taken out what Derek identifies later as the alternator. Pomegranate sprints around the place as Daniel shouts orders at him. An hour into the procedure, things are looking grim. The jeep is not showing any vital signs. Daniel has the brainwave of draining battery acid from another jeep and seems to be able to get the jeep going. After this, we get our breakfast and hit the road. Daniel seems pensive as we set off and the forever-smiling Pomegranate is also a bit subdued. About 20 km into the journey, the jeep dies again. We are smack bang in the middle of nowhere. Ahead of and behind us stretches sand and mountains. There is no mobile phone coverage. A fine place to get stuck. We are also the last jeep of the tour groups to set off for the day so the chances of another jeep coming to our aid are nil. Daniel and Pomegranate think it's a great laugh and don't seem to acknowledge the lunacy of setting off into the great unknown without a roadworthy jeep. There follows an hour of different interventions - mechanical by Daniel, tour guides and group trying to push the jeep into a jump start from various angles. None of these work and we sit on the rocks beside the track while Daniel and Pomegranate chuckle to themselves about the silly fix they have got themselves into. Straight from a Hollywood movie, the sound of a jeep comes from over the hill. It's a wayward tour, which has come over from the Argentinian border. We are saved. We borrow some battery power from this jeep and then travel in convoy for the rest of the day until we reach Uyuni, our stop off for the day. Along the way the jeep breaks down a number of times. With the threat of being stranded somewhere for the night in the cold ever present, we don't enjoy the day. Eventually Daniel finds a telephone and calls the base in Uyuni to get Pamela Tours to send out a jeep to get us to our hostel for the night. No information is given to us about where or when we are getting dinner and what time the tour is to resume the next day. Three hours later, a elderly lady arrives with some dinner and rambles good-naturedly in Spanish to us. She tells us that breakfast will be ready at 8.30 am the next morning. In fact, we get it at 9.30 am. At 12 noon Daniel and Pomegranate materialise in a replacement jeep. It is no healthier looking than the last one and the brakes don't seem to work. We head off to the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. It's a fine sight. It is an endless expanse of blinding white below us and blue sky above us. A word of advice: bring flip-flops to walk on the surface. Apart from the well-trodden paths to the bits where tourists like us take photos for their mantelpieces, in bare feet, it is quite sore, like badly set concrete. Despite all the drama and disappointment over the last few days, it's been worth it to see this. The jeep chuggs its way back to the mainland and breaks down along the way. While the running repairs are being done, alongside us workers brush and shovel the salt into piles for trucks. We are dropped off in Uyuni and say goodbye to Daniel and Pomegranate. We think they might have been expecting a tip but we have been a pretty sullen bunch so they are not too shocked when none is forthcoming. We don't know who would be a good company for this trip - Pamela Tours, it certainly ain't.

If you want to see photos click here.

Arequipa to Tacna, Peru

Monday, 18 February 2008

Our plan is to travel down south into Chile to get to San Pedro de Atacama, from where we will do a tour to the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in south western Bolivia. We don't plan on spending much time in Chile itself and have a few long bus journeys ahead of us. The first one should be relatively straightforward though: a 6 hour journey from Arequipa to Tacna, the last major town in Peru before the border with Chile. All goes to plan until about an hour and a half into the journey when the bus stops abruptly on a road in the middle of nowhere. There is plenty of chatter amongst the Peruvian passengers so clearly something is up. We hop out to have a look, expecting an accident scene or other reason for the traffic jam. Instead, we are confronted by the strange sight ahead of us of about a mile of roadway covered with small rocks and stones. There is enough there to make it impassable (see footage here). There are about 50 people on the roadside carrying more stones and rocks to the blockade. This is some sort of protest but we are not sure what it is about and how long it is going to last. The Peruvian passengers and the Cruz del Sur bus driver are pretty philosophical about it all - apparently this sort of thing is fairly commonplace in Peru - and seem to be happy enough to wait it out. One guy though (we find out later that he is from Poland) heads off a few hundred metres into the sands beside the bus and strips down to his dazzingly white y-fronts. He is no bronzed Adonis so cuts a very strange figure during this whole episode. Maybe it's his way of coping or maybe he decides to make the best of a bad situation and catch a few rays before he heads back to Polska. Anyway, we christen him "Naked Guy" and he provides plenty of comic relief. At intervals, it seems as if the vacillating bus driver has decided to do something and the wife of Naked Guy roars over to him to put his clothes back on and return to the bus. As soon as the bus driver's new-found decisiveness dissipates, Naked Guy returns to his spendid stripped isolation back in the sands. Two, three hours pass and the local policia have not made an appearance. Even the relaxed Peruvians start to get a bit upset. The bus driver becomes the centre of a maelstrom of finger pointing and shouting. Some of the buses behind us seem to have turned around to go back to Arequipa. Others still discharge their passengers onto the road in the midday heat and leave them on the uncertain and potentially perilous walk through the blockade towards a village in the distance and maybe a connecting bus. There is talk that this protest is part of a co-ordinated national strike. The grievances are price increases (bus tickets and water) and the plan by the government to allow private operators take over some of Peru's tourist sites. Eventually a 3-strong police team arrive (3-strong might be overstating it - there is one guy who seems to know what he is about, the other two guys who waddle behind him look like they are on a two-man mission to support the nascent Peruvian doughnut industry). Obviously and understandably the local police are in no mood to aggravate the protestors, probably their neighbours, by trying to get the bus through the blockade. Instead they offer to escort us on a diversion around the village. Some of the passengers nearly lynch the driver on hearing this suggestion as they made this suggestion to him a long while ago. We get to the other side of the village without being ambushed and the police wave us off, having received some pre-packed meals from the bus steward in exchange for helping us through the minefield. We breathe a sigh of relief and hope that the rest of the journey will be clear. No such luck, as another half hour down the road there is a 200-person strong road-block. Apparently these people are a bit more militant and steadfast than the previous crowd and the police at the village before the roadblock suggest that we wait it out until nightfall as the protestors have no food or shelter and will most likely want to go home at some stage. A masterful strategy indeed. There is no appetite to confront the protestors. The tiny village we stop at enjoys the boom times as passengers from three buses are stuck here and need to be fed and watered. We wait for hours on the roadside. The hearsay and speculation amongst the group gets worse as the light dims. Some passengers take their luggage off the bus and try to get a taxi that might be able to get through the protest. A small group of gringos, ourselves and a Danish couple, Rune and Anna, and our interpretor, Matt, from Canada try to figure out what is going on. Night falls and our bus driver, after another brow-beating from the passengers-representative group headed by a giant Peruvian guy in no mood for dilly-dallying, decides to bite the bullet and head towards the bridge where the blockade is. There we meet riot police who tell us we can't cross the bridge. Apparently the protestors have lined the top of the hills at the other side of the bridge and may throw rocks on any vehicles that try to get through. A tourist bus would be a juicy target. Things are a bit scarier now. Matt has heard about these protests before and says that the protestors can be pretty determined, blocking roads for days. Eventually, the 15-strong team of riot police hop into their vans, put on the sirens and head across the bridge to try to negotiate safe passage for us across the bridge. It's a ghostly scene. Shadows come across the bridge at intervals - people who have walked for miles to get to our side. They confirm though that no cars or buses are being left through. Things begin to look even more desperate as the siren lights are switched off at the other side of the bridge. We prepare ourselves for a few days of sleeping on a bus on the side of the road. But the darkest hour is just before the dawn and the police return triumphant, telling us that an arrangement has been reached. Within minutes, a jubilant convoy of buses, trucks and cars heads off into the darkness across the bridge. There are a nervous few minutes as we drive through the valley on the other side. We stay well away from the windows just in case somebody gets an itchy-finger and rolls a boulder our way. Thankfully we get through unscathed and arrive in Tacna at midnight - we have been on the road for 17 hours and are exhausted. If this sort of thing is going to happen alot in Peru over the next few weeks, maybe Chile mighn't be a bad place to be. We stay near the bus station in Tacna in Don Romano's, a decent hostel with a friendly owner.

