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Hey there all!!
Am now just chilling in Buenos Aires, on the wind down now as due to fly back to England this friday :-( . . . . . . .
On the other hand have continued to have great fun in South America since i last posted.
Spent 4 days on Easter Island - 2,400 miles west of Santiago, Chile, in the middle of the Pacific ocean. The main aim here was to explore the various sites on the Island that held the famous Moai statues - (sometimes) imposing stone statues, representing the heads of the Islands former tribes. Basically the bigger the head, the more respect was handed out to your tribe. Kind of like a Chav and his/her shell suits.......
Hired a car out here to make it easier to get around and explore too. Visited several beautiful volcanic lagoons, numerous Moai statues sites, some nice beach areas to watch sunsets, a museum and two off licences. The campsite/hostel - camping Mihinoa was ideally situated and very well equipped. Right on the coast of the island, with the waves creating spray that could reach the campsite and some lovely areas to chillax. It wasa rumoured that this is where all the Easter eggs are made, but after extensive searching with my friends, i can confirm this is almost certainly not the case :-( .
And yet again i can´t post any of my fantastic pictures with the Maoi statues as the computers here are s...
This was followed by another couple of nights in Santiago before taking a nice night coach to Pucon, home of the grand smoking Volcan Villarrica. Another charming town, kind of Western Style - though more Alpine like in feel with all the wooden huts and houses and the constant smell of burning fires. Stayed here at a cool little Hostel called "Etnico Pucon", which was formerly a nunnery! Main activities to be done around here were of the outdoorsie type - lots of hiking, bicycling, climbing and trekking. The big thing i did here was climbing the Smoking Volcano..This involved a 6am wake up call to get ready and equipped, using some cool gear like crampons ice-picks and full cold weather gear. Also taking along food and water supplies. The climb itself was quite easy (ahem) and only up to 3,000 metres above sealevel, but took around3 1/2 hrs, going through rocky ash bits, rocky bits, snowy/rocky bits and some seriously steep snowy slopes - but it was all truly worthwhile once at the top. Was a fairly calm day wind wise, for the scenery not me, so the smoke was going straight up but you could still get the very distinctive smell of sulphur and see the yellow covered parts of the craters faces......we stopped here for doing some cool photo poses and for a spot of lunch. Well i didn´t as i ate alll mine on the way up and was kindly given a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich by a cool American called Matt. The way down was even more fun. It involved us putting on some re-inforced plastic pants on and doing several "slides" down the volcano, using our icepicks as brakes!! Prob only took around 1 1/2 hrs to get down, then celebrated that evening with some of the other climbers by getting a few Caipirinha´s and Cerveza´s down.
Next stop was over the Argentinian/Chilean border to San Martin de Los Andes - another beautiful lagoon side small town. DIdn´t do to much here other then a lot of walking, shopping and eating!!
Mendoza was the next place to feel the full force of the Tobster. Now i´m sure you´ve all heard of Mendoza and why its famous but for those of you who are thick i mean aren´t aware - WINE! AND LOTS OF IT!!! Did a fantastic wine tour with a company called mr Hugo, visited 7 wineries and got good samples in each one! Travelled between them via bicycle and in our group of 4 there was only one wipe out - and that was actually before we´d had anything to drink!!! Didn´t see much else of Mendoza except the wineries, but it did have a nice central Plaza and quite a few cool bars and clubs to go to at night!!
After this was another overnight bus to Buenos Aires, to stay in the fantastic Hostel America del Sur. Met up with Norwegian friends again and spent several days wandering the streets looking for Tango shoes (not for me - for the girls) visiting market stalls, boutique shops, antique shops and restaurants that sold nice beef steaks! This wasn´t hard as there are so many here - but scored a beauty just around the corner from the hostel and went there 3 nights in a row!!! Also took an open top tour-bus ride around the whole city and the next day spent a day walking around the Boca area - close to the football stadium - with its wonderfully coloured streets, dwellings and shops.
The same night took yet another 20hr overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu, in the northern part of Argentina, the site of the incredible Iguazu waterfalls. This was indeed a top three moment on my trip, the size of the falls and the noise generated by the falling water was awesome! Got to do a boat ride to the bottom of the falls and was able to grab some great scenic photos. Saw some cool little Tapir animals which my friends and i played with too and which we obviously didn´t feed Oreo cookies and let play with a yellow rubber duck. Oops....... I spent the next day revisiting the trails i´d already done plus a couple more then the evening was spent at a couple of bars and a club:-)
Now, i´m back in BA. Only a few days to go until i fly fly back to England :-(
But that´ll be the start of a new adventure - - - - - - for those that don´t know, all will be revealed!!!
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