On a roll... (from 30 April 08!)

The best of...

2009-05-08T17:52:00.018+01:00

After 48 border crossings through 30 countries and 30 different airports in a year of travel, we have been back in the UK for four months now. It didn’t seem like a whole year since we left but while we were away a lot has happened; Euans sister has got engaged, a friend of mine has been married, 14 friends have had babies and another three are expecting and all this is obviously in addition to people moving houses, starting new jobs and so on.

What I still can’t believe is that during all our travels there were no major trip delays, our luggage arrived at the same time we did and we returned home intact with most of our gear (zip-off trouser bottoms aside - I now have a few pairs of shorts). Someone was clearly looking out for us.

The nature of our route saw us circumnavigate the globe and we’ve not counted the number of flights taken but, oddly enough, the airport we went through most (five times) was Guayaquil in Ecuador. I've roughly mapped out our route on a photo of Mer and Adams shower curtain (the best shower curtain I've ever seen!).

Over the past year, I rediscovered my passion for reading and read a total of 57 books in the time we were away. Euan needs to rediscover his golf talent, having only played two games, in Malawi and New Zealand (and on his first t-shot back at his home club in the UK, sent the ball skipping 50 yards down the fairway and off into the trees!).

How do you close off a whole year of travel? I’ve no idea but during the times when we were walking, waiting for buses, trains or had time to burn, we started to reflect on what we’d done, what we’d do again etc and this ‘best of…’ section was born. This seems an ideal way to close out but first, an explanation as to why the site is called ‘dessert monsters’ (it made sense at the time but its taken some explaining on the road as we gradually lost our sweet tooth and yes, shock horror, even declined desserts offered to us).

Euans mother, Margaret (below), is a gun at making great desserts and, before we left, we were happily sampling our way through her desserts and rating them as we went.

It was tempting-looking desserts like this, a pie with a layer of butterscotch sandwiched in between a buttery crust and fluffy meringue, that got the blog it’s title of 'dessert monsters'.

We've been asked so many questions about what was our favourite country, what would we have done differently etc that we decided to do a 'best of' section. In writing this, I also think back to all the amazing people that we've met over the past 12 months and may even write a section showing those who we spent time with, traveled and are still in touch with.... but for now, here are out best items, countries etc.

Best travel items:

Number 1
Kate: Crocs. They might possibly be the most ugly shoes on the planet but by God they’re functional. They dry in 10 minutes after wearing in water (showers, streams etc), let sand out the holes (when hiking in the desert) and weigh next to nothing. They’ve started conversations with adults and children alike in many countries and, despite the fact I often have no idea what is being said, I’ve managed to understand that is OK for a 30-something year old to wear green plastic shoes with a frog stuck to them.

Euan: King of Shaves oil. A 25ml bottle of shaving oil and it’s only 1/2 empty after a year of use.

Number 2
Kate: Euans sister, Katrina, bought me this dress from ‘White Stuff’ in the UK for my birthday before we left. It dries in about 10 minutes so is brilliant for travelling and I’ve worn it out, literally.

Euan: Flip flops. I started with Teva sandals but by the time we got to the second country (Syria) I had purchased some flip-flops from a street side stall for £0.75 equivalent.

Number 3
Kate: I bought this sarong from Thailand 8 years ago and its still going strong. It’s been a dress, skirt, towel, sheet, shade cloth and scarf and is only just showing signs of wear and tear.

Euan: Foldout wash bags from ‘Kathmandu’.

Best Temple

Baalbek in Lebanon just blew us away. The scale of the place is simply breathtaking (I’m circled in red in both photos to show the scale) and the fact that we had it all to ourselves added to the experience.

Favourite countries

Both: Namibia

Euan: New Zealand
Stunning landscapes, great food, easy-going kiwi attitude, friendly people and very backpacker-friendly.

South Africa

Kate: Tanzania & Uruguay

I don’t remember ever being speechless before, but I was the morning we saw the sun rise over the Ngorogoro Crater.

The Serengeti at dawn was almost as stunning.

and while Brazil had some stunning beaches, I think those in Zanzibar won hands down for tranquility.

The completely uncluttered landscape and the gaucho lifestyle in Uruguay completely grabbed me. It was the only country that I was genuinely upset to leave (apart from NZ but it's my home country and my family are there so of course I didn't want to leave).

Most scary moment….
When we hitched (yes, stupid on hindsight) a ride with some chaps in Jordan one night and they drove faster and faster, wouldn’t stop to let us out and started shouting and waving money at us. I really thought they weren’t going to stop and let us out so was getting ready to throw myself out the door and drag Euan (who was in the middle in the back) with me. Happy to say it didn't come to that but I hadn't ever before felt the chill of real fear, followed by a blast of adrenaline and hope I don't feel it again any time soon!

I have to add my best animal experience also and while it's difficult to choose, this has to be it (yes, not often are horses relegated to second place!):

Things we’d do differently….

Print out cards with our names, email addresses and blog site to take with us;

Investigate getting visas issued in foreign countries. I.e. getting an visa for India in South Africa in under 14 days is nigh impossible as we discovered and this forced us to change our route;

Check up on and plan around national holidays (believe us, you do not want to be in China on a national holiday!);

Get new passports before we left. We never thought we’d be in and out of Argentina nine times and every time we passed border control there was a whopping great stamp. Euan was pushing it by the time we got to the US but only an over-zealous official in Costa Rica really objected to stamping over other stamps;

Pay a travel agent who knew what they were doing to sort out the OneWorld flights rather than attempt to do it ourselves.

The below is a fridge magnet that my mother gave me about 19 years ago and it is always with me at wherever is home at the time. I think she probably bought it for me because, at one time, I would have been the wee kid gazing up at a horse, dreaming away.

It might sound stupid but I thought of this fridge magnet while writing this because, over the past year, we have truly lived the dream and I, for one, have just done what I have always wanted to do.

Chicago, USA 27-30 April 2009-05-01

2009-05-03T22:54:00.019+01:00

We’re on the last leg of our trip now and flew across the top of the USA to Chicago where we had three nights before flying back to London, to where we started a year ago.

Our stay in Chicago was so much fun and it was made very memorable and enjoyable thanks to two locals, Adam and Meredith, who we met back in February at a restaurant in Buenos Aires. At the time we met, I was polishing off a steak the size of my foot and Euan had just finished eating blood sausage so we were surprised that they invited us to stay! This is Meredith and Adam.

We arrived in Chicago in the pouring rain and found Meredith and Adams apartment where we arrived dripping on their doorstep with plastic bags covering packs, a very sad broken £1 umbrella (that had lasted the downpours in Kuala Lumpur) and feeling a bit scruffy. Mer and Adam have a fantastic top-floor apartment right in the middle of Chicago, in full view of the John Hancock Tower and right in amongst the skyscrapers. This is the view from the balcony of their spare room, albeit on a very moody night!

Chicago, like Seattle seems very orderly and clean after some of the cities we’ve spent time in recently and it’s no secret that we found it a nice change. Things seem very chic here in Chicago and there is a lot of attention to detail, right down to matching flowers in the windows.

We think Chicago has a ‘big city’ feel to it that Seattle didn’t have and the number of high-rise apartment blocks and skyscrapers help add to this.

We did an awful lot of walking in the days we were there but our first trip was straight down Madison Avenue where there are so many amazing buildings. I don’t know where to start!

The Tribune Tower is pretty cool

and there are bits and pieces of other buildings and archaeological sites from all over the world embedded in its walls, from a cannon ball from Pevensey Castle in England

to a stone from Aya Sofia in Turkey and another from Davids Tower in Jerusalem.

This is the Wrigley Building (the Wrigley of Wrigleys chewing gum fame) and behind it is the mammoth newly built Trump Tower.

These guys with their pitchfork were in the square opposite. I wouldn’t mess with them; they didn’t look too happy but didn’t object to Euan holding their pitchfork.

This is the view down the Chicago River

and nearby were the ‘corn cobs’, two towers containing (from what we could see) apartments and car parking.

I spotted a British flag flying from one of the higher apartment verandas.

There are many flat bridges that cross the river and have to be lifted in succession if a boat needs to pass through. It’s a slow process and these bridges were being lifted specially for two very small yachts (the ferry in the photo can pass underneath quite happily).

We were on our way to Millennium Park, home to quite a few architectural works, one of which is the 110 tonne ‘Cloud Gate’ sculpture that looks more like a bean. From a distance it looks like a blob of mercury that’s been suddenly dropped there and because it reflects perfectly it almost looks like an apparition.

Get a bit closer though and it’s just a great big metal thing that provides countless photo opportunities.

From the side you can see why it’s called a bean.

This is looking up into the middle of the bean in the curve

and everyone takes photos of themselves. Novelty value is huge, even though it’s really just a big wonky mirror!

This is a view of Wrigley Fountain (Wrigley features a lot in Chicago).

Also in the park is this concert venue that has a sound system hanging from the overhead beams.

It looks quite cool and the concert shell fits in with the bean

and the BP bridge that winds it’s way over the train tracks beside the park.

We spent time in the amazing Chicago Institute of Art that has one of the best collections of Monet paintings I’ve ever seen, 28 in total (yes, I went back through the gallery to count them all).

I’ve only ever seen prints of the three paintings of the bridges over the Thames in London, one of which is below (amazingly enough, photographs were allowed),

We were amazed to see them change dramatically when you stood back and at a certain angle. Very clever and very stunning.

Chicago has two dramatically different fountains. One is a 50ft high glass block fountain in which video images are seen beneath the cascading water

and the other is one of the largest fountains in the world, Buckingham Fountain. It’s a bit of a monolith and difficult to photograph on a grey day but amazingly enough there was no one else in the area. Lake Michigan is right behind where we were standing.

Right across the road from the Institute of Art is the Cultural Centre, another building with an impressive interior with some sparkling mosaics.

Rooms are modelled on Doge’s Palace in Venice and Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and it has two beautiful stained glass domes. It all looks very new but it was built in the late 1800’s and was originally the city library.

Euan and I spent the evenings trying all sorts of local food with Meredith and Adam but did eat in one night as there was an important basketball game on that was followed up with playing golf and baseball on their PlayStation Wii thing (I’d never seen one but they’re quite strange).

We headed up the John Hancock Tower, 1127 foot/343.5 meters tall and a must-do when in Chicago. Apparently (pre-1973) the blue mirror glass panes were faulty and some detached from the building, falling 100’s of feet to smash on the pavement below. Apparently streets were closed around the building during high winds until the fault was rectified and the glass replaced.

The observation deck is two floors below the bar and costs $15 to visit so we opted to go to the bar and enjoy a drink instead. We found out later that the building had just been auctioned (on 30 March 2009) for less than half it’s purchase price of $1.3 billion in 2006.

This is the view of downtown Chicago

and this is the view down to Adam and Meredith’s apartment (I’ve tried to show where the apartment is).

The fact that there is floor to ceiling glass panels in some areas mean you can look like straight down

and this is the view up the shoreline of Lake Michigan (which is more like a sea it’s so big)

Opposite the tower is the lovely Trinity Church, covered in vines that, disappointingly, didn’t have leaves out yet. It must look gorgeous in the summer.

The surrounding area has loads of shops and is also home to the old Water Tower, the only public building that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

We definitely didn’t eat here but this is the MacDonalds of the future apparently with flat screen TVs inside and an escalator so you don’t have to walk up the stairs to the second floor…..

and across the road on one corner is the Rainforest Café while on another corner is a place that does great ribs. The eating choices are incredible and we tried (and succeeded quite successfully!) to sample everything that was recommended to us.

Chicago has some lovely old houses nestled in amongst the skyscrapers and we got quite a surprised to see them as they look kind of out of place.

We were on our way to find a good hotdog and who better to ask than a policeman. Euan decided that they would know their hotdogs and he was spot on. They gave him very definite directions to a place that had loads of people queuing up for these hot dogs. The dogs were named after different American cities and are supposed to be typical of the style related to that city. For example, in Chicago, you never have ketchup (tomato sauce) on your hotdog. Never. To ask for sauce is a big no no.

I didn’t realise that chilli in the US meant loads of meaty chilli sauce so was faced with a bit of a mission eating the ‘San Franciso Dog’. Eating it was a messy experience to say the least. Euan sensibly went for the more straightforward ‘Chicago Dog’.

This is the train line that runs straight through downtown Chicago on rails raised above the road. Seems a good solution for cities that can’t (or won’t?) build an underground system (Auckland?!).

During our travels in we’ve met a few folk from Chicago and every time we’ve asked them what we should do while there and the answer has been unanimous every single time: Eat deep dish pizza. Chicagoans are truly passionate about their pizza and in a mini-van in China with about six people from Chicago the debate was fierce about where to go. Adam and Meredith were no exception and we were quite awed by the amount of work that went into deciding where they should take us for dinner. It was narrowed down to three favourites and we resorted to drawing the name out of a mug as the decision was just too difficult. I thought deep-dish pizza was something completely different to what it turned out to be. It’s almost like a deep quiche but without the egg. I took this photo of pizzas we saw at the airport as the one we ate that night looked a bit mangled and gross once half of it had gone from the dish.

but here it is anyway!

I am not a pizza fan but I can honestly say that it was one of the nicest pizzas I’d eaten. What made it special was the buttery crust and the sauce. The sauce was homemade, really flavoursome and had loads of garlic in it. When Euan and I ordered a pizza with sausage, we thought it would be like other pizzas and have bits of sausage sliced on the top but no, this one had seasoned sausage meat pressed in a layer about ¾ inch thick over the entire base, then everything else piled on top. One piece of pizza like this and you’re done. If you’re ever in Chicago go to Pizza Uno’s, Pizza Due’s or Lou Malnatis – these are the best places, as voted by the pizza-passionate Chicagoans.

On our last day in Chicago we visited the beach. Slightly different from the beaches in Brazil but a beach nonetheless and on a nice day it would be lovely to head there during a lunch break (the tall dark building on the right is the John Hancock Tower so its close to the city centre).

One minute it was misty and raining

and then next minute it was clear. This is the view in daytime from Mer and Adams spare bedroom. The talk dark tower is the Hancock Tower.

The weather didn’t deter us from going in search of our final Chicago culinary experience – pancakes. Meredith had told us where to go and we were not disappointed. These were the fluffiest, lightest tastiest pancakes I’ve ever had in my life (and this includes pancakes made by my brother who has always been King of Pancakes for me (sorry Mark)). The restaurant is a family-run place that was started in the 40’s or 50’s. I had bacon pancakes and they were served with whipped butter and maple syrup. Yum!

Astor Street hosts some of the grander houses in the city so we attempted (and failed) to walk off the pancakes. They were terraced and made from different stone. This one was particularly pretty.

A block of apartments had some had pretty flowerpots outside. The vines growing up are alive and were just starting to bud.

They were very effective

Meet Meredith. This photo is Mer through and through, so bubbly and enthusiastic. Her and Adam are some of the most positive, cheerful and friendly people we’ve met on our travels.

Their parting gift to us was another of Chicago’s culinary specialities in the most popular flavour: Bacon chocolate. Euan isn’t into weird chocolate (I’m into any kind of chocolate!), so after Euan tasted one piece and performed some impressive facial contortions, I got the whole bar.

Spending time with Meredith and Adam had helped us forget the inevitable; Chicago to London was the last flight and the end of our trip. We can’t believe it’s been a whole year but Syria and Lebanon seem a long time ago. We’re compiling a ‘best of…’ section to close off this chapter (and hopefully give this a meaningful ending). Watch this space.

Seattle, USA 24-27 April 2009

2009-04-30T05:33:00.019+01:00

It took us all day to fly to Seattle (including a stop in Dallas) and this is where we deviated slightly from our rough plan made back in April ‘08. We were originally intending to stop off in Dallas, rent a car and take three weeks around Arizona but earlier this year we changed all this for various reasons and instead spent the time in Brazil and Uruguay. As a result, we had a long(ish) haul from Costa Rica to Seattle and arrived in the early evening, a perfect time on a clear day to see the stunning scenery from the air (I've included both Seattle (L) and Chicago (R) on the same map below).

View USA in a larger map

The mountains were amazing and rolled on for miles. We had a great view of the Cascades on one side of the plane and the Olympics on the other and it certainly made us wish we had more time to explore the area. Just before landing we got chatting to a lady next to me (we'd been playing very important and competitive card tournament the whole flight), Meg, who lives in Seattle. Incredibly, Meg invited us to stay in her house for the time we were in Seattle, even though she was off to Hawaii the next day. This isn’t the first time we’ve been blown away by American generosity and unfortunately we couldn’t take Meg up on her offer as we had somewhere booked. We parted with plenty of good recommendations nonetheless.

