South American Beginning

Hola, Have made our way quite quickly from Santiago in Chile to Bolivia, for the intention of being in a cheaper country and staying for a while in the one place. We took a 24 hour bus ride north from Santiago to a place called Calama and then another couple of hours to San Pedro which is near the Bolivian border. Here we stayed for 3 nights, did some activites, i.e. biking, and seeing sunsets and lakes. It´s the Atacama Desert, so very dry and very, very dusty. Painfully so. The town itself has character and loads of really nice restaurants. It´s the place to take tours across into Bolivia. So this is what we did for 3 days. There was 6 of us in our 4WD, a couple we had met in Santiago - Elika and Rick from the UK and a couple they had met on their way up - Lorna and James from the UK. Brits everywhere. Once over an unofficial, quite dogy looking border crossing in the middle of the desert (that Ian managed to ask in Spanish for 90 days on our visa instead of the usual 30 days - well done him), we started our 4WD experience. It´s hard to describe. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But spectacular mountains and colours. No proper roads - how on earth our non-english speaking guide knew where to drive, or which mutiple track tyres to follow is beyond me. Probably the coldest place on earth, or so it felt. Bumpy. Long days. Stopping at lakes and accommodation in the middle of nowhere. The altitude took us to over 5000 metres at some points. This meant cold nights. Surprisingly we managed to be warm with our rented sleeping bags and multiple blankets, but had trouble sleeping, as the air was so dry and the altitude gave you headaches. The asprin came in handy! The whole reason we put ourselves through this was to see the Uyuni Salt Flats (the biggest in the world!!) We are now in Sucre for up to 1 month. After a bumpy 10 hour bus ride. It´s a town with loads of character and the weather is much better here. We had a lunch yesterday with Elika and Rick (main meal of the day) for under 2 pounds - bread, entree, soap, main, desert and tea. Of course didn´t need to eat last night! We have been lucky to find ourselves a lovely place to stay for 7 pounds and have paid for a week upfront. The luxuries of your own hot shower and Sky TV. We are booked into Spanish classes to start on Monday and have 4 hours a day for 5 days, and then have to do a couple of hours outside class each day, so it´s pretty intense. But that´s OK because we would like to be fluent before we leave Sth America, and intend on picking up some extra classes in Equador and maybe elsewhere. Had our exam this morning to work out where we are at and only managed to write my name and email address, out of a two page document asking you to fill in the gaps using adjectives and verbs in Spanish! All I know is single words (not sentences), so I could have written a list. The oral exam also didn´t really go that well. Half the time I guess what people are saying, by picking up a couple of words. Ian has actually been studying the phrase book, so I´m intending on learning off the back of him! Looking forward to staying still, learning Spanish and getting to know the town. We are starting off lessons in a group of 4. We do have the option in our second week to just be in a class on your own, and we will also consider living with a family, to help us practice it aswell.

For the chocolate lovers out there!! Me and Lorna. 

Ian�s actually not quite happy with the lack of precise positioning for this photo! Fussy bugger! 

The crew on the famous salt flats in Bolivia - Ian and myself, Elika and Rick and Lorna and James 

Hours of fun on the Salt Flats 

Some altitude training!!!! 

The famous flamingo�s that you can see on some of the lakes on the journey 

Our 4WD 

Freezing!!!!! One of the many lakes we encountered in the middle of nowhere 

There was 6 of us oon our 3 day tour, plus our 4WD driver 

James and Lorna (UK) 

Rick and Elika (UK) 

Our dodgy looking border crossing from Chile into Bolivia 

Our San Pedro in Chile to Uyuni tour 

Same, same 

Layered up to the max. Valley of the Moon for sunset 

The wind and sand was terrible!! 

Riding through Devils Gorge in San Pedro 

Ian pretending to take a slip at the fortress 

San Pedro, at the 12th century fortress, and heading towards Devils Gorge on the bikes 