Colca Canyon, Peru

Friday to Sunday, 15-17 February 2008

We do a 3-day trek in the Colca Canyon. With a depth of 3191m, it is the world's second deepest canyon. Our guide from the Colca Trek company is Jenny, who is absolutely brilliant. We are lucky too with our travel companions - friendly fellows Hugo (from Strasbourg) and Sebastien (Montreal). The starting point of the trek is the village of Cabanaconde (a 6-hour bus journey from Arequipa). This is at an altitude of 3290 metres so after a few minutes and very little exertion, the lungs are heaving and heart thumping. Hugo supplies us with coca leaves, the traditional remedy for altitude sickness. He was told by the guy who sold it to him to eat the leaves whole. Hugo is outraged to hear from Jenny that the proper way of using the leaves is to roll up a thumb-sized amount and place it between your gums and the inside of your mouth. You can then suck on the sillage-flavoured juice for a good half hour then with the desired effect. Hugo admits, using alot of French expletives, to having eaten about a kilo of the stuff on the other guy's recommendation and not feeling well after it. We learn the meaning of the French word "putain". On the first day we trek downhill for about 4 hours. The scenery is breathtaking - vaulting mountains, drifting clouds at eye-level and steep drops into the canyon below. The path is wide enough for just one person, is not paved and so alot of the time is spent concentrating on the ground at your feet trying not to slip on shale or loose stones that litter the path. We have the trek pretty much to ourselves apart from the the local farmers who surge by with their donkeys carrying supplies to and from the villages that hug the sides of the canyon. (Apparently the trek that we are doing over 2 days can be done by the local champion in 2 hours.) The accommodation at the bottom of the canyon on the first night is basic but the location is idyllic. It's in a village of 40 inhabitants. The flower garden at the hostel is in full multicoloured bloom and we are woken the next morning by the low hum of bees. On this second day, we continue the trek, stopping along the way to have a snack of cactus fruit (hard to describe - semi-hard to chew on, very juicy, apparently not hallucinogenic). We also visit a museum in one of the villages. It's a small room but a local woman, dressed in the traditional kaleidoscope-coloured outfits of Peru, explains to us the various tools the villagers use and have used in the past to sow and harvest crops and the different types of foods they live off. The villages that line the canyon were badly damaged by an earthquake in 2001 so we see the rebuilding that has taken place in the meantime. Three hours later, after a few near-vertical climbs, we arrive at what the tourists call the "Oasis". Situated right at the bottom of the canyon, it's a lush green area where a hostel and swimming pool have been built by some enterprising folk. We have lunch here and steel ourselves for the ascent back up to Cabanaconde. It's a tough climb but we take plenty of breaks on the way up. Without looking around, Jenny just seems to know how far she can drag the group up the hill before we need a breather. It may be the alternate hyperventilating, death-rattles and cries of "putain" behind her that give the clue. We overnight in good lodgings in Cabanaconde. The next morning, on our way back to Arequipa, we stop off at Cruz del Condor, a viewing point for the condors that soar above the canyon. Much like our attempt at albatross-watching in Dunedin, plenty of patience is required, and we wait an hour before one of them shoots close overhead. Sebastien is the only one who is quick enough to capture it on camera. Resigned to having seen only one bird, we hop on the bus back to Arequipa. As we pull away a couple of condors come into view and hover above the viewing area. Talk about timing!

If you want to see photos, click here.

Arequipa, Peru

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Arequipa, Peru's second biggest city, is a nice spot. It's called the "White City" after the sillar rock used to make its older buildings. We stay in the Casa de Sillas. It's comfortable and the staff are very obliging. The Plaza de Armas is a good starting point for a walk of the city and has a couple of restaurants on balconies overlooking the main square. It's also a good vantage point for the Valentine's Day celebrations. There are musicians and mime artists and hundreds of people, carrying heart-shaped red balloons, fill the square.

We visit the Monasterio de Santa Catarina. Founded in 1580, at one time it was home to 400 nuns, alot of them daughters of well-to-do Spanish families. The convent is on a grand scale (20,000 sq mtrs), complete with streets named after Spanish cities. Alot has been invested in its restoration. The bright pastel exteriors and well preserved kitchens, sleeping quarters and reception rooms suggest that it was a pleasant enough place to be a nun. It turns out that the vow of poverty was interpreted fairly loosely here - each nun had up to 4 servants and would often have parties in the convent. The good times came to an end when the Pope of the time sent the hardline Sister Josefa Cadena to put an end to the silliness.

The Museo Santury is also worth a visit. Alot of the exhibits are to do with the child sacrifices offered up by the Inca people to appease their gods. Apparently the most beautiful girls would be chosen early in life and taken from their families to be prepared for their terrible destiny. A bit like Pop Idol really. If any of the local volcanies started spewing, this was the cue for a child sacrifice. The belief was that the girl would become a deity after being sacrificed so the girls must have been pretty chuffed. The main exhibit in the museum is Juanita, a child sacrifice who was found only a few years ago, preserved in the ice atop Nevado Amputo. Juanita is not on display between January and April but there is a substitute child sacrifice, Cerita, who stands in for her. If they are all Inca goddesses now, Cerita must be a bit peeved that she is only a second-choice sacrifice.

If you want to see photos click here.

Nazca, Peru

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

On arriving on Tuesday night in Nazca, we book tickets for a flight over the famous Nazca Lines the next morning (with the Alas Peruanas company) as well as a bus connection to Arequipa (with Cruz del Sur). The Lonely Planet repeats throughout its Peru guide, in very panicky tones, that hijackings and violent robberies have occured frequently on the overnight bus to Arequipa. It says: take the overnight bus at your own risk. The absurd thing is that there appear to be no daytime buses to Arequipa. What are we supposed to do? Rollerblade the 600 km down south? Fingers crossed that the hijackers are on a night off.

We get up early the next morning and board a Cessna aeroplane for the flight over the Nazca Lines. There is a fair bit of turbulence (and apparently this gets worse later in the day) and the pilot tilts the plane by 45 degrees to allow us to see the lines more closely. It's a sensation akin to the childhood experience of eating your bodyweight in candyfloss and then going on the worst ride at the funfair. The Lines are found on a 500 km sq arid plateau and were made by heaping stones in straight and curved lines over incredible distances. They are definitely worth the air sickness. Apart from weird geometrical shapes, there are huge drawings of monkeys, spiders, hummingbirds and, for the conspiracy theorists, an astronaut (see footage here). As these cannot be seen at ground level and assuming that the Nazca people had no way of viewing their handiwork from above, the purpose of the Lines is a real puzzle. Scholars and nutbags differ on this and the theories range from the Lines being landing sites for visiting aliens, running tracks, an astronomical calendar, sites for mountain worship and a fertility/water cult.

Before boarding the Bus of Doom to Arequipa, we while away a few hours at the local archeological museum, the Museo Didactico Antonini. We learn a bit about ancient Nazca culture and nearly pass out from the dead heat. Later in the evening, we stop at the Plaza Mayor and enjoy watching what seems like the whole town sitting around the park and chatting in the twilight.

Quelle surprise! Despite ideal bandit conditions - pitch darkness, desolate windy roads and steep overlooking hills from which to launch an ambush - the overnight bus to Arequipa is not attacked. We don' sleep much though.

If you want to see photos click here. Good luck trying to make out anything of the Nazca Lines. The photographer had a jittery hand.

Lima, Peru

Sunday to Tuesday, 10 - 12 February 2008

When originally booking this trip, we tried to get a flight to Santiago, the direct route into South America from New Zealand. However February is a busy travelling month in South America. It's Carnaval, the 4 day pre-Lenten celebrations, that start on a Saturday and end on Fat Tuesday (Mardi-Gras). We have no choice but to go the roundabout route to Lima via Los Angeles.

We arrive in LA a half hour late. We had only 2 hours to get on the onward LAN Peru flight to start with, so the already tight transfer begins to look tricky. With the Mission: Impossible score banging in our heads, we jog-walk through US immigration and customs and check our luggage onto the connecting flight. In fairness, we had expected Post-9/11 Fortress USA treatment from staff but there is none of it. Once we explain our situation in our least threatening "top of the morning to you and begorrah, sure aren't we only simple Irish folk" manner, they are very helpful and jump us quickly through the queues. Although we manage to get on to the plane by the skin of our teeth, we have our doubts about the luggage. These doubts are confirmed when we arrive in Lima at midnight. After waiting hopefully for an hour, we are two lone souls at the baggage carousel. The LAN Peru staff are friendly and tell us that the baggage will be on the flight from Los Angeles the next day.

