Bariloche

Next stop - Bariloche, which has gotten raving reviews for its scenery and chocolate. It seems a place that can not be missed.

We got off our 16 hour 2 bus trip from Mendoza a bit tired, a long trip during which we were treated to two (thats right not one but two!) games of bingo where we managed to win absolutely none of the bottles of wine offered as prizes. We did make a decent dent in the wine offered with dinner though, and the champagne. Did we mention that we like the Argentinian buses despite their poor selection of movies??

The first day we spent finding our hostel, getting settled, doing the shopping and trying to get a few glimpses of the Olympics. After a long bus ride we figured we needed to charge the batteries in order to get ready for some hiking among the many lakes and peaks around here. The hostel we're staying at is about 15 km outside of the town, which means we have a lot of the trails just around the corner.

For our first hiking day, we decided to tackle the little knoll of Cerra Campanario. There is a skilift that could have taken us to the top but we decided to hike up. And the view at the top was spectacular, even though it was raining and there were loads of low clouds around. At the top there was also a coffee shop with massively overpriced coffee, but in the cold rain it was very welcome and appreciated.




After an extended break at the peak, we ventured down and hopped on a bus that would take us to a paleontological museum, well, we waited for 40 minutes for it to show up first. Thats arguably Bariloches 3rd claim to fame, there are a lot of well preserved dinosaur bones found in the region and some of them are huge. I'm sure paleontologists will claim its bariloches first claim to fame, but after visiting the site, we were not so sure. We got to what we were told was a museum but it turns out it was a theme park - but not just any themepark. This was "the most important themepark in South America". It consisted of a 250-300 meter long trail with scale models of dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs. And when they ran out of dinoraurs they filled the rest with gnomes and witches on broomsticks. No matter if you call it a museum or "The most important themepark in South America", the verdict is still disappointing. So on the 3rd claim to fame, this jury is still out.

Our second day in Bariloche we decided to not challange the rain and went into town instead, where we visited some of the many chocolate stores. And there are many. There are all kinds of varieties, combinations and constructions available. A lot of these shops also double in selling local fruit and beer from micto breweries. At the end of the day when we got back we had gotten some dark chocolate (really good) a lot of pralines (excellent ) and two bottles of beer. The chili beer will have to wait a little while but the chocolate beer has been consumed (a little on the sweet side bit that was kind of expected).

There will be a few days more of hiking to come, and the weather is supposed to take a turn for the better. We're looking forward to getting some nice photos to share...

From white water to red wine

Mendoza is a place most people visit for two reasons, adventure sports and wine. With some White water rafting and a cycle tour through the vineyards we put a tick in both of those boxes.

On Valentines day we jumped into a van early in the morning (well 9.30..) which would take us about an hour or so up into the Andes where there are grade 3 - 6 white water rapids. We can safely mention this now since we got out unharmed and it is unlikely our insurance agents will ever read this. At the basecamp we were kitted out with our wetsuits, life jackets, water resistant sweaters, helmets and anythign else you needed to look absolutely ridiculous but feel a bit more comfortable on/in the river which fed from melted glaciers in the mountains very high up in the Andes. The water up there is cold, very cold we noticed soon after our safety briefing. A briefing that surmounted to three pieces of simple advice

• dont fall out
• if you do, try to get back in the raft quickly
• if the safety kayaks try to save you, try not to flip them over, they will get wet and upset.

Which all sounds very sensible.

So after some exercises to make sure we'll not do something stupid we set out on the river,which seemed a bit calm for white water rafting. And in adition, the water looked very much more chocolatey than white. The water was a bit low and slow, but even so we did hit a few rapids that were quite interesting where we got completely soaked and nearly fell out. We kept in the raft all the way though, and we had loads of fun.





Since this was Valentines day we went out for dinner, traditional Argentinian parrillada, with some nice local wine. Dinner was followed by a nice 'death by chocolate' dessert accompanied by a chocolate Marguarita. All in all a nice way to spend Valentines day.







Next morning, almost as early, we were again picked up by a van - this time to be deposited in wine country, where we picked up our bikes and headed out among the vines. The Maipu Wineries maily focus on red wine and the most popular is Malbec, which is one of our favourite varieties so we had high hopes for this day. Though not as scenic as the Barossa valley or Marlborough, the wines certainly made up for it and some of the vineyards had stunnig views of the Andes and endless fields of grapes and olives. If you get a change to lay your hands on some Tempus Alba or Vina Maria, take it, they had some varieties that were fantastic. And true to our habits, we are now carrying some of Mendozas fines grape produce in our bags.

