First jottings from North America

We have now left Vancouver after a fantastic week with Blair and Meghan in their downtown apartment. It has been wonderful to see where they live and work amongst the hustle and bustle of that beautiful city.

It was lovely to have a meal out with some of their friends to celebrate my 60^th birthday. That was a surprise as I thought I had planned it to be very low key!! We used their bikes to explore the surrounds as there are safe dedicated cycle lanes and it gave us a chance to slowly get used to the ‘right’ side of the road.

Meghan works Saturdays so Blair drove us up Mt Seymour ski-field and then we walked up Dog Mountain. It was a 6km return easy walk made a little more difficult by snow! They had a late snowfall a few weeks ago and it has not all melted so not quite what we are used to.

Now we have ventured forth in Blairs car for a trip around Vancouver Island. Our first stop was very special. We spent 2 nights with a new ‘cousin’ of Rob’s who he has found through his DNA matches. Lesley and Ron live just out of Victoria in a lovely 2 hectare property. Lesley is a passionate gardener but also a very talented fabric artist with an incredible purpose-built studio. Ron is retired but very active in local sailing competitions anywhere around the Island. We enjoyed a walking tour in Victoria with the history of the BC capital city and Chinatown. Our next visit today was a lovely lunch with the parents of Kirsten a Canadian friend of Hayden’s who has done the opposite to Blair and has residency in NZ.

The weather is very pleasant here and getting better every day. The days are long starting at 4.30am to 9.15pm. We are heading up the West Coast but have to criss-cross a few times. We will keep you posted as we explore.

Just the missing photo maybe

The Girl from Ipanema

Our last day of touring South America...seems like it has been 3 months, so many things we have encountered, discovered and experienced.

Yesterday was our only all day free day with nothing scheduled by Williment, our travel company. But we did have an evening excursion, more of that later. We filled half of our day visiting Rochino favela, a slum. There are several in Rio de Janeiro housing 2 million or so people and this is the biggest one with 250,000. What an experience....south Auckland looks a bit depressing but this favela takes slums to a new level. The living area is so small and there are no green areas or play areas, I would imagine if one person caught a cold or got chicken pox, then they all get it. We were told that there are 80% employed, 10% unemployed and 10% are criminals. Drugs are a problem, mostly marijuana and cocaine, they had not heard of Methamphetamine or "P". The people though are poor but happy. When some of the shanties were knocked down and an apartment block built, the inhabitants built another shanty further up the hill. It was a very interesting half day tour and certainly makes us appreciate what we call home.

Put this in for Blair and any other electrically minded people. All the shantys have power, and running water and we were led to believe they have a waste disposal system. On further questioning about how that works the answers became more and more vague so I left it. Who knows what happens.

 

 

 

 

 

We didn't find time to visit "the girl from Ipanema" but she does exist and has become famous because of the song. She is now in her 50's and is reputed to be still quite beautiful. Ipanema is the next beach south of Copacabana, it is not as big and not quite as popular but still beats Castlecliff or Woodend on a good day. The are reports of a song called "the girl with Emphysema" to the tune of the popular song but not sure if it is modelled on a real girl. Not a lot smoke here which was a bit surprising. 

We are sitting in the Rio airport right now awaiting a boarding call to Santiago, Chile, a 2 hour lay over then 13 hours to Auckland. Pleased to be heading home but I would happily stay touring for another month.

Until next time, see ya.

Copacabana....the hottest spot north of Havana

Barry Manilow was partly right but "......north of Havana......?" has me thinking a bit.....but, we are definitely on the beach at Copacabana. There is lots of water and lots of pretty girls...you are supposed to say that when residing here at Copacabana Beach but a stroll along the sand this afternoon opened some eyes, mine especially. Dress code in this corner of Brazil is a sort of code where this is no code. As I mentioned, while strolling, we, (my first wife and I), encountered a lady (in the broadest sense of the word) dressed in a g-string affair with an acreage of flesh that would have required two bottles of SP50 to cover and there would have been some parts missed due to lack of access. Fortunately my lunch was well settled otherwise things could have been really messy. 

Yesterday we started a day tour with a visit to Christ the Redeemer. There must be a lot of sinners about this side of the World as the place was packed with people presumably looking for redemption. Either they have been sinners or captive at sometime. As I haven't ever been captive (not counting 38 years of marriage, but don't tell Diana that I said that)...redemption only took a few seconds for me. Christ was a fairly impressive type of statue, over 30 metres tall and looking out over almost all of Rio de Janeiro. While some people walk from the bottom up, we took a cog train most of the way and walked the last 250 steps....some of the group took a lift for the last wee bit, however Diana and I are above average fitness for our tour group......but only one of us has had a heart attack!