Resigned to wearing the same clothes for another few days, we run the gauntlet of taxi drivers in the arrivals area and look for a sign with our names on it held by a driver from Hostal Iquique, where we have a booking for the night. No such luck. We call the hostel and an inconclusive 10 minute conversation (us in Spanglish, them in heavily accented, fast-forward Spanish) gave us the impression that that the driver may still be in the airport somewhere. We circle the melee a couple of times and finally find a sign saying "Senorita Arrington" in Times New Roman Font 1.5. Our man is not attached to it but we find him eventually and get into his battered taxi and head towards town. We are glad to reach our lodgings for the night although Hostal Iquique is not the quietest of places. A guy in the room beside us alternates between snoring at foghorn levels and then taking calls on his mobile with a ring tone like a sonic boom.

Suffering from a bit of jet lag, we start late the next day. We go for a walk to Plaza San Martin and Plaza de Armas, the two main squares in the city centre, which have a few impressive buildings. Everything that we have heard about Lima is negative, that it is a dangerous city and that we should spend as little time as possible here. A friend from Lima, Milagros, says that we would have been better getting a hostel in the more upmarket suburb of Miraflores. We try to be hyper-vigilant: walking in a two-person phalanx, keeping our bags close to us and only taking the camera out for quick snaps. Because of this paranoia, we don't really enjoy walking around. As gringos, we stick out and feel that we are being looked at constantly (as in Asia, Leahanne, with her "yellow" hair is stared at alot). We are happy to get back to the hostel before darkness falls. But maybe alot of this has to do with our perception of things, as we do not have a single moment where we are threatened or approached by scam merchants. Our impression of Peruvians is that they are a friendly people and are delighted when we try to use a few words of Spanish. The food in Lima is good, particularly for Leahanne, the world's biggest potato fan. Apparently all of today's potatoes can be traced back to a single spud from Peru. We have a patatas dinner in Azato on Arica St. At US$5 for two you can't go far wrong.

The next morning there is no sign of the missing backpacks but then we get a call from LAN Peru who say that the bags are on their way from the airport. The predicted arrival time is no more exact than "sometime this morning" which leaves us with an anxious wait as we have to head off to the bus station at 12.30. At 11 o'clock the bags arrive and we (and anybody who has come within 10 yards of our BO) are delighted to be able to put on a changes of clothes for the first time in 3 days and use deodourant. We get a taxi to the Cruz del Sur company's bus station at Avenida Javier Prado. This is a newly built station for its 1st class "Cruzero" service and has plenty of security guards around so we are a bit more at ease. We enjoy one of the most comfortable bus journeys ever - there is plenty of leg room; a main meal and snacks are served; and the in-bus entertainment includes bingo and Hollywood movies with Spanish subtitles, giving us a chance to increase our Spanish vocabulary. The outskirts of Lima, some of them slums, stretch out into a grey desert. There are not many large towns along the Pan-American Highway, which runs southwards parallel to the coast, before our stop at Nazca.

We arrive at Nazca late in the evening and check in to the Hotel Alegria, which turns out to be very swish by comparison with Hostal Iquique. It's too good to be true though - somewhere in the building they keep basic rooms for budget travellers for approximately US$7. However we booked the room by phone and were either accidentally or wilfully misunderstood and put in a comfy room for US$30 a night. Big difference and lesson learned.

For more photos click here.

Auckland, New Zealand

Friday to Sunday, 8 - 10 February 2008

This will probably upset the locals and Australians alike: Auckland looks a bit like Sydney. It lies around a large harbour and even has a bridge that looks like Sydney's "Coathanger". Claudine, a friend of Dara's from Macquarie, lives in Auckland so we meet up with her and her husband Dave who give us a few tips on the city.

We want to go to the top of the futuristic Sky Tower, which at 328 metres is the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. From there you can do the Sky Jump (a "controlled freefall" from the top of the tower). At ground level, there are a few dozen people gawking upwards for the next victim to jump. It's a suitably steep NZ$25 per person just to get to the top of the tower, not to mention doing the Sky Jump. High petrol prices and peak season rates have meant that campervan-ing in New Zealand has not been as cheap as expected. On top of this, we are suffering a few aches and pains from sleeping in the van for the last month, and Leahanne the Arch Financial Controller has allowed us to blow the budget by staying at a harbourfront hotel on our last night. So we give the Sky Tower a skip and use our last few Kiwi dollars on our last meal back in the hotel - a Burger King meal-deal!

Before we fly out, we meet Royden from Sunrise Holidays at Auckland Airport, to hand over the campervan. He has flown to Auckland from his home in Nelson. He will now drive back to the South Island overnight. After a few hours' sleep, he will get on a plane to Invercargill (the very bottom of the South Island) to collect a van, and do the 1000 km drive back up to Nelson. We tell him that he is a lunatic and he agrees cheerfully. We show him the dent to the van and tell him about the freak picnic table accident (see "Wanaka" and "Rotorua"). He is unperturbed and is more interested in hearing that we enjoyed our time in New Zealand. We said that we would plug his company so here goes: if you are ever planning to do a similar trip, and want to avoid using the higher-priced Maui, Britz, Apollo etc., Sunrise Holidays are a good bet.

If you want to see photos, click here.

P.s. A few days later, we get a disturbing email from Sunrise Holidays - the dent in the van is in a fairly awkward spot that will not be repaired by straightforward panel beating. We are kicking ourselves now for not paying an extra bit on the insurance to reduce our excess.

Waitomo Caves, New Zealand

Thursday, 7 February 2008

The Waitomo Caves are west of Rotorua and are our last real destination before Auckland. Originally we had hoped to fit in a trip to the Coromandel Peninsula or the Bay of Islands, to the north of Auckland, but we have run out of time.

In Waitomo, we go "blackwater rafting" with the ambitiously- named Legendary Blackwater Rafting Company. To call it "rafting" is slightly misleading as it actually involves tubing (i.e. sitting in something like a tractor tyre) through near darkness in the caves. It's not high octane stuff at all - to get up any momentum you have to hand-paddle through the icy cold murk although there is one jump over a small waterfall that is a bit of a challenge. Probably the most testing bit of the excursion is to find a tyre tube that fits your ass so that you don't pop out. That said, it may not be a fun experience for those who are afraid of the dark, water or tight spaces. Our guides, Chad and Hop, are nice fellows and the highpoint of the experience is when we are told to turn off the torches on our helmets to see a constellation of hundreds of glowworms above us on the cave's ceiling.

If you want to see photos click here.

Rotorua, New Zealand

Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 and 7 February 2008

Known as the "Sulphur City", Rotorua is another town popular for its geysers, hot springs, mud pools etc. We visit the Museum of Art & History, which is in a building that was once an internationally famous spa resort. The remnants of the original bath chambers are eerie, with instruments, wires and other contraptions that wouldn't look out of place in a torture chamber.

We go to a Maori concert at the Tamaki Maori Village. Before we enter the village, the tourists' chiefs (poor sods selected at random from our bus) must stand in front of their tribe, while the village's warriors do a ferocious dance in front of them, complete with eye-bulging, tongue-showing and guttural roaring (see here). The tourist chiefs are made of sterner stuff than that and don't flinch, so we are allowed into the village. Inside we learn about the story of the Maori people's first voyage in their canoe or "waka" from Tahiti to New Zealand and watch a concert. Afterwards we have a "hangi" - a dinner cooked in the traditional Maori style which involves digging a 1 metre deep hole in the ground and creating a natural pressure cooker using local volcanic rock. We are told that "you can do this at home kids" but are not sure how we are going to get a hold of the volcanic rock. It's tasty stuff and is alot like a Sunday roast, complete with spuds, carrots, stuffing and lamb. One of our table is a 70 year old Welsh lady who has been living in New Zealand for most of her life but hasn't lost her accent. She tells us that she has done 4 sky dives in New Zealand and loved them, except for the last one - which she had to do as a tandem jump with a guide - because of her advanced years. "Very boring" she says in her best lilting Welsh.