Biking in San Pedro, Chile 

Fiji

"Bula" from Fiji. The place where the pace is slow, the islands are basic but beautiful, and all you seem to do is fill in time between eating. We chose to spend the 3 weeks here hopping between the Yasawa Islands, which are north west of the mainland. We have a boat pass that allows us to move between the islands, so we've chosen to stay on 4 islands for 4 nights each and also 2 nights on a large cat. (boat) that moves around a certain area around the middle islands. It felt like we were going to be here forever!! With so much time on our hands, there was a lot of reading, sun worshiping, eating of course and some walks, and swimming. This may sound very sad, but I had so much time on my hands that I hand wrote these emails as a draft! Four hours from the mainland was the furtherest island of Nacula, and our first stop, at Malbravo Resort. All the locals on each island are related in some way and run the resorts. We had a thatched roof bure (hut) - basic, with just a bed and mosquito net. The food was really nice, although there was a lot of rice. There is a boarding school on the island where the local kids stay during the week, and the 4 villages got together one Saturday for a game of rugby. It was going to take one and a half hours to walk from our resort to this match, so about half way we came across a lovely beach and decided to stay there, and miss the game. We had a great laugh with three Irish travelers, Shelia, Ester and Gerard, and one night when the resort ran out of beer, we got our bottle of Fijian Vodka out and had a party. I did some silly dancing and Ian joined the local men in a cava session. Cava is a local drink made from a plant root, mixed through water and strained through a dishcloth - aka muddy water; and the locals drink it daily. A local woman told me that it makes you lazy. It makes your mouth go numb, you feel relaxed, and it's hard to know whether you feel drunk or high. It has given many tourists upset stomachs. Most of the time I was able to avoid it. In the end I had one bowl of it. It was slightly gritty and not that pleasant. Then onto Nanuya Lailai Island at Gold Coast Resort. The island was infested with mosquito's and even our mosquito nets over our bed, our mosquito coils, room spray and body spray was not enough. Ian never gets bitten and even he wasn't spared. A nice walk over the island took you to "The Blue Lagoon", where Brooke Shields starred in the early 80's movie. There is also a resort here that costs USS1500 a night, with a min. of 6 nights. A honeymoon couple that were diving with Ian were there for12 nights!!! We did treat ourselves to lunch at another place, and Ian completed his Dive Master training, that he had started in Thailand. For those Gippsland people, there was apparently a family from Neerim Sth on one of the islands (so a girl from Berwick told me). Then to Waya LaiLai Island and Resort. This was the best one. Our bure had a bathroom, a sink and even a mirror. There were no mosquito's, there was a great walk to the top of a rocky mountain that overlooked all the islands, and there was a huge drinks selection (which is always a bonus). There were some cultural activities and great food. Although I've been carrying around my watercolour paints they haven't come out much, because I get a little frustrated, not really knowing the proper techniques. We met a couple from the UK, John and Shelia, and Shelia had a watercolours book with exercises in it. Well this excited me, and I spent a whole morning practicing the techniques and exercises. Hopefully they will come out more often now. The Wanna Taki Cruise around the Naviti and Nanuya Balava Islands was next. It was a large cat with a large open area inside full of bunk beds and 3 curtained off areas for doubles. It's airconditioned, the showers are hot (the resorts weren't), the food was fantastic and they have DVD's to watch (for our dose of TV). We swam (snorkeled) with Manta Rays, had hermit crab races (Ian's "Red Rum" won - free beers for us), there were silly but funny games, swimming off the boat, loads of reading and sunbathing. This was also a favourite of ours and would highly recommend it!! Ian went diving here as well, and he felt that it was better than before. Coconut Bay Resort on Naviti Island brought us crashing back down to earth again. Initially we were disappointed after the last 2 great places, and even tried to move, without any luck. There was actually nothing wrong with this place, it was just unfortunate that our resorts weren't in a different order, having the best, last. We did enjoy drinking red wine watching the sunset on our couch outside our bure, the locals were really friendly and welcomed and farewelled you will singing and music (everyone can play the guitar), the boys would dance at night in grass shirts and cheeky smiles (wiggling their hips), and we did have a traditional Fijian feast that was cooked in the ground. We also visited the village, via a long and wet boat trip, to meet the Chief, buy some locally made crafts and have the children from the school sing us some songs at the tops of their voices. The only disappointing thing was going to a church service. On some of the other islands, the church services were apparently in Fijian, there was apparently great singing and afterwards you were invited home to have a meal with a family from the village. It sounded like a truly cultural experience. Ours, there was one or two locals, all tourists, the service was held in English with a power point presentation and bad karoke for hymns. It was really bad. We returned to Auckland, New Zealand for 3 nights and stayed once again with Jason and Jacque (that we had traveled with in China), before flying to Chile, South America on the 9/07/05.

The kids loved entertaining us visitors to their island 

We visited a school where the enthusiastic children sang for us 

The locals preparing to cook a fish wrapped in palm leaves in the ground 

Ian won the hermet crab race 

We stayed on boat for 2 nights - the food was fantastic!