Where to start? We think Seattle is a beautiful city in stunning surroundings and didn’t realise that it’s home to the likes of Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The city centre seems small, relatively spread out and is sandwiched between freshwater of Lake Union

and the saltwater of Puget Sound. On a really clear day you can see mountains all around but we only just caught glimpses and weren’t so lucky to see the full vista in all its glory.

We visited just as the new leaves were coming out and many trees were in blossom so a pretty time of year to visit. Something that immediately struck me though was the number of SUVs and 4x4’s. I don’t think I’ve seen so many in a city before and these RAM things are everywhere!

We can say with some certainty if you’re on any sort of diet then we don’t think Seattle is the place to be! We literally ate our way around the city sights, starting with the famous Pike Market,

home to the famous Pike Place Fish Market, renowned for its fun and innovative approach to doing business.

We didn’t make the connection between the fish stall we were looking at and Pike Place Fish Market (there are a few fishmongers in the market) until one of the chaps out front in bright orange water-proof trousers picked up this whole salmon, a whopping great fish, shouted something to his mate behind the counter about 10ft away and threw this whole fish high over the stand, over the counter to his colleague who caught it, weighed it, packaged it and threw it right back for the customer. This was early in the morning and they were just warming up. This monk fish was laid out on ice and mostly you only see their tails so quite a few folk were taking a closer look at this whole fish. The monk fish tail was attached to a rope behind the counter and one of the guys pulled on the rope when someone got close, causing the mouth of the fish to slam shut as the whole fish was jerked upwards. The reactions were priceless.

Crab was big in Seattle (both figuratively and literally)

and these King Crab legs were well over a foot long.

The fresh salmon was also impressive (but I couldn’t help compare the price to that of the salmon in Chile…. about 10x the cost here).

There were hoards of tulips on sale at the market and they came in a glorious array of colours.

Just outside the market is the original Starbucks store and yes, we had a coffee there and no, we didn’t think the coffee in the original store is any better than any other Starbucks store….

If you want to lose your appetite, head to gum wall in Post Alley. Looking down the alley it looks like any normal street but get a bit closer

and there are thousands of pieces of chewing and bubble gum stuck to the walls. It started when patrons of Market Theatre in Post Alley began sticking gum on the walls while waiting in line and attempts to clean it off have been futile.

A novel idea perhaps but in reality it’s pretty gross! If this happened in Singapore there would be jail sentences being handed out!

After Brazil and Costa Rica we really felt the chill in the air and we wore all the clothes we had and were still cold. The locals however, were wandering around in shorts and t-shirts, lounging on the grass in the sun and soaking up what must have been some of the warmer weather they’d had for a while. We were on our way to Pioneer Square one morning but it didn’t take us long to get sidetracked. These amazing apples caught my eye.

I’d never seen anything like these before!

or these…

and as beautiful as they were, they didn’t look very edible and weren’t cheap at about US$8 per apple… (oh, plus tax. We keep forgetting about the tax!).

Moving on from apples, I also saw this t-shirt in a shop window and while I can’t honestly believe that anyone would wear this, I found it quite funny.

We finally reached Pioneer Square, the place where the original settlers relocated to in 1851. There are some cool old buildings in the area

a lovely old wrought iron bus stop

and the area is home to some cool shops, one of which we spent quite a bit of time in. The glass blowing studio was open for viewing and while there was no way we could carry any of the delicate pieces home with us (check out the blue vase thing with a squiggly yellow glass tube hanging from it. How on earth that would travel anywhere I have no idea!)

We spent a long time chatting to two young artists

who were making lamp shades (and it was also very warm and cosy with the glass being heated to temperatures over 2000 degrees F).

We visited the Seattle Public Library, one of the more architecturally interesting (free!) buildings in the city centre

and headed up another fascinating building, the Needle. Pretty way out for a building built in the 60’s we thought.

Apparently Prince Philip had something to say about the colour sequence, commenting that it reminded him of the protective paint used on rail bridges in the UK…. the colour is now a subtle white and gold I think (it was originally ‘galaxy gold’ (orange!) from memory).

The Needle isn’t that high but the views are stunning. This is downtown Seattle.

and this is looking out on Puget Sound and towards Bainbridge Island

You can stand outside but are fully wired in.

On the waterfront I even managed to get my ‘horse fix’.

This lady had her black Percheon harnessed up and was taking people along the waterfront. We aren’t into that sort of thing but were quite happy to stand and chat to her and the horse for a while. He was absolutely enormous, standing over 18hh (well over Euans head) at his shoulder and she told us it cost her US$200 every time she had to shoe him!

This was one of our favourite eating places

and they made the crumpets and we suspect that they even mixed the mixture by hand.

They offered wonderful crumpet toppings like ricotta, honey and toasted almonds or cream cheese, maple butter and walnuts. Yum!!

Another favourite eating spot was the Pike Place Brewery that did the most awesome burgers we’ve had in a long time and also a tasting platter of some of their favourite beers. Euan had a good go at them

before pushing them across for me to try.

We both had our favourites and their pale ale definitely wasn’t one of mine (I liked the Kilt Lifter Ale that had a whiskey taste to it).

We had dinner at a popular cheap Mexican restaurant one night and I’ve never seen so many people stream continuously through a door of a restaurant, always a good sign. Some folk here don’t understand my accent, something that was both frustrating and amusing at the same time. Lady behind the desk asked “What’s your name ma’am?”, I said “Kate” which was followed by dead silence from behind the desk…..then “Could you spell that for me please ma’am”. Sigh. (I won’t even begin to relay the conversation I had with two woman about whether tax was included. They honestly had NO idea what I was talking about.)

We gave a gasp of horror when we saw the Mexican meals. They looked amazing but one meal was plenty enough for two. The waitress leant down and whispered conspiratorially “that’s why Americans are so fat…” which we thought was a bit harsh and decided she could be from Canada, I mean who would insult their own (and her accent was difficult to pick)? When we asked her where she was from the next time she came by, she cheerfully said “Texas!”. So much for that then!

We did the recommended boat trip from Lake Union, through the Ballard Locks and back to the city in Puget Sound was pretty cool. Zymogenetics bought this old power plant and kept it intact, complete with all the chimneys. Capitol Hill is in the background.

We went past the floating homes in Lake Union, some of which looked pretty flash (the one on the left featured in that movie “Sleepless in Seattle”). These houses cost upwards of US$1 million now as no more are able to be built. There is a 2-story limit on them so some have hollow concrete bunkers underneath that create a basement space.

Boats were everywhere and had special garages

and some apartments came complete with boat shed below! How cool is that!

A canal joins Union Lake with Puget Sound and is home to yet more boats, including a stretch known as ‘Tugboat Alley’.

The wind whistled over the water so never mind “Sleepless in Seattle”…. we were “Freezing in Seattle”!

This yellow floating device detects any water contamination from the boats and sets off an alarm and there was a company devoted to ensuring the waterways stayed clean. Apparently all the floating houses were going to be destroyed because of the pollution but then the residents agreed to conform to the city standards.

I loved this pretty little house next to the gigantic barge.

The fishing boats were all moored up, waiting for the next crab season to start up in Alaska. Apparently these boats work 24/7 to harvest the crab during the season and can make in the region of US$1 million per season. Hard dangerous work but clearly worth it if it all works out OK. There is a programme over here called ‘Deadliest Catch’ that follows some of the boats and many of them were moored here.

These are the Ballard Locks (with a rail bridge open in the background). The drop is only 12ft and there is a fish ladder on one side so the salmon can go upriver to spawn.

Once out into Puget Sound there were some lovely homes along the water-front

and 1000’s of boats in marinas.

These houses were on less stable ground as this land is prone to huge slips

and there were remnants of fallen houses all along the waters edge!

The city came into view – a great skyline from the water.

Seattle has two very impressive stadiums. QWest is on the left, home to the Seattle Seahawks Football Team and Safeco, home to the Mariners Baseball Team is on the right. Safeco is one of the most expensive single-use stadiums in the world with the retracting roof alone costing US$67 million.

In between eating and seeing the sights we also squeezing in trips to the aquarium and the zoo, the latter being one of the better zoos we’ve been to. You might ask why on earth we’d go to a zoo when we’d travelled through countries with such incredible wildlife but there were animals there that we’d never seen before, such as a grizzly bear (me) and komodo dragon (Euan). They even had a Kea from NZ there. He was asleep with his head under his wing and Euan encouraged me to talk to him to see if he recognised a kiwi accent so I obliged. His head stayed tucked firmly under his wing.

We decided that, as far as cities go, Seattle was really pleasant place. We found it really clean, felt really safe and as far as eating options go, I don’t think I need to comment any further! Had the exchange rate been better we’d have stayed longer and rented a car but we were being hammered as it was and had gone from paying US$14 for a room in Costa Rica to US$81 per night. Difficult to swallow no matter how you look at it.

Next stop is Chicago and in all the people we’ve met, we’ve not heard one bad word about either Chicago or Seattle. Seattle has definitely lived up to expectations and we’re keen to see how Chicago compares.

Santa Elena, Costa Rica 21-22 April 2009

2009-04-29T05:18:00.003+01:00

I think this is a first: we have no photos of Santa Elena. Santa Elena is a small town sandwiched between National Parks in the highlands of Costa Rica and we got there by a combination of van from La Fortuna, boat across a lake and then another van up up into the hills to Santa Elena. The distance is apparently only 25km from La Fortuna as the crow flies but the alternative is a very roundabout road trip that takes about seven hours over rough dirt roads. It’s (perhaps unsurprisingly) a very touristy route but, on a clear day, the scenery is absolutely stunning.

View Untitled in a larger map

From the lack of photos you can read that it wasn’t a stunning day plus we were travelling away from the stunning scenery up into the mountains. Doh! If you’re ever planning to travel to these places in Costa Rica, make sure you travel down from Monteverde to La Fortuna, not the other way around!

From the lake a steep, dusty bumpy dirt road led to Santa Elena through multitudes of coffee plantations, none of which were particularly picturesque but interesting nonetheless if you’ve never seen coffee growing (which we hadn't).

Santa Elena itself doesn’t look that touristy; it’s such a tiny town nestled in the folds of forested hills with only a small amount of tar sealed road and none of the flashy hotels and restaurants that usually go with the tourist industry. However, look a little closer and it’s clear that tourism is what makes this place go round. Agencies and guesthouses offer every kind of tour imaginable, mini-buses ferrying people around to various activities zip all over the show and the place is inundated with travellers and tourists all wanting to try out a zip-wire experience or go hiking in the National Park – and we were here in the quiet season. Of course everything costs and, of course, people pay and in some cases the charges continue to escalate (the cost of hiking in one of the National Parks has almost doubled from last October). If you’ve got the money and zip-wire tours, hanging bridges etc are your thing then it’s a great place to spend some time.

Having not seen frogs in this trip we did visit the ranaria (technical term for frog house) where many of Costa Rica’s stunning frogs were in decent sized, well-kept areas. The one we really went to see, the red-eyed tree frog with amazing red eyes and blue sides, was asleep. All we saw was green as his eyes were closed (green eyelids covering the stunning red eyes) and his green legs were clasped to his side, covering the stunning blue streaks.

We went hiking early the next morning in the cloud forest of Santa Elena National Park. I had imagined much of Costa Rica to be very lush and green like parts of Brazil but apparently 80% of the country had been cleared of it’s forest and only now is the secondary forest making a comeback. Where we hiked was similar to other forest we’d hiked though in other countries; wet, mossy, cloudy and very atmospheric

but the highlight was seeing a brilliant green Quetzal bird on the way back down to Santa Elena, rarely seen by visitors. I was trying to take a photo of this bird and failing miserably. I couldn’t for the life of me get the camera to focus on either automatic or manual focus setting. Then this American chap lent me his superb binoculars and I saw that this gorgeous sleek looking bird had an incredibly fuzzy head! Despite that pointer, the photos didn’t come out that great but it was a very beautiful bird with brilliant green and bright red feathers. The female was even pretty and had bright blue feathers down her side.

Heiko, Euan and I had traveled to Santa Elena together so we all spent time playing cards in a cafe when the wind was howling and it was pelting down with rain and playing yet more rounds of cards after dinner. We were sorry to have to say goodbye but his holiday was over and he was heading back to Zurich.

From the highlands of Santa Elena and Monteverde we headed to Alajuela (a town near the San Jose airport) for one night before we flew out the next morning, bound for Seattle, USA.

San José & La Fortuna, Costa Rica 17-21 April 2009

2009-04-23T00:15:00.008+01:00

The stint from Sao Paulo in Brazil to San José in Costa Rica wasn’t as straightforward as it perhaps could have been thanks to the airlines in the One World Alliance. We had to go via Miami and clear US Customs and, in total, we were on the go for 27 hours before we reached San José. I hate to say it but if there is one thing that winds me up, it’s US Customs. Every time I’ve experienced it I’ve either been left absolutely furious or in tears of frustration and this time was no different. I don’t know what it is but getting into the US and Israel has to be the two worst border crossings we’ve made on this entire trip. Unnecessary inane questioning such as “so, what’s with these stamps??” (referring to the stamps for Syria and Lebanon) and “when did you last work?” combined with an unnecessary arrogance really tested my patience. Of course you have to go along with it as you need to get into the country. Euan (I suspect) found it quite entertaining to watch (he’d been sent back behind the yellow line after explaining that we weren’t related, we were just travelling together). Deep breath….

Euans turn came in Costa Rica when some pompous official decided that he had no room left in his passport for stamps and he couldn’t enter the country. I had been agead of him and had to watch from the other side as he got incredibly wound up and eventually wore the official down.

View Costa Rica in a larger map

Our first sights of Costa Rica weren’t anything like we expected although, to be fair, we were only an hour outside of the main city, San José. When the taxi driver asked me if my earrings were gold (no!!) we decided that we’d better be a bit careful about our appearances. This is the first time anyone has shown open interest in what we had with us. The ‘gold’ earrings came straight off and were replaced with cheap-looking glass ones.

San José wasn’t somewhere we wanted to spend much time at all but we did have a look around the city centre and had a great meal in a grimy café deep in the central market where, apparently (as we found out later) very few tourists go without being robbed. We weren’t carrying anything with us and weren’t worth robbing anyhow. The fish stew I had was just amazing and made up for the two cockroaches I killed on the table while eating.

San José had a few nice buildings, the Post Office being one of them

and the Teatro Nacional, built in 1897, is considered San José’s most impressive public building. Most people we met seem to have spent very little time in the capital because of crime and the fact that the rest of the country is so much nicer. Some people don’t even come into San José, opting to stay in the small city of Alajuela that is close to the airport.

We relished the relatively short distances and made the trip to La Fortuna, a town that sits at the base of the active Volcan Arenal. The distance was minimal but the stop-start of the bus combined with the really hilly and windy roads turned what should have been a two-hour journey into one that lasted 4 ½ hours. We didn’t mind – having come from Brazil, it’s a lot better than spending 16 hours on a bus!

La Fortuna is unusual in that it’s a really touristy town but, at this time of year, it has a very laid-back local feel to it and the locals are friendly. Now is the perfect time to visit it seems, as the rainy season isn’t yet here but the tourist season has ended. As a result, accommodation prices are lower and there are very few tourists about. Our hostel room, costing us US$14 is a bargain and we had full use of a kitchen, a TV and, to our amazement, they would even do our washing for us for free. A first for us!

Volcan Arenal is a perfect cone-shape and dominates the skyline above the town when it’s not covered in cloud (which is seems to be most of the time!). We were here for three days and only one day could we see the whole volcano. It is an impressive sight, even if the lava flow is on the other side.

The other days it was covered in cloud and, if you didn’t know there was a volcano in the area, you’d think it was just a hill hiding behind the cloud. At around 1600 meters it’s by no means large and only towers 1350m above the town.

Costa Rica is full of energetic options…. surfing, rafting, rappelling, canoeing, hiking, zip-lines, hanging bridges etc but the big downside is that its expensive and many of the sites to see are a fair distance out of town. Taxis are expensive and there are no local buses apart from those that go between towns. We shouted ourselves one excursion that took us hiking, around the other side of the volcano where the lava is flowing and to some thermal baths. All a bit touristy but that seems to be what this part of Costa Rica is about…. like it or not.

We did, to our delight, see a toucan pop out of his nest (that he’d stolen from a woodpecker). It's the first time we’ve seen one in the wild and he kept popping his head out to see what the noise was, looking just like a puppet on a stick. He was bigger than the toucans we’d seen in Brazil, with far more yellow.