Although the tour was commercial - we were part of a group of nearly 100 people - it's well worth doing, just to learn something about the vibrant Maori culture and take a haka dance class. Our bus driver asks the group to reciprocate on the way home and each nationality has to sing a song. After Leahanne pushes hard for "Dungarvan My Home Town", we agree on singing "The Fields of Athenry". It doesn't sound like much of a war song by comparison with the haka. Doug Howlett must be finding it hard to get psyched up for Munster games listening to this lament.

Our exit from the campsite the next day is less than textbook. To power the microwave (which we barely use) and recharge the camera and laptop we plug in the campervan every time we arrive at the campsite. Each powered site has an electricity socket at about head height. Part of the ritual every morning before we drive off is to unplug the van. This is alot more pleasant than the smelly job of discharging "grey water" in the campsite's dump station. Anyway, for some reason, we forget to unplug the van this morning. It's hard to describe the freakish series of events that follows. The plug stays in the socket as we drive off and the electricity cable duly tautens. It manages to catch the underside of a wooden picnic table beside us, which in turn flips against a campervan in the neighbouring site. At this stage we notice that something is amiss. The collision wakes the occupants, a very nice Dutch couple who were very understanding about the whole incident (although we can't speak Dutch, from the body language and bemused looks, they can't understand how we managed to do this). No major damage was done to their van, apart from a bit of smudging from the wooden table but we exchange details in case there are any problems. Bloody Nora!

If you want to see photos click here.

Lake Taupo, New Zealand

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

We don't spend much time by Lake Taupo. This might be to do with us getting a raw deal in the campsite we chose, De Bretts, which had us plonked beside a main road for the night. The Top 10 campsite is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet but we passed by it the next day and it looked good. In any case, the 2 hour walk to Huka Falls (New Zealand's most visited tourist attraction) is well worth doing. The Falls don't look to us like a classic waterfall (eejit definition: water falling from a height). Instead huge volumes of water surge through a tight channel and then fall over a short drop.

If you want to see photos click here.

Napier, New Zealand

Monday, 4 February 2008

Napier was levelled by an earthquake in 1931 and alot of the town's sights relate to this event and the massive rebuilding that followed. At the time, Art Deco architecture was popular and represented the kind of new beginning Napier wanted. As a result, it is one of the world's best preserved Art Deco townscapes. We did a walking tour and the streets reminded us (sadly lacking superior cultural reference points) of Scarface's Miami Beach.

There is not alot else to report. Apart, that is, from the escalating tensions between us and New Zealand birdlife. Every time we park on the roadside to have a meal, we are quickly surrounded by dozens of edgy looking birds, waiting to pounce. Irrespective of size, they have no fear and it takes an amount of vigorous arm-waving and roars of "get out of it" before they retreat to a distance where you can have a bite of a sandwich in peace. The oversized alpha seagulls are particularly sinister looking when, in tourist intimidation mode, they hunch up their shoulders and screech. Until the relatively recent arrival of humans in New Zealand, the country was almost solely populated by birds and they had few natural predators. Perhaps they still don't want us here.

If you want to see photos click here.

Waipukurau, New Zealand

Saturday and Sunday, 1 and 2 February 2008

Poor Marian and John, our hosts at Wanaka, haven't managed to shake us! Their campervan stalkers strike again and they put up with us for one more night at their gorgeous home in Waipukurau. It's John's birthday and their friends Chris, Joy, Lincoln and Zoe (and baby Finn) are invited to dinner. As ever the food is fantastic (a respite for our tastebuds which have had to put up with some fairly atrocious attempts at pancakes and omelettes over the last week - our van has everything except a frying pan with teflon!). The evening's entertainment also includes an enchanting rendition of "Daisy" by Marian on the piano accordion. Next morning we get in a game of golf at the local course. Dara's game is obviously not up to much as Marian asks him, after one particularly limp shot, "does your husband play golf as well?" Afterwards we meet up in North Havelock with Marian's daughter Philippa for a tasty lunch at the Black Barn and a tour of the area. Hopefully we will get a chance to repay all of this hospitality some time when Marian and John visit Ireland.

Wellington, New Zealand

Thursday and Friday, 31 January and 1 February 2008

We take the ferry across the Cook Strait from Picton to Wellington. It's Rugby Sevens weekend in the capital city and, as tradition dictates, most of the locals are in fancy dress for the occasion. The streets are mobbed with Wellingtonians dressed as superheroes, nuns, priests, tigers, pirates etc. However, the predominant theme is ...you've guessed it...men in drag. In a Farmers shop (the NZ equivalent of Dunnes Stores) we spotted dozens of butch Kiwi men browsing the lingerie section for bras sized FF! Needless to say, the All Blacks win the competition, after a close run final against Western Samoa. Dara's friend Tom has returned from Dunedin so we park in his front yard for the night. He lives on a hill so it was a strange experience sleeping down a 45 degree gradient. This might have been made easier by the pint of saki Tom served us at a Japanese restaurant we went to on Courtenay Place. At least Tom's girlfriend, Karen, had some good tips about what to order. Afterwards we meet up with Tim and Chris, friends of Tom's, in the Hawthorne Lounge, a speakeasy-themed bar. After the serenity of the South Island, the crowds and fast-pace of Wellington is a bit of a shock to the system. The next day we visit the Botanical Gardens, getting to the top by cable car. Leahanne has to be restrained from pulling the emergency cord on the way up, when she thinks she sees the very muscular All Blacks Sevens team training on a pitch next to the track!

For more photos click here.

Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

Monday and Tuesday, 28 and 29 January 2008

We head westward to Marahau, which is at the entrance to the Abel Tasman National Park. This is a popular tramping spot and there is a coastal track which goes through spectacular native bushland. Generally people trek for 3 days from here to Totararnui, overnighting in huts or camping. We don't have a tent, sleeping bags, a stove or 3 days. Despite what the guide books say, we reckon we can do a section of the track - Marahau to Bark Bay return, in 1 day. The estimated walking time, according to the Lonely Planet, is 14 hours but we will be trekking with small day-bags and plan a carb-loaded breakfast of Weet-Bix (the NZ relation of Weetabix) and bananas. Although rank amateurs in the tramping game, we decide that we will do it in half the time. The terrain is mostly flat and so we build up a head of steam in the morning, scoffing at the 3-dayers as we leave them in our wake. However we get badly lost while trying to beat an incoming tide in one inlet and have to squelch through a few hundred yards of sludge before we re-discover the track. To make up time, we try to cross a small stream (about 8 feet wide) but the stepping stones are slippery beyond belief so this turns in to a bit of a debacle, with a local family deciding to stop off on the opposite bank to chew their lunch and offer helpful pieces of advice to what they must assume are soft "city folk". Beaten by the stream, we retreat and go around the long way. We stop off at a beautiful beach in Torrent Bay for lunch. On the menu is the staple sandwich for the last three weeks - ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Although having no basis for this, we still feel confident that we can reach Bark Bay and continue on the route only to meet a steep hill and the belated realisation that there is no way we are going to cover the remaining 4 kilometres in 30 minutes. We turn around and head back towards Marahau, this time meeting the 3-dayers, who rightly look down their noses at us! At this stage, chronic foot, calf, thigh, back, shoulder and neck pains kick in, along with mild long-walk-delirium. The return journey is nowhere near as pleasant as the outward one. We manage to crawl back to the van, just as darkness falls. A valuable lesson - don't mock the tramping gods!

To see photos click here.

Nelson, New Zealand

Saturday and Sunday, 26 and 27 January 2008

We've been looking forward to this - Feargal, Alison and Shane, friends from Sydney, are over in New Zealand on holidays. After meeting up with them in Kaikoura (about 2 hours north of Christchurch), we drive up the east coast to Nelson. It's not the easiest driving in convoy when you have our chitty-chitty-bang-bang campervan trying to keep up with the lads' zippy rental car but we just about manage it (a little too well at times, once nearly rear-ending the rental while a driver, who will remain unnamed, was taking a refresher course on how to use the clutch!). Highlights on the trip up the coast include a visit to Nim Bins, a roadside shack, selling the local speciality - crayfish. It was tasty but the visuals weren't great - the crayfish was served complete with beady eyes and claws. The hardest part of Cray's Anatomy (!) was avoiding the gut area and the half-digested last meal of the poor crayfish (known in the connoisseur's lexicon as the "mustard"). On the way up to Nelson, a game of "Tractor" - 2 points for spotting a tractor, 5 points for spotting a tractor dealership - nearly came to blows between the McKenna brothers over whether a largish seated lawnmower was a tractor. We have dinner that evening and a few beers afterwards in a couple of Nelson's nightspots. Our favourite was PHATS, a drum n' bass club that was pumping out dry ice like it was 1999. There was a slow start the next day but we made it out to the local beach for a swim, before we headed our separate ways - us to Abel Tasman National Park and Feargal, Ali and Shane to Picton for the ferry journey across to Wellington. It was good to see the lads again.

