Greetings from Peru

Howdy all again. I’m going to have to try to write briefly this time, as I just noticed I’m down to 40 minutes of battery life, and on the islands, there certainly isn’t really reliable power, so I’ll cap off the rest of my day’s stories with the past 18 hours excitement. Once again, the sun is killing me out here, and re-applying every few hours is the norm to avoid the super-extreme Canuck burn! The highlight for the day has to be my introductory scuba dive, which I splurged the 120 FJD to do, having to actually dust off my credit card to pay for. Had it been cash-only, as most of the events are, I couldn’t have done it. I was not disappointed, and have now decided that I should definitely get PADI certified at some point, as the feeling is phenomenal. Read on…

09/01/08
Howdy winter folks! ActiveSteve here, reporting from Tongariro National Park. Today’s bike ride was more or less a highway to heaven sort of thing. It was a steady all day climb, where we started at 380m, and ended up at 1140m, in a little place called Whakapapa Village, which is near one of the busiest ski areas in the North Island. Of course, it being summer over here, the town is a little more deserted. Basically, anyone who is up here is here for one reason alone. To do some hiking in the National Park area. Were there not so many clouds hanging out right now, I’d have a pretty splendid view of Mount Tongariro and Mount Ngauruhoe. Not to mention Mount Ruapehu, the tallest of the lot. So, what’s up now you ask? Well, read on and I’ll spin you a little yarn.

30/01/08
Hi gang. I’m back again, writing a story for you even though I’m still a little under the weather! It’s nothing super-bad, just a sort throat and general tiredness, which as you may imagine does make my 5 hours of cycling each day a little challenging and exhausting. I chose to take a route today that would take me right out to the west coast, to a place called…. Westport. It’s a town of about 4600 people, but has lots of cafes and a supermarket. It was only a 65km ride, and I got in just before 1pm. This gave me the chance to do laundry, buy some supplies, eat a lunch, and then hopefully catch up on my Internet and stuff. I’m hoping to wrap up all my chores by 7pm or so, so that I can maybe just watch a movie, and snack, then hit the hay early. I’m not taking a day off, so I hope the extra rest will give me the boost for tomorrows ride. Luckily, it’s another relatively short day, so that’s in my favour. As usual, I’ve got a little map put together for my faithful followers, and some pictures to amuse you. Today’s ride was good on scenery, but that’s about it. You’ve pretty much seen it all, so I held back on taking too many pictures. Read on just the same…

Well, another day has passed, and certainly not any less interesting than the past few for me. It seems that wherever I go, interesting things will follow me. When I last wrote, I was reporting from the Sunrise Lagoon Resort, where we had been storm stayed as a result of the cyclone that had just passed through. Well, not only were we stuck there, the boats travelling between the islands had actually been canelled as well, so even if I wanted to go somewhere, there was no way for me to move around anyway. Not only that, but my nagging illness wasn’t going away either, and it seems to follow me in waves, with hours of feeling okay, followed by hours of feeling totally crappy. Those crappy hours are increasingly annoying, and has resulted in people offering me all sorts of medications and remedies from their homelands. I’ve accepted a few, but none seem to actually be doing me any good yet. Besides that unfortunate stuff, read on for more tales of fun from Fiji with ActiveSteve!