Click here for photos from this day. End of first long day in Argentina. It’s been an interesting one, culminating in me sitting in a bean-bag chair working on my 3.40 peso beer – A delicious 1 liter bottle Quilmes Cristal. That works out to about $1.25 CDN. That’s more like it! In the room, a german, couple Scots, and a Dutch guy, all enjoying a couple bottles of red wine. Flashback to arrival in BsAs. No problem getting through customs. Off to baggage claim. World’s slowest conveyor belt. Time passes. I finally get my backpack. Wait another eternity, no 2nd backpack! Oh shit. Yup, somehow, Jody’s bag never made it. Bad news. Sadly, not a hell of a lot we can do. Report is filed, but I’m not holding my breath. We manage to navigate buses downtown, and check into our hostel. the tiredness doesn’t help. We shower and re-group. Personally, I say it’s all part of the adventure, but with no clothes and toilettries, Jody may not agree. Luckly, stuff is relatively cheap. I think the new plan is to replace and move on. We’ve got the toilettries replaced, which is a good start. We move on to a preliminary exploration. BsAs is a big city. Compared to Lima, Peru, BsAs clearly has more wealth. I’ll reserve additional comparisons between the two nations until I see more of this country, but at first blush, it would appear Argentines are a bit better off. That’s if for now, gotta finish my beer and hit the hay. It’s been a long 29 hours.
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06/01/08
Hello everyone. Well, the day of PassiveSteve is over, and today it was back to donig some real work, as well as starting to do some of the real exciting stuff. Of course, I’m talking about the fact that I did a great skydive this afternoon, complete with a 45 second freefall, after hurling out of an airplane at 12,000 feet. Can you say sweet? Of course you can, and so did I! The jump was almost a bit of an afterthought in my day, but I’m awfully glad that I did it, in spite of the fact that it was anything but cheap! Before I finish the story of how I came to be crammed into a tiny airplane high above Taupo, let’s roll back the clock to this morning at Waikite Thermal pools campground, shall we? Check out the map and read on for more details.
Friday had me in Auckland for another day. Freddy, Elaine and Maya were getting in early that morning, and I had told him that I’d stick around to catch up a bit with him before I took off on Saturday for the real adventure. Even though they rolled in very early, I planned a few other things to do to fill up my day, since it would be my last Auckland touristy day before hitting the dusty trails. My first problem in the morning was that I had no way to get a hold of them. Kevin doesn’t have a home phone. Not a problem for a resourceful lad like me though, I just got set for my day, then biked over to their parents house where they were staying. Luckily I had the address, so I found my way. I rolled in around 10am. They had just had a little nap, so my timing was relatively good. I stuck around for a little bit, posted some blog entries, then headed out alone for downtown again, read on for what I did. You can also check out the map that I threw together as well.
31/01/08
Hi gang! Well, it’s hard to believe, but yet again I find myself a day late in my blog postings. Sorry folks. The main reason for this is that I’m still not feeling 100% at the moment, but more accurately, it’s because I’ve been a bit lazy. Basically, once I get done with titling all the pictures, and creating the custom map, I sort of run out of steam. However, I’ll do my best now to fill you in on yesterday and today’s details. I started the day yesterday in the little town of Westport, and made my way out to the true West Coast, and down along to a village called Punakaiki, home of the world famous Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes. Upon arrival here, I decided that this was basically paradise for me, as I’m right on the beach, surrounded by great limestone cliffs, and have some great walking tracks. As a result, within 5 minutes of getting here, I trudged back to the office and plopped down a second night’s payment. I’ve decided that rather than stop in Greymouth, I’ll just blow past it and head straight to Hokitika, another 40km down the road. Capital idea I figure. Anyway, read on for more about the ride, and don’t forget to check out the map.
Well my friends, here it is. A worthy blog post about travels within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Not only would Jody and I be undertaking internal flights, but we were actually bound for Medina, which is one of the two holiest places for all Muslims. In fact, the city centre is completely forbidden to entry by any non-Muslims. Luckily, the airport is located outside the city, and our transport would be taking us all the way to our hotel without ever entering the city. Of course, the actual purpose of our traveling to this area was not to visit a holy Muslim site, as that is a very bad idea. We were bound for two very special places, one known as Al-Ula, and one known as Mada’in Saleh. These are areas of archeological and historical significance. Mada’in Saleh in fact has just recently been declared a UNESCO world heritage site, the first one of its kind in all of Saudi Arabia. We would be visiting these two sites together on the same day, but I would argue that each of them on its own is worth a blog post, so that’s how I’ll write them up and present them to you. For your pleasure, I have of course put up a whole boat-load of pictures to check out on flickr. So why don’t you do that, then read my story?