To see photos click here.

Hanmer Springs, New Zealand

Friday, 25 January 2008

On our way back to the east coast, we stop in Hanmer Springs. We have read about its thermal springs. However it doesn't turn out quite as expected. Instead of soaking our weary bones in something akin to a remote Icelandic geyser, we find that the springs are in the middle of town and are more a water park for kids. Huddled in a few sulphur-smelly mineral pools, the beleaguered adults look on anxiously as children hurtle around the place screaming and cannon-balling into the pools. We last for all of 45 minutes and leave in a huff on learning that to go on the water slide costed an extra $5 on top of the $12 entrance fee. This is not Shangri La.

Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

We do a half-day trek to the face of the glacier with the Franz Josef Glacier Guides. According to the Lonely Planet, this is outfit is "reader-recommended". We are not sure why, to be honest. It seems like the guides have recently graduated from the Basil Fawlty School of Tourism. They are a pretty disinterested bunch (adopting the "Whatever dude...only in this job to get a bit of cash together for the ski season in Whistler" pose) and volunteer zero information about the glacier. This differs from the true enthusiasm of the other guides we have met in New Zealand. Despite this, the glacier is impressive - particularly when you get above the fairly mucky terminal face. At this level - where the ice is really compacted - the blue-tinged ice pillars, crevices and caves are a great sight.

After a quick lunch, we get driving again, in the direction of Greymouth, northwards along the west coast. Along the way we have to get a phonecall out of the way. The campervan had a bit of a ding against a telegraph pole in Wanaka, causing a smallish dent on the side of the van. To avoid any hassle on the day we return it, we confess all to Roydon, at the rental company. We are relieved to find he is pretty relaxed about it. As long as the van is roadworthy he isn't too bothered - a few weeks ago, another customer totalled one of his vans. Confession over - the penance will be a few dollars for the panel beater but nothing major! Phew.

To see photos click here.

Wanaka, New Zealand

Monday and Tuesday, 21 and 22 Janary 2008

Leahanne's sister, Amanda, has put us in touch with a friend of hers in Wanaka, Marian. Marian and her husband John, have a beautiful holiday house there and have kindly offered us a place to stay and a warm shower (yippee!). The inn is full, with friends of Marian and John's from Germany - Christian, Ursula, Brenda and Sandra - also staying. After being cooped up in the van, it's great to be able to enjoy the home comforts and delicious food.

The weather clouds up for a day but we sneak out for a stroll along the picturesque edge of Lake Wanaka and Leahanne re-discovers her obsession with jigsaws - a scary sight!

The next day we go kayaking with Marian, John, Christian and Ursula. Our guides are the very knowledgeable and chipper Ben (pronounced "bean" in New Zealandish) and Geoff. Apart from Christian and Ursula, we are all novices at kayaking but Ben and Geoff are very patient teachers and soon enough we are out on the open water. Because of the recent rains the river has swelled and is moving at about 8 kph. It is crystal clear though and we can see plenty of fish below, along with the scourge of New Zealand's waterways - the algae didymo (a.k.a. "rock snot"). It's a nice gentle run and we can enjoy the scenery on the banks of the river. Before long though we are flying (a bit of an exaggeration) through rapids and eddies with names like the "Mother-in-law" and the "Washing Machine" and most of us, except for the perfectly-balanced Leahanne, have taken a few dips in the water. It's an enjoyable day and we'd really recommend Alpine Kayak Guides.

Thanks to Marian and John's very warm hospitality, Wanaka has definitely been one of the highlights of our time in New Zealand. It was hard to wrench ourselves away.

If you want to see photos click here.

Queenstown, New Zealand

Saturday and Sunday, 19 and 20 January 2008

Queenstown is on the edge of Lake Wakatipu and has a skyline dominated by the Remarkables mountains. The town is a big tourist draw, particularly for backpackers who are into adventure sports. As a result the area is heavily built up (for New Zealand!). By chance, we bump into Derek Hayes, a friend of Leahanne's from Dungarvan, and his girlfriend, Angie, who are in New Zealand on holiday. After a great pizza at Winne Bagoes, we meet up with Derek and Angie in the local Irish pub (naturally!). Derek has done a bungy jump that day and makes us feel like complete wusses by not having done one yet. The next day we take the Skyline Gondolas up to the top of the hill overlooking Queenstown. We ride luges around the side of the hill at breakneck speeds of up to 5 kph. Dara decides to bite the bullet and do the Ledge Bungy, on the side of the hill. Nerves are evident beforehand - 4 separate sprinted visits to the bathroom. The time for the jump nears. It is then delayed as a girl on the neighbouring canyon-swing has a re-think and the staff have to hold everything until she is winched back to safety. In the meantime Dara sweats it. Finally the moment of truth arrives. The jump itself is not exactly balletic, more of a belly flop through empty space really, and the infant screams from Dara do not help. For footage of this embarrassing moment see here.

We drive out to Glenorkey, about 70 km from Queenstown. It's a lovely spot, at the head of Lake Wakatipu. The local campsite looks fairly basic so we decide to do our first freedom camp instead, finding a secluded spot beside the lake. It's peaceful until a local family roll up beside us. To set the tone, the parents start playing gangster rap at an ear-splitting volume. Then their kids turn the ignition on their jet-ski. The resulting sound must be what it's like to stand underneath a space shuttle launch. Between the soaring harmonies about the life of a pimp and the toddler joyriders trying to break the world water speed record, there is no peace. At long last they leave, possibly to score some dope or maybe tinker with the jet ski to see if they can be the first New Zealanders in space. It's a quiet enough night after that and we weren't killed in our beds.

If you want to see photos click here.

Fiordland, New Zealand

Thursday and Friday, 17 and 18 January 2008

After a day's driving, we arrive at Te Anau. This village is a staging post for trips to Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound. We stop for the night in the "Top 10" holiday park, one of a chain of campsites that are in all the major tourist spots in the country. They have been of a good standard. So far we haven't done any "freedom camping" (camping on the side of the road) for fear of being pecked to death by swarms of vampire kiwi birds - you'd be surprised how often this happens.

We have been told that the road to Milford Sound is a terrible drive. Every morning, the road is ruled by demonic tour coach drivers, blaring the Ride of the Valkyries from their buses, intent on running campervans off the road. Doubtful Sound is a bit more remote but offers the same scenery so we choose life.

The very efficient and friendly "Real Journeys" company run the tour. The trip begins with a boat journey across the glassy Lake Manapouri and 2 km bus trip underground to the West Arm hydroelectricity power station. The power station has some impressive looking turbines and other behemoth hydropower contraptions we don't understand. It looks ideal for the final scene from a Sean Connery Bond movie where loads of little men in matching silver coats and hardhats run in random directions, doing their best to be blown up.

Following this we take the bus overground, through the picturesque Wilmot Pass to Doubtful Sound itself. Our very capable tour guide is Rex, who gives a wry commentary along the way, mostly taking the mick out of tourists. The final stage of our trip is the climax, a 3 hour boat cruise along the Sound. It's hard to exaggerate just how beautiful Doubtful Sound is. A vast, empty stretch of water surrounded by towering green hills. Apparently it was called "Doubtful Sound" because, when Captain Cook reached the opening to it on the Tasman Sea, he decided not to venture up the Sound because it was "doubtful" there would be enough wind to get back out of it. Interesting story.