On a short and easy hike through the jungle we spotted howler and white-faced monkeys in the trees plus more toucans. Pretty lucky on the whole as I don’t think the wildlife usually hangs around the hiking trails. Some of the plants were amazing with huge glossy leaves.

Behind this cloud is the volcano and we were on the side where the lava flow is. In the daylight we saw white puffs of smoke as rocks tumbled down the mountainside but when it got dark we were lucky to see red-hot lava flowing down the slopes below the cloud line. The volcano erupted in 1525 then was dormant until 1968 when it erupted big time and ruined a few towns in the area. It has been active since and the last big eruption was around 2002 but it’s been quietly puffing away and spewing lava since then. It’s the main attraction in the area but apparently only about 30% of visitors get to see the lava so we were incredibly lucky.

The hot springs we visited that night were at the foot of the volcano and were pretty amazing; 25 different pools of varying temperatures and some so large you could do proper laps in them. The hottest pool was 67 degrees C and fed by water pumped straight from an underground lake. The water coming from the lake was too hot to touch. The pools were on a site that, about 10 years ago, was a cattle farm. The farmer had some folk out digging a well and they didn’t charge him for the job as they could only get hot water. Of course the farmer shut off a few paddocks, developed the springs and now has an undoubtedly massive (if the entry fee is anything to go by!) income from these pools that cascade down the hillside amid palm trees and other exotic greenery. It was really quiet when we were there but in the peak season it would be heaving with tourists and probably rather unpleasant.

We hiked to a waterfall high in the hills nearby the volcano. We passed this house and I was sidetracked by these amazing potted ferns. I’ve never seen potted ferns quite this size before (by way of explanation, I’m a bit of a pot-plant fan).

The waterfall was only small but impressive nonetheless and fell some 70 meters into the pool below. What wasn’t impressive was the cost of seeing it. Yes, they charged us to see the waterfall. The cost of walking to see a volcano in Chile? Zero. The cost of walking to see a glacier in New Zealand? Zero. The cost of walking to see a waterfall in Costa Rica? US$9 per person. Robbery. As Euan said, it makes the cost of visiting Windsor Castle seem OK; at least a reasonable amount of money was invested in the first place!

The pool at the base of the waterfall was great for swimming but it was like swimming into a very strong current. Even through the waterfall was small, the force of the water pushing outwards was huge and it was quite a struggle to move inwards. Euan was shouting at me to go a bit closer so he could take a photo….. I was struggling as it was and as soon as I stopped I was swept back to the shore!

It was a picturesque place in a beautiful setting

and there were some lovely pools to swim in and loads of rocks to lie on. Unfortunately there were quite a few other people around and it looked like a human equivalent of a seal colony.

There were some great views of the volcano on the way back down to La Fortuna

and we could even see steaming lava flowing down the slope.

We stayed four nights in La Fortuna and spent a lot of our time there with Heiko, a German chap taking time out from his unusual (and stressful) job. He is a social worker and manages one of these places set up by the council, where addicts go to administer their drug of choice under supervision. I’ve never heard of these places before (but know I’m happily naive in these matters!) but it just sounds bizarre. The people that use the place are allocated a number, go into a room with a glass wall (so they can be observed) for a specific amount of time to do whatever they do and are called out over microphone if they’re taking too long. Outside of the room there is a bar, a café and a place where they can chill before heading back out into the city. Heiko said you wouldn’t believe the people that you get going in there – anyone from normal addicts to doctors and high-powered business people….. Each to their own I guess and credit to him, it sounded like a damn hard job to do well and stay sane.

Now, I’m not a fan of small dogs but these two were characters. Mathais (L) and Lucia (R) lived at the hostel and were very very vocal guard dogs. It never ceases to amaze me that, despite the size, dogs instinctively guard and these two were quite smart I think. Lucia, not much larger than a big rat, didn’t bother Euan, Heiko or I but happily latched onto the achilles (her jaws wouldn’t fit around his ankle) of a middle-aged Englishman who arrived the last night we were there. This chap had all sorts in his luggage and had been stopped in Columbia at a check point and caught some really dodgy stuff. A US$60 ‘fine’ sorted him out and away he went. I think the little dog was quite onto it.

We only have 8 days in Costa Rica and decided to just visit two places; La Fortuna and Monteverde. Costa Rica has some stunning beaches from what we’ve heard but we thought Brazil had some stunning beaches so opted for the volcano and highlands of Costa Rica.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 10-14 April 2009

2009-04-20T22:46:00.014+01:00

The three-hour bus ride to Rio de Janeiro was (again) mostly along the glorious coastline. Things in Brazil are generally more expensive than we’d expected and bus trips certainly cost more than in Argentina or Uruguay. The plus side is that you stand a chance of getting a super plush bus with seats that nearly stretch out flat, but it is a bit hit and miss.

We had mixed feelings about visiting Rio to be honest. We were really looking forward to seeing the city but had also heard quite a few horror stories about the crime. Some people say it’s stupid to think like this and they’re probably right but when you’ve heard 1st hand experiences, you need to work hard to get the stories out of your mind. We were renting a studio apartment in Ipanema, one of the nicer parts of the city, off a chap we met in Trindade. It turned out to be a brilliant location; only one block from the beach and surrounded by restaurants, cafes, bars and patisseries…. all that were unfortunately too expensive for us and we didn’t eat out once. So, while people across the road ate in the glitzy restaurant, we contented ourselves with a homecooked meal that cost about 1/4 of the price.

Ipanema beach was at the bottom of our road, about 200m from the apartment

and, because it was Easter, the place was crawling with people. All along the beach there were men out to impress and I can safely say that the number of beautiful men far outweighed the number of beautiful women (love the white togs…!).

The one time we did frequent one of the cafes for a coffee we sat at the table with a chap who seemed normal and the only thing that might have given something away were the huge jagged scars on his arms, the constant fidgeting and the fact that he broke into loud song once in a while. He was a very distracting table companion but Euan struck up a conversation with him and asked his name, to which this chap replied “see you later, alligator”. Euan asked again and the guy said “I HATE alligators”. Ahh… yup. Euan persevered until the guy answered with a name, no idea if it was his real name or not but mission accomplished. Three hours later we passed by the cafe again on our way home and this chap was still sitting there necking down espressos.

The sweeping 4km of sand that is Copacabana beach was just around the corner from Ipanema. The area is one of the most densely populated areas in the world and definitely seems one of the more trendy parts of Rio with flash hotels and fancy stores. Even Havaianas (flip-flops/jandals) were double the price they were in Ipanema (probably something to do with the shop being right beside the Sofitel Hotel). On the beach there was an impressive display being put on by the sea with massive waves rolling in and, at times, shooting right up onto the beach and sweeping away people sitting in beach chairs, gazebos and drink stands.

More than once waves caught us out and made us wish we were wearing togs,

and we did look a bit out of place though next to all the tanned scantily clad bodies around.

The waves were so impressive (and unusual?) that they drew quite a crowd, including some surfers and body boarders who weren’t braving the waves.

We estimated that some of the waves were well over 20ft high and swimming was banned on all but the safer beaches for the time we were there.

A helicopter patrolled the beach, sweeping low along the water but the only people in there were those with boards.

Back on Ipanema the waves were pretty much the same

and the volleyball players kept losing their courts to the waves. We were impressed with the number of older folk playing volleyball just as hard out as their younger partners/rivals and those we saw were in fantastic shape.

We spent a lot of time on the beaches – couldn’t help it really and we are amazed that such a large city could have easy access to such incredible beaches. Absolutely spoilt for choice. We were quite happy spending evenings on the beach people watching and supporting the volleyball players. We made our own bottle of caipirinha and sat on the edge of the beach attracting all sorts of people who came over to say hello, ask for money, have a chat and God knows what else (we SO don’t understand Portuguese!)

At dusk, the magnificent, bustling beach completely emptied of people but this photo was taken after an altercation between two (or so we thought) men, one of whom was chased down the street behind us as we sat drinking on the beach edge. Coconuts were thrown (seriously!) and we thought nothing of it until a van load of police turned up, then another, and another and another until there were five (that’s a lot of police!). We stayed there, wondering what was going on and when we did venture down the beach a wee way we stopped in a hurry as everyone was running back towards us and police were chasing a couple of men, their batons flying everywhere and connecting where possible. People were hiding behind stairs, vans… anything. One chap, obviously being hunted, stupidly ran into the sea and was followed by two guys holding long sticks. They in turn were followed by two police with batons and eventually the chap was caught and dragged out of the sea by the four others. We still have no idea what was going down but we figured it was better to be on the very edge of it so quietly went back to our caipirinhas.

We ventured into the central city to catch an old rattling tram that took us over an old viaduct (believe it or not but the cone-shaped building is Rio's new cathedral) high above the Lapa district

and up the hill into Santa Teresa, an arty, dishevelled part of Rio that has some lovely old homes perched on the hill sides.

There was a lot of graffiti in the area; well, graffiti seems to be across the whole of Rio really but in Santa Teresa it looked like it belonged for some strange reason. Graffiti was particularly bad in the city centre and it was very different to the 'art' in Santa Teresa that, I thought, was quite beautiful.

Waiting for the tram back down we watched this guy for quite a while, wondering what he was doing. We gathered that he had a make-shift ‘restaurant’, using things that he pulled out of the back of his VW combi van, cooking over an open fire using a can as a pot. He had quite a few customers and was dishing up bowls of steaming something.

Some of the old houses were lovely and this was one of the few that weren’t coated in security bars. The security on many of the houses here reminded us of that in South Africa. Bars on all windows and doors and you can’t even enter many properties without going through a bar gate and that’s before you get to the gated entrance way. Most of the basement flats were totally caged in so no one could jump down to the lower windows from the pavement.

Central Rio is not the most pleasant place and the State Parliament building was one of the few large buildings that wasn’t defaced. We spent a few hours in and around the city centre but, as the day had cleared up, opted to go up the Corcovado on the surprisingly fast cog train that climbs a steep track to the top.

This is a must-do if you’re in Rio. Sure, it’s very touristy, very expensive but so worth it on a clear day and offers a 360-degree view of Rio from a height of just short of 800m. The fact that one side of the Corcovado is vertical granite rockface makes you feel that you're on top of the world. The day wasn’t as clear as it could be but it was the best we were going to get. In the below, the Jockey Club is in the foreground and the beach shown is Leblon, right next to Ipanema.

The long beach on the right is Copacabana and Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) is just left of the centre.

We visited a gem museum and we came across these birds a lot in Brazil – particularly in the touristy places such as Iguazu. These things are made entirely of stone sourced from Brazil and while our initial reaction is ‘ugh, how awful’, when take a closer look they’re very cleverly made. This was the largest we saw and, judging from the prices of the other smaller birds, would have cost around US$100K. The body of the parrot is one solid piece of stone and the eyes, beak and patterns around the beak made from tigers eye, and set on a solid chunk of amethyst. No, we did not buy one. Not even a small one.

The chap who started the company, Jules Sauer, a Frenchman who studied gemology in Amsterdam then moved to Brazil, has it sown up. Interestingly enough, they won’t let you visit the factory where these birds are made but they claim that they’re all hand carved and the larger pieces take weeks or months to make….

We had five nights in Rio and don’t know where the time went. We spent a lot of time on buses (sometimes the wrong ones) and got to see a lot of the city as a result. While we carried nothing with us and, at times, felt that we really had to watch our back, I can honestly say that everyone was friendly to us. We almost ran out of time to head up Sugar Loaf mountain as we left it to the last day in the vain hope that the afternoon would be stunning and sunny. It wasn’t and in fact it was the worst day we’d had since we arrived and it was raining. The beaches still had die-hard beach fans sitting under sun umbrellas while the volleyball coaches had their teams out training. I’m ashamed to admit that we nearly didn’t go up the Sugar Loaf because the weather was so foul but by the time we’d bussed there and got to halfway, it was still grey but no longer raining. Interestingly enough, the bungy jump that we did in South Africa was over half the height of the mountain (never again we've decided).

Copacabana Beach is the long beach in this photo, with Ipanema just around the point. Rio is full of mountains and tunnels and this photo shows the landscape and how the city nestles into it.

The beach below is Botafogo and you can just the Corcovado high above Rio in the centre of the photo.

We were waiting for the sun to go down and the evening was thus far unimpressive but we wanted to see the Rio lights from up high.

This was the first hint that something was coming

but we never ever expected this

and it just got better

and better!

Now we have 100s of photos of sunset over Rio (and it would be wrong not to share them with you!).

We waited until the lights came on before heading down, getting on the wrong bus and having a night touring Rio for over an hour (we couldn’t get off because we didn’t know where we were or which bus to get back on to).

We were leaving Rio the next morning, bound for Sao Paulo where we were catching a flight to Costa Rica. The evening was a perfect end to our stay.

Ilha Grande, Brazil 7-10 April

2009-04-20T17:58:00.015+01:00

Ilha Grande was two bus rides and a boat trip away from Trindade and it took us most of the day to get there but it was a lovely trip on a windy road that followed the coast most of the way. The only thing that really marred the beauty was a nuclear power plant. We passed through the compound for the power plant workers and it was a bit like military barracks – not the prettiest places at the best of times but the power plant, some way up the coast, looked even more out of place against the back drop of forest with the sea in front. It seemed a crazy place to build a nuclear plant as it’s so close to cities and is built on a fault line to boot! Apparently the safety of the plant has already been questioned.

There is an official ferry but boats like the below go all the time from Angra and we got on one of these for a fraction more than the ferry.

Our boat was crowded with tourists and locals who had clearly been doing their shopping on the mainland. Ilha Grande is hardly isolated – it’s only about 30 minutes boat ride offshore but Vila do Abraão, the main port, is along the island a lot further so all in all, the trip was about 70 minutes.

View Ihla Grande in a larger map

We passed numerous islands, some inhabited (such as this one),

and along the shoreline were lovely homes built on land cleared of jungle.

We’d not eaten that day and before we left Uruguay I’d bought a 500g tub of my favourite brand of dulce de leche, intending to take it back to England. It never made it and I finished it off on the boat to Ilha Grande, using savoury bread-stick things as a spoon. I was nearly at the bottom of the tub… and I’m pretty glad I didn’t go for the 1kg option!

This was the first view we had of Vila do Abraão, a small colonial port with a backdrop of impressive jungle-covered mountains. On the top right there is a rock that looks like a parrots beak, some 980m high and I was gunning to climb it but it never really came out of the cloud in the time we were there so we stayed at sea level.

The posada we stayed at was lovely with a pretty garden that attracted all sorts of birds (and us with our caipirinhas!). A bottle of cachaça has been a permanent part of our luggage for the last wee while. In fact, I think I have cachaça poisoning but with a bottle costing little over £1.50 and an abundance of limes in this country it seems rude not to drink it!

Food was more expensive here than in Trindade but you could still get the standard prato feito of rice, beans, salad, meat and farofa (toasted, dried manioc flour mixed with bits of bacon and onion). These set you up for the day and are really good value. Fruit is incredibly cheap and we’ve made the most of the fresh mangoes, papayas, melons and pineapples. The weather was variable for the entire time we were on the island and most of the time it looked like this down one end of the beach

but like this down the other end.

The only vehicles allowed on the island are those that belong to the national park and beaches on the island are either accessed by boat or by hiking. Most people opt for the boat service that drops you off on a beach in the morning and returns in the afternoon but we decided we’d been inactive for a bit too long and hiked off to what has been (in 2005) voted one of the top ten beaches in the world. We thought some of the beaches we passed by were pretty idyllic; this was one of about three

but to be honest, they were all fairly similar.

It was about 6km through bush tracks to get to Lopes Mendes but when we got there we couldn’t help but think that some of the other beaches we’d passed by were nicer and felt we’d definitely seen better beaches. We weren’t alone in this opinion but admittedly the day wasn’t the best and it was quite windy, but still…. you decide.

To cap it off, it tipped it down about 10 minutes after we arrived so we headed back to one of the nicer sheltered beaches and spent time there instead before making our way back to Abraão.

There were a few beaches around Abraão and the day we went looking for a patch of sand it was high tide so the beaches were about 1/5 of the size they were the day before. In some bays, there was no beach and the waves were lapping the jungle edge.

Of course everyone in the area was on the hunt for a spot of sand and most people just ended up in the water or sitting on the waters edge, like at this bar. The day before there had been a good 5-6 meters of sandy beach here.

We decided to camp here for a while and it was rather pleasant to sit in the sun with the waves lapping over our feet but my chair was sinking lower and lower with each wave.

