For pictures from Mendoza, click here. Quick final post. I´ve got 20 minutes to wrap up this blog, pick up my laundry at the Bubbles Lavados up the street, and meet the group for supper, and a briefing on tomorrow´s activities. We arrived early in the morning to this beautiful city. Jody and I opted out of any city tours or any responsibilities. Instead, I got some laundry together, and explored the city on my own. Local busses, trolleys, and just plain locals in general. I´m really enjoying practicing communicating down here. I ended up getting a private tour of the city hall by a security guard, who took me to the roof of the building for some very impressive views and chit-chat, even though we were both out of our language comfort zones. It was quite cool. I then went to a very large park honoring San Martin, the man largely responsible for liberating Argentina. There is a mountain-top monument to this, the greatest of National heros. The location is known as Cerro Saint Gloria. It was a nice view, and nice moment. Then, local busses back here, and now I´m writing you. It was a bit funny, because a lot of the tour group opted to take a bus tour of the city, paying a bit of coin for it. My personal city tour, using local busses and my own two feet, was almost the same thing, but cost me 3.5 pesos, instead of 25+ pesos paid by the rest of the group. Of course, I didn’t go quite as far, but I still saw most of the main sights, and even crossed paths with them twice! Well, gotta go. Just realized it´s October 31st. Hope everyone´s having a spooky night, and I guess we´ll see you in less than a week now. Till then, enjoy the week!
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25/03/08
Hi folks, and welcome to the almost-last post from New Zealand! This post will be a bit longer than yesterday’s, because I actually got off my butt and did something for the day. In fact, my plan had been to do an overnight trip, but as you will learn, circumstances conspired against me and it turned into just a day trip. But it was definitely a good one. I ended up grabbing a ferry to a place called Waiheke Island. It’s a mere 19km off the coast of Auckland, but in terms of pace and scenery, it’s literally a world away. I had stripped my bike down to the basics, and was travelling with just a day pack rather than the trailer. What a treat. Also, I didn’t have the rack on the back of the bike either, so I felt quite free pedalling along. Of course, I had the annoyance of a pack on my back, but compared to hauling 60+ lbs. behind you, it was pretty relaxing. Read on for the complete details of the day.
15/02/08
Howdy sports fans! Well, now that I’m back in Queenstown after a few days of hiking, and before I head back out on the road, I guess I should fill you in on the last few days of adventures that I was on. Last time you heard from me, it was Valentine’s day. After a delicious meal of Rack of Lamb prepared by Mark, we decided to hit the town for a few hours of up-to-no-goodness. The only problem is that it was pouring rain. So, in order to get ready, we decided to have a bottle of wine and a few beers before heading out. That worked out okay, but the problem was that I had to get up early the next morning to head out for some bungy jumping. Yup, adrenaline day 2 was all about bungy jumps! I was heading out to the Kawarau Bridge for the original commercial bungy jump, and then to Nevis, a high-wire bungy which is the highest in NZ at 134m. I put together a little map of the day, to show you where these are, and there are also all kinds of pictures up for you to look at. Read on mates!
06/02/08
So, what is Waitangi Day you ask? Well, it’s a national holiday here in New Zealand. Sort of like Canada Day, but not quite. There aren’t massive celebrations everywhere, but it is a significant date for Kiwis. This is the day the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the queen, which recognized the land claims and rights of Maoris. Of course, things are still not settled for Maoris, so as a result, there is not much celebrating, but rather, a fair bit of protest on this day in certain parts of the country. However, it is still a federal holiday, which means food places all charge 15-20% extra if you want to eat. Ha ha. Guess I’ll be eating noodles and peanut butter sandwiches today! At any rate, I’m still in Fox Glacier township right now, enjoying an almost complete day off. My only activity was about 25km of biking and hiking, to check out the stunning views of the Southern Alps from here. The rest of the day is hopefully for laundry, Internet, phone calls, etc. etc. Yup, I’m resting and getting ready for the next few days. Read on and check out the map for a bit more info.
A few months ago, Ms. ActiveSteve and I signed up to take our PADI Open Water course, with the hope that when and if we visited Saudi Arabia, we may get a chance to do some scuba diving in the red sea while visiting Jeddah. Well, I’m extremely happy to report that we did indeed get that chance, and it was phenomenal. Of course, we have very little real world experience to compare it to, but that’s besides the point. After all, how many other people got the chance to dive the coral reefs of the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia this New Year’s eve? Well, by my count, maybe 8 other people. That’s it. In the whole world! So, understandably, we were pretty stoked about it. So leads to this blog post, which will shed a little light on this most excellent adventure that Jody and I got to share together 🙂 For maximal enjoyment, I should also recommend that you check out the pictures that I’ve posted from the day on flickr. Ironically, the camera screen conked out early in the day, and without a viewfinder some of the framing may have been off, but it still took pictures thankfully. Looks like it’s time to take ‘er in to the shop again!




