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Published: February 16th 2007
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Chile
Its been a while since my last entry and i had almost forgotten my responsibilities to my avid subscribers of which there at least six. So here follows an account of my travels especially for them, following my progress since i left Buenas Aires up until a few weeks ago (Queenstown, New Zealand). Perhaps more than the feeling to fullfil my responsibilities to my six subscribers i really wanted to share a little video with you all that i am rather proud of. I hope it works.
I have just found out it doesn't, so in its place sits a static photo of the nevis gondola from which i jumped, i hope that surfices. I don't think it does!
So since Argentina and some problems with my plane tickets that i won't bore you with i flew to Santiago once again, the capital of Chile but this time i found myself in the middle of the Pinochet funeral celebration/shop smashing. The country didn't seem much different since i was last here but as Santiago didn't seem to offer much the first time except comfrontations with beggers accusing me of being a German and a little more broken
glass i hopped straight onto the first bus bound for the coast. It turned out to be Vina del Mar, the holiday beach spot where the Chileans go to relax and perhaps speak a little slower, well thats what i hoped. The town was nice enough if a little insipid and after the guilt of having my first Mac Donalds in a long time i felt it was only appropriate for me to seek out somewhere with a little culture to atone for my western sin.
I hopped once more, not on to a bus this time but onto a train, a real rarity in this continent and one i felt i should indulge even if it only went half an hour south and cost more than the bus. The end of the line was in the old port city of Valparaiso, a UNESCO world heritage site and a town that was said to be perhaps the most unusual and out of place in all of Latin America. The town was indeed unique, it looked as if a Dulux factory had exploded and then the town had been forgotten by time to reminice of days gone by when the
port was full of merchant ships resting after navigating cape horn. It was not the Dulux factory explosion that put Valparaiso to rest; the Panama canal killed 'Valapo' as its inhabitants affectionately call it, but i liked its dirty worn down charm and gangs of marauding stray dogs. But it was time to leave and after a week alone i was looking forward to flying over the international date line for the first time to Neuva Zelandia for christmas.
New Zealand
It seems like a million miles from South America as i have come back to earth and settled into the world i once new. Despite being at the otherside of the world to the UK, New Zealand feels like a home from home minus a hell of alot of people and plus some spectacular scenery. Here is a formula i have devised for the mathamaticians amongst you:
Uk-people+sheep-speed cameras+montains/lakes/vocanoes=New Zealand
It may seem that from many of my headings thus far i have taken any obscure connection to Lord of the Rings to heart, however here i feel justified in naming this entry Middle-earth as it does feel that at any moment a ring of
power could be thrust upon me and my life would never be the same again.
I arrived in Auckland, met up with an amigo from Peru, tried to say thankyou instead of gracias and forget all about conjugating past participles. New Zealand made sense so i did the things that had been beyond me for five months while others jumped off things attached to harnesses. I read the paper, asked intricate questions to which i would definetly be able to fathom the response and watched Coronation street, something i wouldn't even do in the UK, however it seemed appropriate here. My time to embrace gravity based tourism would be soon but for the time being i conserved the money i didn't have by becoming addicted to Su Doku.
Over the christmas period i was graciously taken in by an Auckland family with tenous links to my own but none the less made me feel apart of theres. It didn't realy feel like christmas here, if the dark cold and hail are good for anything in the UK it is making christmas feel all the more christmasy. Christmas in the summer however did afford certain benefits. Where it fell
down on the christmas lights catagory and been able to see your own breathe it excelled in the barbeque, fishing and pool based fun catagories. It is a Christmas i won't soon forget and i mush thank the Dormans for having me.
Caselli NZ tour 2007
I awited my dads arrival and after almost five months it was great to see a familiar face (to my own). We took advantage of the Dormans hospitality, stayed in Mangawhai north of Auckland for a week and then not wanting to out stay our welcome and to see the rest of NZ we resolved after a little research that we should buy a car instead of renting for 6 weeks. We flew to Christchurch in the south island to see my great uncle Arnold and marvel at Christchurches similarity to Cambridge. We launched ourselves into our quest to aquire wheels, and in typical Caselli style didn't mess about and bought a BMW three series (1989) that morning and then cruised the streets gathering supplies for our ensuing road trip. We headed south skating through Tekapo, moving on in search of clearer skies so that we could see the mountains that
we new should be visable somewhere over there. We found them just at the right time in our final day next to Mount Cook the largest peak in Australasia (see photo) After mountains had been seen, boxes were ticked and next on the hit list was Queenstown where i intended to jump of some things attached to a massive bungy cord.
A firm believer as i am in the principle of the 'deep end' and it being a better learning institution than the 'shallow end'. I sighned up to do the NEVIS bungy, so big it deserved capital letters. 440 feet, 8.5 seconds of free fall and the largest in New Zealand and i think the second or third largest in the world. (See Google) The video that conspired against my best efforts was my second jump at the K-bridge, admittedly a third the size but blue skies, great location and a crowd to please compelled me to dive backwards and go fully in the Kawarau river. It is safe to say that i am addicted and that now on my list of boxes to tick is a new box which says by it. The biggest bungy in the
world (somewhere near Hong Kong). Since then i have jumped the Kawarau bridge and the Auckland harbour bridge.
Tomorrow me, dad and Helmut (our BMW) head for the fiordlands and the Milford sound to check out some beautiful fiord that is so beautiful it isn't called a fiord it is called a sound (fiord+beauty=sound). Today i wear my free bungy jump t-shirt with pride and read residence literture about this country that has completely sucked me in and constantly shouts at me,
why don'you stay here Lee?
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mum
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amusing as ever
hi bud just read your blogg very amusing as ever. nana is wanting to show the bungy dvd to all her friends and neighbours. i think with all those jumps and traction to your neck and back you may have grown a few inch! x