The jungle - day dos

After retiring at around 9pm, we woke up bright and early in the morning for our pre-breakfast excursion. This turned out to be a canoe ride for just Johan and myself and our guide, Moises and we had to help with the paddling! The morning is comfortably cool and it was clear that the birds also agreed because they were out in full glory. I wish I could remember the names of all the birds that we saw, I hear that there is a checklist that we can use to record what we've seen so I will try to source one of them. The best part of the trip was seeing the calmness of the river and the refection of the jungle in it.

Breakfast was the usual delicious food and soon afterwards was time for our walk. We took a boat to the place were some of the others were meant to go camping the night before but their guide got ill so they couldn't go so we proceeded to take the walk around the lake. It was a long and hot walk, too hot for many of the animals though we did manage to see some tiny night monkeys up a tree and lots of birds including a tucan - though I didn't see that one...

Pirana fishing
After lunch, several others arrived from Iquitos and another traveller, a nice medical student from California, joined our group. The afternoon excursion was a trip to go fishing for piranas on the river. Very exciting! We travelled for a bit by boat to where the piranas were and Moises showed us how to bait the hook, make a circle in water lilies and drop our hook deep into the water. Within seconds I got the first bite, a tiny little thing that had to be thrown back. We fished in a couple of spots, finally finishing with about 8 acceptable fish including one that Johan caught! They have promised that we will be able to eat them tonight... I hope so :)

After dinner (yes we ate piranas and yes they were delicious) we went out again on to the river by night with the new group that arrived at lunch time today. Again I was amaized by the number and beauty of the stars. With no artificial lights to compete with, we really had the chance to see the stars the way our ancient forefathers would have seen them. The sky was clear and the moon was yet to rise so they were displayed in all their splendor. Wonderful. And then the moon rose - full and low and a yellowish-orange colour... A sight I will remember always.

The next few days were just as amazing as the first two however they were so visual that it's hard to just describe them so we've created a photo album for you to see.

Peru

Hello Jungle

Much of the next few posts were written out in the jungle where we had no electricity or internet access to upload them

So much can happen in just 24 hours that we find ourselves needing to record this as we are already beginning to forget some of the amaizing things that we have already seen.

To Muyuna
As expected in the morning we headed down towards the river (not the Amazon we discovered but one of its tributaries), and boarded our boat which would take us the 3 hours to our lodge deep in the middle of the Amazon jungle. After about 15 minutes the water changed colour from the dark brown to the light brown of the Amazon. Wow. We kept saying to each other "I can't believe that we're on the Amazon!". Pretty cool. Pretty soon however, the noise of the boat engine and the unrelenting jungle on both sides lulled us both into sleep, broken for a few minutes by a stop at the last big village (7000 people) before we reached to our Lodge.

Muyuna lodge was more than we expected though I have to admit that I'm not sure exactly what I expected. We met our guide, Moises, and after a delicious lunch where we met some of the others staying here, we went to our private bungalow. We expected not to have any electricity or hot water, but we didn't expect a beautiful thatched covered room set high on stilts overlooking the river with a generous balcony complete with a relaxing hammock. The entire room was surrounded with mosquito netting and our ensuite bathroom with separate shower was more than we imagined. We will definately enjoy our time here.

The first activity of the day was a walk through the jungle starting at 3pm in the afternoon. We donned our longed sleaved shirts, long trousers and the wellington boots that we hired in town and headed off into the jungle following our trusty guide, Moises. It wasn't long before we were attacked by mossies and for the second time on this trip I was thankful for the fly net that I bought back in the Outback of Australia. Seems that it works just as well on mossies as on flies. Moises was soon pointing out different plants and birds to us. THere was a plant whose leaf juice is good for burns, another mushroom that needs to be dried for several days before it is good to eat. We saw some parrots, hawks and a toad which was undistinguishible from a leaf, until it jumped. We saw a group of tiny marmaset monkeys playing in the bush, beautiful kingfisher and loads of termite and ants nests. Plus we had a great walk through the jungle. A great start.

Now a word about the mosquitos
We could dedicate an entire post to the unique Amazonian mozzies or wax lyrical in several posts about them until you are board stiff however we will try not to. Suffice to say, they are hugh, plentiful and have more persistance than your average mozzie. I will be hard pressed to find their equal anywhere in the world. They are the one thing that we could definately do without on this trip however I suppose that if we didn't have them to constantly consider, we would find time to worry about some of the many other nasties that live in this jungle.