We are the only boat in the Sound and chug slowly out to the Tasman Sea. On the way we are lucky enough to see a school of bottlenose dolpins up close. It is mating season so the young males put on a rare show (not the kind you are thinking about!), one which the tour guides haven't seen before. For about 20 minutes, 10 large dolphins, do jumps and somersaults a few feet away from the boat. All of the passengers are on the upper deck, snapping away at this like papparazzi. Dara gets about 10 minutes of film footage and is very proud of himself. He then has the bright idea of deleting some other photos to make room on the camera's memory stick. In a new bungling personal best, he manages to delete all of the footage. Ooops!

For photos (but no footage) click here.

Stewart Island, New Zealand

Wednesday, 16 January 2008

The waters between the mainland and Stewart Island, an hour’s trip from the mainland, are blessedly calm. Having had the crossing from hell a few years back between Doolin and Inis Oirr it was nice to spend the journey not nervously eyeing the sick bags provided in the seat in front of you.

The island is New Zealand’s third largest and is mostly national park, with a large and varied bird population. Halfmoon Bay is where the ferry docks and has a small village but otherwise the island is uninhabited. Understandably, it's a popular destination for birdwatchers and trekkers. We enjoy rambling around, taking in a few of the more leisurely walks and enjoying the peace of the place. In the afternoon we make a pit-stop at the Church Hill Café, perched over Halfmoon Bay. It’s a good spot to enjoy the sunshine. In the evening, we have a tasty dinner at the South Sea Hotel. The pub next door is like a scene from Craggy Island - a handful of dishevelled islanders hold up the bar while taking the measure of the gringo tourists.

If you want to see photos click here.

The Catlins, New Zealand

Tuesday, 15 January 2008

We say goodbye to Tom, Chris and Carol and set off on the drive through the Catlins.

The roads here hug a spectacular coastline and sometimes are just gravel tracks so we have a few thrills on the way. Although it is sturdy, our van is not the most aerodynamic and tends to get pushed about a bit by the winds that gust from the sea. All at once it's thrown a foot or two sideways, either into the ditch or into the oncoming lane. All the driver can do is grip the wheel white-knuckle and look to the long grass in the ditch a few yards ahead for some clue as to when the next gust is coming.

It’s all small beans though when you compare it to the lot of the cyclists who have the determination/loss of marbles to tour around New Zealand in the saddle. You see them labouring into a Force 8 wind, up what you know to be the first of a series of Alp d’Huez hills, and say a quiet prayer. Lunatics!

Along the way to our destination for the night, Invercargill, we stop off a couple of times. We visit Jack’s Blowhole which is a bit disappointing. There is a blowhole there alright but not the big fountain of spray we were expecting. More impressive though is Curio Bay which is site of a 160-million year old fossil forest. It covers the area of a few football pitches (the universal unit of measure) and is dotted with petrified stumps of trees. Despite close inspection we do not find any Tyrannasaurus Rex remains.

To see photos click here.

Dunedin, New Zealand

Sunday and Monday, 13 and 14 January 2008

The next stop is Dunedin. We meet up with Dara’s schoolfriend Tom, who has spent the last few years, on and off, in New Zealand (mostly in Wellington). He is in Dunedin to help his friends, Chris and Carol, renovate Chris’ house.

We head out to the Otago Peninsula, which is home to the world’s only mainland royal albatross colony. There is a biting wind from the south but this provides excellent conditions for the albatrosses to show off. They move pretty quickly (up to recorded speeds of 160km/h) so a lot of the afternoon is spent idly waiting, searching the skies, lapsing into conversation, noticing the albatrosses at the last moment and then trying to resuscitate digital cameras to get a shot before the pesky birds disappear again.

Tom cooks a delicious Tipperary Thai curry for us (an O’Farrell family secret recipe, the origins of which are shrouded in mystery). We are given a sneak preview of a documentary Tom has been working on. The subject matter ranges from Irish wildlife, the building of his wood cabin in the Galtee mountains, to the construction of a Gaelscoil on Cape Clear Island. There is some great cinematography and David Attenborough-style narration from Tom.


The next day we try to do our bit for the renovations by cleaning a few windows but probably aren't much help. The transformation into useless campervan hippies is complete!

If you want to see photos click here.

Mackenzie Country, New Zealand

Friday and Saturday, 11 and 12 January 2008

Gentler terrain follows. We head through Mackenzie Country towards Lake Tekapo, which is in the interior of the South Island. On the radio, the country mourns the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, a man Kiwis are very proud of.

We reach Lake Tekapo. Its water is a very weird blue. This is due to “rock flour”. WARNING: unless you are a big fan of glacier science please skip to the next paragraph. Apparently, as a glacier moved through the valley, its stony underside scraped against the rock below and produced fine particles which now hang suspended in the lake. These particles refract sunlight and give the water its turquoise colour. Against the backdrop of the burnt yellows and browns of the surrounding hills it makes a stunning contrast. We try to impersonate ruddy-cheeked hill trekkers by walking up the side of Mt. John which has a good view over the lake and the plains beyond. Our camera's memory stick is being put through its paces!

Back on the road, we travel alongside the canals that link Lake Tekapo to Lakes Pukaki and Ohau, which were built as part of the region’s hydroelectricity system. We also try to find the Plains of Rohan, which will be a familiar name to Lord of the Rings nerds. It was pretty embarrassing asking the lady in the local tourist information office about this but it was clear that this was not the first time this question had been asked by low-brow tourists like us. She gave good directions, telling us that we wouldn’t be able to get all the way to where the scenes were shot but should be able to get close. Of course, when we got there, it didn’t look anything like the movie. We settled on one odd-shaped hill in the middle-distance as possibly being to the side of one screen shot. But we were not sure. We could see a lot of sheep (not hard in a country with a sheep population of 40 million) but not a single hobbit. We had spent a few hours on this fiasco and this may be our last attempt at Lord of the Rings tourism.

If you want to see photos click here.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Wednesday and Thursday, 9 and 10 January 2008

We say goodbye to Australia, sorry to be leaving a great country and parting from the friends we have made there. Most of all we will miss Leahanne’s brother Dave and Di who have taken such good care of us.

The Maori name for New Zealand is “Land of the Long White Cloud”. Christchurch was sitting under a very long and very grey cloud when we arrived and the weather was definitely a few degrees cooler than Sydney.

Our first mission is to pick up our campervan, which will be our home for the next month. We meet Roydon, owner of Sunshine Holidays Campervans, who has got up at the crack of dawn to drive 5 hours to get the van to us. He is very friendly and gives us a detailed explanation of all the bits and pieces in the van (e.g. the chemical toilet- the "Portapotty 335" model - Leahanne is appalled and vows never to use it!). It’s peak season and campervans are expensive. Sadly, our ambition of having a Winnebego the size of the Taj Mahal came into brief but brutal conflict with our limited resources. Poverty won out and we have a van that an estate agent would describe as “cosy”. However, despite the initial bumps and bruises from banging body parts off the ceiling, doors etc., we like our little home on wheels.

We spend a day in Christchurch. It has a compact city centre and we enjoy strolling about, watching the locals play chess with giant-size pieces in Cathedral Square and the dapper oarsmen punting tourists down the local river, the Avon, while pontificating loudly on matters of state. We stay overnight at Stonehurst, which is a backpacker hostel but also has some campervan sites. The next morning we thought a leisurely drive around the Bank’s Peninsula, to the east of Christchurch, would be a good start. Instead it turns out to be New Zealand’s answer to the Conor Pass - steep, narrow roads snaking around steep headlands. It’s very picturesque but the driving is tricky.

If you want to see more photos, click here.

Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, Vietnam

Thursday to Monday, 7 - 11 December 2006

After another long bus journey and the obligatory few hitches looking for accommodation, we end up staying in MC184 guesthouse on Cong Quynh. Despite the gulag-sounding name, the room is fantastic, rat free, very cheap and has Premiership football on tap!

We visit the War Remnants Museum. It's stridently anti-American but this shouldn't be a surprise. There is a gruesome photo gallery showing the deformed victims of napalm and Agent Orange. The "Requiem" part of the museum shows the work of journalists who were killed in the war. It's eerie to see the very last photograph taken by a journalist and then to read that he was killed moments later by a bullet or landmine.

