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Published: January 4th 2006
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Hope you all had a wicked Christmas and New Year and are enjoying 2006! Also hope that you are all enjoying getting back to work. Hah hah.
It has been a little while since our last entry so quite a few pics and fascinating (!!) tales to share.
After almost a week in Buenos Aires we decided to stretch our newly-acquired independent traveller wings and to venture into Uruguay for a week. What an amazing place! We hopped on a ferry from BA to a placed called Colonia de Sacremento, which is a really small fishing port and ex- smuggling town. It was so chilled after the hustle and bustle of BA and Rio, after visiting those cities and rushing around to see all the amazing sites etc, it was great to relax in such a small place (pretty much only a mile or so square), where all the attraction is the feel of the town, and to wander round the cobbled streets, admiring pretty colonial houses and tropical plants.
After a couple of days there, we set off for a bus ride to Punta del Diablo, a mis-named surfers paradise at the east end of the coast,
Cobbled Streets
Colonia (Uruguay) or could be Cornwall which was really small and quiet, with nothing but beautiful, rugged and deserted coastline to wander along. Again it was lovely to relax, we stayed in a really sweet hotel right on the beach, where we sat each night with a few beers to watch the sun go down over the sea, and went to sleep and woke up to the sound of the sea. Probably one of our fave places so far.
We had a bonkers experience on our last day; we'd walked for miles along the coast and found ourselves totally alone on a huge sweeping bay, with big rocks at each end. We had a bit of a bask and snooze on the rocks, when I woke up to find that we had a visitor with the same activities in mind.... a MASSIVE sea lion (at least we think it was a sea lion but it was so massive it might have been a walrus or something!). It literally was the size of about three people and was about ten metres from us, so until I realised it was just chillin' it gave me a bit of a scare!
After Punta we spent two days
in Montevideo, we weren't that impressed as we were a bit city-phobic after a week of relaxation in tiny places.
On Dec 21st we arrived in Easter Island - what a place! I'll let the pics speak for themselves. We did a long hike the first day to see the Moai (the statues) on foot; it was a brilliant sight to come across the first ones. Second day we hired a scooter and whizzed around the rest of the island and enjoyed the beach too. In the evening we watched the sun set over one of the best known Moai and Rick practiced his David Bailey skills - amazing pic below.
We embarked upon our Christmas Eve travel shocker at around mid day on the 24th, flying from Easter Island to Santiago. We were due to have a 2 hour wait before getting a plane to Auckland at 23.15. We made good use of my Silver card by doing a lounge crawl and sampling the free bars, with the aim of getting a bit tiddly, as is traditional on Christmas Eve. All turned to carnage when our flight was delayed until 2.00am on Christmas morning. Rick got absolutely
Deserted Pebbled Beach.
Punta del Diablo (Uruguay) wasted and I was so drunk I decided that now would be the time for my professional poker debut, so I got online, opened an account, deposited $50 and lost the lot! Good work. NOT fun when we awoke at 35,000 ft with hangovers, still wearing our Santa hats.
We arrived in Auckland at 6.00am Boxing Day, having missed Christmas Day completely cos of the International Date Line. On arriving at our motel I was greeted with a stack of post and a parcel from home, and promptly burst into tears when I realised that my lovely family and Grandma had sent me Christmas cards and pressies. It really made Christmas, and we knocked up a mean roastie in the motel kitchen, watched the Office Christmas special (thanks mum!) and had a few beers so it was a great day in the end!
New Year's antics latest NZ pics to follow once we have finished touring the North Island.
Take care y'all!
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Dazza @ 8el
non-member comment
Easter Island................
............famous for it's head(s)!! I hope you are enjoying all the head(s) Rick. Good to see you both had a mini christmas! Enjoy and take care. Darren.