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Ola!!!
Our last few days in New Zealand were spent in Rotorua, Waitomo caves, the Bay of Islands and Auckland.
In Rotorua, we went to Te Papa and Wai-o-tapu, both thermal sites with geysers, boiling mud and smelly sulphur. When people say that Rotorua stinks, it is not a reflection of the town itself (although it is quite dead and not especially attractive). Rotorua just needs some kind of giant air freshener. Some areas are worse than others, but the whole place has a general stinky sulphurous whiff about it.
Some of the thermal stuff was absolutely incredible. I loved the boiling mud and bubbling pools of water, although struggled to compute that it is all natural and not powered by the national grid... We also spent a relaxing few hours in the Polynesian spa in Rotorua, sealing a sulphur whiff into both our swimming cossies and our towels - delicious.
On our second day in Rotorua we took a day trip out to the Waitomo glow worm caves. We also ventured there on our Selwyn choir tour 2005, but this experience was a little different. We had signed up for a ´blackwater tubing´trip, where you float
down rivers, running through the caves, on an inner tube. The first challenge was getting into our sexy wetsuits. These things were seriously powerful and really thick and it was really hard to get them on. We were given trousers, a jacket and a scabby jumper, plus a hard hat, booties and, bizarrely, a pair of red shorts to go over the top! We also had to select an inner tube by putting it on our bums and seeing if it stayed put. Anyway, as you can imagine, we looked pretty damn cool. Sadly they didn´t let me keep the outfit for partying... We practiced some moves on dry land, then had to practice jumping into water backwards in preparation for jumping off waterfalls in the caves. I drank about half the river at this point, but luckily there still seemed to be enough left for us to go rafting. It made life in the minibus much more exciting when we all got back in sopping wet with out massive inner tubes to make our way to the cave.
In the caves it was very dark and very cold. At times we had to walk along little streams without
really being able to see our feet or how deep it was. Floating in the tubes, we bashed into a few rocks, but it was amazing to be floating around in caves and see glow-worms over your head. Jumping backwards off rock, over waterfalls into the water was quite unnerving but quite fun at the same time. Just as hypothermia was setting in, we saw daylight again and jumped in a hot shower. We happily warmed up with soup and bagels. A great adventure!
The next day it was on to Auckland, and then straight on to the Bay of Islands. There we took the ´Excitor´speed boat around the Islands. It goes quite fast and blasts out pumping tunes as it goes, including Bon Jovi 'Livin' on a Prayer'!!!! This was a good way to see the Islands. It is very beautiful up in Pahia, but there wasn´t loads to do, so we returned to Auckland the next day in preparation for our flight to South America. We did very little whilst there, the highlight being buying some stylish thermals.
On Friday, we got our flight from Auckland to Santiago. It was very long and not much fun.
The plane was really hot and uncomfortable and my screen and light stopped working, so I had to stare at an error message, whist being blinded from above when every other light in the plane was off. Eventually the stewards covered it with foil and an elastic band!! We arrived in Chile at 12noon, around 6 hours before we had left NZ!! Flying over the International Date Line is so bizarre!! So, we relived friday. Having been hit with the sheer extent of our uselessness in Spanish, we eventually managed to arrange a taxi to a hostel. We checked in to Hostel Forestal in Santiago - a nice enough place with a very friendly manager. We thought we had booked, but apparently not! Fortunately it is low season, so most places aren´t full. Chile is really expensive - accommodation is no cheaper than New Zealand, which is very bad news for the piggy bank.
We had a little wander around Santiago, and were struck by everyone eating ice-creams. It is absolutely unbelievable. People are walking around with coats on, licking their ice cream, there are ice cream shops everywhere and it is cold. We caved in and decided that we should try the local delicacy. I had a gorgeous chocolate and mocha ice cream. It has quite a European feel to it and feels quite safe. There was little sign of the riotous students that have made the news back home, although a couple of school boys did come up to us, rattle a tin and then run away giggling. I don´t think you could really say that it´s too dangerous a place to be if that´s the worst that happens! We had a little explore and went up to the Mercado Central, which turned out to be a fish market! We did manage to buy some fruit though and there were lots of very friendly people there. I think being girls probably helps when you only have about 2 words of Spanish, because you can smile and look a bit helpless and people are quite patient. Anyway, people certainly seem very patient and helpful, which is really good. We end up learning the right line from the phrasebook, going in all armed with our amazing Spanish lingo, then being in deep trouble two seconds later when they do the inevitable and reply. Damn, it was all going so well until then...
The next day, we flew down to Punta Arenas, landing twice on the way (in Puerto Montt and Balmaceda) before we got there. It was a lot of taking off and landing and we were exhausted by the time we arrived here, especially having not really recovered from the flight from New Zealand yet. It is around 0 degrees C here, which is pretty cold. On the way down, we flew over some incredible scenery - glaciers, ice fields, mountains and frozen lakes. It was a little alarming to think that this is the section we are supposed to be overlanding . We will almost certainly have to buy a flight, as much of the route is apparently impassable at this time of year.
We spent yesterday just having a little look round Punta Arenas and finding out that, if we had a house, we would have to re-mortgage it to make phone calls home from here - it is sooooo expensive. Today we slept really late, went to some tourist info places and bought bus tickets. Tomorrow we are heading to Ushaia, Argentinian Patagonia, to the Tierra del Fuego. The post office there apparently stamps your passport with an official 'End of the World´stamp, because it is the very end of South America. It is a 10 hour bus journey, which sounds like a bundle of laughs. It will be good to start exploring and we´ll get yet more stamps in our much-tattooed passports.
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Fabolous
Fabulous... Chile is Fantastic!!!!!!!