Buenos Airies June 08 First of all, massive thanks to Bro and Hollers for coming over to visit us. I had a superb 30th birthday , cheers. The two weeks with the above two didn't start as smoothly as we would have liked ! We had arranged a flightfrom Rio to Buenos Airies the night before Bro and Hollers'arrival, we landed around midnight, got into a hotel near the airport knowing that we wouldn't be getting much sleep. In bed around 2am , we were then back in the arrivals at 7.45am. We prepared our 'welcome signs'and then the long wait [View Full Entry]

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Rio June 08 'At least we have a flight next ´ is what I was thinking as our 4th 24 hour bus in 9 days headed into Rio. We had booked a flight back to Buenos Airies so we could have as long as possible in Rio before meeting up with Bro and Hollers. Once we had arrived we dropped the bags off at the hostel and then went straight to Copacabana beach , which was brilliant especially as it had been cold in Argentina. As we walked along the beach Cabbie was looking forward to seeing his first thong clad, [View Full Entry]

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Iguauzu falls Brazil side May 08 To cut a long story short and because we are so far behind .............. Iguazu Falls were amazing , loads of water falling off cliffs ...........lovely. We will let the pictures speak for themselves. ( Fozzy , you can stick the 'not enough detail comments´ , come back when you´ve done 40 god damn blogs ! ) The only funny bit of the day was the Coati´s taking a liking to me or my crisps , Gill thought it was quite funny because i *hit myself ! ( I had seen the claws and teeth [View Full Entry]

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Bariloche May 08 We arrived in Bariloche around midday after the overnight bus from Mendoza. We had heard a lot about the buses in Argentina and this one didn´t let us down ! The food was good, there was wine, champayne and even bingo ! Sometimes a hostel makes a place, this was definitely the case with the Marco Polo hostel. As soon as we got off the bus a guy from the hostel was there to ferry us to our new home, he really surprised us when informing us not only breakfast but dinner was included as well ! Unheard [View Full Entry]

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Mendoza May 08 We were really excited about arriving in Argentina as we had heard so many good things about it and we weren´t disappointed! On the first evening, we got into Mendoza about 11pm and decided to go straight out and sample some steak and Malbec. It was fantastic, I think the fact that the whole meal only cost us about 8 pounds so made it taste even better! We decided to have an early night and headed back to our superb hotel room ( less than a tenner for a suite, nice kicthen , sitting area, massive bathroom ....etc [View Full Entry]

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Santiago May 08 We were really looking forward to arriving in South America, it felt like proper travelling again, although we absolutely loved New Zealand it is very similar to England (culturally) and obviously they speak English so it´s just a bit too easy. When we arrived in Santiago we got into a taxi and immediately started to practice the little spanish we had learnt. "Que Tal?" I asked the driver but he didnt reply ´bien gracias´ like it says in my phrase book so already I was lost, not a great start and my spanish has barely improved since then! [View Full Entry]

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May 08 - Rotorua and Auckland So , on the road again. This time at least not too far from Taupo to Rotorua. The weather was beginning to annoy us to say the least ! The drive from Taupo to Rotorua in decent weather would be superb, there is a lot of thermal activity along the way ( Can´t explain this without sounding like a geeky scientist ! ) . Its really strange to drive by some countryside and see many patches of steaming bushes along the way ! We were going to stop along the way at the Champayne pools, [View Full Entry]

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Wellington & Taupo April 08 We drove our ´happy´ campervan onto the ferry and set off to the North Island. The ferry crossing itself is supposed to have beautiful scenery but unfortunately the weather was still rubbish and all we could see in any direction was white mist. To make matters worse it was the end of the school holidays so the ferry was infested with hundreds of unruly brats running around screaming. We decided to go to the ferry´s cinema to pass the time in relative peace. Two hours later, we had arrived in Wellington. We really liked Wellington, there [View Full Entry]

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Kaikora & Nelson April 08 We had been looking forward to visiting Kaikoura due to it´s whale and dolphin trips which we had heard so much about. We made our way over from the South Islands west coast the the east coast, the drive took longer than we had anticipated. Obviously the van wasn´t so keen on hills, most of them I was doing in 2nd gear with my foot to the floor, to cut a long story short we needed a break. We stopped off at Moira thermal pools. We stayed there for about two hours, having a dip in [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand - Queenstown/Arrowtown/Wanaka/Haast Pass/Fox/Franz Josef April 08 After a few more days in Queenstown we decided it was time to leave. Just half an hour down the road is the really pretty town of Arrowtown, there isn´t really much to do there, its just a quaint little place which looked beautiful with the Autumn leaves and colours everywhere. We had a stroll around the town, had a coffee, took some pictures and then made our way to Wanaka. Wanaka is another beautiful town next to a huge lake ( called Lake Wanaka would you believe ) . We went to [View Full Entry]

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