After another scrummy dinner, we headed out onto the river on a little motorised boat in the darkness with Moises at the helm with a spotlight darting through the trees and bush. Not spotting any animals in the bush, we came to a little lake covered with water lily plants and came to a stop. Moises bent over the side of the boat and seconds later came up with a baby Caiman! He started to talk about its size and weight but none of us were listening to what he was saying, we were fully focused on the creature in front of us that he was holding. What a sight! Perfectly formed with strong hind legs and smaller front legs I touched his tail which was scaly and covered with some kind of moss that grows there. Wow! Moises put it back into the water and we were on our way back to the lodge.

What an incredible day, and we have 4 and a half days left. Each day can't be this good...

The mighty Amazon

You guessed it, after travelling for just over 20 hours (of which less than half was spent in the air, the rest in empty and closed airports) , we have arrived in Iquitos in Peru. Now Iquitos is a good sized town (400k people) situated in the middle of the Amazon jungle. It is so isolated that their are no roads to the town, the only way that you can get there is by plane, like we did, or by boat.

The first thing that you notice when you arrive in Iquitos, is the lack of cars. Instead almost everyone (it seemed) was travelling around on either a motorcycle or as a passenger in one of the ubiquitos converted motorcycle taxi's. Of course, when you think about it, how are they going to get cars to Iquitos? There are no roads... so either you'd have to fly (hideously expensive for the average Iquitos farmer) or by boat, which is possibly less expensive but certainly more convoluted. The lure of having a car certainly exists though and there were a few driving around, conspicous in their presence.

Weary and jet-lagged, but aware that we needed to stay awake to stay on the same time zone as everyone else, we went for a walk around town to get a feel for it.

Surprisingly, we both thought it felt a bit like Jamaica except when we wanted to communicate with anyone. Then the tables were turned.... Wherever we went, people automatically directed their conversations with us at me (I assume because of my complexion) when actually, Johan is the one that has the head for languages and the confidence to speak in Spanish. I have already lost count of the number of times that I have had to say, "no hablo Español" and point to Johan who wonderfully takes over. I do feel quite bad about it, maybe there is some way that I can start to pick up a bit more of the local lingo...

After a delicious two course lunch of chicken and fish with rice for S/ 7 each (approx £1.50) we wandered down the road in the direction of the local crafts market and stumbled across this ---> the mighty Amazon. Remarkably unspoiled, it really focused our mind on the main reason for coming to this place and now we can't wait for our time in the jungle to start.

Tomorrow morning, they will pick us up from our hotel and transfer us to a boat where we will travel for 3 hours on the Amazon to reach our lodge which will be our home for the next 4 nights. While there, we hope to go for walks in the jungle and see some of the local flora and fauna as well as sample some more of the delicious Peruvian food that we got a taste of today. Unfortunately, there is no internet access out there so we won't be updating our blog for about a week but don't worry, they haven't lost any guests yet :)

And of course, if we haven't already said it, we hope that you have a wonderful 2010. Happy New Year!!

More Jamaica Experiences

Christmas in Jamaica came and passed, and it was quite a different affair as Vaniah said. While we were getting stories from back home of kids wanting to be pulled to their day-care and pre-schools on various kinds of snow-bound transportation, we were having quite a different experience. On Christmas day, apart from what Vaniah has already told you about we were sitting out the back sipping sorrel and trying to spot the hummingbirds. In the afternoon Bolvin (Vaniahs uncle) and I also went foraging for some Sugarcane to eat, to accompany all the other exotic fruit that the garden sprouts. So not all of it was hard labour, games and food...

After that, we deserved a little break and needed a little exercise, so in true Jamaican style we went climbing. Up a waterfall. Dunn's River falls has been voted best attraction in Jamaica a couple of years running now and its very easy to understand why. You walk down to a beautiful beach (try to go on a day when no cruise ships are around, its hard to spot the sand otherwise) where the sea is warm and there is plenty of watersports available. The main attraction though is a lot more fun and the water is a little cooler, although it is probably around 21-22 degrees Celsius, but nonetheless this is a good thing. The climb itself is not that hard and the first section is definitely the worst, but it is beautiful. Along the far side there are a few side streams that meander and it feels like you are a little further away from the throng of people, if you happen to go there on cruise ship day as we did. There are also quite a few tiny pools that have been carved out where you can soak for a while and just enjoy. I think both my Mother and Bosse enjoyed it, and Bosse looked like he was 10 years younger when he was bounding up the cliffs. Actually, make that 30.