This guy looked classic. He came in off a boat moored in the bay in this boat with his little dog and was heading back

but forgot his hat and glasses so had to come back in and get them

This cat belonged to the bar and was hanging around this couple that had ordered some fish.

He would walk over when the sand was only damp and wait but would invariably get caught out by a wave that gently rolled in

and once he got away with a big leap.

The second time he got caught big time by a bigger, faster wave and had nowhere else to go but right up onto the table, onto the fish. The couple were quite good about having a cat in their food (and someone laughing their head off at an adjacent table while taking photos!).

This was the first day of Easter (Thursday and Friday are public holidays here in Brazil) and as we went to leave all thoughts of staying left our heads when we saw the hoards of people arriving by boat. Boat after boat arrived absolutely packed with people arriving for the Easter break.

It was an absolutely stunning day too but with that many people the island it would be almost unbearable.

As an aside, Euans laptop has died. It started playing up in Florianópolis but after Euan gave it a good shake (in a fit of uncharacteristic anger), it suddenly came back to life. It was short lived however and we think it really has gone kaput. Very frustrating and while it is good for us to see how spoilt we have been, writing the blog has been a little bit more of a challenge of late!

Trindade & Paraty, Brazil 3-6 April 2009

2009-04-18T19:32:00.010+01:00

We took an overnight bus from Florianópolis to Sao Paulo then a six-hour bus ride to a small place on the coast called Trindade (pronounced “trin-dadge-eh” – the pronunciation catches us out a lot… ). Carol, Cristianos girlfriend, has said we should visit Trindade for the beaches and we decided (a good move as it turned out) to stay there rather than the larger town of Paraty, 21km up the coast.

View Trindade & Paraty in a larger map

I am well used to overnight bus trips by now and sleep nearly as well as I do in a bed (with the exception of the Sao Paulo to Foz do Iguacu that left both of us wiped out for a few days for some reason). Euan, on the other hand, doesn’t sleep much at all so suffers far worse than I. To be honest, after meeting a couple who were on an overnight bus (the same bus company and route that we took to Iguazu) that was held up at gunpoint and hijacked for 1 ½ hours, we’re both a bit wary of overnight trips in Brazil now. You hear about these sorts of things but it’s the first time we’d actually met someone who had experienced it first hand, which makes it real rather than just a story third hand.

The drive along the coast northwards from Sao Paulo is a must if in the area. The scenery is stunning in places and the views from the mountains of the coast and various towns and villages below are wonderful. This isn’t the best example but most of the time I was busy peering out the window trying to get views through gaps in the trees.

It wasn’t far off darkness when we decided to get off the bus near the turnoff to Trindade, 8km away. Not sensible on hindsight but there was another lady getting off too and a friend who picked her up gave us a lift down the steep windy roads to Trindade. We didn’t understand much of what was said but nattered away nonetheless and got a huge hug from the half naked but very cheerful chap when we left.

Trindade is one of the prettiest beach side places we’ve been to and it still has a small bit of an untouched feel to it, unlike so many coastal towns. This was hardly a town, more a village with a sandy cobbled main street, ramshackle restaurants and tatty grocery stores. What gave it away as a popular place were the number of posadas.

Right on the waterfront, Trindade is sandwiched between a National Park and the sea and has numerous white sand beaches within walking distance. The jungle, as it seems to do almost all along the Brazilian coast, rolls right down to the sea and its thick and lush. Trees with huge green leaves, loads of trailing vines, palm trees and other greenery makes up this dense blanket of rich green that covers the hills and mountains that fold their way down to the coast. I find it wonderful to look at and kept looking at the land rather than the sea for a change!

This is the main beach and the main road of Trindade runs parallel to it.

At the other end there is a cluster of huge boulders that look like they have just dropped onto the beach from a height

and we spent a while taking photos of these.

We were walking to Praia Brava, a secluded beach about an hours walk from Trindade. The hills around the town are steep and at the bottom of the road joining the coast with the main highway is a stream, the base rock of which forms the road and the cars and buses navigate their way through. No point in wasting valuable tar seal when rock does the same job!

A rough track through the bush led us to Praia Brava, a beautiful beach that was nearly empty apart from one man (who was naked although I didn’t realise when I lifted my camera but did wonder why he did an abrupt about turn!)

The waves were great to play in and I took a leaf from my brothers book and threw myself at them but got tumbled more than once.

Some were a bit small but others caught me out, send me tumbling and had Euan laughing his head off…. I am in there somewhere!

We literally spent our days on the beach or around it – not something we normally do but it was OK for a few days. There were a few waterfalls nearby that were worth a visit and George, a young Englishman who owned the hostel we stayed in, showed us a few cool features about one of them. From looking at it, we’d never have known that you could slide under this small waterfall and ‘into’ the rock

but Euan tried it

and came out the other end OK.

This is another of the beaches surrounding Trindade – we were spoilt for choice.

This is the hostel we stayed in and it also had some cool features, one of which was that it was built around a rock so one of the lower bedrooms had a wall of curved granite. There were also loads of hummingbirds around that weren’t afraid of us. One even flew straight through the house but if I’d blinked I’d have missed it.

This is Sigurd and Lars, two of six Norwegian chaps that were there the same time as us. When we got chatting, Sigurd asked how we managed to travel for so long and I said that we’d worked for a fair few years, but definitely longer than them, to save for the trip! Sigurd then asked the inevitable “how old are you?” and I made him guess. He started with 25 (bless) then when he found out, he first said to Euan “and is that all your own hair?” to which Euan replied “if it wasn’t it would look a lot better than it does, I can assure you”. Sigurd then observed “Man! You’re almost as old as my parents….!!”. Yup. Thanks.

What was funny was that, later that night, Euan and I had decided to flag dinner and instead drank Caipirinhas and ate peanuts while Sigurd and Lars were busy cooking themselves pasta with sauce. Sigurd couldn’t work the can opener and slowly pushed it across the bench to where I sat on the other side whispering “you’re adults… could you….?”. The irony was lost on them that we might be 'adults' but they were the ones slaving away over dinner where we’d taken the liquid option!

Dusk was the best time to be on the beach

and it was here that I noticed some curious heads bobbing around in the water. They weren’t fish and the only thing I can think they were was sea snakes as they moved strangely and ducked under every now and then only to resurface shortly after. I got one back on the Norwegians who were swimming nearby by asking them if they’d seen the sea snakes but I didn’t expect the reaction to be quite so violent. They freaked out, wouldn’t go back in swimming and, as tall as they were, sat on each others’ shoulders to try and see down into the water.

We did a day trip to Paraty, said to be one of the best-preserved Portugese colonial towns in Brazil. The old part of the town is particularly nice but the cobbled streets meant you had to look where you were going rather than at the architecture!

The old part of town was quite tidy and despite it being really quiet while we were there, we suspect it would be a mad tourist place in the summer. The boats were even painted in pretty pastel colours and we were pretty sure that locals wouldn’t do that unless there were loads of people to look at them.

We think (and hope) that this guy was donned in chains for photographs… it seemed a bit strange otherwise (and seemed odd to me regardless).

We bumped into these Kiwi siblings who, on hearing me talking to Euan, asked what part of NZ we were from. They recognised me from my accent but when they heard Euan talk they thought he was from NZ too! We’ve had that a few times now and it always makes me laugh.

Anyhow, we got chatting and the bizarre thing was that this chap, who lived in Sao Paulo, had worked with Phillipa, the camera lady who was at the estancia in Uruguay filming the Intrepid programme. Small world.

The weather packed up on our last day but the best thing is that even when it’s raining and overcast it’s still a pleasant 25 plus degrees. We’re not into the hot humid climates so would struggle during the summer here but this time of year, or slightly earlier, is bang on as far as we’re concerned. We’re making our way up the coast to Rio de Janeiro and stopping off at an island on the way for good measure. It’s all about the beaches in this part of the world it seems and they seem to go on forever up the coast. They say that the beaches in the north are even better but with Salvador being a good 26-hour bus ride away from Rio, I don’t think we’ll be making it there!

Florianópolis, Brazil 28 March–2 April 2009

2009-04-18T18:39:00.010+01:00

It took us two days of driving to get to Florianópolis

View Florianopolis in a larger map

but Juan was a legend driver and we made plenty of pit stops that made the journey seem shorter. We stopped at the border town of Rivera, between Brazil and Uruguay where booze was purchased along with a new saddle so, yes, we stopped in a gaucho shop that was just laden with all the horse gear you could imagine. I so very nearly bought a saddle but found that I just couldn’t make such a rushed purchase (Juan had chosen his saddle in less than 10 minutes!) so consoled myself with a rope halter and quietly told myself I’d be back. A beautiful hand-crafted saddle (minus stirrups etc) costs US$120. An absolute bargain.

We passed through some beautiful countryside and all along the road were stalls selling cow skins, cow skin patchwork rugs and sheepskins. Nothing we could carry with us but they looked pretty cool, particularly the patchwork rugs. As if one stop in a gaucho shop wasn’t enough, we stopped again at another store to check out boots and I was tempted once more. To make matters worse, Juan decided to buy ANOTHER saddle and by this stage I was nearly turning inside out and trying to work out if I could successfully tie a saddle to my backpack. Thankfully we didn’t spend too long in that shop and we left before I had time to seriously think about it further.

We arrived in Porto Alegre on sunset and while we had plenty of stops on the way, there were no real photo opportunities other than this massive chilli that crossed under the road. Quite effective I thought!

Throughout the drive I kept finding myself thinking what a rich-looking country Brazil is. The harvesters were in the fields and the vibrant greens contrasted with golden yellows and the colours were made more spectacular in the late afternoon sun. It is easy to forget that, despite the beauty of the countryside, Brazil is not the safest country to travel in and coming from Uruguay we were going to have to get with it again and be a bit more careful.

We spent the night in a rather grimy area of Porto Alegre but had a fantastic meal at a Mexican restaurant owned by friends of Juan’s and, even though there were five of us, we were made to feel very welcome. As we arrived late and left early we didn’t get a chance to see Porto Alegre although I did run up the street to have a look at and get a quick photo of the square.

We were in Florianópolis by 2pm the next day thanks to some demon-like driving by Juan over some rough roads that had the little truck jumping around like a jack-in-the-box. Again, we were welcomed by more friends, Leandro and Renata, who had invited all of us to lunch (L to R: Alison, Juan, Renata, Leandro, Kate and Euan).

Lunch was an amazing feijoada, a traditional Brazilian dish (the same as that we’d had made for us by Germans in Piriapolis) of pork, sausage, and smoked meat slow-cooked with black beans and garlic. It’s real comfort food and, accompanied with a cold beer, is just the best meal.

After two days driving and being stuck in the small truck we expected Juan to dump us at the bus station and head off on his holiday but, for all the gruff talk, he was so good to us and took up 35km to the north of the island to Lagoinha beach where Leandro's family have a posada that we could have a look at and stay in if we liked the look of it. We looked, liked and stayed….. The posada faced onto this beach and we were there for four nights, soaking up the sunshine.

The fishermen were out in the mornings drag-netting (its what we used to do when we lived by the sea in NZ and I’m sure there is a more technical term but that’s what we used to call it) off the beach.

The net was huge and heavy, taking a few people to bring it in

and, once caught, the fish were dumped in the sand to flop around helplessly while the net was put out for more

Florianópolis has something like 42 beaches to chose from and those that we saw were pretty stunning. Leandro took us to his favourite surf beach, Santinho, where we went for a short hike over the headland.

The hike took us to cliffs down to the sea but no beach so we took a photograph of us instead of the scenery…

Another day we bussed back into Florianópolis city and met Leandro and Juan for lunch at a great café in this square that did the best caipirinhas we’ve tasted yet and ate fresh fish bites with chips for lunch.

There are some lovely old buildings in the old part of town and the Cathedral Metropolitana had been recently renovated

and the Palácio Crux e Souza, originally the seat of provincial government in the late 1700’s, is now a museum and in pretty good nick.

This is the view from a lookout over the city and you can see the bridge that connects Santa Catarina Island with the mainland and Florianópolis city is on both the island and the mainland.

We were invited to a BBQ and got to meet more of Juans friends – Leandros brother, Cristiano, his girlfriend Carol, Cristiano's business partner Roberto and his girlfriend Rosi. Below are Cristiano, Leandro, Juan and Roberto.

Rosi is Uruguayan and, with Roberto, had recently returned from a five month stint in New Zealand, so it was great to chat and find out where they’d been. They had been based in Raglan but travelled extensively throughout the North Island and spent a lot of time surfing by the sounds.

Before we said goodbye to Alison on our third day there we went swimming then had a farewell drink from a chap who had a small drinks cart on the beach and was making all sorts of wonderful stuff. We each had ½ litre of caipirinha (standard size believe it or not!) and by the end of that we were laughing hard about silly things and Alison kept saying “I must go pack…” as we dissolved in fits in the sand. We pooled the last of the money we had and shared a pina colada and that pretty much topped us off. Alison reluctantly went to pack and then came knocking at the door saying she’d spend her last money on the pina colada and had none left to get to the bus station in Florianópolis . Brilliant!! I thought that was just so funny and was tempted not to help out so that she would stay so we could spend the afternoon on the beach, but common sense prevailed and on the bus she went…..

After these four days we decided that Brazilian hospitality is legendary and, thanks to Juan, we were lucky enough to meet people that we’d have not met otherwise. In danger of staying there longer than planned, we'd booked book bus tickets days in advance – not something we usually do.

Panagea, Tacuarembó Chico Uruguay 26-27 March, 2009

2009-04-17T16:06:00.006+01:00

We had two more nights at the estancia before we left for Brazil (we had to leave at some stage …). The horses we took on the trek were still on their way back and we drove to see where the gaucho had got to. We found him just past where we set up camp on the first night. He was riding Gatiarda (we weren’t sure why as he had two horses of his own) and he tried to tell Juan that she was a biter! Euan can confirm that while Gatiarda may be an airhead, a biter she definitely is not! Anyhow, we stopped off at a gaucho bar for a beer and waited for him to arrive with the horses for the night.

Outside the bar, a calf was tied up in the back of a ute

and another gaucho had stopped in for a drink. His mare had foaled and when he left the foal just trotted along behind its Mum.

The owner’s grandson brought out his computer to show us. Every schoolchild in Uruguay is issued one of these laptops that is bar coded and linked to their name (to avoid stealing). We were quite amazed as while many homes in Uruguay are without power, all children have these laptops, the batteries of which can be charged by a windup handle. Uruguay has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America, with something like 97%..

Friday was our last day on the estancia and luckily it was a lovely day and there was loads planned so we were able to provide some help. We’d not had much sleep…. Euan had mentioned he had some pain from what looked like a spot but on closer examination I could see things moving…. Not pretty and nor was it pleasant so after freaking out for a few minutes, I spent 2 ½ hours pulling wriggling maggots out of a very small hole in Euans leg by blinking (the torch had been in one of the bags that got bashed around by one of the horses on the trek) torchlight. It wasn’t easy to get them out and thankfully I’d remembered something Euans Mum told me from when they lived in Nigeria, about preventing the things from breathing and forcing them to come up for air. So, after covering the wound with Vaseline I grabbed the little b*stards one by one as they stuck their heads out for air. There were 11 in total and, understandably, we were both a bit grossed out – me because I could see them and Euan because they were in him!! We still don’t know what they were, Juan was bemused and had never seen it before but I blame those little crawly lice-looking things that we came across on day one of the trek.

Thankfully we were busy enough to think about other things as we were bringing calves in to be weaned, tagged and branded and injected. It was a big day for them and the noise was unbelievable as all the calves were separated from their mums for at least a few hours (and some separated for good).

This is one of the Brangus bulls that are used on the estancia and this one is particularly striking because of his tiger pattern – in the sun his coat looked like tigers eye. A very impressive animal, both in looks and stature.

In the yards a fire was built to heat the branding irons

and the action began.

On one side of the race Bilinga grabbed the tail to hold the calf firmly against the race wall

while Juan did the damage with the iron.

and the end result was pretty clear!

We were really sorry to be leaving but said farewell to Bilinga and saw the horses safely arrive from their journey with the gaucho. Euan took a liking to the gauchos skewbald horse and Juan asked him how much for his horse but I don’t think the gaucho realised he had a serious buyer and just mumbled some response.

We were catching a lift with Juan to Florianópolis, about 1000km away, where he was going on holiday to visit some friends. We were very grateful for the lift as it saved us time, money and hassle as the bus route is not direct. Alison was coming too as were two Swiss girls, friends of Suzanne’s family so it was going to be a proper road trip. Juan had (in the typical blunt fashion that we enjoyed) warned us that he was not going to entertain us and did not speak while driving…..

