Anyway, Taupo is also the skydiving capital of New Zealand, and for some strange reason, I saw fit to hurl myself out of a perfectly good aircraft at 15,000ft strapped to someone else who thankfully seemed to know more about the art of opening a parachute than I did. It was great fun, although the 60 seconds of freefall went in a flash. And the view of the lake and surrounding countryside from that angle is incredible.

written by  phileasdogg on December 18, 2008 from Taupo, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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Also met up with my mum's cousin who has done a load of research into our family history. There's all sorts in there, including convicts and bounders, aristocrats and (possibly) royalty. But of most interest is the large amount of cash and country manors there seemed to be in the family 100-200 years ago. Where the hell have they gone? Why am I still working for a living? (Not that I am right now, but you get the point). Who's squandered the loot?

written by  phileasdogg on December 20, 2008 from Auckland, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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New Zealand has been good. The scenery is undeniably spectacular, Auckland and Wellington are both friendly, unintimidating cities, and the people are very friendly too. But I think my expectations of NZ might have been a bit high - everyone I know who´s been has loved it, and it didn´t quite hit those heights for me. The weather hasn´t helped - frankly it´s no better than the English climate, but I think the bigger thing for me is that, with only 150 years of history since Europeans arrived, there´s just not much character or soul to any of the places we visited - most towns seemed carbon copies of each other - just a bunch of prefabricated, box-shaped houses and shops set along a thoroughly practical street layout. And with only 4 million people in the whole country, a lot of the places I stayed at seemed virtually deserted. It´s that more than its geography that gives it a sense (for me) of overwhelming remoteness.

But in spite of that I´ve had a good time here, especially the north island with KP. But I´m ready to move on to the final, and longest leg of the expedition, South America, with stops in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Now there´s a place that shouldn´t be short on character. Where´s that Spanish phrasebook?

written by  phileasdogg on December 25, 2008 from Auckland, New Zealand
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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It´s clear straight away that my Spanish is going to have to improve. Very quickly. Which shouldn´t be difficult seeing as I´m starting from a base of three words - Hola, Gracias and Que (and the third one is only thanks to Fawlty Towers). It´s not like being in Europe where you can be fairly sure that most people will know a bit of English, at least in the cities. Here, they don´t know any. So even the British method of just talking in English slower and louder is going to present problems. So I spent most of the second half of Christmas listening to Michel Thomas language tapes on my iPod and poring over the Lonely Planet Spanish phrasebook. Not necessarily one of my most memorable Christmas days, but needs must. And on the plus side, I´d learned enough after a few hours to book myself a bus journey over the Andes into Mendoza in Argentina tomorrow. At least I think I did. If no more blog posts follow this one then I obviously buggered it up!

written by  phileasdogg on December 26, 2008 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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I´ve been here for 3 nights, and although it´s been good to find some other English speakers, I actually haven´t done that much apart from reading and watching DVDs. Been suffering from jet lag, and have woken up at 3am every morning since arriving in South America, so been pretty tired during the day. And on top of that, I seem to have picked up some sort of infection on my lower back, with a swelling under the skin that´s quite painful to sit or lie on. I got a doctor to come out and he prescribed some antibiotics (that was a fun conversation with the chemist!) so hopefully it should sort itself out in a few days. So all in all not the greatest start to the great South American adventure!

Mendoza is Argentinian wine country, so I did manage to get out on a wine tour for half a day, but a shame to miss out on some of the hiking opportunities around here. Still, plenty of those opportunities later in the trip. And I did manage to get my first (of many) Argentinian steaks. And when you order steak, that´s just what you get - a big lump of meat on a plate. And very tasty it was too. Anyway, it´s back to Santiago today, then a flight to Rio tomorrow where I meet up with Caroline, a friend from London who I´m travelling with for the next 5 weeks. And another language to learn - my Portuguese makes me look fluent in Spanish!

written by  phileasdogg on December 29, 2008 from Mendoza, Argentina
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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Anyway, Rio is a naturally beautiful city with its mountains and beaches, but there´s been some fairly unsympathetic urban planning over the past 100 years or so, so the urban sprawl does detract a bit from the natural beauty in a way that it doesn´t in Cape Town, a similarly-sited city. Admittedly Rio´s population is much bigger than Cape Town´s. And Copacabana, where we´re staying, may have the reputation but as with Bondi in Australia, that doesn´t necessarily make it the best area. It´s choked with traffic, the beach is really crowded and it has a bit of a seedy feel to it. Ipanema, the next beach along is a much nicer area.