On Monday, the Ledgister clan and a lot of friends of the family descended on our Jamaican reception. It was great to finally put real-live faces to all the names from the stories Vaniah have been telling me (all good, rest assured). And for Vaniah it was equally great to see the long-lost relatives and friends. It was great to be able to celebrate our marriage with all the people who could not make it over to the actual wedding. And the food was good this time as well!!

The next day we took out route-taxi rental car down to Treasure beach on the south coast where my Mother and Bosse were staying for a few nights at Jakes. But we made sure to stop by the Appleton rum factory before, since both our guests have a taste for that particular beverage. They also enjoyed the scenery along 'the less traveled roads' (that means bad bad roads in the bush through small villages and without any signs along it)!

We made it down to Jakes though, and since we like that place so much me and Vaniah had decided that we were going to stay there a night too and show them around. We installed ourselves in the two bedroom apartment and sat down on the patio and played some dominoes, drank Red Stripe and watched the sun set in the Caribbean. Just the kind of relaxing evening we needed after a few days of functions.

And now, after driving back up to Montego Bay, spending a night with the family and packing up we are in a very very quiet (deserted) Miami International Airport as the clock ticks toward midnight on new-years eve. Jamaica treated us well this time as well, its always such a treat and an experience and we're already planning the next trip back, with some friends. Any takers???

But our next stop Peru where flights 18 and 19 (if we've counted correctly) will take us to Iquitos.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and that you will have a fantastic 2010.

Christmas in the Caribbean

Christmas Day
The day started bright and early with a few chores that needed to get done. Johan got to paint the new fence while I got to go into town to pick up some bits and pieces that had been forgotten. Not many stores were open but we found a petrol station that sold ice (a necessity in Jamaica for functions) and some other things.

We had spent the last few days cleaning and baking the Christmas cake, planning the menu and divvying up the cooking tasks for the day. Today! Christmas 09....

The day was today and we were determined to ensure that Johan's mum and Bosse, who travelled from Sweden the day before, had a real Jamaican Christmas.

The menu today consisted of:

• the Christmas ham - the one thing that Jamaicans and Swedes have in common in their celebratory meal


• fricassed chicken (complements of my lovely aunt)


• smoked salmon and marinated herring - Swedish christmas food


• potato salad


• macaroni and cheese


• a green salad


• a tomato salad

After the customary stuffing ourselves silly - a custom I believe is traditional all over the world,
we indulged in another uniquely Jamain tradition - dominos.

Now, to all who haven't played this game, or have seen it but think that it is a child's game or has something to do with lining several of them in a row and then knocking them over, think again. In Jamaica, playing dominos has been elevated to an art form, and skilled players will be able to tell you what dominos you have in your hand, and what the best domino to play will be, before you even know it yourself.

Of course, we are not at this level but over a glass of sorrel and a piece of that Christmas cake, on my parents open varandah overlooking Montego Bay, we played a few hands and thought... "this has been a very good Christmas".

Houston we have a problem

That famous movie quote is yet another reason why we've all heard of Houston, and another reason for us to check out the local space centre for an out of this world experience. But first, we were roped into a far more important job - setting up and executing a photo shoot for the most important person in the house. Of course we're talking about young Matthew, who was kind enough to pose for us for this shot.


Johnson Space Centre...
...as it is currently called is where all the action went down 20-30 years ago and when man was still excited about going into space. Admittedly the excitement has died down somewhat since then but we wanted to rekindle a bit of that wonder about space that we had while children and relive a bit what the fuss had been all about.

It was all there, the spacesuits, the real, honest to goodness control centre from the first moon landing, the rockets...



Texas Dinner
In the evening we went for an all American Texas steakhouse for some dinner, and this came highly recommended by a colleague of Neil's. We arrived to a place with an outside seating area of picnic style long tables with a certain air about them, and quite a few people were there as well. Inside was ever more 'rustic' as Suzanna put it, it looked like a saloon but with a kitchen-bar instead of a liquid one. The beer instead was in a wooden through packed with ice. Rustic indeed.

Though the food was nice, and very Texan. You had a choice of about 15 different types of meat which would be accompanied by 2 types of vegetables, out of a selection of 5. When we got to the vegetables section there was potato salad, re fried beans, rice, coleslaw and something unidentified, and when we asked if any of the vegetables included, well, vegetables the answer was a very quick and proud,

"no ma'am!... well maybe the coleslaw, i think that has carrots in it".

Classic.