While I’m on this topic, I’ve not been entertained so well in a long time (well, since we left Sander and Marije I guess) as I was when hearing Juan talk to the big group from Intrepid when they arrived at the estancia. He told them that he was not a psychiatrist and that any problems with the horses will be caused by us (so true!) – the horses have been riding their whole lives and some people only riding one day, so it is not a problem with the horse. On the food; “if you don’t like our food, don’t eat it. Don’t eat it on day one, don’t eat it on day two and by day three you will love our food”. On people having a crisis; “people have crisis’. Some people have crisis with capital C. I am not a therapist and I cannot do anything about these crises. I am looking out for accidents and looking to fix broken bones and broken hearts”. On complaints; “ if you have a crisis, see your tour guide. If you have complaints, see Suzanne”. I was nearly in stitches. Very very entertaining and all said with a dead pan face.

Horse trek, Chico Tacuarembó to Laureles, Uruguay 23-26 March 2009

2009-04-17T01:29:00.013+01:00

The horse trek was something that Juan and Marleen had planned for a while but the route, the time it would take, where we would camp for the nights etc, how many horses we would take etc etc was unknown until the morning we set off. I don’t think even numbers were finalised until the night before and it turned out that there would be nine of us in total; Euan and I, Juan; Sol - his niece/God daughter; Bert - a friend of Juan’s from Belgium; Mick and Tory - the Australian couple; Alison - a friend of Juan’s cousin and Marleen, who has been at the estancia helping out for a few months.

The night before we set off we realised we needed more horses so while Juan went to town to collect Bert, we went to get six other horses that were out resting in another huge paddock. Herding horses is very different to herding cattle or sheep and while six were fine and didn’t give us much trouble, once they got with the other 15 or so they all had a different agenda and gave us the run around. Trying to bring in 22 horses that have other ideas is incredibly frustrating so we herded those that we could into a smaller paddock and left the others for the morning.

It was a misty start and we were learning about packing horses as we went….. something that became rather evident only 2km into the trek!

We took 15 horses in total and I’d chosen to ride Kaiser and have Linyera as my packhorse. Euan had chosen Babieka to ride and Gatiada (on the right in the photo) as a pack horse – both sensible choices as it turned out.

Most of us were leading a horse but only about 100m from the yards someone’s bag slipped around… this was to become a common occurrence over the course of the day!

About 5km down the road we realised we were missing a few people and horses so stopped to wait and adjust the loads.

As it turned out, three of the pack horses had been turned loose and were being herded along the road but one of the bags had slipped around on one of the horses and had moved right back to its flanks prompting a mini rodeo, with the horse going absolutely nuts, bucking, kicking and galloping around until the bag broke free. While this was going on, Mick’s horse had also gone a bit nuts and reared backwards and then fallen over sideways with Mick still aboard and he’d banged his head on a rock. No real injuries aside from a large lump on Mick’s head, a sore knee where the horse had landed on it and the pack horse had a few scrapes. The main casualty was the luggage…. we lost all our coffee and sugar (it was spread all over the road), a few vegetables had been squashed and a carton of tomato juice had split and gone all through Tory’s luggage. Alison, Euan and I, nattering away up front, were oblivious to all this hoo-hah going on behind. Mick gave up on trying to pack a second horse and just carried the bag himself.

We stopped off at a school and all piled into the single classroom to say hello to the teacher and kids.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

The kids all wear a uniform over their day-to-day clothes and Juan told us that it was to ensure that, at school, there was no way of telling the background the children came from by their clothes.

Photo: Alison Duffy

While we were inside, the horses grazed and, I have to admit, I was slightly nervous that they’d all head for home (only about 10km away) and I reckon the pack horses were seriously considering it after the earlier crisis (a word often used by Juan when describing groups on horses and, after hearing some of the stories, its use is fully justified!!).

This is Sol, Juan’s God daughter and niece on Falada. Sol is 15, a real character and was great fun to have with us.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

Alison with Bayo and a few of the pack horses. The countryside changed dramatically in the first few hours and as we got higher, the grass got thinner and was replaced by scrubby bushes and rocks.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

This is the first gaucho bar we passed but it was closed unfortunately.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

It was super hot and our lunch stop was most welcome. We unpacked and unsaddled the horses headed for a pool of water (where there were leeches as it turned out) and we headed for the trees where there were small insects that crawled over us with purpose or so it seemed. They looked like lice but had wings and did not seem to want to bite but still, they seemed to crawl with creepy intent and didn't squash easily. They creeped Alison and I right out so we spent most of the time trying to squash them and get them off us but no one else seemed particularly perturbed.

Judging from the smile, Euan had either enjoyed lunch or was pleased with the horses!

Gatiarda had proven to be a really good pack horse

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

and, when the bags had slid around under her belly had swung her ears back and forth and stopped dead. A very sensible horse but I did think it helped that we were leading both our packhorses. I was more comfortable, at that stage feeling that we had more control although I was to be proved wrong the following day!

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

Linyera had also proven to be a good choice and happily stuck with Kaiser and I without veering off to follow every other horses tail that passed us. It meant I could hold the lead rope under my leg and have my hands free.

Photo: Alison Duffy

We passed many gauchos, some herding stock and others just on their way somewhere. This is Juan talking to one of the gauchos we met en route.

Photo: Alison Duffy

We stopped at a gaucho bar mid afternoon, tied the horses to the fence and had a beer. I don’t think a beer has ever tasted so good as the day had got hotter and hotter as it went on. Euan and I were lagging behind as the two bags strapped to Gatiarda just kept slipping round. The main cause was that the girth was just too big for Gatiarda and couldn’t be tightened enough.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

We camped that night by a small stream on the edge of a forest and the sun had already gone down by the time we got there. All the horse gear was hung on the fence and the horses loosely hobbled so they wouldn’t wander (or so we thought). Marleen cooked us an excellent meal over a fire and we settled in for the night.

More mist in the morning and only six horses were to be found. Late the night before they’d started to go walkabout, and hobbles had been redone and one of the wanderers was tied to the fence but it hadn’t been enough to keep them all around. I’d heard horses hooves that morning and wished I’d got up as Bert said we were visited by a herd of wild horses who had come thundering over to see us.

Juan saddled one of the faithful horses that had hung around and headed out to look for the others.

He was gone for a while and Sol kept lookout until she saw them coming down the road.

Everyone who had two horses had switched, riding the one that was a pack horse the day before and both Euan and I found out that the horses we had were definitely suited for particular tasks. Babieca was great to ride but awful as a pack horse and he described Gatiarda, while still very pretty, as an ‘airhead’. He said that, when he was walking giving her a break, they had come across a stallion on the other side of the fence they were walking along. He said prior to that, Gatiarda was happily following right behind him but when they came across the stallion, her head suddenly appeared at his shoulder, putting Euan between her and the stallion and shielding the stallion from her view.

Meanwhile Babieca wasn’t well suited as a pack horse and, when the bags invariably slipped around, she went ballistic, set Gatiarda off as well and there was no way Euan could control both and had to let Babieca go. I was behind and Babieca came roaring towards me, bucking and kicking all over the show. She didn’t stop until the rope broke and she had got rid of the bags, dented the pot and fry pan way out of shape, smashed the cucumbers, apples, sweet potato and scattered stuff everywhere. Unfortunately the last thing going through my mind when there is a horse giving an impromptu rodeo performance is to whip out my camera and take photos. All energy and focus went on trying to calm the horse down enough to catch it and hopefully minimise damage. We always caught the horse but unfortunately damage wasn’t always avoided. I should however, have taken photos of our gear after the event – the ripped bags, smashed veges and pots dinged and dented. Live horsepower does scary damage when let loose.

Euan got so fed up with retying the bags all the time and after the last incident, decided to carry his bag himself and leave Babieca unloaded.

While my luggage had stayed put, Kaiser wasn’t a patch on Linyera as a pack horse. He solidly followed every tail that passed him and there were many as he was the most sluggish pack horse around. I thought he’d be rather silly and scatty but he was completely the opposite and needed constant encouragement and motivation to keep up!

We were out of water so stopped at another bar (too early for beer apparently dammit)

to check maps, get water and buy some coffee and sugar.

Our lunch stop was by a river so after we’d dealt with the horses

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

we bathed in the river, then lunch then a siesta (this is Bert, dead to the world)

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

before packing up, loading up and getting on our way again.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

Bert looked like a cross between a hippie and an Arab, a result of having lost his hat (he left it on a fence post somewhere along the way) and wrapping his t-shirt around his head and wearing socks and sandals after being his riding boots had caused blisters. He made us laugh, what with looking like that but also going up to the wrong horse and saying “hey Tara, ready to go?” or something along those lines. I’d have to tell him “Bert, you’ve got the wrong horse” only for him to say “are you sure?”.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

Bert looked absolutely classic on a horse and completely the opposite of the other gauchos we passed

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

(not that Euan and I were doing any better in our matching Namibia quad biking t-shirts….. a grave error on our part!).

Photo: Alison Duffy

We were all hanging out for a bar that afternoon but we didn’t come across one at all much to everyone’s bitter disappointment.….. I think it was the only thing keeping Euan going but he had worked out a way of drinking water without having to unpack it from the horse…

We camped by another river but on a busier road this time so we had a few vehicles pass us and a few stopped to ask directions. It wasn’t until later that we realised we’d covered the road sign with saddle blankets…. Whoops!

Photo: Alison Duffy

Alison and I snuck a sneaky photo in before unsaddling

and setting up camp.

This time the horses seemed content to graze around the camp rather than wander off

although they weren’t even given the chance as, after dinner, Juan decided they would all be tied to the fence. All was well for a few hours until a few of them got tangled and then all we heard was the awful twanging of wires and the nervous snorting of Kaiser. We untangled those that had got their legs wound up but Kaiser, spooky at the best of times, had his front leg well and truly caught. There wasn’t a lot I could do as the tension on the rope was too much and he reared up, lunged forward and stuck his front leg (still wound in the rope) through the fence. Great. Just great. One big solid spooked horse in the dark. I managed to get the rope off him but he had to get himself out of the fence himself. He reared up again and went backwards and nearly got his leg out but the soft bulbous part of his hoof stuck on the wire and he just continued to pull and he came so close to ripping it off but, with another big twang, the wire gave a little and his hoof came free. Juan, who just calmly takes things as they come, walked past and said “all under control?”.... thankfully I could answer "yes".

I didn’t sleep much as every time one of the horses got a fright and pulled back, the fence went twang twang twang and all I could hear was the stomping of horses’ hooves as they nervously shuffled around. I know I wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep well and I suspect the horses didn’t sleep much either (some were still dozing just before we set off) but at least we still had 15 horses with us in the morning!

Euans telling Gatiarda (who isn’t listening) where to put her head…

We set off the next morning later than we’d have liked to and, for the first time, I’d stopped leading the pack horse with my gear. I gave up on Kaiser as he was just so slow and also had a swollen tendon, a result of the fence tangle or the hobbling, so I suspected he wouldn’t be up to any antics anyhow.

I seemed spent a lot of time like this, turning round to talk or watch what was going on behind me

Photo: Alison Duffy

It might sound silly to mention the rocks but when you’re on a horse time goes slowly and you notice a whole lot more about the landscape around you. I noticed that the rocks were unusual and, where they’d shattered, there were crystals and interesting layers. There were quite a few rocks like this that were strewn along the roadside, really pretty.

We had a few more incidents of bags swinging round and horses going nuts but Mick was now a gun on the knots and the incidents were getting fewer and further between. We were nearly there but a few map stops were necessary (this is Alison, Juan and Bert).

and of course water stops for the horses.

On the third day we made it to Laureles

Photo: Alison Duffy

and rode into town just before lunchtime.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

We stopped off in the local pub for a celebratory drink (Bert had resorted to carrying his own gear too..)

before taking a group photograph (L to R is Marleen, Tory, Euan, Kate, Sol, Juan, Alison, Mick and Bert)

Photo: Alison Duffy

This gaucho had been passing by while we were in the pub and within about 10 minutes Juan had negotiated for him to take the horses back to the estancia. It was a good lesson for us in how things are done here – I don’t think Juan knew this chap but a deal was done on the spot and the horses would overnight at this chaps sisters place just up the road. The gaucho would herd the horses back in about two days, spending overnight at someone’s place on the way. Apparently its customary to have gauchos and whatever animals they are herding to stay overnight and no one ever refuses.

A few of us rode with the horses back to this gauchos sisters place

Photo: Alison Duffy

where they were let loose in a paddock for the night and immediately clustered around the water hole.

The gear (and us) was loaded unceremoniously into the truck (Suzanne had come to meet us and pick us up) and we drove back to pick up the others who were left behind in Laureles.

I don’t quite know how we got 12 people plus all our gear in the saddlebags, nine saddles and other assorted gear for 15 horses into this small truck that officially seats six people... but we did! Micks on the ropes again...

and we drove some 30km to a posada near the small city of Tranqueras where we were spent the night. Unfortunately Sol had to go back to school so wasn’t able to spend the night at the posada with us and I don’t think she was very happy about it either as her usually bright face held no trace of a smile

Photo: Alison Duffy

and we dropped her off on the main road to catch a bus back to Tacuarembó.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

What we did over the last three days was right up my alley and I would have happily turned around and done it again straight away. In fact, I was a bit disappointed to hear that the gaucho was taking the horses back as originally Juan was going to take them back and Euan and I were going to join him. Just quietly though, I wasn’t sure that Euan would have wanted to turn around and do the whole ride again backwards…. Me on the other hand, well, I was already there!!

Panagea, Tacuarembó Chico Uruguay 16–22 March, 2009

2009-04-02T16:55:00.017+01:00

It took us about 9 hours and two buses to get from Punta del Diablo back to Tacuarembó but the buses are good and it was a pleasant trip, plus we were happy to be heading back to the estancia so that made the trip also more enjoyable! I noticed the Tacuarembó sign on the bus station was painted in rainbow colours (as were the grain silos out the back, making them a good landmark for the bus station).

We really do like Uruguay and I can’t put my finger on exactly why but it has definitely grown on us, well, more on me than Euan I suspect. Anyhow, we had to spend a night in Tacuarembó before meeting Juan the next day and were prepared to share the estancia with about 11 others who were travelling with Intrepid Tours. Intrepid send people to the estancia twice a month and the groups vary in size but at times can fill all the available beds. The difference about this particular group was that there was a camera crew with them, filming a show that (so we thought) was a promotional video for Intrepid. It turned out not to be so.

Euan and I had the place virtually to ourselves for the first day we were back and went riding early the next morning. The light was beautiful and we had two horses we’d not ridden before.

The estancia has these great stone walls that are no longer used but add a lot of character to the paddocks.

I asked Euan to ride up onto this stone outcrop as I thought it might make quite a nice photo. It didn’t turn out to be a good photo but I’ve included it because, at the time, it cracked me up. Euan was talking to his horse and I don’t think he realised that he was upwind. He was stroking his horses neck and I heard him saying “yes, I know, she’s very demanding isn’t she. We just have to deal with it”…… Demanding???!!! Me??

After a while (and after I’d stopped demanding) we met up with Bilinga, the gaucho who works on the estancia with Juan and Suzanne. Bilinga speaks Portuguese and I understood very little of what he said but, at times, even Euan didn’t understand either. It didn’t worry Bilinga, who is one of the most cheerful men we’ve met and chats away to anyone, no matter that they don’t understand. We loved working with him. That particular day we were helping him with the cattle and while we herded and held the cows and calves among the eucalyptus trees, he snuck up on the calves, grabbed them and treated them while keeping the mothers at bay with his whip. It was impressive to watch and Bilinga would make a great deer stalker I reckon.

One fuzz-ball of a calf, a confused newborn, went through the fence and its mother went straight through after it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cow go through a fence before and have the fence remain standing and not dragged out across the paddock. Anyhow, the confused calf headed for the herd of horses that were right there and the mother went straight in after it to ‘claim’ the calf back. What a hoo-hah. Horses scattered everywhere and the cow was mooing and leaping around. The horses quickly had enough and took off full tilt to the other side of the huge paddock and we had to go in and get the cow and calf back. The calf was following anything with four legs and the easiest way to get it to move was to get it to follow Bilingas horse.

In among all these cattle were wandering two young lambs whose mother had died. We picked them up and carted them off on the horses before going to find the dead mother. She had to come back with us so Euan hoisted the dead ewe up onto Bilingas horse

and we took the lambs. I definitely had the better end of the deal; I got two cute lambs while Bilinga got the maggoty dead ewe with her jaw eaten off. Euan started off (semi-seriously) covering the lambs eyes so they couldn’t see their mother in such a state but was still a bit horrified when the lambs were put in a pen and their dead mother thrown in after them.