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 We have had a good look around this interesting city, huge, seems quite safe so far, streets are clean and the people seem pretty happy. We are called "gringos" and I'm not sure if that is derogatory or not but we don't get molested at all. We took a cable car to the top of "Sugarloaf" and had more fantastic panoramic views of the populace and the buildings. We have also been four wheel driving in the jungle which involved a drive through a restored man made forest on a tar sealed road! Hardly needed a 4 wheel drive and the "jungle" did not expose one snake! A couple of friendly monkeys and a toucan but not really a serious adventure.....none the less, it was good fun and nothing like home. Some meals are paid for on our trip and one that we have had here in Rio is a Bar-B-Cue restaurant wher you get yourself salads from a buffet bar and meats are brought out straight off the BBQ. At these dinners they bring out every part of the bullock, every cut possible. At one we even had the "hump" part of the brahman steer. This is boiled for three hours then BBQed and it was very tasty. I thought it might have been full of water or gristle or worse still pus......but it wasn't.

 

Choice meat. We walked in and rolled out...very satisfied.

The Devils Throat

Yes, the Devils Throat! But more about that later.

Our last day in Lima was as good as any we had in Peru, even though we visited two museums before our flight.  Sometimes

museum visits and the spectacle of a heap of old stuff, often broken and decaying in a glass fronted cupboard with signs of "Don't Touch" and "No Foto" tend to wear one down, but it was ok in Lima. Our guide understood the mental telepathy of our group and kept things moving fortunately. Peru was a great country to visit, the Spanish speaking non practising Catholic community all seemed very happy and the towns we visited were clean and safe...the economy is far better than Argentina. The people would have to be the shortest race on Earth....all half backs. A lady walked past me and must have been a little taller than my waist...she wasn't a dwarf person, just small, middle aged. Many of them are like that and I didn't see anyone as tall as me. 

We had a 5 hour flight from Lima to Iguazo National Park in Brazil and our five star "Bourbon" hotel. Free drink on arrival wasn't a bourbon at all but a lime drink that must have been 90% alcohol with a dash of lime....but we all knocked one back.

Our main reason to stop here was to visit the Iguazo Falls, reportedly the best in the World......but don't they all say that? We've seen waterfalls in every country we have been to, we had them on the farm when I was a small boy, waterfalls? just how many do you need to see in one lifetime....I'll tell ya....just ONE!. And with out a doubt (of mine) it is Iguazo Falls. Spectacular would be selling them short. We walked and photographed them from every imaginable angle. Apart from covering 5500 metres on land, walking mostly but also bussing, training and 4 wheel driving, we also traveled by boat right into one and got thoroughly soaked then took to the air for a 10 minute Eurocopter experience.....just fantastic. We got up close and personal with the Devils Throat, the Salto Belgrano and the Salto Adan y Eve and photographed everyone of them. The whole experience really was magnificent.

We saw a lot of water falling over cliffs and I did a bit of googling. This is the number 1 waterfall in the World however our Sutherland Falls in Fiordland made it to number 10 (that's according to Mr Google) Guess I will just have to go and see for myself. So a bit of catch up sleeping and washing for our small team, dinner at the "Buffalo Branco" (white bull) in town tonight then we head for Rio tomorrow with a hotel on the famous "Cocobanana Beach"......is that how you spell it?

       

 

On the trail of the Incas

A short flight from Lima into the Andes saw our Airbus320 aircraft flying low in the valley with the mountains towering above us. Fortunately the pilot found some flat ground just as we were about to hit the earth and we found ourselves in Cusco. An interesting city of 400,000 short people, so short? must be the thin air. We all took precautions against altitude sickness, some with pills, all with food (eat little and no red meat) and reduce alcohol. No one in our little 7 person group suffered anything....apart from a little bit of alcohol withdrawal. Our tour company had organised a city tour and Rene lead us around the cathedral and associated churches...everyone is Catholic, almost everyone, not that they are overly devout.