But anyway, Copacabana is where it all goes down on New Year´s Eve, so that´s where we headed, along with a couple of Caroline´s friends who are also out here on holiday. And it was a great night. There were about a million people down there, and all along the beach front there were street vendors selling all types of food and drink, including copious quantites of caipirinha, a drink that´s more likely to cause you to collapse through sugar OD rather than alcohol! And there was some great Latino live music going on too. The fireworks display at midnight was incredible, made even more spectacular by the presence of 7 ocean liners lined up off the coast, all lit up themselves.

In spite of the jet lag, we pushed through until 3am, then called it a night. Needless to say the following day was activity-free, though in the few days I´ve been here I´ve managed to get up the Sugar Loaf, and Corcovado which is home to the statue of Christ, and more importantly, affords a great view over the city. But perhaps the greatest thing about Rio is the juice bars which are all over Copacabana and Ipanema. They sell all manner of freshly made juices and smoothies for not much more than a pound each. I´ve come to the conclusion that a freshly squeezed mango juice with ice on a muggy afternoon in the tropics is an even better rehydrator than a cold beer, or dare I say it, a cup of English Breakfast tea!

Next stop is Paraty, a coastal resort about 250km south of Rio. Although now that it´s Brazilian holiday time, it might resemble the Costa del Sol in mid-August. Just without the fried egg and chips, or copies of the Mirror.

written by  phileasdogg on January 3, 2009 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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So having decided that we might be better on land than water, we hired some bikes the following day and ventured a few kilometres out of town to see some waterfalls nearby. Again, having reached the furthest point out from town, the heavens opened. So got thoroughly soaked on the homeward journey. Hey ho. The waterfalls were lovely!

Paraty itself is an attractive old colonial town, with some beautiful old buildings arranged on a grid system along cobbled, traffic-free streets in the old town area. It´s a major tourist resort, so is fairly easy to get by without speaking Portuguese here. And although the weather has been a let-down, it´s been a relaxing few days here, just what was needed before the next leg of the journey - two successive overnight buses, one from Paraty to Sao Paulo and one from Sao Paulo to Foz de Iguazu. Not good.

As a slight aside, I´ve noticed South Americans make the French look positively uptight when it comes to PDAs (public displays of affection). Everywhere you go there are couples draped all over each other, engaging in most acts of affection bar actually stripping off and getting down to it. I can assure you that there´s nothing that ruins an appetite quite so much as seeing a pair of septuagenarians nibbling each other´s ears at the neighbouring table!

written by  phileasdogg on January 7, 2009 from Parati, Brazil
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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Anyway, refreshed with a juice/granola breakfast snack (not quite up to Rio´s standards) we ventured forth to see the sights of Sao Paulo. And 15 hours was more than enough to see them! It´s not that it´s a particularly unattractive or unpleasant city, it just doesn´t seem to have much in the way of sights. There´s a lot of churches. And a lot of slab-sided skyscrapers that would get Prince Charles´s aesthetic radar twitching. But there´s no discernible centre to the city, just a bunch of areas loosely strung together. In the end it was quite a relief to get back on a bus, and I didn´t think I´d be saying that 15 hours earlier. Although the previous journey was only 5 hours, and this one is 16. Sooo glad we´ve booked a couple of flights for later on in the trip. I´ve had my fill of long-distance bus and train journeys on this trip!

written by  phileasdogg on January 8, 2009 from Sao Paulo, Brazil
from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs
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