Then we had to go and get another sheep that was a bit mad but after the usual siesta, the afternoon was ours to do what we wanted so, of course, we went riding J

The big group arrived that afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the camera crew were all Kiwis but I never ever in a million years expected this lady to walk around the corner and I did a big double take thinking ‘it can’t be….’.

If you’re a Kiwi or have lived in NZ before 2005 you might recognise her but for those of you who haven’t, Judy Bailey has been on our TV screens reading the six o’clock news in NZ for something like 25 years and is what might be considered a national treasure. She started reading the news when I was about seven so is a very familiar face to so many and I think its fairly safe to say that most NZer's feel that they almost know her. I certainly did not expect her, let alone anyone else I recognised, to turn up in the back blocks of northern Uruguay! I was slightly (and stupidly) star-struck and those in the group (with the exception of one other Kiwi girl) had no idea what was going on or what all the fuss was about. Anyhow, it turned out that the camera crew were filming a program in a series called Intrepid Journeys and this programme is on South America. Having the camera crew there was interesting in many ways and at times they held things up but at other times they provided huge entertainment….. They came out to work the stock on horseback with everyone else, holding cameras and all despite never having ridden horses before.

It was very interesting to watch and, within the first 20 minutes, the camera lady had fallen off, big camera in hand. Nothing was damaged but it was lucky that the ground was soft following the heavy rain. I was in front at the time and all I heard was the thud of horse hooves moving at pace then one massive thud as the camera lady hit the ground. Full credit to her, she got back on, camera still in hand but this time the horse was led so she could safely have both hands on the camera. The other cameraman did really well but I think he kept a firm hand on the horse and camera after seeing the fall.

We were bringing cattle in to be dipped (hugely entertaining) and Euan was riding Linyera, who I eventually called the “Tacuarembó Express” or the “Pocket Rocket” as she just wanted to go go go. A few days earlier she’d taken off with someone, they’d fallen off and two other horses had freaked out and their riders had fallen off too. She was so much fun to ride but Euan had been warned not to let her get out of hand or she’d be off!

We were spoilt with the great food every day we were there but with a large group, meat was laid on in style and a grill was prepared.

After lunch the cattle were dipped and it was great to watch as the cows provided us with lots of entertainment. They were herded down the race and into this narrow deep trench, filled with insecticide (I think? It smelt vile whatever it was).

Some cows just slid quietly in but others put on a great show and leapt in, ears pricked, front legs straight out and belly-flopped into the dip creating this massive splash (this photo is a bit fuzzy but hopefully you get the general idea)

before swimming, wide-eyed, to the other end where they staggered up the ramp.

What was really funny (sorry Dean) was that the cameraman was filming this action under the low-hanging roof, right by where the cows jumped in. It was early days and we hadn’t had a cow dive yet but he copped the first one and both he and the camera got drenched in smelly dip. I shouldn’t have laughed but couldn’t help it and wasn’t the only one. I reckon those cameras are pretty tough!

On the estancia there is a rock outcrop that isn’t that high but gives you the impression that you’re on top of the world as you can see a long long way. It’s a magical place and when Juan asked us to behave like a couple for once and pose nicely for a photo, we obliged.

Photo: Juan Manuel Luque

I asked the same of Juan and Euan (it came out a lot better than the one of Euan and I!)

That evening was just lovely and the light filtered through the stand of eucalyptus trees

and the tree by the house, where ibis have roosted in every night for about 70 years, was surprisingly empty and quiet – I guess they were making the most of the lovely evening and hadn’t yet come back to roost.

The next day we brought 700 sheep into the yards again, the second time since we had been there

and it was great to see the improvement in most of the wounds but we were still surprised at the number of new infections that had cropped up and one lamb needed help getting to the yards.

I’ve spent time on farms before and not seen anything like the damage these flies can cause. I’ve not included any photos, too gruesome.

Some of us practiced our sheep dumping technique…

and at the end, a team photo was in order

Juan ended up calling Judy “Queen Judy” which made me end up wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and not told him who she was J

but we had to take a photo of the Kiwis who were working in the yards that day (cheesy as it is!).

With the group on their way, Euan and I spent another morning working with Bilinga doing the rounds of the cattle, and watched him lasso calves (very impressive) then helped keep them down while he treated them

After all this, Euan was made an honorary gaucho by Bilinga

and then promptly retired to a hammock for a siesta.

We didn’t realise it was Juans birthday on one of the days we were there but when family started to turn up for the weekend we suspected something was up. There were about six travellers staying and there were loads of family so a total of 15 of us went out on horses that Saturday morning. We were mustering the huge 700 acre paddock in mist that was going to make it tricky to see the cattle.

It took a while to saddle up but once we were off you had to keep up or you were left behind

and Bilinga came thundering out of the mist, poncho billowing, looking like something out of a movie. The greeting he gave everyone was one of the most polite I have ever seen; hat to his chest, riding over and greeting everyone in the group individually in Portuguese with his usual huge smile.

We’d been joined by two Australians the day before and Mick had been a professional show jumper during his early 20s. He had started to ride the horses in the style he was accustomed and a usually placid little horse was going berserk but once he loosened the reins it was fine. I don’t think he believed me when I told him loosen the reins on this horse that was going a bit mental but it did the trick. This is Mick, Euan and Tory heading out to muster the cattle.

We also had Alejandra and Agustina (I’m not sure about the spelling here) with us, two gorgeous girls who are daughters of Juans cousin

Photo: Alison Duffy

and are very good on the horses.

They were also excellent Scrabble buddies, playing a made-up version of Scrabble with Euan and I for a while over lunch

before saddling up again (the cat was playing with the reins on the ground and SO nearly got squashed!)

and heading back out on the horses.

By the afternoon the mist had cleared and we took the cattle back to their paddock. I love this photo as it shows the vastness and beauty of the landscape and barely a fence in sight.

Photo: Alison Duffy

Sunday morning, the day of Juans birthday, we went for a ride – no working. This photo shows the gates used on the estancia. They don’t swing but are very effective

although getting 15 people on horseback through gates took take some time, especially if girths needed to be tightened

and mine was in danger of slipping backwards which would have resulted in me being dumped on the ground for sure!

There was no work done that afternoon as birthday celebrations were order of the day. This is Juan with Alejandra and Agustina. They absolutely adore him, as do his other neices and nephews.

Photo: Alison Duffy

It was our last night at the estancia as, early the next morning, we were embarking on a three-day horse trek from the estancia to a small town called Laureles, close(ish) to the border with Brazil.

Eastern Uruguay, 12-16 March 2009

2009-04-02T16:12:00.008+01:00

Our short whistlestop road trip took us back to the east coast of Uruguay via smaller roads and towns we hadn't yet been to.

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We overnighted in Melo, some 3 ½ hours from Tacuarembó but the bus arrived late and we were wandering the streets at 9.30pm trying to find a bed. We were amazed to find most of the hostels were full so we had minimal bargaining power and had to take what we could. The next morning (after a short visit to a gaucho shop to look for riding boots) we were on our way to Treinta y Tres

the only town named ‘Thirty Three’ that we’d ever been to! Treinta y Tres was a pleasant place and, much like the other small towns in Uruguay that we visited, it had a central square,

lovely old architecture and was laid out in a grid formation.

This was the police station; the nicest police station I’ve seen in a long time

and just inside the door, in the main foyer, was a statue of Artigas (who’s ashes are those that are guarded in Montevideo).

We were there for a few hours while waiting for a bus and stopped for a bite to eat. The burgers were awesome although Sander had trouble eating his.

On our way to Chuy, the border town with Brazil, heavy rain had flooded a river and the road was completely underwater. It was deep enough that the water was flooding the foot well of the bus but thankfully Uruguayan bus drivers are unfazed by this sort of thing and when someone asked about the luggage getting wet, he just shrugged and kept going. Brilliant!!

Just before the bridge, there was great discussion about the its state of health. The bus stopped, the driver got out and chatted with someone standing outside before they both bent down to look underneath the bridge. I don’t know what the Spanish equivalent of “she’ll be alright” is but I’d put money on that it was what they were saying and the bus rumbled on over. We didn’t fall in.

We arrived in Chuy in the late afternoon so had enough time to look around. Chuy is a true border town with two main streets running parallel to one another. One is in Brazil and the other Uruguay with a dividing strip down the middle

that served as a makeshift blacksmith station among other things. Most horses we’ve come across have been unshod but here you could often hear the clip, clop, plunk, clip, clop, plunk of a horse with a loose shoe.

Roads are shared by motorised traffic as well as horses and carts and this place serviced both as far as we could see.

We stayed in a rather awful place that was almost on a par with the hostel we stayed at in Akko, Israel (that has since been our benchmark for awfulness). The rooms were small cells with a tiny tiny window but cheap and the chap who ran it was really nice. However, when we returned from dinner and a drunk local who had wandered in there was being evicted and shooed off down the street, we wondered what on earth the night would hold. It turned out fine and we weren’t eaten by anything or robbed by anyone and decided that a group photo was in order.

Chuy has loads of duty free shopping and it seems to be the main draw card of the place although we were always confused as to which country we were in! We found Uruguayans doing business on the Brazilian side and vice versa. Euan and I both bought ourselves leather gaucho boots there and I resisted the strong urge to buy halters, bridles and other horse gear that was incredibly cheap compared to in the UK and NZ.

Our next stop was Punta del Diablo, a popular holiday spot in Uruguay. Apparently there was nothing here six years ago but now there is a ramshackle collection of eclectic buildings that offer a strange sort of charm. Some are built on dunes right next to the beach.

We had a bit of a struggle finding somewhere cheap to stay though, and traipsed the sandy roads carrying our packs (this is Marije and Sander below).

We ended up in self-catering apartments that were excellent value and only a short walk from the beach. The beaches in the area are beautiful

and the surrounding houses range from this (I think this was a house?)

to these

We were only there for a day and a night but had LOADS of washing to do, and we begrudgingly gave up an hour to get it dry before leaving the next morning. I think perhaps I could get a job doing laundry when I return to the UK?

This was our last night with Marije and Sander so we all pitched in, made a fantastic meal and were joined by another Dutch couple (friends of Marije and Sander) who had just arrived. There was a massive storm that night and the lightening lit the entire sky, providing an incredible natural light show.

Panagea, Tacuarembó Chico, Uruguay 7–12 March, 2009

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Panagea is an estancia located about an hours drive from Tacuarembo and well away from the usual comforts of telephone and electricity. Juan was born on the estancia and now owns and manages 2000 acres with the help of another gaucho and his family, and anyone who stays there fits in around the usual day-to-day activities.

I was fascinated to see how farming works in Uruguay and the land around Tacuarembo is rolling hills and reminded me a bit of the South Island of New Zealand. The paddocks are huge (the 2000 acres are split into eight paddocks and one is ~700 acres on its own) and the surrounding countryside is untainted by telegraph poles, pylons and mobile phone towers which makes a pleasant change to other countries. On Panagea, the land is untouched; no planting, cropping, spraying or fertilising and the ranch is classified as organic. There are 1000 head of cattle (Brangus bulls over Hereford cows) and 2000 Merilin sheep (a Merino/Lincoln-cross bred in Uruguay for the conditions – the sheep have the wool of the Merino and the hardiness of the Lincoln) and the stocking rate is easy to work out. The only water supply is from natural springs that run through the paddocks and drought, when it comes, hits hard (when I asked what happens in drought I got the answer “we cross our fingers”). It seems hard country to farm prosperously and of course I had hundreds of questions. I am just hoping now that I’ve got the facts correct (and will expect an email if I haven’t!).

Photo: Alison Duffy

What really interested me (obviously!) were the horses. There are 84 (get that!!) horses on the property, run in four herds of about 20 but only one herd is in work at a time. These horses have virtually nothing done to them; no brushing, hoof trims, washing or anything apart from the occasional drench and by God they’re strong, good, healthy horses. Much smaller than the horses I’m used to but hugely responsive, comfortable and absolutely fantastic to ride. There are also some wonderful colours – lovely blue roans, really unusual duns and some beautiful bays.

The horses are treated like work animals (i.e no fussing or petting and, as I discovered, they don’t eat apple cores) and are herded into a corral before being caught, rather than approached and caught in the paddock like horses at home. I didn’t realise this and wondered why they walked away from me in the paddock but it all became clear the next morning when the horses were herded into a corral and Juan asked them all to line up facing him, calling “forme, forme…..” (form up, form up) then “frente, frente” (front, front)). The horses start out in a jumble

but end up like this (with the odd renegade – Borat was always shocker and often had to be strongly pursuaded to turn around…. )

I was like a kid in a candy store, no joke. Horses are selected for people based on their riding ability but after a while we got to pick which horse we rode. Euan made me laugh as he would always forget which horse he rode the day before or, to his frustration, pick one that was incredibly quiet and offer minimal challenge. However, in his defence, if you’re a non-horsy person you could be forgiven as sometimes, as this photo shows, they did all look rather similar!

The riding style of the gaucho couldn’t be more different than English riding style if it tried; legs stuck out in front, reins held loosely in one hand, girths around the middle of the horses belly. I relished the more relaxed style of riding, felt very very comfortable and probably developed some bad habits as a result :-). This is Euan the morning after we arrived and we were bringing in a herd of about 14 fresh horses before turning the others (who had been in work) out for a few weeks rest.

The gear is very different too. Saddles are light and very functional but made comfy with a thick sheepskin on top.

Photo: Marije Gerfen

The bits have the ability to cause real chaos if the reins are not held super loose.

Photo: Marije Gerfen

A sheepskin is strapped on top of the saddle and what you end up with is very comfortable to ride in.

Photo: Marije Gerfen

The horses are trained to stand still once the reins are on the ground. A strange concept if you’ve been brought up to ride English style but far more practical.

All the tack is kept here and it paid to remember which lot of gear you used the day before to avoid going through the rigmarole of adjusting stirrups etc every day.

Photo: Marije Gerfen

Around the gaucho’s house were pigs and piglets, turkeys, chickens

and as the lambs had arrived months early this year, there were about nine orphans that needed feeding twice a day along with a couple of disabled calves.

This sow had piglets and seemed to need a break once in a while. This was one place they didn’t follow her

and at feeding time, the pigs did what pigs do best.

The lambs were still at that age where they were really cute and cuddly but it doesn’t take long before they’re big and smelly.

We were at the estancia for four days initially and every day was spent out working with the stock. Euan did incredibly well on all the horses he rode and I could see the improvement over the four days. By the end, he was quite happily cantering around after runaway cattle or sheep and enjoying it to boot. Needless to say I was thrilled. This is Euan on Linyera (pronounced ‘Linchera’), a really clever little mare who ended up being one of my favourites to ride.

In one paddock, the 700 or so sheep came into the yards every 5-7 days to be checked for infections. Because the lambs had arrived early there was loads more infection around than usual and the flies were particularly vicious. It is pretty labour intensive getting sheep in like this every week but I’ve never herded stock on horseback and couldn’t get enough of it.

There were other travellers that came and went during our time there and there were some memorable moments. I loved meeting all the new people and helping them with the horses if they needed it. Three Americans arrived and one chap had ridden on a ranch in Montana but still sat all hunched over and didn’t really pay much attention to what was going on. When he rode too close behind the flock of sheep we were herding, a slow lamb got under his horse. The horse tumbled the lamb a few times, got a fright, freaked out and went sideways and this poor chaps saddle slipped right round sideways and he was unceremoniously dumped on the ground. The lamb, meanwhile, lay there absolutely stunned and I was thinking “please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead…”. It wasn’t dead and the American guy was still untangling himself while his horse was trying to get away. I felt a bit sorry for him as it is embarrassing but what better way to learn that you need to do the girth up tight?!

Working with cattle was equally enjoyable and the flies were as much of a nuisance with them as with the sheep. We were helping bring them through the race for spraying.

When they came in, clouds of flies rose from each cow but after they were sprayed, the dopey flies gravitated towards us and sleepily crawled round on our arms.

The calves were also subject to infection and needed treating. It took a few tries but eventually Euan got the technique right.

We were there at the same time as a Dutch couple, Marije and Sander, who were great company.

When we weren’t out on the horses we were being entertained by Sander (who is one of the funniest people I know with a natural ability to make faces that looks like they should be in comic books),

playing cards or nattering about travels. Sander attempted to teach Euan some Dutch.