The next day we do a tour to the Chu Chi tunnels, a network of tunnels outside Saigon, used by the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. Our tour guide calls himself "Mr. Bean" and, at US$5, gives good value for money. He has a unique command of the English language, drawing heavily on phrases from Vietnam movies like Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill and Platoon ("that's bullshit, man!", "relax!", "you don't know me, you don't know my life!"). According to his at times self-contradictory and generally murky account, he spent two years in the US to become a US navy officer and was stationed during the war near the Chu Chi tunnels - narrowly missing serving on the same gunboat as "Senator John Kerry". He shows a sneaking regard for the Viet Cong's ingenuity and resourcefulness in facing up to the might and technology of the US. At the site of the tunnels, he shows us a sniper tunnel, terrifying booby-traps (e.g. a box of spikes which would be concealed underwater in a paddy field to maim GI's jumping out of helicopters) and encourages us to have a go at the rifle range. We are not sure about the rifle range and decide to give it a skip. It sounds preachy but surely it's the last thing tourists should be doing in a country that was devastated by war. We do the claustrophobic 100 metre long crawl through a surviving section of the tunnel network. It's a bit tight at the entrance and the biggest fear is that one of the "big ass tourists" (Mr. Bean's words) will get stuck in front and behind us! Thankfully alot of tourists leave at one of the early exits so we get a chance to do the rest of the tunnel unimpeded. We find it scary enough and imagine the lurching daily fear of people who spent months below ground during the war. Mr. Bean tells us a tortured story about him putting dog-tags in the mouths of slain GI's so that they can be identified later. He tells us that he "drinks to forget" and is anguished that today he has been shut out of good jobs because of the side he took in the war.

Apart from the scarred history, Saigon was a good city to spend a couple of days in. We were surprised to see the amount of Christmas trees, elves, reindeers and lights adorning buildings and shopping malls but learn that there is a large Christian population in Vietnam. We eat at a great restaurant, "Vietnam House", on Dong Khoi in the posher part of town near the Municipal Theatre. The Ben Thanh Market was also good for haggling over fake sunglasses for our trip to the islands in Thailand.

If you want to see more photos of Saigon please click here.

Hoi An, Vietnam

Sunday to Thursday, 2 - 6 December 2006

We wait at a bus stop in Hanoi before making the overnight journey to Hoi An. The shambles that has been our dealings with Vietnamese tourist agencies continues: there is no sign of the shiny, spacious, air-conditioned dream-craft that was to whisk us down south. Apparently its brakes played up during the day. Instead we are urged into an ancient minibus that looks like its last passengers were schoolchildren, demented from icecream/crack cocaine, who didn't like the upholstery.

Forty highly irritated passengers, their luggage and a few pockets of air are crammed into the minibus. As with umpteen bus journeys before, the iPods give a bit of solace. However as we haven't been able to upload any new music on them in ages the playlists are starting to lose their lustre. After all, there are only so many times you can listen to Chris de Burgh's Ultimate Collection (Thanks Amanda!). He had one thing right though: don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side. As the cramp and minibus-DVT sets in, we come to the realisation that in Vietnam you should not pay until you see what you are getting.

Hoi An is a smallish town, about halfway down Vietnam's east coast. The streets are lined with tailor shops and it's a mecca for thrifty tourists trying to get well-made clothes at knock-down prices. Thanks to Typhoon Durian, the area is hit with torrential rain for the four days we stay. Our guesthouse is Thuy Duong 1 which is comfortable, if a bit run down. (The acoustics are great though: Leahanne hits some soaring high notes on seeing a large rat scurrying past her in the corridor).

Nothing much happens in Hoi An and we spend most of the time avoiding the rain and getting measured for suits. The quality of the clothes appears to be good although there is always the chance that they will disintegrate after their first visit to the dry cleaners in Sydney. We end up getting a lot of stuff from two tailors, 36 Le Loi and Mr. Xe. One guidebook describes the latter as "flamboyant". The thesaurus must have been acting up on Microsoft Word the day they typed that. Either Mr. Xe takes a shine to Dara or he is meticulous when measuring the size of his clients' rear-ends. He takes his measuring tape to Dara's arse all of five times (on one occasion, inexplicably marching Dara off to a different shop down the street to get measured again). He exclaims joyously and repeatedly "you have a big bum". This is not the only time Hoi An's citizens show an unhealthy interest in Dara's anatomy: while buying a pair of flip flops at a street market, he makes the mistake of exposing his feet. Cue every stall owner within half a mile pointing and laughing at his luxuriant toe hair.

Apart from these few knocks at the self-esteem and the terrible weather, Hoi An was a great place to spend a few days. It is more laid-back than Hanoi (not hard) and has a lot of decent restaurants and bars. We had probably one of the best meals of the trip outright at Mango Rooms, a restaurant near the river so if you are visiting Hoi An be sure to get a dinner there before Mr. Xe measures your bum.

If you want to see more photos click here.

Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Monday to Saturday, 27 November - 1 December 2006

Thanks to the (Very) Rough Guide, we traipse around Hanoi for ages looking for the "Queen Salute" hostel. According to the RG's map it is situated beside the city's opera house. Alarm bells should have started ringing at this unlikely location. Sure enough, the site on the map is occupied by a plush Hilton hotel. We check the guide again and notice that the address of the hostel is in a completely different part of the city.

We sit on the steps of the opera house and resist torching the guidebook on the spot. At this stage, about two hours into our stay in Vietnam, we feel we can make one observation with confidence: here people are persistent, even by Asian standards, when it comes to selling stuff. We are pursued by hordes of taxi drivers, cyclo drivers, moto drivers, T-shirt sellers etc. who interpreted "No, thank you" as an invitation to escalate their sales pitch. Finally we found a taxi that could take us to the hostel for a decent price. After one final small bit of confusion - the hostel had recently changed its name to "Hanoi Spirit" - we managed to sort out a room for the night.

The next day, we walk around the pleasant Hoan Kiem Lake and enjoy the hustle and bustle of Hanoi's old quarter, including the Cho Dong Xuan covered market. The traffic here is like Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement" but everybody is on a motorcycle. Thousands of motorcycles clog the streets and it takes a bit of nerve to take them on. Pathways serve as parking lots for the motorcycles so pedestrians have to skirt along the streetside, hoping not to get clattered. (The tip we have been given for crossing the road is to walk purposefully across the street and not to stop. The traffic will drive around you. If you stop, you are in trouble. This has worked so far.) The speed and noise and fumes really get the adrenalin racing but the locals look on serenely as if it the scene is one of water gently lapping the shore. We have heard that the traffic in Saigon is worse. Body armour and lollipop signs are on the shopping list.

We go to a Vietnamese water puppet show: puppeteers behind a screen manipulate puppets that are half-submerged in water on the stage (Bosco meets Waterworld, on a slightly lower budget). The stories are hard to follow as there are no subtitles or descriptions given in the theatre programme. Alot of fire-breathing dragons and water snakes are involved. We leave the theatre confused.

The following day we make the popular trip to Ha Long City, about 4 hours by bus from Hanoi. The plan is to spend a night on a tourist boat anchored out in Ha Long Bay and spend the following night on nearby Cat Ba Island.

Thankfully the boat is a alot more comfortable than the Mekong slow boat we were herded onto in Laos. Again the passengers are all tourists, so we are not getting much contact with the locals. We meet Conor and Gar from Dublin and Antonie and Stephanie from Brittany, who are good company. The boat chugs over the peaceful waters between the karst rock formations and "floating villages" that make Ha Long Bay so beautiful. The weather is a bit overcast but not as bad as the previous week when a tourist boat had been sunk during a freak ice storm. There were no fatalities but all the luggage was lost. Apparently the Vietnamese government paid compensation to each of the passengers of about ten euro.

After dropping anchor (arrgh, matey) we go kayaking into a deathly still lagoon nearby. Our guide insists that we only go out for 20 minutes (the first of many departures from the glossy brochure we had been shown in Hanoi; it had promised swimming, snorkelling, fishing, a beach barbeque and a visit to a "monkey island" where superintelligent chimps would recite Shakespeare. Except for the visit to Monkey Island where a few screeching semi-domesticated monkeys preferred to attack visitors on their way to the toilets than perform Hamlet, none of the above ever happened). As it turned out, we spent the allotted 20 minutes trying to tow a German and Japanese guy back to the boat. They had capsized their kayak but the staff on the boat thought that this was hilarious and preferred to watch the poor fellows drown (despite asking for them, no lifejackets had been given to us for the kayaking) than send a rescue team. Eventually one of the crew paddled out to help, laughing at the suggestion that they should have come out earlier.