A uniquely Texan experience

Killer flights
We finally arrived in Houston at 21:05 on Tuesday night after flying for 24 hours though ironically we left Auckland at 15:40 the same day. A bit of a groundhog day experience... We were very happy to see my sister at the airport, not only because it was very noce to see them but also partly because we knew it signalled the end of 30-odd hours in planes and airports.

Drop dead gorgeous baby
Of course the reason we are in Houston is to meet our newest nephew and my sisters first child, the beautiful Matthew Alexander who was born two weeks ago. So far he has been asleep most of the time that we have seen him as he hasn't quite understood yet that night is for sleeping and not day... Good thing the walls are thick in their apartment, and in some situations jetlag is quite useful! We woke up the next day after an 11-hour sleep during which we had not heard anything of Matthews alleged crying stints throughout the night.

Texas shoot em up!
Maybe it was the jet lag, or maybe we ate a strange mushroom on the plane on the way over but we thought it would be a good idea to have a truly Texan cultural experience while we were here. Going to a shooting alley.

Just to make sure it would be ok, I called them up before we went over and asked if we needed a license. The answer was no, they just needed to know that we had some experience with a handgun and if not they have a short class we could take and then it would be fine.

The place was scary! The sign on the front door let us know that they were a glock dealership and when we walked in, there were small hand guns on display in glass cabinets for you to hire and the bigger guns for purchase where on the back wall in full view. We nearly changed our mind and turned around and left when the guy at the till said (in an American accent) "Hi, can I help you". We signed up for the class, choose our gun (a glock) and waited around for our teacher.'

Shortly afterwards, this big, muscular, military looking guy turned up and led us to a classroom. He asked us some questions like "why were we taking this class?" and "how much experience did we have?" and "had we ever loaded a magazine before?". I honestly don't think that he understood that I had never shot a gun or even touched a bullet before. I tried to explain that it was illegal in the UK and that not even the police carry guns there and he definitely thought I was pulling his leg.

So we went through the basics - this is a gun, here is the safety, this is how you load the bullets (I discovered that there were actually 15 and not 6 bullets in the magazine) and this is how you aim. Then we headed to the range to shoot.

If the entrance was scary this was even more so. We passed normal looking people calmly practicing their shooting and stepped over spent shells on our way to our boothe. Our instructer was very calm and professional though which calmed my nerves a bit and after Johan showed off with his brilliant and accurate shooting, it was my turn to step up and have a go.

I guess that you never really appreciate a situation until afterwards. The first shot was rather scary and then the instructor reminded me of how to stand, aim and press the trigger and that was it. I didn't do nearly as well as Johan but I wasn't too bad either. It wasn't until afterwards when my heart stopped racing that the magnitude of it all hit me. I now know how to shoot a handgun, followed very swiftly by, what a scary place the US is! This act that in many developed countries in the world is extreemly difficult or illegal to do, is commonplace and even normal in some places in the US. Definately a defining cultural experience.

Milford Sound

We had great hope for today's cruise when we woke up. The cloud cover had lifted and we could see the full glory of the mountains around the place, and we immediately understood why these were used for the Lord Of The Rings movies. Though we could not really be sure if we were in Mordor (some of the peaks do look evil) or in Gondor/Rohan (the mountain range that housed the beacons), the answer is possibly both.




The drive to Milford Sounds sported some really stunning views of sheep farms, creeks and alps ...






Though very picturesque, the arrival at Milford was a bit disappointing since there was a very dense cloud cover present, but as it rains 6m/year hear and 2 days out of 3, the odds were not really on our side. And besides, it is still amazing to see even with the clouds even though a few warming rays of sunshine would have been nice. We are about 45 degrees south, so this is comparable to spring in the very north of Sweden (which means not that warm, 15 degrees!)

We managed to get on the ship that was going to be home for the night and started our
cruise out wrapped in our warmest clothes and everyone, including us were soon oooh-ing and aaaah-ing at the cliffs, waterfalls and the peaks breaking through the clouds. The biggest aaah was when we went under one of the waterfalls and we all got soaked (it might have been an aaaarrrggghhh but I cant be too sure, I was running at the time). Once we'd gotten into our dry clothes it was time for the water sports activities, the tally was Speedboat-18, kayaking 6, swimming-0 (12 degrees in the water). We went for the speedboat which was also a little nature and wildlife talk and spotting, so Vaniah finally managed to see some penguins and, most importantly, we kept dry.

Back on the boat it was time for dinner and of course attending the bar for a little while, before getting ready for the adventures of tomorrow (which we'll of course tell you about as soon as we recover from them).