The estancias charm is in its authenticity, naturalness and simplicity, perhaps common in this part of the world but not so easily found in our respective countries. The estancia has running water (hot water is heated by log stove) but water for drinking is drawn from the well outside the kitchen

and as there is only power (provided by a generator) three hours a day, all cooking is done on a wood stove, in the wood-fired oven outside and only occasionally is the portable gas hob used.

Juan’s wife, Suzanne, is an incredibly warm welcoming lady who seems to take everything in her stride. She is also a great chef and produces incredible food and her bread is to die for. We noticed her absence and missed her company when she went to town for a few nights while we were there.

There were a few people that came through that week, including two young English girls arrived who provided great entertainment. Neither had ridden before and the second day they went out it absolutely tipped it down. Their horses just stopped dead and refused to move, prompting the usual cries of “I can’t make it go” and “I don’t know what to do…”. Meanwhile, the rest of us were moving fast for the shelter of the trees. All of a sudden, one of the horses swung round and bolted for the gate, and thankfully the girl stayed on and the horse didn’t jump. Once at the gate, the horse just stopped but took some persuading before it moved to go to the trees and I ended up leading it so it didn’t do the same thing again. That was the only day it rained in our entire time there and we saw the water level of the well getting lower and lower. A sombre reminder of why it was necessary to save water.

There are armadillos in Uruguay and I’d never seen one before and this little chap, who was moseying around in the grass, made his way close to where we were on the horses. He didn’t even realise we were there and when Juan snuck up and grabbed him, he got such a fright but it was a treat to see one so close.

Gatieada was one of Euans favourite horses and we thought she was one of the prettiest of the horses around.

Bayo (means dun in Spanish but is said almost like “Bvasher”) was another favourite

I tried to ride as many horses as possible but always went back to my two favourites, Kaiser and Linyera below. You’re not supposed to ride the same horses twice so we’d switch horses during the day; a really good practice for learning to ride but you still can’t help developing your favourites.

I called Kaiser the ‘arm chair’ as he was that comfortable to ride and seemed to float over the grass despite being built like a tank. He was quite a spooky horse when not being ridden but once you were riding him, he was so keen to please and responsive.

We enjoyed our time at the estancia so much that we rescheduled the entire remainder of our trip so we could return. For me, it took me back to when my family had some land, loads of animals and I had all the horses I could deal with at one time. For Euan, it was a completely different experience and it could have gone either way for him but to my surprise at the time, he enjoyed it as much as I and wanted to return to become a proficient rider. There was a large group arriving soon and there was going to be minimal space so, after deciding that less people were better and rescheduling our flights, we headed off to travel some of Eastern Uruguay with Marije and Sander.

Tacuarembó, Uruguay 6 March 2009

2009-04-01T15:35:00.019+01:00

We made it to Tacuarembó in Uruguay in record time and were there little over 24 hours after we left Foz in Brazil.

View Tacuarembo in a larger map

If you’re travelling to some of the smaller towns in Argentina the overnight buses seem to just leave you on the highway rather than detour to stop. After hearing this we did our research so we weren’t standing on a highway at 3.00 am and instead were left on a highway at 7.30 am, a slightly more sociable time. When I say on the edge of a highway, I mean literally.

We still had a long way to go and had to find our way to the town of Colon (Argentina) to catch a bus to the Argentina/Uruguay border, catch a bus to Paysandu, then another bus to Tacuarembó. The lady in the Shell station on the highway told us that a bus to Colon went past just before 9.00 am so we sat on the side of the road to wait for a bus that never came. We got fed up waiting and decided to hitch (and noticed with slight annoyance that it wasn’t the folk driving flash utes with loads of space who stopped!). Instead, a very beat up old car stopped and gave us a lift and it turned out the chap was from Uruguay and his daughter (who was in the back with her 1 month old son) had been to NZ last year and was keen to practise her English. These lovely people not only gave us a lift but also went out of their way and took us all the way to the border, which saved us many many hours. We had a long wait for a bus to Tacuarembó but had a look around Paysandu and had fun spotting gauchos heading to the festival. The outfits were wonderful and some were carrying their saddles; something that sparked huge curiosity but we now know that it is a common sight in Uruguay.

Uruguayan people are really friendly and welcoming so it’s not difficult to strike up a conversation, even if you don’t speak the language. I got chatting to two young chaps on the bus, one of who had been to NZ to work on a dairy farm down near Christchurch and had studied English for a month at the university I went to. The great thing about bussing in Uruguay is that if the scheduled bus fills up, they start to fill another for the same time and route. We were on the 3rd bus to Tacuarembo and were starting to understand just how big this festival is. We knew we wouldn’t arrive before 8.30pm and were fully prepared to sleep in a bar or on the street, as we knew accommodation would be all booked out on a Friday night with the main parade on Saturday morning. After being told to go to another town 70km away for accommodation we persevered and, incredibly, got the last room in town, in what could possibly be the worst hotel in town but we really didn’t care. We were shattered.

The next day Euan got well and truly horsed out at the largest (so we found out) gaucho festival in Latin America. I almost felt sorry for him. People had come from all over Uruguay (and outside) to watch and participate and in any European country there would be a myriad horse floats and horse trucks in the area, but not in Tacuarembo. All the thousands of horses here had been herded here on foot from all over Uruguay, with some gauchos being on the road for over 20 days to get their horses here.

The parade was a huge deal and people lined the streets a good hour and a half before and we were surprised by the lack of tourists.

These girls had a great spot and were sitting there watching and sipping their maté

The traditional guacho dress was seen everywhere and was worn by young and old alike. We spent a bit of time chatting to the family of this little guy whose mother was riding in the parade. He was very cute and as the parade went past

his Mum lifted him up onto her horse and off he went

Whole families were dressed up and looked really smart.

Different areas from all over Uruguay were represented and it was estimated that there were more than 5000 horses in the parade, most of them with riders but some were harnessed to carts

and others were ridden by small kids. The young boys in particular took it very seriously.

The girls were a bit more gung-ho about it.

I like this shot for the pink candyfloss and the pink dress.

but the dresses were all quite stunning and provided a great contrast to the browns and greens of the male gauchos

There were three small groups of loose horses that were following a rider and a head mare.

and this little lady was worn out already and had fallen asleep!

Then along came this chap who looked amazing but so out of place at the same time. Apparently this chap is Charrúa, one of the indigenous people of southern America (from the area now known as Uruguay, north-eastern Argentina and southern Brasil). He is apparently one of the last remaining Charrúa in Uruguay and participates in the parade every year.

At the time, I was only taking photos of him and didn’t notice the look on the little boys face that was riding beside him. He’s like “what the….?”.

There were some characters among the riders....

This jingling mass of bells, tassels and studded leather came stomping along and underneath all this was a huge draft horse built like a tank.

This parade went on for about 1 ½ hours with horses streaming down the main street of Tacuarembo. Euans eyes glazed over after about an hour and even I was amazed at the sheer number of horses that were there. I found out later that, if you like a horse, you can approach the gaucho in the parade and offer to buy it. Apparently quite a few horses change hands in this manner and I’m damn glad I didn’t know this at the time! I could have found myself in a bit of trouble.

Just out of town, on the way to where the real action took place, some gauchos were taking a pit stop, having a few beers and their horses were tied to the railings.

The scene that greeted us when we reached the area that hosted the main events was one of colourful tents, horses milling everywhere and the air smoky from the many grills that were going full tilt. This grill was doing a roaring trade

and even had more live meat ready, with this sheep tied to a post and his buddy already roped up under a tree for when the meat on the grill was running low.

The rodeo itself was different to those we’d seen before and the event we watched followed a similar sequence to the bronc riding but a difference was that an unbroken horse was brought over from one of the corrals that held hundreds of horses

and the unsuspecting horse was tied up short to a post and blindfolded. Some of them stood quietly

but others went a bit nuts.

Then the horse was saddled and a gaucho got on its back before the blindfold was whipped off

and the horse invariably went berserk. There is just so much going on in this photo. The horse went behind the posts to where all the other gauchos were sitting, bucking and lashing out left right and centre. There was a mad scramble to get out of the way and the horse ended up on its side, wedged in the ditch by the fence.

It was all rather raw and at times difficult to watch.

As far as I could see, the main difference to the western style of rodeo riding was that the horses were actively trying to get rid of the rider and the bit, rather than objecting to a strap that is tightened around their flanks.

Outside the main arena there was a more peaceful scene with young gauchos, worn out from the excitement, snatching a sleep on piles of blankets

and others riding along chatting (check out the guy kneeling on his horse, using it as a viewpoint in the background).

The older gauchos stood around, drinking maté or beer, smoking and chewing the fat.

As we walked back into town we saw a herd of the horses being taken to the river to drink.

We were picked up that evening to head out of town to stay at a working estancia that a friend of mine had stayed at and told me about. To visit this place is the main reason why we’d taken the long haul south and back into Uruguay.

Iguazu Falls, Brazil/Argentina 1–5 March 2009

2009-03-16T00:18:00.014Z

Up to now we’ve been pretty happy with the flight route we set in February 08 but now we’re discovering a few things that could have been done differently. On hindsight, we should have skipped the BA to Sao Paulo (SP) flight and gone overland but, back then, we really had no idea where our round about travels in between flights would take us. The One World ticket allowed us 19 flights worldwide but we have to fly in and out of the same airport each time. Overland travel from one place to another is fine but each ‘segment’ you do overland (Beijing to Singapore for example) counts as one flight. We could have changed the route, dropped the flight and gone overland but that costs. Route changes cost, date changes don’t. Lesson learnt.

The actual flight to Sao Paulo was only 2 ½ hours and the sights that greeted us as we came in to land surprised us. Blocks of high rise apartments and houses for miles and miles. Sao Paulo is one of the worlds largest cities with around 17 million people and covering an area of 1,500 sq kilometres.

We’d made the decision not to spend any time in SP so literally landed, headed straight to the bus station and jumped on the first bus to Foz do Iguaçu, 16 hours away. Foz is a city on the Brazilian side of the world-famous Iguazu Falls that border Argentina and Brazil, with Paraguay a little way down the river. Both from the air and road the Brazil countryside looked very colour-rich, with bright emerald greens and rich dark ochre-coloured earth. It was very different to what we’d seen of Argentina and Uruguay (both from air and road).

We spent two days visiting the falls, one day on the Brazilian side where you can get an overview of the falls and the second day on the Argentine side where you get a lot closer to the action. People say the Argentine side is more impressive but we beg to differ and think that they’re equally impressive (but the Brazil side is considerably cheaper and only has 25% of the falls area).

View Larger Map

There is no photo that we could take that would give an overview of how large the falls are but the water plunges 75m over a frontage that stretches for some 2.4km in a semi-circle terraced area (they are four times wider than Niagara apparently). The high lava terraces each have their own waterfalls and there are 100s of different waterfalls across entire area. The setting is beautiful and the surrounding greenery is made up of begonias, orchids, palms, trees and ferns.

Brazil is apparently experiencing the hottest summer in 11 years and boy did we feel it! I don’t know how hot it is but it wasn’t until we’d taken this photo that we realised how much we were sweating (a bit gross but it’s a bit novel to drip with sweat standing still with a low heart rate!).

The best thing about the Brazil side is that you walk your way along the river and you can see the most important waterfall in the distance. Then you only get glimpses of it until you’re right there, on a walkway that takes you right out to the edge.

I’m standing in the middle of the walkway and resorted to the usual arm wave rather than attempt a cartwheel or hanging from the handrail.

This is the view from the end of the walkway

and the view downriver.

From the walkway a lift(!) takes you up high where you get a different perspective (you can just see the walkway in the middle left of the photo). Again, this is only a very small part of the falls.

From higher up again, at the top of the falls, you’d have no idea what was just down river! Only a small amount of spray in the air gives it away.

Not far from the falls is a bird park that covers a huge area and has large aviaries that attempt to recreate a number of environmental areas in Brazil, such as the Pantanal. It was a great opportunity to see so many different birds in one place and after trying so hard to get decent photos of flamingos in the Galapagos, here was a whole flock within meters of us. They had a mirror in the pen that made us laugh. Flamingos normally flock in the thousands or even millions and only feel safe in large numbers. The mirrors were there to create the illusion of a large flock. I don’t think they’re particularly smart birds….

A huge aviary had many birds found in the Pantanal and as soon as we walked in this Toucan came bumbling over. They fly but appear rather clumsy and seem to hop better than fly. Their beaks are massive and I wasn’t getting too close (nor taking my eyes off him!) even though I was SO excited as I'd never seen one before. They're a lot smaller than I thought they were but are very beautiful.

Euan got this shot of a hummingbird and if you’ve ever seen them move you’ll know how difficult it is get a decent photo. These ones are tiny – if you put your forefinger and thumb together, that is about the size of the ‘flower’ that it is drinking out of. They were playing or fighting around us and they sounded like large insects whizzing past our ears. Some were no larger than the end of our thumbs.

This aviary had loads of macaws (among other parrots), all playing up and clowning around. One was hanging from the top of the aviary by is beak, another swinging like a monkey from one claw and others, as soon as we walked in, flew straight at us with the tips of their wings brushing past our heads. It was all too calculated; they knew exactly what they were doing and, we suspected, got quite a good reaction from some visitors. They’re big birds and you have to really tell yourself not to duck or shriek with fright!

This little guy liked my crocs but his sharp pointed beak was probing a bit too close to the soft part of my foot for comfort.

On the Argentine side of the falls, we had a lot of ground to cover (along with loads of other people). We made good use of the tripod I got from Mum & Mark for Christmas and the trees came in handy!

This was the result.

This is the shot of the falls we were at on the Brazilian side and the land immediately on the right hand side is an island and the falls arc their way around the back of that.

You can just see the walkway we were on the day before. There water flow varies hugely and we noticed that there was a lot more water going over than the day before thanks to a downpour that evening and overnight. The only known time that the falls have dried up was in 1977 after a drought.

This photo sort of shows the layout of the falls with the island in the middle (it took us AGES to get this photo as people kept walking in front of the camera that was perched high on a railing). The two main waterfalls are to the far right (San Martin) and far left (Garganta del Diablo) of the photo.

These boats took tourists right up and under the San Martin falls

and they would almost disappear from view under the water. It looked like a great ride but for US$35 for 12 minutes we gave it a miss.

You can get to Isla Grande San Martin by boat then hike up to see the San Martin falls up close.

The best bit (we think) is taking a tiny train 3km through a forest to the top of the main waterfall, Garganta del Diablo. The river is still and calm, seemingly running slowly and you can walk out along a 1.2km walkway. It was very peaceful but also incredibly hot and the insects, particularly butterflies and these small bees, landed on you all the time to lap up the sweat. The butterflies were welcome but I wasn’t so happy with the bees.

This was what was at the end of the walkway and to stand right at the edge of this mass of water pouring over the precipice was impressive. No photo will do the it justice and the roar of the water has to be heard to be believed.

Euan visited Iguazu Falls when he travelled around South America in the early 1990s but he hadn’t seen this and when we got out there he realised why. There had been a walkway but a flood destroyed it the year before he visited.

Argentina on the left, Brazil on the right.

Looking back at the falls.

Standing on the edge.

The wildlife around the falls is pretty special also. We saw a stunning large black and white lizard, a cayman lazing in the shallows and thousands and thousands of butterflies. This is a bunch of them all huddled up on the ground, doing quite what we have no idea.

If you went closer they flew up but not away and I found myself standing in a wee cloud of butterflies.

Getting to and from the falls is a bit of a faff and involved buses, borders then more buses but thankfully the Brazil immigration is fairly relaxed and only on the Argentine side do you have to be stamped in and stamped out (we’ve now got 10 Argentine stamps in our passports from going in and out from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay). We decided to stay on the Argentine side as late as possible to have dinner (food is much cheaper than in Brazil) and catch the last bus back. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea. The small bus that did the last crossing was absolutely packed to the point that no one could move. It’s a great chance to meet people although the jolly Turkish man was enjoying being squashed up a bit too much for my liking. To escape, I zoomed through the passport queue, jumped back on the bus and grabbed the last two seats right down the back. Stupid, stupid move. It wasn’t until an Australian girl asked where we were staying that I looked at Euan in horror and said “how on earth are we going to ask the driver to stop and how are we going to get off?”. I tried the window with the idea that, if we could get him to stop, we’d jump out the window but it was too small. Thankfully, we had some Israelis on board who needed to get stamped into Brazil so the bus stopped and we climbed, pushed and squeezed our way to the front. The bus was so loaded the driver was worried about the suspension and went no faster than 10km/hour the whole way.