On scenic Cat Ba Island we walked through the National Park and later at our fairly isolated hotel met an elderly Vietnamese couple who fled the country in the 1970s and had since lived in Canada. It was interesting to talk to them about their impressions of the changes in the Vietnam in the intervening period. Despite there still being alot of poverty in the country, things are alot better now it seems.

Despite the spectacular scenery, our trip to Ha Long Bay was a bit of a let-down. If anybody was thinking about doing this trip, we would say definitely do it but double-check what the tour company is offering (take a photo of the brochure before you go as one tourist did back in Hanoi - at the time we thought they were being unbelieveably anal) and hold the guides to it.

Still though, it's not all bad: if you want to see more photos of Hanoi and Ha Long Bay click here.

Vientiane, Laos

Sunday and Monday, 26 & 27 November 2006

The apocalyptic vomiting forecasted for our bus trip in Laos (see blog entry for Phonsavan) turned out to be a bit like a Nostradamus prophecy: the prophecy came through, we just got the date wrong. The overnight bus to Vientiane was a torrid affair (described by Leahanne as the "worst journey of her life"). The sights (no need to be eating that much carrot before a long bus journey) and sounds (eardrum-piercing Thai karaoke again) will haunt our dreams for some time yet. We were therefore glad to arrive in Laos' capital one hour ahead of schedule. It was 4 am though and meant that we had to try to sleep in the bar of the Lang Xiang Hotel, until our room was free at 9 am. We killed time by doing a walking tour of South East Asia's "most modest" capital. There is very very little to see here and after being underwhelmed by the city's mock Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe, we slept for the day.

Before getting on our flight to Hanoi, Leahanne decides to make a trip to the Buddha Park, 25km to the west of Vientiane. The Buddha Park is a collection of Buddhist and Hindu statues built in 1958 by Luang Phu Boonlua Surirat, an "interesting" guy and self-styled holy man, who claimed to have been the disciple of a cave-dwelling Hindu hermit in Vietnam (!). The cheapest way to the park is by local bus so Leahanne bites the bullet and piles in with the locals, encountering a few smiles but mostly lots of stares! The Buddha 'theme' park (as Dara likes to call it!) turns out to be smaller than expected and there isn't a ferris wheel in sight, but it is crammed with a huge amount of sculpture that wouldn't have looked out of place on the album sleeve for Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: the first thing you see is a giant pumpkin (which has three inner levels representing hell, heaven and earth), you can climb to the top of the pumpkin and get a great panoramic of the park; there is also a 20m long reclining Buddha, which the locals come to worship. The rest of the park consists of lots and lots of quirky statues (just see the photos!). Boonlua Surirat fled from Laos to Thailand during the 1975 revolution, where he established another buddha park in Nong Khai - guess it's a bit like Disneyland and Disney World...

Plain of Jars, Laos

Friday and Saturday, 24 & 25 November 2006

We take a local bus from Luang Phabang to Phonsavan. Taking the tourist "VIP" bus would have meant air-conditioning and more comfortable seats but we thought that we might save a bit of money by travelling in a normal bus. This has its downsides: the bus is a bit rickety and the aisles are packed with sacks of rice. It seems that local buses are used to transport all sorts of goods: our one has a few hundred boxes of shoes strapped to the roof. More disconcertingly, while the bus is being loaded, a man oversees things with a rifle half-hidden under his jacket. In 2003 and 2004 buses in the area we are travelling to were attacked by insurgents/bandits and we presume that this guy will be travelling with us for a bit of protection. Our bodyguard is very young though, only recently out of short pants. You wonder whether he has real bullets in that gun or did it just come as part of a "Cowboys and Indians" set he got last Christmas.

The journey is a long and slow one, taking about 10 hours. The roads are hilly, windy and potholed (just short of Conor Pass terrain for about a hundred miles). Backpackers had told us that Laoatians get travel-sick easily and had predicted vomiting on an apolocalyptic scale. Thankfully this didn't come true; although one old lady did belch like a trombone for the whole journey. The in-bus entertainment consisted of a 6-track Thai karaoke DVD complete with "amusing" videos. The 6 tracks were played on a loop - recent upgrades to hell have included this feature!

Phonsavan is a small town but has a decent tourist trade thanks to the UNESCO World Heritage Site nearby: the Plain of the Jars. This is a plain covered in 2000 year-old stone jars, which are believed to have been used as funeral urns or storage for food. (Yawn!) We stay at Kong Keo hostel, which is basic but does have the attraction of staff who are masters of double-speak. Despite pestering him for the evening, the sphinx-like guy in charge won't give us a straight answer about the price of a tour to the Plain of Jars:

Us: "Hello again [for the 9th time], we want to check again about the tour: will it cost 10 dollars per person?"
Sphinx, disappointed with himself for making eye-contact with us: "Yes, 10 dollars".
Us: "Are you sure, 10 dollars?"
Sphinx: "Yes, I'm sure, 10 dollars".
Us: "So that means 20 dollars in total?".
Sphinx: "No, it could be more".
Us: "Why, 10 plus 10 equals 20?"
Sphinx: "Maybe not, maybe we don't get enough people to go on tour".
Us: "But it will be 10 dollars per person maximum?".
Sphinx: "I don't think so...maybe...we see tomorrow, 10 dollars, maybe, maybe not".
Us, a bit exasperated: "Ok, maybe we will try another tour company".
Sphinx, adamantly: "No don't go to other tour company, they ask higher price, I give you tour for 10 dollars".
Us: "Are you sure, 1o dollars per person, 20 dollars altogether?".
Sphinx, backtracking: "Yes...I think so... maybe...we see".

Us: "So, when will we find out about this, later tonight or tomorrow morning?".

Sphinx, retreating into the shadows: "Yes".

Beaten into submission, we retire to the hostel's bar. It throws up a surreal cast of characters. We get talking to a fisherman from the Faroe Islands. He is a bit deranged. Having spent the last 6 months on a large trawler somewhere off Russia he has every right to be. He is obsessed about fish and talks to us for a solid two hours about fishing, fish and other sea life (whales, shrimp, king crabs, tuna, shark, 4 different species of bottomfeeder). We also speak to an English lady, divorced from a Burmese "freedom-fighter", who has been hanging around with young novice Buddhist monks for the last few months. To round off the night, we meet an Italian guy, who has recently set up a tomato farm on the Plain of Jars. Apparently this will produce tomatoes for the German market when they are out of season in Europe. He talks of his deep love of halibut with the Faroe Islands fisherman. We turn in for the night before it gets ugly.

The next day we get our tour to the Plain of Jars (for 10 dollars!). The plain was lavishly bombed by the US during the Vietnam war as it was believed to be a supply route for the Viet Cong into southern Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973 one planeload of bombs was dropped every 8 minutes. It has taken some time for the huge number of unexploded bombs to be removed from the jar sites. This has also inhibited archaeological study of the sites. As a result, it is still not certain what the giant jars were used for. Our guide, Lor Vang, prefers the local legend of the jars being made to hold "Lao Lao" (rice whiskey) to celebrate the victory in battle of a warrior hero. Whatever the reason, the 3 sites we visit are well worth the visit. The jars vary in size (generally up to head height) and condition, and remind you of the stone circles you see in Ireland.

On the way back to Phonsavan, we stop by a hut where Lao Lao is made. The conditions here are pretty decrepit (chickens pecking at the ground and quietly incubating the next strain of bird flu; filthy toddlers dressed in rags chasing the chickens; toothless hundred year old women acting as master brewer). It doesn't look like there is much hygiene involved in the brewing process (a few plastic drums, full of a whiteish goo, festering in the sun and attracting alot of interest from flies). Despite this, the Lao Lao doesn't taste bad and there is no lasting throat-burn. Lor Vang entertains us with stories of his polygamist father ("he is so handsome" that he has 3 wives and 13 children). Polygamy seems to be fairly routine in Laos. Lor Vang will probably keep it to just the one wife and 2.5 children though as any more than that would be very expensive. A wise fellow.

We head next for Vientiane. It's an overnight bus. We make sure to charge up the iPods to drown out the karaoke. To see more photos click here.