 

A daylight start the following day and we were off to Urubamba and the river to get our first taste of Inca habitation. There used to be 12 million of them 500 years ago but the Spaniards got rid of most. Those that didn't die from imported disease were dispatched with stainless steel. A few wise enough to see that battling was a lost cause and that they survived all the fevers, signed unreadable agreements and lived to maintain a small population. The Sacred Valley had interesting and well restored archaeological "ruins". These Incas did a lot of building with stone, not stones as big as the Egyptians but none the less an admirable effort. Incas lived here between 1300 - 1600.

 

 

We have found the food in Peru much to our taste. Nothing seems too spicy and they seem to have huge variety with quite a lot of fish and chicken. So far no one has gone down with any sort of food poisoning. A delicacy here is roast Guinea pig, costs about $25. In some restaurants it is possible to select your healthy furry meal and have it  roasted and dished up 30 minutes later....choice!

 

 

 

The long day to Sacred Valley was a quick trip compared to our journey to Machu Picchu, listed as one of the highlights of our trip following an All Black win. And surely it was. We bussed down to a valley, trained along the valley floor, then crazy narrow road up again. It took about 4 hours, deep into the Andes to Machu Picchu perched halfway up. As we climbed the zigzag road up the mountain we could see terraced gardens where the Incas had braved the steep slopes to get a crop of spuds or corn in. I'm sure it was a regular occurrence for the gardeners to fall of the edge of the terrace and plunge hundreds of metres to their death.

Entering the gates into the ancient village of Machu Picchu we gasped a little, partly from the lack of air but also at the extent of the restoration. Our guide pointed out gardens, the Kings living quarters with ensuite, living areas, green space, toilets and anything else we enquired about. The building of the stone works has been constructed in such a way that it will survive earthquakes, probably could have used a couple of the Inca architects in Christchurch 150 years ago. After a 3 hour tour we paused for a sumptuous buffet then back into the village for more photos and a couple of geocaches...seem to be able to play that game anywhere in the World.

After a full day wandering the village we crept back down the zigzag to the train station. 3 hours on the train and a short shuttle bus and we were pleased to get our heads on the pillow at 11.00pm. Up again fairly early to catch our plane back to Lima. Tomorrow, museums then hopefully we will get to watch the All Blacks in South Africa, probably on a delayed broadcast.

Don't cry for me.....4 Oct

Los Pumas became Lost Pumas although they scored far more points than us in the second half. Fortunately the All Blacks had run riot towards the end of the first half and ensured that we could proudly wear our AB garb into the evening. The Argies were muted in the first 40 but were very vocal when there was some questionable rough stuff later in the game....our guys were booed vigorously as they left the field. We had first class treatment at the venue with pre game drinks all free for two hours and another two hours after the game... 
  Sunday morning saw the church service overlooked due to a lunch engagement with the CEO of Williment, the travel company we are travelling with. We went to a top class nosh shop in Buenos Aires where the owner was an ex football player and served steaks 2 inches thick! He had the good sense to have a number 7 All Black jersey amongst an extensive range of football paraphernalia. Always a touch of pride seeing things from home down little side streets in foreign countries.

Diana and I wandered for a couple of hours in light rain to walk off our steak lunch. We came across a free open air cultural concert in a closed off street so stopped by to watch the dressed up dancers performing with a squeeze box and brass orchestra. Blow me down if they didn't sing and play the only Latino song I know. Funiculi Funicula......I sang at the top of my voice, out of tune, out of tone, monotonous singing style, the only one in English.....was quite funny really. Took me back to Form 4 at NPBHS in 1968!

Early to bed on Sunday night as we had a 4.00 am start to fly to Peru. Buenos Aires was a great place to visit but the country is in a bad place. They have been in recession since 2001. They pay 21% GST, 43% personal tax and have inflation of 40% year on year. There are a lot of very poor people and numerous souls sleeping in doorways and parks....quite a sad state of affairs.

Lima, the capital of Peru with 8 million people is a totally different town to where we have just come from.

One interesting thing for sure is that it never rains in Peru. There are no water tables, no spouting on houses and no umbrella salesmen. While we wandered the town on a city tour it was heavily overcast and had the feeling it would rain within 30 minutes "...no chance...." said Fernando our guide.

Lima appears far more prosperous than BA. There is very little litter on the streets, graffiti is almost non existent and the people appear happier. We only had a short stay and made preparations to fly to Cuzco in the Andes. It is high altitude, only 150metres lower than the top of Mt. Cook, so some people have pills, very little alcohol was drunk and we have cut down on steak dinners. We'll see how it goes.