The falls are the main draw card to the area but in between Brazil and Paraguay is the worlds largest hydroelectric plant, Itaipu, and we were not leaving without seeing it. It’s a local bus ride from Foz do Iguacu and they do tours around the dam – we opted for the ‘special’ tour that took us inside dam itself. It’s difficult to give scale but the dam is simply colossal.

This photo is courtesy of Itaipu and I included it to show an overall view of the structure.

From top to bottom it is 1km high and 1,350km long

and this is the view down stream - the spillway is a long way from the intakes.

Standing inside the structure looking 800m down the huge metal grid stairwell was a bit freaky.

This is one of three spillways

and the amount of water being released was minimal and there was only one of the three spillways open but you can see the force of the water

The dam is jointly owned and run by Brazil and Paraguay and everything is split 50:50, right down to the managerial structure, power output and, incredibly, even the control room floor space (seriously, there is a line running down the middle of the room!). The dam supplies 20% of Brazils power requirements (pretty impressive for a country of 190 million people) and 90% of Paraguays power. The power that Paraguay doesn’t need is sold back to Brazil.

These are some of the 20 intakes above the ~330,000 tonne turbines below and they don’t look very big at all

but when someone stands beside them you see they’re absolutely massive.

This is the access area for the turbines that are beneath the floor.

and we actually got to go down and see one of them in use. I really like this sort of stuff and could have stayed there for ages but the lady who was guiding us didn’t like the noise and I guess if you’re doing this day in day out you’d get a bit fed up. I thought it was pretty cool that they let us that close and the whole control panel was right there with lots of coloured buttons just begging to be pushed. Euan made sure I left.

At the end of our stay in Foz we were in a bit of a quandary as to where to go next. There is an estancia (ranch) in Tacuarembo, Uruguay, that we had really wanted to visit but the owners were on holiday when we were in Uruguay so we had to give it a miss. After hours of research (Tacuarembo has to be one of the more difficult places to get to in Uruguay unless you’re getting there from Montevideo) and discussion, we decided to get on an overnight bus and start the long trek back across into Argentina, down into the top of Uruguay and make our way to Tacuarembo. The fact that there was the annual gaucho festival on in Tacuarembo played a very small part in the decision and at the time we didn’t realise it was the largest gaucho festival in Latin America. We crossed the border back into Argentina (again) and set off on our way. Euans passport is nearly full and border officials are struggling to find space. Here’s hoping the US officials don’t mind too much! After all, it’s still a valid travel document….

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay 24 March 2009

2009-03-15T23:55:00.005Z

Travelling seems to be getting the better of us at the moment. There are times when you just do not feel like packing your bags yet again to move on and we had one of those moments leaving Piriapolis. It always makes a difference when you meet people whose company you enjoy and you would like to spend more time with. Off we went again....!

We were bound for Buenos Aires by ferry but bussed to Colonia del Sacramento for the afternoon, a town just across from Buenos Aires, separated by the big stretch of muddy brown water that is the Rio de la Plata.

View Larger Map

Colonia was founded in the 1680 by Portuguese settlers from Brazil and it is a really pretty place with uneven cobbled streets, old stone buildings and tree-lined streets.

We loved the painted tiles showing the street names

and the streets lines with plane trees.

Believe it or not there is an HSBC bank on this street, opposite the old car, the bright red and white sign looking very out of place on the outside of a beautiful building. Possibly the only HSBC in the world that has an interior courtyard garden?

This old car was a great feature and the photo shows how uneven the cobbles are. In some streets they were really large and chunky and at least one turned ankle was a given that afternoon.

For the die-hard dulce de leche fans – a small supermarket had an entire stand dedicated to the stuff (it’s not uncommon to have a pot of it at the breakfast table as a topping for toast).

We’d read mixed reports about Colonia and while it’s a pretty quiet place, we thought it was a nice town to chill out in for a few days if you’ve the time.

Piriapolis, Uruguay 21-24 February 2009

2009-02-27T21:25:00.011Z

Before I start on Piriapolis, I have to say I often wonder who reads this! Sometimes I get random emails from people who come across the site after searching for something on the internet and other times I get friends who email and make a comment or say thanks for entertaining them through the winter. Its really nice to know others read it as often its like writing to this phantom audience who may exist or just as likely may not. While its as much a record for us, the fact that its public makes a big difference. Recently I've had an email from a travel site wanting to publish excerpts from the blog which is kinda cool.

Anyhow, when Kiwi Lawrence had invited us to go stay with him, we’d said that we’d be there in a few days time but there were no firm dates, plans or arrangements. We just caught the bus up the coast and walked to the marina hoping he’d be there. At least the marina is the easiest place we’ve had to find thus far! We knew the boats name (‘Gambo’) so just persuaded the marina security that we knew Lawrence and headed on in, preparing for a wait if he wasn’t around. Somewhat naively, we’d thought it would just be Lawrence there working away surrounded by empty boats but this was so far from the case it wasn’t funny. As it turned out, we spent the most fantastic three nights on the boat and met so many wonderful people that we didn’t want to leave. Seriously. Piriapolis turned out to be about people, not buildings, sights and museums – a very refreshing and welcome change.

The day we arrived was a scorcher and the beach at Piriapolis was heaving with people, reminding us of some of the European beaches in summer weekends.

Thankfully, Kiwi Lawrence was in the marina working on the boat and didn’t seem too surprised to see us. Lawrence has been living and working on Gambo (more on the boat later) along with Stephen from Shropshire in England, and they’re both working to get the boat ready for its next stint; sailing to Greenland. Funnily enough, a Professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales owns Gambo and this chap has sailed the boat to all sorts of places in the world. This is Gambo.

Within minutes of arriving we’d met Andrew and Abby from South Africa who, along with their 10 month old daughter Lucy, Abby's mum Jo and a sailor, Dael, are travelling around the world in their yacht. L to R is Jo, Andrew, Lawrence and Dale. Euan is in front

This is Abby and Lucy (who was the most gorgeous little girl out).

Andrew, Dael and two others had sailed the yacht from South Africa to Rio and Abby, Jo and Lucy had joined the boat there. Their yacht, ‘Josephine’ was in the water and they were only expecting to be there for a few weeks while a few repairs were carried out. Lucy had taken her first steps on board a week earlier but had remarkable balance. I think there is something to be said about taking your first steps ever on a moving boat!

Lucy took a liking to my jade pendant

and insisted on me eating it.

It was a gorgeous evening and we spent it on Abby and Andrews yacht, having a few beers and getting to know them. This is the best bottle opener we’ve ever seen – on the sole of a jandle! How cool is that?

That evening, I was about to climb the ladder onto Gambo when a chap approached me wearing a white plastic jump-suit (presumably for painting) and said in a very heavy accent with a very broad white smile “Vould yoo like to svap cloothes vit me?”. This was Werner from Bavaria, Germany

who, with his wife Emmy (I’m not sure about the spelling here),

have been sailing around the world on their yacht for nine years.

They arrived in Piriapolis and brought the boat out of the water to do some work on it. It costs about US$500 to get the boat in and out of the water (and about US$5/day to store it) so they’re planning to be here for a year to do all the repairs and do some land travelling at the same time. An absolute character of a couple.

We met Leonard, ex-Swedish Merchant Navy, who had been at sea for something like 47 years. He has been living on his own yacht sailing round the world for 18 years now but, after being caught in a particularly ferocious hurricane off the South American cape, he decided enough was enough and has been moored at Piriapolis for two years now.

He says that this is where he will stay and, when he is too old to live on his boat, he will sell up and buy a small cottage. This is Leonard telling Euan and Lawrence about his tattoos. He was great storyteller, a bit of a charmer (he bought Emmy and I roses that night - the first flowers I’ve had in years!) and a larger than life character.

Photo: Stephen Bate

There was Lawrence from Ireland who is a boat designer and skipper. Thanks to my story about the sheep and Andrews’s sense of humour, the two L’s ended up being known as ‘Lawrence Potato’ and ‘Lawrence Sheep’.. Irish Lawrence is living in Piriapolis designing and overseeing the building of a boat from what we could make out but we didn’t meet his wife who is sailing their yacht back to the UK (solo) to start in a race from UK to the US. Clearly a legend in her own right!

The first night we were there a storm set in and it didn’t stop. The rain and wind were unbelievable (we wondered if Gambo might tip off her stays?) and this bucket filled up between 0600 and 1400. It might not look like much but believe me, it was a lot of water.

Photo: Stephen Bate

We were soaked within seconds of leaving the cabin and the wind nearly blew us over. It really was rather extreme and the wind whistling through the masts was quite a wonderful sound. Andrew, Abby and Jo bravely invited us over and we ended up spending most of the day sitting with them drinking coffee, eating pastries, nattering and playing cards. We all ventured out later in the day, even Lucy in her little pink coat

Lucy even had her own tiny life-jacket and harness – the latter being an essential item as Lucy clambered over that boat with remarkable ease and was only going to get faster! What better toys can a kid need than shackels and rope! I'm serious - a boat is a real kids playground I reckon.

In town there was water everywhere and gale force winds were forecast for that night so there was more in store.

We didn’t know anything about Gambo when we arrived but it turns out she’s a rather famous boat! She’s done expeditions way down around the bottom of the world to Antarctic and around the waters of NZ and she’s been pitch-poled (capsizing end-over-end – imagine it?!) off the south cape of Chile – an event that left the crew silent with shock for days apparently. Miraculously no one was seriously injured. Before being repainted she had a huge Welsh dragon on one side of the bow and a Canadian Maple leaf on the other, so fairly distinctive and while we were there a chap came to ask if it was the same boat that was on the cover of some international yachting magazine five years ago.

The second day we were there the weather cleared so we went up the hill to check out the views. This is Lawrence, Euan and I.

There was a good view of the marina (Gambo is to the immediate right of the crane).

About one in every four men we’ve seen in Uruguay carry a gourd of maté, some sort of tea that’s sucked up through a metal straw designed to filter out the leaves and twigs.

Its huge here and guys often carry round a thermos of hot water to top up the tea when it dries out. The hard core drinkers carry round a big leather bag that looks like an over-sized binocular case, inside which is a couple of thermoses and extra tea. The gourds themselves look quite scungy and most were nearly full of dried up tealeaves.

We spent a lot of time just sitting around talking and there were so many interesting stories to hear and we thought it was miles more interesting than looking at buildings or other sights! L to R is Irish Lawrence, South African Dael, Kiwi Lawrence, Welsh/English Stephen and Can’t-see Euan (because his hair is too long! His £1 haircut has expired well and truly).

Lawrence was out in the pouring rain that morning, hanging out all the wet weather gear for a wash then dry. Then he went up the mast to do some measurement. Seemed to me like not such a good plan given the wind at the time.

I tell you what, getting up and down this ladder after a few beers was a bit of a mission. To make matters worse, the marina toilets were locked at midnight. Fine for the guys but for the girls it was pretty awful!

This is Lucy who was meant to be going to sleep but kept peeking out from under the cover.

It was such a lovely evening and, to make us even more reluctant to leave, we’d been invited by the Germans to a dinner. Emmy and Werner set up a makeshift table, complete with tablecloth, and made us all dinner – a traditional Brazilian dish (for the life of me I can’t remember the name) of slow-cooked beans and meat with rice. It tasted so good and the setting, in between two boats, was second to none.

This was the morning we left. The boys had been out and not returned until dawn but I’m not sure they’d have noticed how still the water was (I’d baled out just after midnight so was feeling fine).

Euan and Lawrence were first back at 6am, followed by Stephen at 8am and Dael crawled in at 8.30am. We had to be up at 8am and gone by 8.30am and Euan, on less than two hours sleep, was moving pretty slowly. Jo, Lucy, Abby and Andrew were up to say goodbye and Andrew came with us to the bus station. Lucy was also quite taken with my sheep luggage label.

There was no waking Lawrence to say goodbye so we wrote him a note and while Stephen woke I don’t think he’ll remember a thing! As for Euan, well, I had a very sleepy, dopey, stinky bus companion all the way to Colonia, where we were catching the ferry back to BA.

Montevideo, Uruguay 19-21 February 2009

2009-02-27T20:36:00.012Z

After four days days in BA we caught a ferry across to Uruguay. It’s a bit of a sore point for us and one we’re not talking about anymore as we were both a bit stupid, had a long wait for the ferry (like all day) and ended up in Montevideo instead of Colonia. We felt slightly less stupid when a dishevelled Aussie chap turned up next to us saying he’d slept in and missed the ferry he’d paid for and had to fork out double for a more expensive ticket.

View Larger Map

As it turned out, there was a purpose behind all this as waiting round for the ferry and the events that followed set a wonderful course for our brief time in Uruguay. I was waiting with my backpack in the ferry terminal and heard a voice behind me say “I like your sheep”. I thought “Huh? What sheep??” then remembered that I had a big sheep luggage label on my backpack.

I turned round and got chatting with Lawrence, a Kiwi who is working on a boat in a place called Piriapolis on the coast of Uruguay. While I don’t think Lawrence will ever utter those words about a sheep again in his lifetime, he, Euan and I ended up hanging out waiting for the ferry then travelled across to Uruguay together.

Lawrence was in BA having a look around but also to buy a toilet for the boat. As a result, he was lugging this large box around and all the customs people wanted to know what was in it.

Euan was playing at being translator but didn’t know the Spanish word for an actual toilet. I was most amused but even more so when Euan chose to ask someone, who was completely unrelated to all the toilet conversations thus far, what the word for toilet was in Spanish. This chap just looked at Euan like he was a bit of a weirdo, then said in English “you mean number one or number twos?” at which point I just about dissolved. As it turned out, customs thought we were all travelling together so checked the toilet in under Euan's name so Euan ended up transporting a toilet into Uruguay. Lawrence was happy to deny all knowledge and we were just glad that it actually was a toilet!!

As an aside (and I enjoyed hearing this wee story), Lawrence had caught a lift to BA from Uruguay on a boat owned by a Kiwi ex-farmer. The story goes that this farmer went on holiday overseas, realised that there was more to life than tractors and super hard graft for little gain, returned to the farm, sold it, bought a yacht and took off. They’ve been on the go for years apparently.

Montevideo is Uruguay’s largest city, home to half the population of Uruguay and an OK place to spend a few days (but not many more). The best thing was that we caught up with Matt (who we met and stayed with in Valdivia, Chile) and it was great to see him again. Last time we saw him he was embarking on a 40-hour bus trip from Valdivia to Buenos Aires.

Matt has helped us out heaps; he’s pointed us in the direction of good, cheap and clean accommodation on more than one occasion and even booked and paid a deposit on a place for us in Montevideo. Euan's jokingly started referring to Matt as our ‘Latin America Travel Agent’.

Anyhow, while Montevideo isn’t the most exciting place, there is some cool architecture. This is the main square and the clock tower you can see in the background has the words London-Paris on it.

This was a rather confused museum, housing a collection of Uruguay money as well as a load of gaucho gear.

This is the Palacio Taranco, once the highest building in Latin America and remains Montevideos highest structure. Not the nicest looking building we saw…

We had a look around the theatre but they wouldn’t let us in the main area as there were opera singers rehearsing. I had a rather surreal moment sitting on the polished marble floor outside the ladies loos waiting for Euan. Someone walked past me and into the toilets then I got the fright of my life when this huge booming voice started singing warm-up scales in the toilet! It got louder and louder and higher and higher and when Euan came to find me I just put my finger to my lips and we listened to this woman practicing in the toilet. We waited to see who came out and got a shock when this tiny, tiny woman, no more than 5’2” walked out. It was quite strange as when we went upstairs there were all these people walking around and all of a sudden, with no warning, they’d let loose singing some part of an opera.

Inside this smoky steel structure was a load of parillas (grills). These places do a roaring trade and we couldn’t believe the meat on offer.

This is a typical grill, absolutely laden with ….meat, meat and more meat.

These guys go through the rubbish and collect what they can for recycling. While most of the horses seemed to be treated OK, they seemed pretty void of any personality

and all wore these ridiculous hats.

Now this was just plain weird. The country is clearly still poor and trying to catch up from the economic crash in 2002 yet there is this massive structure dedicated to General Artigas, father of Uruguay. His ashes are guarded round the clock by armed guards and I have no idea how they stay awake in the dimly lit room.

A few kilometres from the main square, down a dead straight road is the Palacio Legislativo

It is an impressive building in a poor setting but at least it has nothing to compete with

and some of the detailed carving was magnificent

While we enjoyed catching up with Matt, there wasn’t much to keep us in Montevideo. It’s not the worlds most exciting place and isn’t a patch on BA. After two nights we decided to go visit Lawrence in Piriapolis, about 1 ½ hours bus ride up the coast.