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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20/01/08
Greetings webospherians! So, what to tantalize you with today? Kinda hard to make a really good story out of todays activities. Basically, I got up, got ready, and pedaled my little heart out to get to the coast while the wind was more or less in my favour 🙂 Yup, that’s right, upon waking up, the wind had essentially done a 180 while I slept, and I awoke to another brilliant day with the winds either at my back or from the side for most of the ride. This was most welcome, as you may imagine, especially after yesterday’s debacle. As a result I’m in a better mood, and invite you to check out the map and my pictures. I even came across my namesake as you’ll see from checking out the shots! My ride was about 77km, and took me from Palmerston North to a place called Otaki Beach, which is along the Kapiti Coast. Tomorrow, I’ll be in Wellington, with only a short bit of biking (about 30km) followed by a recommended commuter train for about 50km. Read on for a little more about my day.
Good news everybody. Today I can finally write about getting out of the safari vehicle and actually doing some real hiking. Mind you, I’m not talking about a multi-day challenging trudge or anything, but at least the dust in my nose would be from kicking at the dirt rather than by driving through it, so that’s something. Our first foray into the hills was a hike up Mount Lemagrut, which is one of 9 craters in the Ngorongoro conservation area. Although we’d be trekking up to 3100m this day, we were starting out at about 2400m, so the overall altitude gain and loss wasn’t going to be that great. This would however serve as our first acclimatization hike of sorts, and give us an idea how we might do as a group on the more challenging days ahead of us. This is also the first time I’ll be sharing a nice map of the trek with you all. As you might expect, I carried a GPS with me for most of the trip, and made a number of maps to show you where we went. Along with the map you can also head to flickr and check out the set of pictures and videos from the day. Once you’ve taken all that in and set the scene, come on back and read the rest of my tale!
31/12/07
Hi Gang. Wow, time flies doesn’t it? I’m already another day behind in my blog posts, so I’ll have to be somewhat brief as I prepare this little monologue for you all. The last post was coming live from my tent in the middle of Waihi, the mining town. Well, this one is coming to you from the comfort of a beautiful home in Tauranga, where I’m spending New Years thanks to some contacts I received by way of my sister in Saudi Arabia. Thanks Sis! This post will focus on my ride to Tauranga, and the next one on the activities I did in the past day and a half. As you know, there is a map already up on the website, so check it out. I’ve also now had the opportunity to upload all of the pictures I’ve taken to date on this trip, so please feel free to view them all on Flickr.
Saturday, Dec.15 was to be the official departure of ActiveSteve from Auckland to points unknown. Well, I sort of knew some points that I would hit. My first little while will be spent in the Northlands of New Zealand, as far as Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. Some say this area holds the most challenging biking, and if I could make it there, I’d make it anywhere. However, before I went anywhere, there was the matter of getting things packed up. This would prove to be a little more challenging than anticipated. I awoke shortly after 8:30 on Saturday, and dragged Kevin out for breakfast before starting the packing. Read on for my exciting first day.