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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29/02/08
Hello, all my global friends. Isn’t it odd that I’m writing a post on the 29th of February? Good old leap year. Only comes once every four years, and this happens to be one of those years, so there you have it kids, my Feb. 29th post. Hopefully not too many babies are born today, as it would sure suck to only get presents once every four years, wouldn’t it? Lucky for me, I don’t have a whole lot to write about today, as it was another one of the now-familiar Catlins rainy days for me. Due mainly to my departure time, I basically had rain most of the day in some form or another. It was a bit frustrating, as it would slow down for a bit, and I’d try to take off my jacket, and then the rain would pick back up to full force, forcing me to put it back on. Oh well, I’m getting used to all the different types of weather and riding conditions, so it really doesn’t bother me too much anymore. My ride today was from Curio Bay to Owaka, which is 1/3rd of the way to Dunedin. One more stop in Milton, and I’ll be in Dunedin. Read on for today’s story, and remember the map, etc.
08/03/08
Greetings all my bashful friends. As you can see by the picture, I finally had the opportunity to do my naked mile, a time-honoured tradition where the cyclist disrobes in a celebration of a long journey through nature. For me, it came somewhere after the 3800km mark, on the canal road between Twizel and Lake Tekapo. A unique set of circumstances allowed this to happen, one of which was my old friend, Mr. Wind. And in case you are wondering, no one helped with the picture. If they had, it would have been much easier and taken me far less time to get the shot. Of course, for all the details, you’ll just have to read more of this post, and check out the map, where you can pinpoint exactly where I pulled this off. Enjoy!
10/02/08
Hi gang. Well, here I am, about to tell you about my day off in Wanaka. Not exactly a true day off, as I decided to tackle the Skyline Track, a hike that takes you up two mountains to some great 360 degree views of the whole area, and is supposed to take 10-11 hours. Well, I don’t know what the people that take that long are doing, as it took me less than 4 and a half hours. Of course, that is moving time, as my total time was more like 5.5 to 6 hours, with my snack and picture breaks. Still, as you can imagine, I was going a bit fast on my way up. I can’t help it. My biking legs just want to climb mountains faster these days I guess. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. Feel free to check out the map, and the pictures, as well as read on to hear a bit more about my day in the hills.
Howdy my friends! Time for another quick tale of fun and excitement from the pages of my travel journal. Right off the bat, I’m going to admit something to all of you. Jody and I simply haven’t had the chance to get away just the two of us for quite some time. As it turns out, between our various international trips last year, due mainly to my own selfish NZ ambitions, we just didn’t travel together. While this was admittedly not a conscious decision, we certainly do plan to rectify that in the coming years by having some more excellent international adventures! In order to get back on that track, we decided it best to start small by a weekend getaway in the beautiful area around Picton known as Prince Edward county. There are a bunch of new wineries springing up, and we decided to do some cycle wine touring and stay in a B and B. Of course, another major reason for this getaway was to meet up with my sister Andrea, as well as Patrick and Helena. More on that later on if you read the full post, but in the meantime, you can have a gander at a little custom map that I put together of our wine touring, as well as the pictures that Jody posted on flickr.